3AM

Words cannot express my excitement for this class. This was the class where all of my childhood dreams got a taste of realization, as dramatic as that sounds. The most difficult part of this for me was utilizing the graph editor, which I still need work with, but I'm getting the hang of it.

The classic bouncing ball. I actually had a much easier time grasping the operation of rigs and keys than I thought, and I feel I got a quicker handle on 3D animation than 2D. This will forever remind me of the importance of the squash and stretch, as well as slow-ins and slow-outs.

In the project titled "Super Smash Ball" we had to give the ball some character, and tell a story with it and the little star. There's always room for improvement, for example, I wish I would've held the arc of the final jump a little longer, but the nuances of the blocks and bounces help me love this.

Blocking for the walk. When I was doing this all I could think "wow, so easy" but the final week had a big surprise for me. I like this block and I think it conveys the action very well. I made many, MANY slight changes in the following week, but I can't complain. That's animation for you.

What had originally been just a walk turned into a snap, which had, in the end, turned into a gun. Yes, a finger snap into a gun. I wasn't happy with the timing of the snap so I added the finger gun after. I wish I would've added a little bit of trigger pulling and shooting towards the end but I ran out of time. I really enjoyed this, and the difference in flow from the blocking to this is phenomenal. Now that I compare the two, I'm amazed at my progress.

 Unfortunately, this class had to come to an end. My excitement with the career path though has only reaffirmed my belief in my choices, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this blog as the months go by! This next class is another portfolio class where animation is the key. I think what I'll do is post my playblasts to this, that will help.