Critique Day(s): The Busiest Week Ever
Perhaps that's an exaggeration. I'm sure I've had busier weeks and will have busier weeks. But that doesn't make it any less overwhelming. Hence, why I'm only posting this animations now.
This week I had two animations and also my 3D sculpture for my other class due. Last week, I had my Mid-Term test for animation where I had to memorize write the 12 Principles of Animation word-for-word.
For the record, I got a 100% on the written test, however taking the time to memorize those terms set me back. I was working on my walk cycle test all the while, but I ended up spending far more time on that walk cycle than I should have. My initial goal was to finish the Walk Cycle that Thursday (the same day as the mid-term). I wanted to pretend that was my due date so that I would stay on track. Alas, that did not happen. (something that's happened a lot coming to this school. My plans end up getting skewed because things take longer to do than expected). I ended up finishing the Walk on Sunday and then officially shoot it on Monday. It was due that Tuesday. I only had 2.5 days to do the entire Frog Side Step test.
I wasn't alone in this. Pretty much everyone in my class as well as the other class that day was shooting their Walks on Monday. Some were even still finishing it that day as well. Still, doesn't make it excusable to have put it off. And though I don't feel like I really put it off as I had been working on it all that previous week, I definitely could have worked on it longer during those days to avoid the push back. But I suppose that's just what happens. We're given later deadlines and so we are convinced that we can be slower with it. That being said, I finished the Frog in those 2 days... because I HAD to.
I don't know what it was. I redid the Walk so many times; meaning that I scrapped the entire thing and started over at least 4 times and shot it 8 times.
Somehow the seemingly complicated Frog Side Step felt a lot more fun and less difficult. Perhaps it was the fact that this time, we got the creative freedom that we got with the Bean Bag to have the frog act the way that we wanted. The Walk Cycle was all the same. We all had to make 3 contacts and all end on the same frame. So if you messed up it was obvious since they're all pretty much the same. However, for this one the critique was private, probably for this reason.
Critique Day: Walk Test
My biggest problem was the drawing. Fair enough. Drawing is not my forte. But these things that I completely overlooked irritated me when I saw them. Things like the legs growing and shrinking and the body changing shape. Fortunately, this is more a 2D animator problem, nonetheless, I would've liked to have been able to accomplish this at least slightly better. I got away from the model of the character and that killed me a lot.
I'm hoping to redo this and have the chance to pay closer attention to the appeal of this animation.
Critique Day: Frog Side Step Test
My scenario for this one was that Frog was a spy for the Amphibian government sent to spy on the POTUS. He's outside the oval office and is trying to listen in. He then hears that the president plans to deport all the frogs to France. My issue with this one was again a lot of drawing errors. I made the legs wrong as they didn't attach inside the body of the frog. I didn't push the anticipation and the exaggeration enough either. People had a lot of timing issues with this one. But when you're not allowed to use holds, it gets tricky.
This is another one I hope to redo. With luck, getting an A on the redo's for both of these could help my overall grade.
As I've probably mentioned before, I'm well aware that "the grade" really isn't important in the long run. It's about the learning, the improvement, and the application. However, I can't help but see the grade as a kind of measuring stick. It shows me if I've improved or if I'm understanding what these animations should look like.
Next up is the model sheets for our own original characters. I'm trying to keep my character as simple as possible. It looks to be lacking creatively, but I suppose in this case, that doesn't really matter. We're going to be working with this final up to the very last day.
