Sleepy Malcolm WIP: Splining + Links

I got to splining today and as this is the part I typically dread, I was getting nervous, but I broke it down piece-by-piece, control-by-control and I must say I feel a lot better about the graph editor. Like it was that kind of magic feeling like "I get it!" Something clicked today and I don't feel nearly as lost.

I know that not everyone uses the graph editor and that it's totally possible to animate well without it, but I've always seen it as such a powerful tool even back when I was using After Effects all the time. And even then I found it confusing.

Of course, none of this is close to perfect or even good and my end product won't be either, but it's still (embarrassingly enough) the best work I've made up to this point (regarding 3D animation in Maya).

So we're getting there. It's another baby step in the right direction. And if anything I feel encouraged. I've reached that point again where I feel like accepting the failure and feeling encouraged to mess up and learn rather than afraid to even start. This is the toughest hump to get over and I wish there was some trick to it, but for me it just kind of happens. I guess a lot just comes from getting inspired (which as I've learned is something else that's easier said than done).

I've been following so many CG artists on Twitter and Instagram and have been using both of those platforms a lot more lately so I think being exposed to other young people doing the work I want to do is undoubtedly helping in the inspiration/motivation department.

These are a couple of links with tips and pointers that really helped me today. They seem simple and not all that detailed, but it ended up being enough for me. I guess just little reminders. For example, I’m making mental note to tighten up my blocking A LOT more before jumping into splining. I feel like that was something I wasn’t going to fully understand until I actually started to understand the splining process. It’ll save me lots of time later. And study that reference!

Splining Made Easy with Drew Adams from Animation Mentor (Dreamworks Animator)

The 6 Steps of Animation from Bloop

I know I shouldn't expect the feeling to stick around forever. Not to be pessimistic, but I don't want to be surprised or feel a harder fall if I get hit with the discouragement again when I go into this 3D principles class. I've got another tough professor, but I expect to learn a lot.

So I want to embrace this empowering feeling now and hope that it will be enough to propel through this winter break with productivity.