Two Character Dialogue - Blocking Plus

Here's my latest playblast for my two character dialogue.  I added some little nuances based on Mark's eCritique (i.e. - "Rarely do you pick anything on your body and not take a look at it." HA!) and then stumbled across some things as I went.  It's still making me laugh, so that's good!

"Hey, look, I found something squishy..."

Here's a bit of advice, and it's easy to take at this stage of the game (blocking plus instead of polish!)... If something's not working, feel free to save a version, wipe out that section of animation and try again.  In the fourth shot, the businessman turns to the homeless guy and berates him.  I had something that was ok, but it just didin't feel right.  So, I did what every mentor's been telling me for my entire time at AM... bookend the animation with keys, kill it and start new.  It works, trust me.  I acted out what I thought might work, tried some quick ideas, and after a few tries, it seems ok now.  It's better to delete a section than to keep working a dead animation.  Plus, it keeps the frustration levels down and motivation up!

Looking For A Job Dressed Like That?!

I feel like someone's going to say that to me when I try to get my next job... hehe... ANYWAY...

I'm having far too much fun with this shot.  So many ideas, so few frames.  HA!  Here's a quick movie of the breakdowns I did for my assignment this week.  I have a few things to adjust, tweak, add, subtract, but in general, I'm really enjoying it... and so is Mark, so that's good!

Facial Poses.... FTW!

Not to brag, but the facial poses are really working for this shot.  I hope I can bring the magic all the way to the finish line with this one.  Something tells me Mark won't have it any other way.  HAHA!  (P.S. - He's an amazing mentor, in case you wanted to know.  Something about those Canadian animators!)

I'll be posting the updated movie this week with the few tweaks, some of which will make me laugh (and hopefully anyone who watches it!).  Either way, I'm having fun, and that's half the battle.  GO JOE!

Facial Poses - Part 3

Here's another...

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Facial Poses - Part 2

Another set of facial poses.  Nothing new to say except they're pretty fun to work on.  :D

Hmmm...

AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.......

Makin' Faces

Part of last week's assignment was facial expressions, which was actually a lot of fun.  Here's two I put together, one is subtle, the other not so much.  I kind of planned it that way because I felt like I've been doing a lot of big motions in animation, so why not try subtle stuff to see if I can pull it off.  I think they came out pretty well... of course I'm slightly biased.

Awesome!

So this lady was easily the best image I found of winking/happy on Shutterstock.com.  I really liked the asymmetry and how "big" her face got with excitement.  To give you the inside scoop, I started large (tilted the head, general eye open/close, jaw open) and worked my way down to the smaller details (lip sections up/down, eyelid edge shape) as I went.  I didn't focus on one thing and get it perfect because it seemed like so much effected everything else.  The face definitely has a lot of push and pull going on depending on the expression.

Somebody looks a little evil...

Same thing with this guy.  Even though parts of the face don't look like they are being influenced, they really are.  His face is squished on the camera right side.  His cheek pushes out because of this, his lips curl, eyebrow comes down.  Kinda cool to look at the tiny stuff.  It's also good to think about a slight rotation to the head... up, down, left or right.  Straight to camera is not as interesting as a slight twist... especially with this guy.  Makes him look a little more distrustful.  :) 

One last "hint".  I really find that the asymmetry of these faces works well when you think of things in terms of greater than/less than symbols... wait, WHAT?!  Hehe, no, seriously.  Here...

See?  When one side of the face pushes, it looks really nice to have the other side pull the other direction.  Even in the subtle face you can see this and it helps keep it interesting without being symmetric.