"oh this minor event got in the way of the stuff I considered contemplating planning to almost most likely never do" Fair well 2012 : "The Year Of The Excuse"

Well it's been a long year, I've gone from working in Primark to a 3D studio and then to pets at home, switched discipline and switched back. Few if any personal goals were  completed, including obtaining my driving license, the test to which I have failed twice I might add. I managed to play probably 2-3 games and didn't get to do a whole lot outside of work. At my worst point I had 3 jobs on the go... Indecisive doesn't cut it.
 So this year to quote many people posting on Facebook "I'm gonna make 2013 my bitch" eloquently put if I do say so myself. I'm going at it the way all my successful friends did it. I'm going to sit at home and animate my way into a job. I'm gonna suck it up and retreat to my parents house, its a kick to my pride, but my way hasn't gotten much this year. I've had some interesting experiences and I wouldn't call it a bad year, but I am thoroughly bored of retail nonsense so it's time to put it in the memory rear view and motor on towards something generally worth spending my life doing. After all if I'm not enjoying it, what's the point?

No more excuses, "oh this minor event got in the way of the stuff I considered contemplating planning to almost most likely never do" this yea I'm not going to work...no I'm not, I'll earn my way back at the old homestead and sit in my man cave and plot and scheme, I'm not leaving till I've got somewhere worth going!

So long 2012 you were interesting.

Happy new year all you people who people who aren't reading :)

Paul out!

A Bit More Blocking

 Yep, as it says on the tin, heres a small clip of the blocking fleshed a bit further with the first phase of the lip sync started.

Washing Up and Other Acceptable Forms of Procrastination:

One of my most commonly reoccurring feelings in animation comes when I reopen a previously saved piece after a lengthy break. I open to find the animation looking worse then when I left it. No, theAnimation  gremlins haven't been in messing with my curve editor, it's just how I really feel about the work in its current state, having looked at it with fresh eyes rather than rose tinted spectacles. The animations hasn't changed, but I can now see errors I hadn't noticed before.
Now when I'm feeling in a bit of a slump and no progress is being made, ill go do the washing up or a similar task. I get to stretch my legs, have a break, keep the misses quiet and get a fresh perspective! Doing a task I consider to be less enjoyable then animation will often improve my mood towards animating if I hit a downer, so hitting the Xbox or browsing wont really help me get back into it.

Today after doing the washing up, I came back to realise that I hadn't followed my reference footage quite as well as I would have liked. So the obvious thing to do was to follow it alongside my animation and give it a good tweaking. The result was a much fuller range of movement, the scary part will be when I move to the splining stage, just hope it doesn't all go to jelly!


-Paul out.

Winter: Wrapping Up Warm

So winter is here and it's definitely in my house and I can't help wonder if its part of my pc start up issues. Somes days it starts fine, though this usually when the headings been running for a while and things are toasty. Some days however the start up fans fire off and nothing really gets started. This pc has been through the works getting repairs and replacement parts, so I've given up with it. New year plan is to get myself a new system and demote my old faithful to a gaming unit whilst it has the juice to fulfil that purpose.

Meanwhile whilst I wait for my pc to boot and to get some animation done I'm recording the next lot of reference footage for the first 6 seconds of the clip which I hope to blockover the next few days!

Need a technical miracle - Paul Out

Christmas Cheer with Adam Philips

 Every now and then I check in at the Bitey castle Website to view any news or new videos. For those of you who don't know, Bitey Castle plays host to the "Bitey of Brackenwood" or simple "Brackenwood" series. Which are quite easily my favourite web based animation series without a doubt.
I spent a good half hour of procrastination on this site looking for inspiration or at the very least a semi-valid way to waste time I should be using to animate. I came across this christmas video from 2008 by Adam Phillips, depicting Santa as a loveable drunk. I could'nt embed this video but I have added the link at the bottom, so a little more effort will be needed on your part to see it, its worth it though.

Happy viewing! Paul out.


http://bitey.com/2008/12/biteycastle-christmas/

Blocking: Phase one

So here's a very early blocking of one of the characters. I'm keeping it simple with this entry, I'll have a play about with it once its all fleshed out. Ive done a few main poses, very early stages, but it gives an idea of the direction I'm going in. Generally my blocking will be done in phases, such as key poses, lots of inbetweening, key hand/wrist positions, basic facial phonemes and then eventually on to the splining. Ill most likely block the basics for both characters before going near the splining phase.

More coming soon! - Paul Out

Referance Footage: "Is that really how I sound?"

I learnt early on that reference footage should be used in all my animation, either sourced online or better yet made myself. The tough part is getting used to the sound of your own voice, getting over that "Is that really how I sound?" issue as well as a mild form of embarrassment. Truth is no one is watching (I hope) and only you need review the footage, its good to share though. Being a good actor or at least having a go is key to understanding the motions and the little idiosyncrasies that make up a characters A to B. Actually becoming the character for a short time will allowing you to picture the performance better. Well not to get all teachy but it works for me at least!

To avoid the temptation to base my posts around the disaster of the day ill revert to simply adding it at the bottom. Today's Problem; my video camera has no charger... yay! but rather than halt production waiting for a replacement to arrive, I remembered that I now have a tablet with a camera in it, which is actually easier to film with oddly enough. I don't have to plug it in to anything to get the footage to play back easier. So this morning I've managed to film a good chunk of my reference for one character and its only 11.30, success!

- Paul Out

Going quiet.. Nothing to say

Basically the next few days of work on my 11second club entry will be spent trying not to get too excited and just blasting away at it. I've keyed 3 poses so far and I'm afraid if I go any further without proper planning I'll end up making the whole thing up. So it's time to bring out the sketch pad and start planning those poses! My camera would be useful in getting some footage too, if it decides to charge.

-Paul off to bed!

This time last year:

Well this time last year I was working for Primark *sigh* but more interestingly I had applied to Cubic Motion, an animation company in Manchester who specialise in Lip sync and similar things. I saw the job add and so sent off my application email complete with Showreel, not expecting anything in the way of a reply. But to my surprise I was offered the chance of some trial work. It was more of a test really, I was given a sound clip and a rig and a couple of days to animate to it.
My moment of joy was all too brief thanks to a sudden realisation that I was lacking a PC and on top of that, I had just accepted an extra shift. what followed was an extremely frantic series of phone calls to friends in hope of gaining a PC for a couple of hours. After passing that barrier I was confronted with a larger one "hang on a minute, I have no idea how to use Maya.." I spent a good 4-5 hours learning the very basics of where things were in Maya. By this point it was in the early hours of the morning and having a shift the following afternoon I left it for the night (in hind sight, this is where I probably went wrong). Getting up as early as I could I headed back to my friends house once more to plug away and to my surprise, under the pressure of a looming deadline I found myself enjoying myself. I had but 5 hours to do the best I could and actually managed to have a good time. After almost falling flat on my face once more at the prospect of rendering this cobbled animation I overcome the final obstacle and sent away my attempt.
By the end of my shift I had received a reply which left criticisms and areas they wished me to improve upon and re-send. Which I did once again with the time constraints caused by my current employment.
The end result, I was beaten by a competitor, not surprising really, given that they were able to complete the task using a full week and most likely their own facilities.

Despite my defeat, I enjoyed looking back on the last few days and just absorbed what was left of a well needed adrenaline rush. They offered to keep me on file in the event they needed more staff, but unfortunately they never responded to another email after that point. Thinking back though and the whole point of this post is that I missed out on a really good opportunity, because I didn't go all in on it. So I wasn't comfortable pulling a sicky and to be honest I doubt I ever would but at least now I have my priorities straight.

When I look at the last 12-18 months I realise that I have only applied to 3 jobs really. Which isn't particularly aspirational. I remember after my last defeat thinking that I wouldn't apply until I had my showreel shining. But I haven't actually gotten that far since have I?

The time for sitting on my hands has past, hopefully this half decade of mental block has lifted and this coming year will see me in worthy employment... No i'll go one further, I will sooner quit than continue my current post and free up more time to persue that dream job.

To round of this post with a bit more nostalgia (for me at least) heres last years lip sync test:


and heres the revised version:


As you can see, they asked me to remove the moustache, it was daft of me to leave it on to Begin with, but to be honest I didn't no how to shave the rig, nor did I have the time to find out how. But find out I did. They also had me remove all head motion, they literally wanted it down to the motion motions or "phoenemes".

End review, considering the little time I had on this and how much I enjoyed it. I think lip sync, could be my thing, or my way in. I suck right now but this felt relatively easy and it can only get better!

-Paul Out

Adding character:

Not quite there but its a start to carving out some new characters, ive established an age and the start of some emotion. Time to have a cack at those key poses!

11 Second Club:

Fairly sure I've mentioned 11 second club before, never entered, but planned to on more than one occasion. But as per some...excuse got in the way I'm sure. Well this month will be different. This month I've written on a blog where people can (but won't, who reads these thing?) see proof of my intent.

So I've gotten started and here's this months audio:

Voice One: "I've thought about it a lot, and we've talked about it, too. I told you there, there might come a time when I'd be... moving on."
Voice Two: "Yeah, but I didn't think you meant anything like quitting. I thought you just meant dying!"

I passed up a fair few months based on a lack of interest in the dialogue, this months seems quite cool so I'll have a crack at it. To get started and to help me visualise the scene I created the first image that came to mind in a 3D scene.
 
So step one; Ive plotted the basic layout for the scene. The camera angle and exact character placement will change but, I've at least plotted an idea and hopefully put across some kind of mood. Next step will be to create the characters, else it's going to look like a scene from "multiplicity"

The rig I've chosen seemed to be the best choice available, not to sell it short the "Morphy" rig is a great rig. Unfortunately I've had to step into the world of Maya, a programme I am yet to learn. I managed to put it off for a while now, but it's time to move on. Maya is a widely used industry programme so it should pay off. Getting back to the point, the rig has a wide range of customisation, I'll settle for a height, build and age alteration but I'm not too fussed on getting fancy with clothes and accessories at this point.

Just Do it:

Here's a simple but effect bit of motivation courtesy of Nike (one of the few brands with a decent slogan) which matches me quite well. It reminds me that where I may not actively wish to sit idly by whilst nothing happens to my showreel, a tired mind easily persuades you to leave it till tomorrow.
I am no longer satisfied with time and enthusiasm being used with little appreciation at the hands of some retail company... Time to move on. Still have to pay the bills, so the plan is simple. Have less bills to pay.

Less bills = Less money to be earned  in a rubbish job= time to animate = better job opps = Happy Bunny.

Unfortunately this may well mean sacrificing my house to move in with others once again, but hey im currently sat in my unfurnished "office" writting this. Sometimes a step or two backwards down the road can reveal a new fork in the road and hopefully a better direction.