Man!!!  Where has the time gone?

Okay, so between the last post and this one, I've had to animate a ball going through an obstacle course, a pendulum showing overlapping action in its tail, and now we get to animate something with personality,  Animation Mentor's very own Tailor!

For the rest of the term, I think we're going to be blocking out and animating a walk-cycle.  One of which will be just the blocking and timing pass, the next week we'll be polishing that "vanilla" walk.  The following week, we'll have to come up with a walk cycle that has personality to it.  They're keeping us busy, that's for sure!

Anyway, that's what's been going on.  And I'll do my best to keep ya all posted.

Weighted Ball Animation

This week, we get to animate balls bouncing.  We have to show a distinction between a light ball (racketball, tennisball, ping-pong ball, etc.) and a heavy ball (bowling ball, bocce ball, weightball, etc.).

So this will  be a real good assignment for showing weight, gravity, and physics of how different balls behave when subjected to the same force, gravity.

Hooo, man!  I got some work to do.
Ben

First AM Assignment

Okay, so for our first assignment, we were to go out to some public place (park, coffee shop, bookstore, etc.) and sketch people in various poses.  Then we were to take one of those poses, circle it, and take a provided character rig and position the character in that pose.  Due by noon Sunday, Pacific time.

So I went down to a local park here in West Michigan and got about 10 sketches of people.  I posed the provided character in the position of the person in the sketch, and posted my work on the website.

This is the pose I chose to post.  I got feedback on it, made changes and this is what I have now.

I decided to pose the character doing what I would sometimes do as a kid, imagine that I was falling, but never hitting the ground.  Good times!

First Webchat with my Mentor

On Monday, 3:00 pm my time, I found out who my AnimationMentor Mentor is going to be.  He's a freelance animator based out of Australia!  Yes, AnimationMentor is truly a global phenomenon.  My mentor is in the land of Kangaroos, Koalas, and the Platypus; I'm taking classes in Michigan; I have fellow students in Spain, Germany, Australia, California, and Singapore!

My first webchat session with my mentor is tonight.  That's when we get to introduce ourselves, say when we first got the bug to be animators, and why we chose to take classes at AnimationMentor.  Can't wait to meet my fellow students!

Hyperactive Moth-Man!

My idea for the "World's Worst Super-Hero":  Hyperactive Moth-Man!

SuperPowers: Unknown as of yet, other than being able to sprout his wings at a moment's notice, and look good in his purple SuperSuit.

Weakness: Uneffective in fighting crime and the betterment of society because he gets too distracted by streetlamps and porch lights.

Spike Sketchers Blog

So a fellow AnimationMentor Applicant created a weekly drawing challenge blog.  I've become a member of this blog, and this week we're gonna kick things off with a drawing / sketch of "The World's Worst Super-Hero"!  So I've got between now, Sept. 20, 2010, and Saturday night to come up with an idea for a terrible Super-Hero.  I've already got an idea, I just need to get it down on paper and make it look halfway decent.

What have I gotten myself into...?
 I'm kidding of course.

One Month Away

Congrats, you found it, my AnimationMentor Blog!

I start in little less than a month, Sept. 27, and I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself.  Tuition is in, webcam is mounted, sketchbook is purchased, and required books are acquired.  All that's left to do is to pray for the 27 to get here, which can't happen fast enough.

I've already logged in and met some of the students that are in my term via web-chat sessions.  All of us are literally geeked out of our skulls!  I'm gonna try and post at least once a week while I'm enrolled in AnimationMentor, cataloging my progress from week to week, and class to class.  Posting my homework that I send in, videos and drawings, and voicing opinions of how the term is going.

So be sure to tag in from time to time and see what's goin' down.
See ya around the campus!