These are this weeks Animation Exercises. This weeks subject was a very simplified head structure. I based this structure off of the structure used by Andrew Loomis in his book: Drawing the Head and Hands. This week I received some excellent advice from Rainplace (I think Mike Nguyen is his name). He recommended having an emotional motivation for the movement. I tried to work that in starting on day 6.
Day 1 - a simple turn-around to familiarize myself with the structure and practice turning it in space.
Day 2 - Bouncing cycle with a little rotation. Ended up looking kind of stiff
Day 3 - Jumping over distance, this ended up being my favorite
Day 4 - Overlapping action cycle with a cube representing a torso going up and down
Day 5 -Bungee jumping, I started this one without a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like but it still turned out okay.
Day 6 - So excited he launches out of control. I was trying to do a stagger effect on the antic but it didn't quite work.
Day 7 - Moving so fast he loses control, but manages to stop himself before going over the edge.
Adding the emotional element to these makes it more difficult, but also a lot more fun. As I try more complexity and emotion, I am more likely to fail to achieve the look I am going for. I do go back and try to fix them up quickly if I can, but I have to keep in mind that these are intended to be quick exercises so I shouldn't refine them until they are perfect. It is good to have this opportunity to try out things and not be afraid to fail. I figure if I never fail, I am not being ambitious enough. On the flip side, If I am failing too often then I am being to ambitious, since the purpose of these is to practice the fundamentals so they become second nature.
