Character & Narrative: Week Fifteen: 1st - 7th January 2018

This week I started off by finishing the linework of shot 12. I also did a couple of breakdown frames while I was at it, to save inbetweening time later on. This shot was trickier than I expected because I had to break away from the reference more than expected to make it work. I am happy with the result though, and think once it is inbetweened, it should look good.

I then worked on completing the inbetweens for shot 14. This took a while and I still struggled to draw him from this angle for some reason. 

For the rest of the week, I worked on completing shot 19. With this being the longest and most complex shot in the entire animation, this again, look a long time. As I got closer to the end of inbetweening this shot, I got really excited because it was really starting to look how I imagined. Now I have finished this shot, I am really proud of it. I think once coloured and in context of the animation, it should really work as the climax it is designed to be.

Also this week, my friend who studies music, sent us the original track he had made for us. I had taken the animatic and given him lots of notes about the moods we wanted at certain times. I really like it and think it brings a lot of urgency and intensity to the animation. 

Character & Narrative: Week Fourteen: 25th - 31st December 2017

Obviously I didn't get as much done since it was christmas week. I did however manage to take some time to get the sketches for shot 12 done.

I also did a few inbetweens on some shots to allow Alex to start colouring them. I went through shots 4, 7 and (started) 9, drawing all inbetweens that needed doing. I have uploaded these to the google drive for Alex to colour. Doing this worked well as it lets Alex keep up his schedule as much as possible while giving me a break from keyframing. I am still a week and a bit behind but I am still hopeful that we will manage it because we have already completed inbetweens for quite a few shots more than were scheduled for now. 

Character & Narrative: Week Thirteen: 18th - 24th December 2017

This week I did the sketches for shot 18. I followed the reference video quite closely for the correct weight and speed. I made sure to match up the end with shot 19's opening. For the middle frames of the throw, I decided to add a smear and stretch out the arm and lantern to accentuate the quick motion. 

I did make a start on the keyframe skeletons for shot 12 however I didn't manage to finish them since it is the run up to christmas so I'm still a week behind, however I hope to set aside a good few full days of work late next week to try catch up. 

Character & Narrative: Week Twelve: 11th - 17th December 2017

I started by finishing off the keyframes linework for shot 14. This didn't take too long which let me get on with shot 22. 

To save time and make it easier, I decided that shot 22 could be done as a walk cycle, since he didn't need to be acting much and it was just him walking away at the same angle through the whole shot. I still found this quite difficult like shot 14, so I think it may be that I am not confident animating this character from behind. This shot still requires a few inbetweens to smooth it out but the shot is as complete as it needs to be at this moment in time. 

I later decided, while rewatching this shot, that he looked way too confident. After just being put through this hellish experience, he wouldn't be walking so normally. I now intend to come back to this shot and change or redraw it to be more downbeat and slow.

Character & Narrative: Week Eleven: 4th - 10th December 2017

This week I kept working on shot 7, drawing linework over the sketches that I finished last week. I enjoy doing the linework as it's relatively easy as I have already done the hard work of the sketches. 

Shot 14 took a lot longer than I expected. Even with the reference footage, I found it surprisingly difficult to draw the poses to a level that I was satisfied with. I kept redoing frames until I was happy. I am now in a place where I am ok with the keyframes. I still have to go over and do the linework for this shot but this means that I am running a week behind schedule as I should have done shot 22 in this week aswell. I believe that I will be able to catch up over christmas as I will have some good full days to slog away and get back on schedule. 

Character & Narrative: Week Ten: 27th November - 3rd December 2017

I started the week still working on completing the keyframes for shot 19. I knew this would be a hard one to do, but even with the maya reference this was still taking a long time. Most of the week was taken up with doing this. 

Once I had all the sketches done and checked and double checked, I could move a bit quicker with inbetweens and linework. This was much easier to do and I got through all linework on the keyframes and breakdown inbetweens within a day and a bit. All that is left to do on this shot is final linework inbetweens but I will be coming back to that in a few weeks since I had other shots to do too.

We decided shot 6 could just be a hand that is move across the panning screen since it would save us time. I just drew it three times to give it some wiggle. 


Shot 7 was the other one I had to do this week, but unfortunately I only managed to get the initial sketches done since shot 19 has pushed me behind schedule. I will have to fit that in next week with 14 and 22.

Study Task: Walk This Way

I again really enjoyed this task to practice walk cycle theory. Using moom was straightforward and enjoyable to create this walk cycle. I personally found it easier to make the cycle with the default smoothing on as it would then make an inbetween that was close enough to what I needed, which I could then go in and manually alter anyway. 

When rendering, I also did a pass with the stepped movements to just show the poses themselves. 

In hindsight, I could have spent more time to give the walk more character and visual interest but do still I feel I have a good understanding of the poses and weight in a walk cycle, especially as this project progresses, since the character in our animation is nearly always running.