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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shot 19. The 360 spin. This shot is at the major dramatic climax of the animation, which is very important. It is the most complex shot we are doing, as to why it is my only focus for this week.
I created a 3D reference using Moom in maya since this shot would have been too complex to attempt without some form of reference like this. The camera movement is the main point of this shot so it was very important that I got this correct.
I imported this into Photoshop and started roughly sketching over the top to change some proportions (like the head). I only did this every 8 frames so that I could save time and then just do inbetweens later. This still took a long time however and even with the reference, it still proved difficult to continually understand the way he was turning, hence I fell behind schedule and was still working on sketches after Sunday.
This week was Manchester Animation Festival so I specifically scheduled in less work for all three of us, knowing that we wouldn't be getting much done. Therefore, I had one shot to complete this week, a rather simple one, where the camera only zooms out from the gnome and he doesn't actually move all that much. I only got to work on this on the friday, but I finished the sketches and linework for the two main keyframes. It was hard to get the angle looking right with this shot because of how high the angle is. When inbetweens come, it will slow and smooth this motion a bit, and it can then be duplicated and flipped to make him look back to the beginning.
I feel like I am slightly behind after this week but really when I think about it, I am still on track, since we specifically scheduled just keyframes to be done in these weeks, and because I did the inbetweens for the first few shots, we are actually ahead. I am anxious about this next week however, because I have the 360 rotation shot to do. I have to finish my Maya reference using the Moom model to help me keep the angle consistent.
