La Vieille Dame Et Les Pigeons

First of all I want to wish all of you a happy new year. I hope everyone is well.

Sorry I havent posted in a while. Im just waiting to get funds together to start the escape studios maya training then my regular posting will be back.

In the mean time I wanted to post my favorite short of all time. Its called "The Old Lady and the Pigeons" or "La Vieille Dame Et Les Pigeons". I remember seeing this short when I was very young and its what really got me interested in animation. It was the usual happy ever after animation I was used to seeing and it intruiged me.

The short is by Sylvian Chomet. For those who dont know he is also responsible for belleville rendezvous another amazing animated feature which any fan of animation should watch.

Watch and Enjoy!

Decisions

Hey everyone. I deleted my last post entry as I didnt want the hole world and there mothers knowing about my problems and I figured it was up long enough for people I know to have read it and know whats going on.

Ive been home for 2 weeks now and ive had to think about what im going to do. So here is the plan for now.


Im not doing anything until after xmas. Nothing. Ive been put on new meds and its going to take a while for my body to adjust to them so the next few weeks need to be as stress free as possible.

After Xmas I will be doing the escape studios maya core training. Ill be reviewing things ive already learned and learning new techniques too.

I will be doing that for a few months and saving at the same time to do the Animation Mentor course.

Ive always been really impressed by the work that comes from that course and it seems to be the right one for me. Its expensive but worth it as I believe it will help me gain the skills I need to put together an impressive reel.

If you want some info on animation mentor here is the link to there site

www.animationmentor.com

Also here is the latest student showcase

Narrative Task

Our task was to create a story using a series of images. I was inspired by last weeks class where our lecturer cycled across Mexico and filmed as he went. His clips were only a few seconds long and each one had the color yellow in the frame.

These restirctions helped him to keep the clips interesting and it feels like a story because there is a theme running throught.

I wanted to try filming something boring in an interesting way. I had to take a walk to Asda so I did some filming along the way. I too set myself restrictions:

* Clips cant be more than 3 seconds long
* Each frame must have the color blue in it.

I didnt edit the video in anyway as I didnt want to miss anything I might later find interesting. I like this way of filming as I feel it can make ordinary subjects more interesting. Im sure ill find myself using this technique again.

Life Drawing

Improved walk cycle

I really want happy with my previous walk cycle so I kept my critique in mind when animating this one. I think there is a big improvement.

Walk Cycle Critique

I decided to stop looking at my animation for a while. I find that I can give a pretty valid crit on other peoples work but when it comes to my own im useless. Not because I think my work is great (Its far from it!!) but because I spend so much time looking at it.

I got some advice from my teacher and my classmates and I tried to just look at my work and jot down the first things that came into my head.

* The knees seem to pop on one or two frames because there is no bend on them
* The rotation on the hips is wrong and it needs to be more gradual.
* I need to add a flop to the toes to give it a more exaggerated feel.


Im working on the cycle again now so Ill hopefully be able to fix all these things.

Life Drawing

I wanted to experiment this week a bit in life drawing so I used a stick with some ink and paint. Im quite pleased with how it turned out. I also did a collage which I will post up when I take a pic of it.

3D Walk Cycle

This was my first attempt at a walk cycle in Maya. Its not bad but im still unsure about the rotation on the hips. Im going to stop watching this for a while and come back to it later when I might tweak it a little

3 Blind Mice Animatic

Our group got together yesterday and did the final storyboard and animatic for our short. Its a little rough in places but it does the job.

Improved Berkswell Model Sheet

Based on some suggestions from James suhr and my teacher I drew up another Berkswell model sheet. I think this design is much better and will translate well into 3D.

Life Drawing

Some life drawing from this week. Im still a bit rusty. Plus I need to experiment with better ways to photograph my bigger drawings. Comments welcome :)

Rough Storyboards

I forgot to post this last week. No time to scan stuff really. This is a rough (emphasis on rough) storyboard for our short.