You may remember a few posts back, that I was working on a Character Animation shot, using real life footage? Well, it's now finished, and up and on my showreel. I'm pleased with it, although I'm sure in a few weeks time, I'll be wanting to edit and refine it some more.
I created a playlist on my youtube channel showing the progression of the work. I think it's really cool, especially when you go to the last video and see where the shot started.
I've also created a pinterest page, where I store all the cool animation finds from the internet...including some of my favourite tutorials. I've been teaching myself how to animate using After Effects and Flash - I found that making playlists in youtube, not as fun as curating a "board" on pinterest. To see my links and pins visit and follow my page here: http://www.pinterest.com/animatormarc/
I've been working on a quite a number of shots lately, the thing is, I'm in that awful stupor of thinking that my work isn't good enough. Well, the time has come to just post them and collect feedback regardless! I'm the type of person who is proud of my work, so don't really like showing things off unless I think they're really, really good. And now that my training is finished (...although you're never finished learning, yadda yadda blah de blah) the work I produce should be top notch - I don't have the safety blanket of it-doesn't-matter-if-my-shots-aren't-THE-best-because-I'm-still-learning anymore...so I just have to swallow my pride, put on my thick-skin rhino hide and just do it...post whatever I'm working on, and get some sort of feedback.
This is the latest piece I've been working on. I'm actually editing it right now, but taking a quick break to show you what I've done so far.
Here it is:
It's taken from a clip of BBC1's The Voice. The girl (Rachael O'Connor) just got through first round of auditions, and this is her backstage reaction. The rig I used is the Bonnie rig, by Josh Sobel - it's so nice to work with, and it looks really cute too.
I wanted to show you the original clip here too, but it looks like it's been taken down by youtube (boooo!), but I have some screen caps, that I used as a starting point for my thumbnails:
From the clip, I put together my thumbnails, which hopefully you'll be able to make out here:
Right now, my biggest problem/feedback is that I'm not hitting the accents. Which in this case, are the words dream, real and in. So, that's what I'm working on right now...also I need to sort out the right hand and fingers.
When I get another edit put together, I'll post it so you will hopefully be able to see a vast improvement.
I'm also working on a Willy Wonka clip, as well as a Ball Throw idea which has taken a bit of a back burner...hmmmm...so I'm kinda juggling shots as the moment. It's keeping my mind fresh, at least.
I'm currently rendering out some shots. I'm using an IBL, and a 90 frame shot has taken 5 hours to get half way! Ouch! Why, oh why, did I decide to use an IBL?
I've been to a couple of meetings with animation studios, and things are looking promising. I've been given some great feedback from the directors, and am currently in the process of adjusting my reel, according to their critique. Hence, my reignited relationship with the mighty renderer.
Hopefully over the next couple of days, I'll have my reworked reel ready to send back to them. It was really nice to hear positive things from professionals in the industry, who aren't my tutors or classmates. Happy face!
Oh, Happy Halloween by the way. Here's the article with my screen shot of my animation from the musical Wicked (bottom right, in the article).
I've recently been working on a titles for my showreel. At first glance, it seems like not a big deal, but when you get down to it, you're creating something that makes a first impression - yikes! This means it's got to be good.
Here are my first attempts:
I then simplified to get this:
The feedback about this was about keeping it simple, and drawing inspiration from a title sequence that I like. After trawling the internet and various title websites, I found this intro, and the actual title part of the intro was appealing. It looked simple, classy and bold. What do you think?:
...and so from that, I created this...which so far, is what I'm sticking with.
Let me know what you think - it would be good to get as much feedback as I can :)
Well, I'm not expert to assume that I can teach someone how to animate a vehicle...but I did a car this week...it's not bad.
The toughest part for me, was to work out where to put the squash the stretch. Although it's a solid object, you still need to add performance elements to give the overall piece some flow.
The car rig is a nice little piece of kit - it came with a good squash functionality, as well as being able to lift up the bonnet and boot...very nice touches!
I used reference from the gazillion clips that are on youtube, of cars screeching doing stunts and 180 slide turns.
There are still a few tweeks here and there that I want to do to it...but for now, it's not that bad. What do you think?
My last assignment with Animation Apprentice is to animate a flying bird. The flap cycle is surprisingly straight forward, the only complication comes when studying the actual motion of a bird's wing and making sure it's doing what a bird, does!
The rig isn't the best to use for close ups. It's quite geometric and low-poly, but the overall effect is very pleasing if the camera angle isn't too close.
Since the bird looks like a crow, I figured it was appropriate to go gothic with my shot. My murder of crows swoop in, and swoop out towards the moon. What do you think?
Hello! Here are the final videos for my Scorpion animation.
I really enjoy creature animation. I'm wondering if that's "my thing". I always saw myself as a character animator, given my theatre background. But it would appear that my art background is helping my observations of creature movement?
I've also started a new blog. I've decided to publish all the art from my sketchbooks! I've really enjoyed doing it, I feel like I'm archiving! So please have a look, and don't forget to sign up to receive updates to your email address: Marc Godfrey Sketch Blog
Oh yeah, and always, don't forget to leave me comments :)
Don't worry, no one's pregnant. I just logged into my Animation Apprentice account, and I've been a member for just over 9 months - that's a pregnancy! ...and it does feel like I've been reborn, in some sort of cheesy, cliche way.
I've learnt so much. I feel that I'm using my creativity, and I feel very satisfied for it. Before, it was like I was stuck, somehow. I knew where I wanted to be, vaguely, but didn't know how to get there - and because no sails were in motion, I just spent a lot of my time just treading water.
Now, I'm training in a field that sparks my interests, working with like minded people, learning from my peers - I certainly feel more fulfilled than I have done in a very long time. It feels good.
Here's one of my latest animations. I've still got work to do it, but it's getting there. What do you think?
One of my latest animations has been a spider. I wasn't too keen when I first got the rig, this beast brought out an irrational arachnophobic feeling in me. So, immediately I turned him bright pink, and that was fine!
The assignment was to animate the spider on a walk cycle and add some sort of performance. I did two. Weirdly, and most interestingly, the two animations are very similar. One appears more playful, one more vicious. It's amazing what colours and additional set items can do to tell a story - or rather change a story.
Here's the first one, Playful Spider:
...and here's the second, Vengeful Spider:
See what I mean about them both being very similar? The only real differences are colour, lighting and "prey".
You should also be able to see how much more professional the second animation is? This is because it was the first animation I did as a proper render! From trawling various animation forums, I found a link to this really smart app called "Zeitraffer". Basically, it takes images and puts them together a your desired frame rate, and makes a movie clip. It's so simple. Best thing is, it's FREE!
Righty...off to do more animation now. I love receiving comments, so please let me know what you think...or just say hi!
We had the Grand National at the weekend (thank you very much TeaforThree and Oscar Time), so thought it was a good time to post my latest animation, of a running horse!
I've really enjoyed doing the creature cycles. I find them quite straight forward, surprisingly, I mean they look really complicated right? As long as you have good thumbnails, they're really not that bad!
What do you think...?
I'm getting to the stage where I need to start putting together my show reel, which I'm really excited about. If anything, I'm excited to have a professional looking, quality reel. Playblasts (which this is, a kind of moving screen shot) are good and all that, but the final render is going to look super cool!
Here's the latest installment in my Animation learning. My 22nd assignment with Animation Apprentice was to take the horse rig, and make him trot. We've done the walk cycle, so now it's time to make him move a bit faster.
On the Animation Apprentice course we're learning about Horse locomotion. At first, fear careered through my body, it looked REALLY fiddly and complicated, but I'm pleased to report...Tweren't at all bad, twas it not!
Once I got my head around the rig and understood the controls, it was really about making sure all the curves looked good and the cycle was working smoothly.
Here's my Walking Horse. What do you think?
My mind is constantly drifting to the dreaded question: How am I going to get a job? The end of the course with Animation Apprentice looms, which means I need to get my showreel up to scratch and good enough to show to a studio, and prove why they should take me on. Lots to do. CV and Linkedin profiles to sharpen!
And above all else...I need to come up with an idea to cohesively put a showreel together. Watch this space!
On Wednesday, I posted a playblast of my latest Animation assignment, with Animation Apprentice. I've had a look at some renders, and have come up with these.
Don't they make the whole thing look so much better? When the scene is fully finished, I'll render the whole thing out properly, but until then, I'll leave you to drool over these...
Feels like ages since I posted something, so thought I would share my latest piece of animation. It's not finished, there's still work to do and tweaks to make before it's worthy.
Anyway, hope you like it, and the joke doesn't make you groan too much :)
Me, where the Animation dream got
reawakened, back in 2009.
Things have been moving on for me at a nice pace! I must say though, being honest, for anyone that doesn't have a lot of experience in VFX, doing the Maya course with Escape Studios and doing another course with Animation Apprentice is a lot of work...especially juggling a regular job at the same time.
I've nearly finished with Escape Studios now (it's flown by), only 4 weeks left, but still have a good few weeks left with Alex at Animation Apprentice. If I had to do it all again, I would probably start off with Animation Apprentice, and maybe do a self-learning online Maya course, in my own time to up my skills.
The tutors at Escape are really lovely, and incredibly talented. However, some classes at Escape were, dare I say, I tad boring as we were learning things that bared no resemblance to anything I actually wanted to do with my career (of course, they were useful things to know about, but felt like teaching a drummer how to play the guitar)...but more recently, at Escape, we've been looking at Animation, it's not a patch on what I'm doing with Animation Apprentice. I recommend the course with Alex at AA, 100%!
I'm not phased by what the future holds...yet. I know jobs are few and far between in Animation, but I'm positive and optimistic. I really enjoy Animation, and feel that I'm being true to myself by taking the bull by the horns and retraining to do a completely different career in something I longed for as a child.
I'm leaving work in a few weeks...eeeek...although I will be back and forth, and doing some hours to tide me over, until a job opportunity comes up... I need to take the step and spend more time on my animation and show reel and really focus on landing that dream job! Very exciting! Kinda nerve-racking! Definitely fulfilling!
Whilst browsing show reels online, I came across this gem by animator, Erica Pinto. It was really the first scene that caught my attention, as I'm a massive fan of TV show, 30Rock. I think Erica has captured the characters beautifully - I love the attention to detail, such as the little glasses bounce.
One day, I hope to be as gifted as Erica. Check out more of her work here.
Here's one of my latest pieces of animation, so you can see how I'm getting on and developing...
Still got a bit of work to do, slippery feet and timing issues to be ironed out...so not yet show reel worthy...but it will be!
Escape Studios is going well too, nearly finished the evening course, but the project is taking me longer than I hoped. It's been a difficult work load to manage, and if I could do it all again, I would have held off the Maya course and just focus on the Animation tutoring with Alex, but hey.
Gah! I can't believe it's been a month since I blogged last! Sorry!
My mind is bursting with ideas for animations and my showreel. I'm not quite half way through the course with Alex Williams and Animation Apprentice yet, so there's lots of time for more ideas to marinade.
I've been working on weight shifts, jumping, showing weight in animation and overall getting a feeling of reality into my work, by how weight and balance works in an environment. Here's a simple weight shift that I animated (note, everything I'm posting currently is still in rough, and not showreel ready...still lots of work to do).
The rig is by Raveen Rajadorai at Creative Crash. It's remarkable how more observant I am becoming. For instance, when someone switches weight from one foot to another, I never really considered the two steps often used, I thought it was just a case of switching the hips. I look at people walking too, in a new way, I'm thinking "How are they carrying their weight? How much do they bend their knee? Is their chest rotating as they walk? Is their head still or moving with the motion?". Doing this animation course has given me new eyes!
Here's another weight based exercise I have done. The suicidal flour sack! I enjoyed animating this, although I found the rig quite tricky to work with. I love how you can get so much character into a relatively ordinary, plain and every-day object. This rig is by key_framer at Creative Crash.
I am bloody loving animating! I've created quite a few small pieces, but none of them are really showreel yet - still lots of tweaking to do.
Here's something I'm working on - it's still work in progress, so still some work to do - but I'm happy to show it at this stage.
I took a rig of a big "heavy" character, that comes armed with a machine gun - so typically this is the sort of character you would expect to find roaming the darkened streets killing everyone in sight...so, I decided to turn the character on its head - and give him an effeminate twist. Let me know what you think :)
