Weekly Comments

    This week I learned more on making action scenes, I got to work more with some of the class to continue with my action scene, directing the ! It is really fun to come up with ideas and use the ideas of others to have a lot of fun and work together, so big thankyou to Brady, Geoff, Elaine, Connor, and Gage for helping me! What made me happy this week is that I had time to work on my music video animation, I just really wanna be done! What frustrated me this week is that the school year is starting to come to an end. I really enjoy the class and its blowing by so fast, it is kind of depressing. What I want to learn in the future is some business stuff, like working with others, keeping contacts, staying in touch, I think it would be helpful learning to conduct business as a freelancer...
     This week's link of interest is to a video made by two of my friends titled "Peck!", its got a little vulgar language, but other than that its pretty entertaining, the animation is superb as always from these two.

Also you can buy the source file and a little extra video for 2$, I did and you should too! Check the description of thier video here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/673103

Shot Reverse Shot

     First off what is shot reverse shot? A shot reverse shot is when one character is shown looking through the character at another character, and the camera switches to the other person. Joel and Ethan Coen are definitely understood to be the masters of this shot. They are very good at doing this because they film between the characters making you feel like they are actually included inside the conversation. The Coens use wide angle lenses to help focus on a certain facial feature of a character, or to exaggerate a forward camera movement. Also the wide angle lens shows the environment that the characters are in, which gives continuity to a shot. Another important part of their conversation scenes is that they keep a rhythm to the speaking, keeping the viewer interested in what is happening.
     I didn't know so much went into making a conversation between two characters. I always thought it would just consist of over the shoulder shots only to record the dialogue. But this video is really interesting because it shows you how many different factors you can use when making your conversations to spice them up and add interest to them. My favorite tip is definitely the rhythm, because a scene without rhythm is really boring, but having the rhythm gives a beat and pleasing aspect to a conversation! I am definitely going to apply this next time I make a conversation!

7 Tips For Drawing Realistic Humans

     The first tip is to follow the action. Gesture is super important when drawing your characters, a simple line can convey many emotion. For example a drooped line can seem depressing whilst a straight one can show strength.Tip number two is is proportioning your character's height. The head to hips is the same length as your hips to your feet. Proportion is a fundamental part of drawing characters, it shows that you have a understanding of relative size. Number three is to not underestimate size of the shoulders, your body is approximately 3 heads wide, so keep that in mind so your characters don't end up too thin or thick. Tip four is to remember facial proportions, eyes are at one half the head, and the mouth is one quarter of the head. Tip five is to add a little flexibility to the neck, your neck isn't a stiff tube, loosen up! Tip six is to smile from outward not upward, your muscles on your face pull out not up. Tip seven is to block out shapes as an easier reference for angles and proportion. Its easier to imagine in simpler objects before going into something more complex.
      So, the article is pretty self explanatory, not to be egotistical but I know all of this already. If you are just starting out in animation or just want to get better at drawing in general, your fundamentals are the best place to start. Moreover it would be easier to explain why drawing fundamentals are important. It doesn't help as an animator to be over ambitious with a character trying to animate something really complex when you don't have the basics down, or in general trying to stretch the proportions when you don't know the proportions to begin with. Surprisingly just learning how to draw will benefit your animation more than just straight animating. I see this in my own work because when I used to animate I would spend more time figuring out how my drawings looked rather than the flow of my animation. So, in general this is a really good article for improving animation by improving your drawing!