Week 10 - Alex - House Keeping
Another uber busy week, surprise surprise. Feels like itās been three weeks non-stop of midterms, and yet the end of the semester is already just on the horizon. Where does the time go? In any case, I unfortunately canāt say Iāve caught up with all my assignments. Much of my time was spent going back and redoing the second cola wave shot, at the request of the Director. It consumed much of the work time I would have spent on other shots, but I bear that responsibility. I guess it goes to show that our group prioritizes quality over quantity:
As you may note, the timing of the hand coming down was reworked to be shorter, and the wave is an entirely different type of wave. I guess what I would call andĀ āoceanicā orĀ āsplashyā wave, as opposed to the kind of crude āsliding wallāĀ of cola I originally had.
Next, I went back and changed/added to the shot of Angelās fear reaction. Now he looks left, then right. I may need rework it as well, since there are a couple proportion issues:
As I continue roughing, Iām starting to get more used to drawing Angel. I admit, it is still a challenge for me, since he is stylistically and proportionately very different from what Iām used to. But I think as I continue watching our teamās rough animation, and as I practice (especially after trying out final line work,) Iām noticing tiny little quirks that help me understand more in-depth how the character looks, feels, and moves.
I think thatās reflected in the next two shots I did - first is Angel watching the wave as it spills, and the second is his scream and running away from it:
Lastly for this week, as previously mentioned, our group met together on Monday, and Gavin walked us through how to do final line art. He created some helpful tutorials on the Google Drive for us to keep on track as we work on our own. Hereās Gavinās shot that I did final line art for during the session:
Final line and color does seem much easier and faster to pump out (to me at least) than rough. That will be important in the coming weeks, because as it is, our group is struggling to stay on track (and not for a lack of trying!)Ā In spite of that, I have full confidence that our group will make it work out in the end. This is a very resourceful and hardworking bunch. We hit the ground running when we started this project, and we have contingencies in place to make sure the project indeed meets its goals. For starters, we have already begun looking to outsource colorists, which will free us up considerably down the line. We are also switching our configuration a bit, so that weāll have some animators working on final line art and color to pump out those completed shots. Meanwhile, the rest of the group will prioritize finishing roughing the as of yet incomplete ones. This way we will be able to gauge our progress more easily, and streamline the output to be faster. If worse comes to worse, Iām willing to push my schedule another step, and divert attention away from other classes to focus on this project (not to their detriment of course.) Often, I find I am at a lack of time because I try to āover achieveā in all my subjects. But I can trade the load and essentially buy more work time by deliberately minimizing my outputs (while maintaining an A) if the need arises. Itās not preferred, but it may be necessary, as we near the end. Looking forward to the next few weeks. They will be busy for sure, but Iām not overly worried. Weāve all been through this before, and I know we can pull through it again. Kong will be shooting (likely in my dorm) tonight, so thatāll be fun! Iāll continue to update as things continue rolling out! Until next time, this is the Undercover Animator, signing out.
