1001....

Week 2s task was to animate lifting a box. I had to get stuck into this early as I was off for the weekend and I knew for me it would be a slow process. At first I was really happy with how it was going I got the hang of the graph editor and I was getting a bit of natural character into Dee before he lifted the box. From there it then all went wrong really as he was off balance, I had problems establishing the weight without the box going through Dee etc etc. My first run through I key framed the box on its way up as well before Matt showed me how to constrain. This did make it appear more like it was being a little affected by gravity at the beginning but soon lost that on its way up. When I realized that the lift was too fast and the box was rocking a bit I realized I had to redo the arms.


When I went to improve it I lost a lot of the anticipation as I was getting annoyed with Maya and just started to rush it through, it shows as Dee picks up the box with no effort to start with and then the weight develops. Overall its a bit average. However for the first time I really started to enjoy using Maya as I found my way around without trouble to start with, times changed towards the 2nd half as I messed up and lost patience with myself.

Walk - Task 1

To carry on my 3D efforts I thought I would try doing the walk cycle again in 3D. I thought it would be quite easy seeing as we had done it already last year, but it was weird getting back into the flow. I started trying to use the graph editor to get the animation smoother but he still slaps his feet to much and I really should have time out the walk before hand instead of just going straight into it.
His feet also slide at one point which I just couldnt get rid off even when I looked in the editor, I feel like I'm starting to get the feel of animating in Maya a little more, I do love the way you can change things so quickly and see what they look like.

Life Drawing Week 2

For this weeks lifedrawing I was opting to start to use different materials as pencil and charcoal can be quite boring and I want to think about materials for the experimental project. So I went for some Ink lines to mix it up, from the photos it actually looks the same as charcoal. Any way the images above are some quick poses of around 2 mins. The below ones are the sustained poses varying between 10 -20 mins. I can feel myself getting more confident with life drawing, proportions are starting to improve etc so I'm actually enjoying it this year.

Using the ink was different but is so much more satisfying to use than pencil and the like , it just flows across the surface and has more substance. I wish I had used a few differentcolours though to liven them up. My favourite pose is the bottom left, Kathy talked about how the last thing to be able to really accomplish in life drawing is getting the feeling of depth when parts of the body are coming towards you, she talking of over exaggeration to the point of believability that gives it that something extra, I didn't go over the top but this pose has the most depth, even if I didn't quite get it right. The only think that I didn't take to with the ink was the lack of detail that you could get into the face making it difficult not to botch it. Most of them I did just that...

I have spent so much time on Maya this week I'm starting to get to know my way around it a little better. The face project has repeatedly killed my morale as I keep making a botch of what I was doing. It's finally started to come together after I changed the photos I was using as they didnt line up, no matter what I did. So cometh the hour and saviour of the tripod I was away on Maya looping away and at current this is the stage, the lips are a pain so I figured I would get a screen shot of the current model before I botch it and go crazy.

Modelling Myself in Maya - Attempt 1.....

Its sadenning that I'm happy I got this far in Maya with modelling as it shows how little I know about the program. This is my first attempt and I am going to start again as there are to many triangles and errors that are a pain to recover so I figured I'd start again and now I know my way around a little more it should be faster. This project is perfect as its really challenging for me and it's teaching me a lot as I knew nothing of modelling before. Hopefully attempt number 2 will be much better and I can actually build on it with some clean modelling. It just annoys me I mess up one bit along the way and dont know how to recover when something isn't going right....

Face Modelling Project 3D

I'm going to try modelling my face in 3D in Maya. I just took the photos to see if I'm symmetrical aka Beautiful apparently. Unfortunately as everyone has told me through life, it has now been confirmed I am just your everyday, average Joe. This is just to show to get me looking right in 3D I'm going to have to reference both sides and not just mirror myself.

Lifedrawing ... First Session

10 mins 30 mins 10 mins

These are 3 of the main life drawings from todays session. I only did half the session as I felt awful so I was surprised I could actually crack out a few drawings. My favourite of the 3 is the orange one as the lines are crisper and she has more shape. All of them though don't have enough contrast in them and are merely line drawings I need to start working shadow back in to build mass as opposed to just a flat object to bring it to life and out of the paper. Before I went to the session I was dreading it as last year I felt inferior to everyone and it was quite intimidating, I tried to draw with confidence in these and it showed as I got down what I saw quickly ( for me ) without taking forever to decide what should go where. I loved working back on an easel again and I look forward to next week in between I will be doing figurative drawings so I should build a more solid style as I grow in confidence.

The Dawn

So we have started the year, hence new blog. Definitely keeping on top of it this time as it helps to look back and its satisfying to see how far you come. At the moment my aim is to work through the Maya foundation book and get the hand of modelling characters as I have never had a real go at it. This should hopefully feed on to create my first Maya animation for one of my projects.

Since my last blog the only real thing of note apart from sketching that I have done was a shot at some 2D digital painting on Photo-shop of Fee, as I saw Roys and I thought I'd give it a go, although his was awesome . I started with the eyes and worked my way through, the final part was the hair and it shows as it looks rushed, I got bored and discarded improving it. The eyes are my favourite although they don't have as much life as I would like, I should have chosen a more interesting photo to work from.