RaffBlog

As I read the ‘Acting for Animators’ by Ed Hooks, I also took notes about character analysis.
Based on these notes I made a simple list of essential information about my character.

Animatic for coming animation (my part) from studio ‘RRR!’

Story:
Audition for next mime movie ‘The Box’.
Number 24 is obviously late. He runs inside and tries to explain himself.
He was going to auditions theatre, it was a lovely day.
When suddenly! Out of nowhere!
A dragon appeared! And umm.. he was really scared!
But.. he drew his sword and bravely attacked that dragon.
When he defeated the monster he checked the watch. He realized he was really late and just started to run as fast as possible. TA-DAA!

Later,  agreed he just played a video game so abashedly went home.

So, today we had another meeting.
We finally came to conclusion what we want to do.
This will be audition for film called ‘The Box’!. Clever, huh?
Three mains tricks:
- Suffocation aka trapped in a box – Rachel R
- Disarming a bomb in a box – Rachel K
- Late mime – Raff (apparently me)

Till Wednesday we will produce some animatics and character sheets.

Here are some of my sketches prepared for today’s meeting:
(We got a scanner in Phoenix building! Woop woop!)

Okay, so after two days of work I got first version of Mutant animations.
My reference this time.. Left 4 Dead 2! I was working in labs and watching how zombies are being slayed.
Awesome!

More info:
http://raffanimates.blogspot.com/2012/02/insomnia-mutant.html
http://raffanimates.blogspot.com/2012/02/insomnia-mutant-rig.html

Okay! So yesterday we had first meeting of our team project to discuss and come up with some ideas.
So far, we got three concepts:

1. ‘Normal’ audition
 One mime playing on a guitar, then puts it down and starts playing on a invisible one – which is a lot better
 Second mime dancing or doing some tricks, then suddenly falls and swears loudly.
 Third mime is late and explains why.

2. Circus audition
 Three mimes has to present trick with a box. They can do whatever they want but still box has to be included. So probably it will be trapped in a box and gets out, trapped in a box and can’t get out and a bomb in a box that causes real damage.

3. Mime musical
 Two first mimes doing classical mime tricks. Third one is rather modern one, doing conversation with audience with a help of sound files.

Also, we discussed many important things like:
- What’s the difference between cookie and a biscuit?
- Cartoon physics
- ACME products and considering of putting ‘ACME production line’ in our resumes
- Did Daffy Duck use ACME weapon in ‘Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century’? Answer: Yes, yes he did:

So now, over the weekend we have to produce some sketches and on Monday we have another meeting. Same purpose.

We also have our private group on Facebook where we discuss our ideas and help each other.

Just finished rigging. I’ve applied rig from MrDead and fun began.. had to weight the skin all over again. This is different geometry so it was quite hard to do but.. yes, it’s done.
Also, I’ve added tongue controls (top-right, dark red circles) to make even more scarier animation!

To be honest, I can easily import previous animation (from MrDead) and just simply apply to a new model but.. for learning purposes I want to do run cycle and other animations again. I have to be in shape for next module, right?

Okay! That’s enough about rigging. Tomorrow the real fun starts! Animation!

I’m really looking forward for tasks from newest module – Acting for Animators. Sounds like a lot of fun.

1. Acting Principles Presentation
There’s always has to be a presentation. My topic to cover is ‘A scene in negotiation’.
So, it’s like two characters in a room with a one chair. The negotiation starts who should sit on that chair.
I’ve already borrowed ‘Acting for animators’ book by Ed Hooks. That will be great start for my presentation.

2. Mime task.
In a group of three, we create mime auditions. Everybody has to animate one character and then we will put it in one short film about auditions. The team is: ‘RRR!’ – Rachel, Rachel and Raff.
Also, as umm.. hmm.. ‘maya expert’ I’m going to teach or give advices for Rachel K how to easily and painless switch from Softimage to Maya. Fun fun fun!

3. Two-person dialogue
Basically, we get a sound clip from 11secondclub.com and animate both characters. That should be easy and fast to do, so I’ll do my best with planning and all preparatory stage to get as many points as possible.

Next character to rig and animate!
Ladies and gentleman, I introduce.. The Mutant!

He’s adorable, isn’t he?

So, it seems it is final version.
Cleaned up every animation and exaggerated some animation principles.

Added run beginning and ending.
Speeded up attack.
Added secondary attack.

The film tells a funny story of worms race in the grass. The prize in the race is to rule over the meadow, so every player wants to win at all costs. The main characters – a spider, snail, ants, beetles and mysterious caterpillar will do everything in their power to eliminate competitors.