Running commentary on anything that moves or gives the illusion of movement
Saturday, February 25, 2012
A Different Kind of Animation
I've got this subtitle on my blog that says "Running commentary on anything that moves or gives the illusion of movement." Animation to me is more than simply adjusting sliders in Maya or sketching on paper. It's not just about moving things, it's about getting to the essence of things that move you. The best animators are able to boil down the complexities and subtleties of life and people into a focused state, and infuse their work with that essence.
Last week I experienced something that moved my soul. It was animation in the very rawest sense of the word: liveliness, spirit, energy. I haven't yet figured out how to translate it into my artwork, but I am hoping it will find a way. In the meantime, I've resorted to the more mundane medium of writing and chronicled my trip to Costa Rica at my other blog here:
Traditionally each wedding anniversary has a material associated with it (i.e. 1st - Paper, 2nd - cotton, 25th - silver, 50th - gold) and for our 3rd year it was "leather." Well, I'm no good working with leather, but I had an idea of what I could do for this year's gift. Tommy loves baseball, and baseballs are made of leather! So I managed to sneak down to the gift shop during an Angels/Rangers game and procure an official game-used baseball. This year's are pretty sweet because it's the Angels' 50th year, so each baseball has a 50th year logo on it.
Then I set about creating a display to hold the baseball using a material I was more familiar with - Sculpey. :) The tricky part was working on it so Tommy didn't find out! I sculpted mostly at work before and after hours. Below is the finished product along with some WIP pics.
I was talking with Michelle this evening about "style" - that is, an artist's means of expressing themselves in a unique way that is instantly recognizable to others. The illustrators I like to keep an eye on all have very strong styles that distinguish themselves from other artists. I told Michi that I didn't feel I had a style all my own. I believe it's probably because I don't draw often enough to discover what it is that I find to be uniquely me.
When I do get around to picking up a pencil, I feel a need to study, improve my draftmanship and anatomy, learn about line and color, perspective, appeal, design, lines of action, dynamic poses... then I get overwhelmed and don't feel like drawing anymore. When I was little I didn't care about any of that stuff. Now I peruse other blogs and I get this feeling of inferiority, like I should have tried harder, gotten better. These other bloggers know who they are as artists, they know what they want to say to the world. What is it that I want to say? How can I get "better" if I don't know the answer to that question?
My problem is that I worry too much about drawing a good picture. I have to just start drawing and turn my anxious brain off for a while. That's what I attempted to do above, and I guess I resorted to my old fallbacks, cute "jelly bean belly" creatures and ugly monsters. Is that considered a style? Meh.
There's probably some psychological reason WHY those are my fallbacks. Who knows, perhaps every artist's style is some physical manifestation of their inner psyche. What does it mean when one person has a clean, simple style, while another has a super-detailed, complex and chaotic one? Does anyone analyze sketches the way some people analyze handwriting?
Soooo, it's been a while. I've moved on to Sony Santa Monica to work on an unannounced game project and it's a little slow going. In the meantime I tried another short project at home similar to the 11-Second Club entry from last October. This time it was a contest hosted by Kevin Freeman who runs the AnimationRigs.com website. We had a choice of 5 audio clips this time, and the only rule was that we had to use the rigs from the site. The rest was up to us!
I downloaded some free geo for a background from turbosquid.com and some sound effects from freesound.org. Here's the final product:
And the good news: I won first place! So not only do I have a nice piece for my demo reel, I also have some prize cash to get something nice. :D There were some pretty nice entries from other contestants too, and I was surprised to learn who the judges were. Pretty high profile folks!
Anyway, next post I'll try to upload some WIP videos so you guys can see my animation process.
This is a short abstract film I created as part of the "Bored Animators Club" challenge at work! After we were done with Medal of Honor we were sitting around thinking of stuff to do, so we came up with the idea of 24 hour animation challenges. Take that, 11 Second Club. Who needs a month to make a short film? Hehe.
Anyway, I figured it would be a fun opportunity to finally get around to making an abstract film! I've always loved watching experimental animation - as a kid I was drawn to things like the pink elephants in Dumbo, song sequences from Fantasia, seashells gliding around in the sand on Sesame Street, and so forth. In college we studied lots of different animation styles, from the Hubleys to Oskar Fischinger to the Brothers Quay and even Chuck Jones. Although I knew I wanted to work in the mainstream industry, part of me highly respected and envied the people who found time (and money) to create something completely new and unexpected.
Abstract animation, to me, is like visual poetry - it's able to convey things that aren't easily put into words or purely representational images. The scene from Ratatouille where Remy tries to describe "taste" is a perfect example of this. Perhaps because I grew up in a musical family I also feel a strong connection between music and image. When I listen to a song, I visualize it too, if that makes any sense. That's kind of how Goatboy Bebop came into being.
I'm glad that some artists and studios are still making room for experimental work in their films. In an era where 3D photorealism is all the rage, it's nice to see something that takes a different path. So often we stay grounded in real life and we forget how to be artists and poets, we forget we are capable of transcending the representational world. Our brains can make those abstract connections between color, line, icon, shape, sound, smell, object and feeling. That's what makes being human so awesome!
Huh, I guess it's been a while since I've waxed philosophical about animation. I could keep going on about this topic, but I think I'll wrap it up with a link to some abstract animations I've compiled together that have inspired me over the years.
I found myself with some free time last month so I tried out the 11 Second Club competition for the first time. I've always found the competition inspiring but never quite worked up the nerve to enter myself. I earned a respectable 5th place out of 256 entries, not bad!
I went through a lot of free rigs available on the internet before settling on the "Blake" rig by Jason Baskin. I found that his rig had a decent facial setup and controls that I wanted for the body (although I did wish the spine was better). There were some other good rigs, but Blake's character design seemed like he would fit the audio for the month.
I'm playing around with Josh Burton's "Morpheus" rig which also seems very promising. Maybe some other month... once we're done with all this condo-buying nonsense :)
Kind of piggy-backing off of my last animation assignment, I decided to do a little concept work for my characters on the short film brewing in my head to nail them down a bit better. Hopefully the more I can visualize them on "paper," the easier it will be to model them in Maya.
