Lately

I've just completed my submission for the 11 second club competition this June. I have animated all the poses for the doctor and the patient character. I also managed to finish modelling and rigging the stethoscope, although I'm still not entirely satisfied with the outcome. Overall, I feel quite pleased with the poses in this piece, although I don't think I will be working with the Blake or the Nimo rigs again.

The competition closes around the beginning of July, at which point you can start voting for the submissions, so I shall let you know when the time comes ;)

Other than the 11 second club, I have also recently enrolled in life drawing classes at Lewisham Art House. I have also been doing some sketches for some character designs, as well as reading up on drawing of cartoons and caricatures; because I also want to take my drawing further.

I think the next step for July is to develop my understanding of rigging as this is a core skill for an animator. Mike sent out an email suggesting that we practice our rigging by designing a character, and then modelling and rigging it. I think this would be a good exercise to take on, as I am not so good at modelling in Maya and this will improve my ability to apply my designs and creativity to my CG animation work.

After I've worked on rigging, I think I will try making another dialogue or action driven animation piece, either a short film or another 11 second club entry.

I am also up for working on group projects with any animators, so if anyone is interested, give me a shout ;)

11 second project so far

So far, I've done the lip syncing for both characters and I've also animated the poses for the "doctor" character. I haven't done all the poses for the "patient" character yet.

I've made a playblast of what I have done for the animation so far, so please let me know what you think...

First lip sync using Blake

For the 11 second submission, I have chosen to use Blake for the Doctor character. From using it, I've found that I don't really like the facial controls, because they are quite restrictive and I've found it's quite tricky to bring life to this character.

I chose this rig because he resembles a "doctor" character and I thought using this rig alongside a more generic rig would be quite comical.

I've done some lip syncing, so tell me what you think.

So it looks like I'm shit at 3d modelling then :/

One of the props that will appear in my 11 second club entry is a stethoscope. I couldn't find any decent models of stethoscopes on the internet that would work in Maya or that I didn't have to pay for, so I had a go at modelling a stethoscope myself.

I've just found that I'm not very good at 3d modelling, so I think I'll be better off focusing on the animation side.

What do you think?

Quack doctor- animatic

For the 11 second club project, I've decided to use my quack doctor idea. The background wind can probably be sorted out by placing a fan in the scene or something like that, I just have to use my imagination.

I've made a rough animatic for the animation, so I've got the poses planned out for each bit of the dialogue.

I'm quite pleased with the sequence of poses that I've drawn out here, particularly the end, when the patient outsmarts the doctor. I may need to work on the timing at the point when the doctor straitens his pose after bending down with the stethoscope and explains the noise.

The next step is to find some appropriate character rigs and work on some lip syncing and facial expressions.

Thumbnails and ideas for 11 second project

I've been sketching some poses for each bit of the dialogue and I have also been coming up with scenarios for the animation.

The first idea that i have come up with is to have a man trying to listen to something on the other side of the wall with a glass, while the more authoritative woman stands over him.

I've sketched another set of thumbnails for this idea, where he down on his hands and knees with the glass, this is on the top half of the image below.

On the bottom half of the image, I have thumbnailed another idea, in which the man holding a torch is leading the woman through a forest/cave/cellar and when the woman asks, "What noise?", he stops, turns around and says, "You know the..." and then breathing heavily. This idea would make the background wind more relevant within the scene and give it some atmosphere.

Another idea that I have, which I quite like is to have a quack doctor trying to listen to a patient's heart with a stethoscope before commenting that it doesn't make "the noise" and then describing what noise it should be making, before being corrected by the patient who states, "Its doesn't make that noise". The thumbnails for this idea are pictured below.

The only downside with this idea is that the dialogue is accompanied by the sound of wind, and this would seem odd and out of place in this scenario.

I'll try and come up with some more ideas and maybe do some more studies of poses as well as facial expressions, and then post them up here.

11 Second Club

The new 11 second club competition begins today, and I've just checked out the sound that I will be animating around. This dialogue that I have got sounds like this:

"It didn't make the noise!"

"What noise?"

"You know the... [breathing in and out]"

"It's not supposed to make that noise"

I believe that it is originally from a Doctor Who episode, but I'm not sure which one.

I have already got a fair idea of the performance of the characters in this piece, but I'm still thinking about what kind of scenario I could put my characters in. One idea I have is for them to be in a cave or forest with a torch and they are listening out for something. Another idea is for them both to be listening out for something by putting an empty glass up to the wall.

I'll do some thumbnail images for the poses of both characters and also some storyboarding to work out the scenario. I'll post it up here as I do it.