For class 1 at AM, I have the privilege of my first mentor being Anthony Wong, currently working at Pixar Animation Studios. At Pixar, he is currently animating on the upcoming "Monsters University", and previously animated on Ratatouille and Cars. Before Pixar, he was a traditional animator working at Disney. He has worked on films like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000, and Treasure Planet. He even got to animate with the amazing Glen Keane on shots in Treasure Planet!!! How awesome is that?!? He is also an alum from CalArts, probably one of the best animation schools in the country. I am really happy I am learning from a veteran in the animation industry, it is honestly a dream come true.
Now onto my first assignment!!!
Week 1 our only job was to learn the campus and get to know each other...so this week we finally got to do a real assignment. Week 2 was all about observing, sketching, and finally posing. The lecture this week really emphasized on "the basics" (the 12 principles of animation) and how important of a tool they are to any animator. We all want to jump in and do an amazingly epic animated shot with Megamind shooting at a giant squid or something....but you have to crawl before you can walk. All shots go back to the basics. If you don't have the basics, your shot will be poop.
To really get us to practice posing, our first assignment was to go out and sketch from life. Observation is a key tool to any animator because it is how we study movement in different and exciting ways. This is why drawing from life is so important. So, I went out and gestured like a madwomen. I felt super rusty and a little strange watching so many people, but I really started to get into the feel of it after the second day. I got in the habit of walking with a sketchbook, and what a difference it makes! Gesturing is different then life drawing. It is not about anatomy; it is about capturing the meaning of the pose. A strong line of action is also extremely important.
Here are my gestures, including the one I choose to create in maya (circled).
After choosing the gesture I really liked, I had to take it into Maya, and using the rig "Stu", bring the pose to life. This was extremely challenging, especially with the pose I had chosen. Thank goodness for the awesome AM community, they really helped me out with all their great feedback. Here is my final pose.
I think it turned out really well, and my mentor really liked it :) I learned a lot from just posing my character and I am looking forward to what the future week has to bring....
~Rachel
