But Did I learn Anything?

Frustration aside, I practiced drawing the key poses for Ballie a dozen times before I actually posed him in the computer itself. I repeated it until I could do it from memory. I can recite by rote where the keys, breakdowns and extremes are in a 24 frame cycle. Not that I want to become stiff and formulatic (is that a word?), but just like playing Jazz ...like Louis Armstrong said..."If you gotta ask, then you'll never know". I've definitly learned to cut down on the number of keys to use and I mark the hell out of my screen with a dry erase sharpie trying to get the curves right. But not just with the animation, but in the curve editor as well. I've found myself setting keys on my character to get the movement right, then going into the curve editor I then trace over the new curve with the dry erase. Then I delete the new key and tweak the curve until it matches the dry erase marks on the screen.

This weeks assignnment is to draw in our sketchbooks our approach to a 180 degree turn of The character, Ballie. I held the sketchbook and spun around 180 degrees while staring at my feet, tryig to feel what was happening, see what was happening and understand every nuance of weight shift. When I got dizzy I jotted a note, then repeated the dance. I drew out Fred Astaire footsteps for Ballie to Follow. Amazingly complicated proceedure for a simple 180 turn.

I was watching an iPod commercail directed by Mark Romanek and I was thinking that it would be fun to animate those extreme hip hop dancers with Stu. Talk about biting off more than I could chew. But that is the question. I nned to take small bites that I can digest, but I have to really push myself to grow. I'm so afraid of being mediocre. But here I am.

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