Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Madam Mim Dialog Animation

Well it's been a while since I last uploaded, I don't know how many people still check my blog. I have been busy at work, with overtime and everything. It was hard to find time to sit down in front of the computer and start blogging again. Work has been good but I still have to do animation tests in my spare time so I can one day move up to become and animator rather than an inbetweener. So I have been working on this dialog test with Madam Mim for a while.

I've been getting a lot of great feedback from Mark Henn and he has been passing on a lot of great information taught to him through the ages of animators. The first thing I've learned from him is about thumb nailing, he said Eric Larson told him to do thumbnails like a circle, you should start with one idea, thumbnail it, and move onto the next and next and go full-circle back to the original idea, and then pick the best one from there to make sure you've tried everything possible so that you don't cheat the audience. Sometimes you may find the original idea is your favorite and you choose it, but at least you know you tried everything.

So after thumb nailing I started animating my ruff, and one thing I need to be aware of in the future is that Mark said you can be ruff, but you still need to be careful and make sure the proportions are still accurate. Mine were not and this caused me a lot of problems down the line when I was tying down.

So now I've started to tie down and putting in all of the dialog. I always have problems with my dialog, the mouth shapes tend to be mushy. One time I was working with Mike Surrey putting inbetweens for his dialog animation, and I put the mouths very evenly and it looked very mushy. He told me to favor one mouth shape over the other. Also Yoshi (A Japanese French animator) gave me feedback on mouth shapes telling me to watch the Arc of the edges of the mouth where the lips fold the most, and now it looks so much better once I went back and did that.

Here is the half tied down and half ruff scene, you can see all of the various stages. I still need to animate how she puts her hair up, the rest of the mouthshapes, and overlapping action to her hair.

8 comments:

Bobby Pontillas said...

Thanks for sharing Miyuki. These guys are like superstars to me and its so cool to hear about your experiences working with them. "Ideas, choices, execution." Thats perfectly said.

Good luck with the rest of your shot too! Its looking great so far, proportions seem on point but its still loose. Love the idea too.

Neverrated said...

whats up miyuki, good too see ya bloging again after a long hiatus.but aw man i hear ya about the overtime and working late, I am back in LA working at an animation studio and it feels good to be in the industry finally. but i've been working late my self and sometimes on weekends, tough work but very rewarding at the end.

I feel ya on the mouth shapes, It was my worst enemy too. and i quickly found that out when my directors got on to me about it, but after that i have gotten much better with dialog, i am learning alot so far.

Its good to see ya post the animation and it looks great. hope to see more work from ya!

Justin Ridge said...

Ooooh! I like where the test is going. I'm sure you'll have fun finishing the hair-- it's a really funny idea!

The advice from Mark about being ruff is such a good thing to keep in mind. It's hard especially when you're searching for the right shapes or right feeling, but I kinda see it as time travelling while drawing. You're putting down the lines to work in the present, but also so they'll work nicely into the future drawings.

Chris Palmer said...

great stuff Miyuki! it's nice to see all of the various stages of animation progress in there.

J. Wood said...

Thanks again for the tour Miyuki, it's always nice to see you :) You're animation is looking great! I enjoy all the insights you share as well, looking forward to more.

Mike Nassar said...

awesome Miyuki! looks really cool. yeah being rough and being careful i think comes with experience, seeing and feeling the shapes before putting a line down on paper, you'll get it as long as you keep drawing a storm.

hope all is well!

Chan Ghee Leow said...

This has been a very interesting blog. Thanks for sharing all your experiences at July Films and at Disney. This is probably the closest I've ever been to Disney :)

Miyuki Kanno Long said...

Thank you everyone for all the comments! And I'm so sorry for late replays!

Hi Bobby, thank you for stopping by my blog. They are my superstars for me, too! I am really thankful that I had a chance to learn from them. I will try to keep writing what I have learned from all the great other animators, I think it will benefit other people, too. Thank you!

Hi Justin(Jenkins), I'm glad you are doing well. Where do you work at now? It seems like you are animating, too, so that's great! I think keep learning is very important to be a good artist. I hope I will see you soon again!

Hi Justin, thank you for visiting my blog. I think it's so true how you describe to put down the lines to work in the present, and work into the future. I need to keep it mind to keep feeling the force of the animation, and it will lead me to the next drawing. Hope you are doing well!

Hi Chris, thank you for your comments! I will try to upload the finished animation soon!

Hi Jennifer! It was nice to see you at the studio! We should get together again! I will try to keep it post whatever I learned here, and it actually help me to look back and tell myself what's important. See you soon!

Hi Mike! It's been a while since I saw you! How is everything going? We should have lunch sometimes!

Hi Chan Ghee, thank you for stopping by my blog:) I will try to keep update!