Wow, I haven't post in a month.....
It's been a very stressful time for me, with graduation on the horizon and everything. I was getting depressed and angry like a hungry and tired kid. It also caused my animation to suffer. When I was depressed, my art was also reflected it. I was working on my dialog test at that time, and I could see that I just lost it. I lost the motivation to even work on it, and the animation also stopped shining, it became dead. I wasn't sure if I even should put this up, but I thought you can see how lifeless this is.
After i was done with this, I critiqued myself. The part that I should work on the most right now is, the force. I can see on this test that I was forcing her to move a certain way, instead of bringing her to life. The force was so unnatural. I was ignoring the natural force, and I was making up the force I wanted and made her move my way, and it showed how lifeless she is. I was forcing her to move where I wanted and the result was a puppet.
So all this was said, I am feeling better. And I am still not fully okay. I am still scared. But I realized it is okay to be scared. It is okay to curl up one day and not do anything. It's okay that I am not okay. And I felt much better.
After the dialog test, I was doing some inbetweens for Mike's short animation. It was my first time to do only inbetweens, and I was so scared to mess that up. The point I learned most from the experience was timing. How he put the timing, or how he timed it just amazed me. My eyes cannot really see it yet, but I could feel the difference.
I am frustrated with timing right now. My timing tends to be so even, or my eyes just cannot see it! I felt like "well, my eyes cannot see it! So I might not even be able to an animator ever!!" Because I know there are some people, who is just so good at timing (like Matt) They naturally just get the timing right away. And I am so opposite. I don't get it right away.
I am working on a just simple action test. I did this one straight ahead, and I shot it with my timing, but it didn't look right. It didn't look like there is life. It still looked so forced.
And I tried every other timing, like putting ones' two's, ( that's what I thought), and I asked Mike for feedback, and he just changed a few timings and it looked much better, (he must have a magic hand) it looked much better, and I was so amazed. I wasn't sure if my drawings or poses were wrong, but it was more about timing.
This is not finished yet, I fixed his right leg, shifted more forward so he doesn't look like he is falling forward as he reaches the ball, and I am doing tie downs to show his cloth or show the shapes to reinforce the force. ( That's what mike said, but I am not really sure how to do that yet, but I will learn hopefully...) Action is hard for me. I cannot think, even though I act it out, I cannot analyze it and I get confused, it's frustrating! I guess everything is frustrating in animation. But Mike said that frustration is the growing part, artists never take no for an answer. So I will not say to myself, " no, I can't do it," but say yes, " I will get it someday." I just have to be a little bit more patient to myself....
