Chapter 2 - The House of Haunted Keys

I started my blocking last week. After the lecture and the class, I really want to try a new workflow. This time around I really pay attention for the amount of key that i put in. I really tried to make sure that each keys flows nicely, I believe that I have to put more breakdowns this week. I also found out that I did not exceed the frame limit, in fact it was pretty close, I had my shot end at f240 on my planning and I have it ends at f230. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing cause for some reason I don't trust the numbers. I feel that it better to trust the instinct and the feeling instead of the numbers.

A little bit off the track here. I think next time I should analyse the video reference that has a correct angle. I think this would make the drawing stage easier. Looking back at the drawing, i think some of the shapes there are not correct..but at the end of the day, i think this all come back to our ability to analyse the reference and our body mechanics :O .. Here is the blocking for my shot.. there are tons of stuff that need to be refined here D: 

---

Chapter 2 - Experiment part 1

The past 3 weeks was indeed very super mega challenging..so, this is what happened..

Week 2 was the week when I transferred my sketches to Maya. I had to change my planning and make it simpler. It was so hard because this time around my mentor really taught me about story telling. It is not only about 'create a story' and the rest is history, but now it is about 'building a story'. It never really hits me that how our head moving, a quick look to the left, and other small, tiny detailed actions would affect our shot. Our body movement is part of the acting choices. It is easy when we talk about it, but in my case.. I definitely still have to learn a lot. Moving on to how i approached my shot. This time around, i was really impressed with the plateau workflow that was introduced on the lecture this week. I decided to try this workflow right away. During my planning and blocking pass, I felt that plateau workflow worked really well for me. This workflow helped me to figure out the timing faster and not to mention it created in between poses for me (me such a lazy **s.. tsk tsk tsk..). It pretty much made feel that i might have already done with my blocking. Below are 2 clips from week 2:

 

 Silhouette stewie, to see if the poses are readable

Original View

Looking back at my shot now, the main reason why i felt like i have finished with my blocking is mainly because the curves at plateau mode have an easing in and easing out. I was very please to see the outcome because i thought it was good enough and because it felt like all the poses are in the right place, right timing and looks like it has a quite all right spacing. Boy i was Wrong.. i guess there is not such thing as 'i have finished with my blocking' and when do we actually finish our blocking? I don't have a definite answer for that for now. I hope i would find the answer in the future. Anyway, i learnt that the easing in and easing out, they created this illusion of timing. I am not sure how i am going to explain this but in a nut shell, it felt pretty much very mechanical, very pose A to pose B kind of feeling. At that time, I of course did not realize this.

(go to part 2)

---

Chapter 2.2 - Blocking The Hopscotch!

This week is the the first stage of my blocking! I found it very challenging, mostly because with hopscotch, i have so many similar poses and my mentor suggested me to exaggerate the poses so that i would have contrast in between the poses, and exaggerate the weight shift. I also struggle with the frame limit, i need to cut down some of my hops so i dont exceed the frame limit. I had some dilemmas about which part i should cut out, for example: should i cut out the walks at the beginning of the scene or the ending or the hops :/. I really think i should focus on the hops.. but at the same time i would love to have the intro-content-ending aspect on my scene. Below are my process:

40% blocking:

Before i cut out the hops

After the cut out:

First pass blocking:

---

Chapter 2.1 - Hopscotch

I made my mind, hopscotch is the winner! :) I was a little bit unsure on how i will draw my thumbnails.. i have tendencies to draw every details which leans to almost rotoscope my video reference. I thought i should draw this frame by frame which i tried, and it was way too complicated and extremely unclear.. and coloured pencils did not help :( i remember one of the mentor show us a thumbnail sheet on the lecture..i thought i will make my own version of the thumbnail sheet. I also made a list of the elements that i need to put on my planning so i will not forget them. At first i was still.. sort of  rotoscopig my video reference.. i drew the essential poses on my thumbnail sheet.. and then, when i refined my planning.. it came to my mind an idea, that i should treat this like drawing a comic! i used to draw comics.. and why dont i apply this to my planning, maybe it'll work :) So here is my attempt, i think this works for me.. because i got the rough timing, the main key poses, and the weight shift. One thing i did not get is the distance of the translation z or whatever it is that goes forward..

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 6

These are the poses that got a lot of votes from the beavers.. I got a little bit confused with which one i should use .. so i decided to re-sketched each poses and see which one that has the most interesting LoE.. my personal favourites are 14,16,17, and 21 ..

I decided to choose no 17 because it shows a long LoE.. and shows the entire body shape.. I also think 14 has a lot of potential.. but i dont want that big bag obstructing the view.. it could be a good challenge though :).. i previously have also tried out pose no 22 .. I like the outcome .. but i dont think i want to submit a dead body of stu for my 2nd assignment at school ^^'' ..

This is my first try out of pose 17

---

Revision

 

I received feedbacks from some of my friends about the FK arm ..oh gosh .. i found it a little bit difficult to work with FK controller .. I always work with IK controller and i find it very easy to change the shape. Uh well, i think this is because i hardly use FK controller that's why it felt so difficult. I also found out when i changed the FK arm, I also have to change the shape of the whole body..

Revision 2

More fix for the pose! i was advised to bend his torso a little bit (thanks steve) .. i think the tips work.. i obtain a more natural FK arm bend .. oh FK .. i really relly have a hard time with you! i think this is my final pose for the assignment :) i will edit the light .. it looks so gloomy now ^^

The process:

change log:

1. First attempt

2. Tweak the body and head. Bend the FK arm to give balance to the pose

3. Bend on torso area, more fix on FK arm. Change the head direction

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 5

Posing with Stu ^^

Stu is .. murdered ...

Revision:

I received a lot of feedback from the beavers ^^ .. cheri and walter told me about the natural action of the hands.. even though the person is laying on the ground.. a hand shape should not laying straight like the one i had on my pose.. there should be a slight bend on the fingers and any other hand area.. it is such a great advise because it did not come across my mind at all.. I tried to apply that on my revision pose above :)

At the moment i have difficulties to choose my final pose.. i just watched the assignment video again.. i think i will spend some time refining some of my favourite poses...

---

Pose 2

 

 

this pose is more difficult than the first one i did .. i am a little bit worried about this one because the meaning of the the final pose (bottom left) is sort of departed from the meaning of the original pose..

---

Revision

trying to fix the pose ... but it is still not quite right ...

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 4

I have compiled my sketches.. following are the poses I chose.. My favourite is #12

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 3

I sketched more poses, but this time I did it using a different approach. I chatted with Yen-Shih couple days ago and he told me that we are allowed to draw based on a still image. I think that is a really good idea and it did not come across my mind. So I decided to sketch the poses based on image stills from the television series and 2 statues at my home. I found that it was easier for me to draw the pose through this method because it allows me to analyse the body shape and the line of actions thoroughly. One benefit from this method is that I could pause the television whenever I saw a good pose happening. The flaw would be the inability to observe the whole pose due to the scene framing. The solution for this is simply to re-create the pose by yourself and ask someone to take a picture of you... and that would be.. a little bit.. awkward.. ^^

This time I also have an upgrade for my sketches. They are not so stick figure-y now! They have boxes to represent their body parts! and these boxes really help A lot .. :)
Now I am going to pick my poses .. and i might need your help to choose my final ones ..
see you shortly :)

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 2

I did a test two days ago. This is Stu doing a salute. I like the first render .. but I feel that the pose is very stiff.. It is supposed to be stiff because he is giving a salute, but the pose looks so unappealing.. So I tried to break down the stiffness and give a little bit of an arc in his pose.. I still feel something is not quite right.. I hope you guys could help me :)

---

Revision:

not much change for the revision, i took some advises from the beavers :) but it seems i really couldn't do much for this pose .. i will leave it here and continue to practice with other poses :)

---

Chapter Two - The Poses part 1

I went to the park yesterday to sketch up some people. Unfortunately there were only a kid with his bicycle, his dad, me, and my dogs. There were also a lot of people working on the construction site. I found it quite a challenge since i have never done this before. It was so hard to sketch them because they kept moving. At some point i became a little bit upset because i saw them in such a great pose but i was unable to draw it and the poses happened just only in a split second. I decided to record their activities and um ... it appears that i recorded the whole action wrongly, so i pretty much got .. nothing ^^''. Well it was a challenge, i guess i just have to do it more often and get used with the process :)

Some stuff that I learnt from yesterday was I become more aware about the line of actions that happen in the body. As I struggled to draw the pose, I decided to draw the line of actions first and then continue to draw the figure. Somehow it really helped me.. the tricky part would be when I drew the legs and hip. The reason is because when I reviewed the poses I drew.. I got them all mixed up. I confused with which one is the right leg and which one is the left leg and which way the hip is moving..

Here are my best attempts. I should do more drawings from now on..not an ordinary drawing, but a speed drawing.. hehe. Well folks.. Say hi to my stick figures! ^^ .. don't laugh! ^^''

---