Challenge Results & Other "News"....

Well the results are in, and the winner is.... Fernando Porcel! (see last post). You can check out his entry along with the other winners Here There were a lot of good ones & all the winners deserve a congrats. Ferx scored himself a copy of digicel flipbook lite, so I'm sure he'll have some new stuff for us soon.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... I just got some good news today, I'm officially enrolled in school again, pursuing a B.A. in Digital Arts. I work at a university so the price is right, & while they don't have an animation major here per se, the Dart program does involve a few animation classes. Plus I'm going to learn loads of stuff I need to know whether they are artistic or technical skills. I'm really pumped about getting started, it was looking like I was too late for this semester, but they hooked me up :). I start Thursday with a drawing class that I'm very much looking forward to. Really psyched to get some formal education behind the past year's hobby.

So that's my big news, I can now at least guarantee a certain amount of work over the next few months & I'll be sure to post my progress through the drawing class. For now, here's a little drawing I did last night. Took roughly 45 min, but I had to get up a few times while working on it, so that's just a guess. Not thrilled with it, but it's O.K. I didn't get to finish the basket, & the bananas need a lot of love. In my defense though the general darkness around the left & bottom edges is a result of bad scanning, the BG is really a pretty even tone of grey. Crits & comments are most welcome.

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Mmmmm... Eye Candy

Here is a piece from a good friend of mine, Fernando "Ferx" Porcel. He entered this in a recent challenge at the CG Society, and I can only hope he won (if he didn't then something just isn't right in the world). I was so blown away by this that I felt the need to help spread it around so that other people can enjoy it as well.
He calls it "Lobsters For Dinner" and there is a short story that goes with the painting. You can read the narrative HERE. I believe he worked on this for about 2 months, and it shows. I'm not art critic, but this looks like a snapshot from a Disney movie or something of equal caliber. Enjoy it, I'll be sure to pass along any comments to Fernando.

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Walk Cycle Final

Finished the walk finally! Pretty happy with it, although there are still things I could improve on for sure. But this is what I handed in for the Winter Challenge atAnimationforum.net . I'll post an update with the results when they come in, but in the meantime let me hear what you think! Oh & do check out the other entries, there are some really good ones & the competition will be tough to judge I'm sure.

Here's a link to the fullscreen version
Cheers

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Getting there...

Yet another update on the walk cycle. I keep falling in & out of love with it now, I think I've just been staring at the same thing for too long. I was absolutely hating it last night, but then I got some really good feedback this morning, so maybe I was being a bit hard on myself. Regardless, it's still not where I want it to be, but it is getting closer. I should be able to get it done to my liking in the near future.

Here are 2 versions of the walk. First is 28 frames looping on 1's, then 56 frames looping on 2's. I also did a quick & dirty BG in TBS based on the sketch in my previous post. Ultimately I'd like to animate most of the BG elements to make the world seem "alive," but I'm not going to worry about that until the walk is where I want it. It's not a BG contest afterall...

I'm very curious to hear opinions on these, especially in terms of fast vs slow. Everytime I look at it again I like a different version, & I'm having trouble deciding. Is it too fast on 1's? Too slow on 2's? Aaaaaahhhhh!!! *pulls hair out* Well, whatever I go with I just hope I get it looking good by the end. I've already learned a lot through the 6 million mistakes I've corrected already & there are plenty more to go... So in the meantime, please give me your thoughts on the 2 versions.
On 1's

On 2's

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