Category: Student Showcase

Student Showcase 4

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” — Aristotle, Philosopher

In continuing our Student Showcase series of BEFORE and AFTER (Private Training with me here at Animated Spirit), I’d like to discuss today the progress of two artists who have exhibited exceptional patience in their development. One had worked a bit in television animation, the other in alternative media. Both had training at a solid and well-established online schooling program. The hope upon working with me was to bring their skills and confidence to the next level — one that would secure their future in terms of creative capacity as well as bring greater inner fulfillment from the work itself. Both these students displayed great discipline and sustained persistence in their learning and I’m most happy to say that their devotion has been well-rewarded. Both are now capable feature-quality animators.

Rachel Chelius — BEFORE

As can be seen above, Rachel’s work prior to her training with me exhibited the kind of standard rushed timing and vague posing common to television animation. There is action but there isn’t physical or psychological clarity in the work. Although some of it can be attributed to the design and style of the show, there is no real demonstration of acting or dynamism that either grabs or holds the viewer’s attention. Fundamental concepts such as Lead and Follow, Drag, Follow-Thru and Overlap are missing in most places lending a weightless quality to the animation.The posing is also lacking; shapes are flat and staging of the characters lack appeal due to repeated symmetry and poor use of straights and curves in their design.

Rachel Chelius — AFTER

In Rachel’s AFTER shot, we see a remarkable jump in the artist’s quality of understanding. Not only do we have an interesting well-thought out story and set up, there is both tension and rewarding action. The vampire character is noticeably fascinating in just the way he is introduced to the viewer and subsequently in his awakening. The poses are clear, bold and appealing. The timing is sharp. The body and all its appendages have just the right amount of weight and creative action. The variation in the shape changes and the depth in movement also give the scene great texture. There’s proper respect for body construction (anatomy) and the mechanics are rock solid. The animator’s joy can be felt in each perfect little movement, which is a direct indication of the amount of thought, planning and passion that went into its making. The result is remarkably fresh; a deliciously playful and entertaining shot that is loaded with character uniqueness.

Irina Wolf — BEFORE

In this “student” shot — which was done during her schooling but has been slightly fixed up afterwards — we can see that Irina already exhibited a very basic understanding of quadraped animation. The work is okay if not particularly interesting. The timing is fairly smooth, and although the weight is, like most other things about it — acceptable — it nonetheless doesn’t feel heavy or impacful. This was consistent in other work the artist had done prior to her apprenticeship with me. To do more interesting and more powerful work, we needed to revise how she needed to think, plan and approach her animations and not just add to the plethora of tricks and techniques that one is forced to remember.

Irina Wolf — AFTER

In this AFTER shot, Irina had by this time become a completely different animator. After two years of training, she had already demonstrated to me an understanding of bipedal naturalistic and cartoony animation — part of the program of assignments/tests I make all my students go through. By the time she was ready to be challenged with advanced camera work and storytelling, I wanted to see how she’d respond with a much more complicated quadraped animation than the one she did prior (a nicely done shot with two Siamese Cats, which can be seen here). In doing this multi-cut scene, a story with drama needed to be written and designed by the animator that felt cinematic, for that was the challenge. Using a dragon rig/model also added complexities of weight in flight, the unusual appendages such as heavy wings and large tail would force the animator to be extra mindful of both the acting and execution implications regarding their usage. The end result achieved is beautiful. The camera cuts are clean and clear (note the seamless cut between the second and third shot) and the dynamic action flows wonderfully within beautiful paths of action. The creature has solid weight, with nice holds and slow-ins/slow-outs, and her actions seem driven from within, making her a sympathetic character worth following. It is an excellent performance by the artist.

Summary:

It takes time to get there. But when students get results such as these after their training here, it gives me, their teacher, a great joy and satisfaction in having been part of their learning and growing experience — an experience whereby I know they had A LOT OF FUN going thru, and that afterall, is the most important thing of all.

Student Showcase 3

“… to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.” — Kahlil Gibran, Philosopher/Artist

In the next few of weeks, I’ll be showcasing some more work from my current students/clientele. What will be unique is that it will FEATURE THE STUDENTS WORK BEFORE ATTENDING MY CLASSES VERSUS AFTER. This before and after comparison is not meant to showcase so much my own ability as an art teacher/consultant/mentor but rather to demonstrate what can be achieved in relatively short time when an artist comes to understanding and learning the craft in the right way. The exercise is also meant to demonstrate the individual artists’ hard work, passion and devotion to the art they love — so much that they are willing to humbly put in the time and attention to improve their skillset. It has been a great joy to work with them and see their continuing growth.

BEFORE:

It is clear from this shot above that the animator here needed a lot of help. Despite various forms of schooling and much time devoted to studying the craft, Robert struggled to understand the most essential basics of animation; clarity of story, simplicity of design and functional body mechanics are all missing. The shot above demonstrates what happens when students are not learning or working in the right order, with no proper work flow from concept to execution. The near complete absence of all the things that make good animation such as weight, good posing, solid timing, fluidity and appeal make the scene hard to watch. What dominates is confusion, busyness and noise. The body mechanics are a disaster and the creative challenges the student faced was far too much both artistically and mechanically for him to handle. A student at his level should never be attempting shots with that level of complexity. It’s unfortunate, but the work above is emblematic of the many students (and not just this student) who attend various classes but fail to grasp the concepts discussed, merely doing the exercise without the proper feedback or direction that would address the artist’s needs. Effort misguided can lead to further frustration and actually create greater impediments to real growth.

AFTER:

As Robert’s teacher I’ve had to rebuild him from the ground up; re-instilling in him the right way to conceive, plan and approach his work. Much work was placed in strengthening the basics such as weight, timing and design in movement. By the time we got him working on this aviation shot — a bird was chosen for its simplicity in design — the goal was to train the him, at this stage, to further clean up the way he thought and thus the way he worked, first by working in layers of action, and then by teaching him to work straight-ahead to get him over the mental struggle of working in spline mode. Sometimes artists may block a shot okay in stepped mode (pose to pose) but struggle in transition to spline (full-inbetweening); their work gets choppy and ugly. By choosing an animal in flight, the challenges presented by arms are simplified as are all the other complexities associated with human anatomy. The focus becomes movement and movement alone. It’s a very simple shot, but what’s achieved here is clarity of action, smooth-flowing movement, and a believable presentation of weight. The two shots, when compared, look to be done by two completely different artists. Robert, so far, has come a long way from where he started. It’s not easy to make this kind of jump, but the animator has shown that with hard work and dedication, that it can be done.

BEFORE:

In Jayson’s work prior to our classes, it is clear he struggled with giving his work weight. There is also no depth or sharpness to the animation presented above; things are floaty, flat and lacking any kind of snap or punch, ironically ill-demonstrated in a combat shot. Again, we see an artist who is tackling something he’s not quite ready to do — in this case, a shot involving two characters. It takes great skill and care to animate multi-character interaction shots; not only do we have to worry about constraints and penetration issues, but the application of forces is both varied and complex. We can also see — despite the camaflouging effect of the robotic costume designs — that the anatomy (or body construction) of the characters is not being respected; the joints don’t move right so there is not torque, and the elbows/knees (the pole vectors) are all animated incorrectly. Furthermore, the foot placement is poor and lacks perspective or interest and actions of the limbs are wobbly. The result is work that has neither appeal in design nor believable application of forces. Hence, despite all the kicking and punching, there is no power or feeling in the movements.

AFTER:

In this newer shot, we can already see that in a very short time — Jayson has only just started with me — we’ve been able to remedy a lot of the problems seen in his older work. Sticking with a similar “profile” camera view for the action, we nonetheless witness a much better presentation of the body in motion. Not only is the story simple and clear, the movements have appeal, weight and sharpness in timing. It’s a cartoony shot but one that respects the proportions of the model while demonstrating good squash and stretch, drag, follow-thru and overlapping action. Each key in the blocking phase has been carefully placed and solidified before the artist moved into the breakdown work and splining. There is texture and timing to the whole choreography and a personality (charm) comes across because of the care and attention paid to the design and mechanics. The final result is a shot that looks simple and clear yet also fun. I know he had a lot of fun doing it and we both look forward to how far his skills will continue to jump.

To see more from the Student Showcase Series, go here.