Digital Acting 2 - Push and Pull animation

Hello!

Another of the tasks in Digital Acting 2 was to create a Push and Pull animation, with two characters interacting with each other in a conflict situation.

The plot for this animation goes as this: Two friends met in a bar, had a couple of drinks and decided to ask for the check. The barman sends the check to the one that asked and then they go into a conflict to decide who pays the drinks. Then the barman decides to intervene and stops them, takes the check away and gives one check to each.

It is not a very polished animation, as this took me around 10 hours more or less to do. Hope you enjoy :)

Digital Acting 2 - Facial Animation and Lip Sync

Good day!

Another activity in Digital Acting 2 was to pose a character that is holding a really dirty and smelly cloth and express the emotion of the character through his posing and facial expression.

We were supposed to use another rig, but I used Max Rig (http://www.3dluvr.com/clisk3d/) since it allows me to set up facial expressions and I already know how to work with it.

I started of by watching myself in the mirror and observe the position of my lips, eyes and eyebrows, to better understand what sort of expression would I do if I was imagining that I was holding this disgusting cloth. What I observed was that my eyes would curve themselves a bit upwards, they would be almost closed. My head would be turning away from the cloth to try and avoid the smell while holding it. My eyebrows would form a sort of inverted U, with the outer parts more curved, and they would go upwards. And my lips curved downwards, in a inverted U form, like my eyebrows. My mouth would be slightly open showing a bit of teeth.

I then grabbed my sketch book and made some simple posing of the body. I did not observe this in myself, I decided to trust my imagination and draw it off to see what i came up with. Result wasn't that bad, and with all this information was time to pose the rig.

I made one simple pose and six different camera shots:

I think that most of the angles, if not all, could work. But that's just me :).

Write you soon!

Digital Acting 2 - Pose and Act

Hello!

Lately Blogger UI has been down so I could not post updates on how my project is going. I have already done some of the activities and Pose and Act was the first. The objective is to pose a rig in two extreme and opposite poses expressing a feeling.

I chose to pose mine in, first, a pose of extreme anger, as if he was taking part of an argument with some other character, and second, and opposed to the first one, a pose of extreme happiness and joy.

These are my poses:

The happy pose works pretty fine, when I posed  the character I tried to have the audience in mind and to think from which perspective would help bring the emotion my character is expressing in a stronger way. I also had in mind that in this case, even though his body language gives the audience a sense of happiness, the flow lines in his pose lead to his face, which is where I intend to lead the audience eyes to.

Now on the angry pose, even though it is strong and expressive, and as it was pointed out by my teacher, there is one thing that could be improved to express exactly the feeling of anger: the camera position. It should be pointing up, towards my character's face. This just gives the pose a much stronger impact towards the audience. I posed him accordingly and this is how it looks:

 

There was also a quiz to be completed with this activity. Here are the questions and my answers:

Question A:

1. Thinking leads to conclusions; emotion leads to action.

Human beings, either consciously or unconsciously, are constantly thinking. Thinking makes us feel, it leads us to emotion according to the situations we are in. And when we feel emotion, we always react to it. This is what makes us humans and sets us aside from other animals.

2. Acting is reacting. Acting is doing.

To do something is a response to a felt emotion. In order to do something towards that emotion, we first need to feel it and then react to it. Humans never sit and feel an emotion without any kind of exterior evidence or reaction shown about it.


3. Character needs to have an objective.

A character needs to be doing something 100% of the time he is in a scene. He needs to have a purpose and pursue that objective by performing actions that will ultimately lead to it.

4. Character plays on action until something happens to make him/her play a different action.

This rule relates to the previous one. Our character needs to constantly be active, to have a purpose or a reason to be doing something, until another objective is presented to him. He should always be moving from one action to another.

5. All actions begin with movement.

Theatrical actions require a more expressive external movement, than real life actions. This is related to the fact that emotions lead to actions. If our character does not express his emotions with an action, he is not acting.

6. Empathy is the magic key as audiences empathize with emotion.

Empathy is what an actor, or character, should make the audience feel towards his expressed emotions. If an audience relates to that characters emotions, they empathize with him and this builds a connection between character and audience.

7. A scene is a negotiation.

Negotiation implies conflict, obstacles and opposing needs, and suggests a positive resolution. Theatrical moments require conflict, they require overcoming obstacles. These conflicts can be internal, with other characters or with the situation.

Question B:

1. Is it best to animate force or form in your character animation?

It is best to animate force because it is a result of thinking and emotion expression and the audience empathizes with that.

2. Who talks about ma? What is ma?

The Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Ma is a pause in the action. Ma, in my point of view, creates a stronger emphasis in sound-less moments in the action of a scene.

3. What is a Power Center? Can you give an example of a Power Center?

Power center is a body reflection of ones personality. Everyone has a different power center. A confident person has its power center in his chest and its power center leads his movements forward, normally pointing his chest out, showing that confidence.

Question C:

1. What is meant by Active listening?

Active listening is actually to be doing something while listening. To hear, understand, determine an answer, realizing your surroundings while not speaking in a dialogue while the other person is talking, and at the same time to express all these actions without saying them.

Question D:

1. Why do you have to remember the fruit salad?

Because you can't reach the end of a scene without having your character to go through all of the thoughts that the scene action requires. Otherwise your character performance will always lack something.

2. Who was Denis Diderot? What did he write about? How does this help animators?

Denis Diderot was a philosopher that wrote about the duality in action, on how an actor must always have control of his performance, and can never be observing their acting. The actors, no matter how much they try, they can't be 100% in the moment of the scene.

His theory is important for animators because the way we act while animating is exactly by using the duality that Diderot refers to. We act and observe our acting.

That's all for now. Be back soon!

Concept Art - Final work and some thoughts

Good evening!

Today I finally managed to finish the whole Concept Art project. I had some problems with my computer, so I had to format my computer on Monday. Good thing they invented disk partitions and external hard drives. It is now time to sum it up. 

To begin with, I would like to explain my point of view when one talks about the term "gang member". It is very easy to have a general idea about gangs and gangsters, they are an active portion of today's society, coming up often on news papers and news reports. 

For me, a gang member is someone that belongs to a group of people that live, and in some cases, die by the same ideals. It is someone that takes part of actions that usually benefit this group, in most cases being those actions illegal ones. Is someone that identifies him/herself with the other members of the group, and this is what makes gangs strong and to stick together. The one thing that probably makes it somewhat different is that my gang member belonged to a gang that was fighting for an ideological good, rather than a material or sentimental one.

This is also the case in my specific story.  I tried to represent it by designing a common identification mark: the red stripe on his pants. It just had to be there.

On another subject, I would like to talk about the clothing style and the way I colored it. My gang member belongs to the low end of the social scale in the 1850's. The only way to reflect and represent this on the design of the character would be the dressing style. He has a regular cotton shirt, typical working trousers, a regular hat and the most common footwear possible for a poor guy (they were called Brogan's). Yes poor because at the time the difference between social classes was tremendous. His clothes are stained from his hard work, most definitely on a mine or possibly a production factory. 

A quick remark about the drawing and painting process. I have always made some drawings and paintings for fun, but I have never learned how to draw or paint properly. I didn't know any techniques. But nowadays with the use of the internet it is possible to find resources for almost anything. 

This was the case. I found a very good website about comic book drawings, http://www.idrawdigital.com/ and even though it is about a specific type of drawing, if one understands the basic flow and techniques, it can be used to any type of drawing. I applied some basic techniques to help me draw the different poses for this drawing. 

As for the painting process, it was easier, because I already use Photoshop a lot. I scanned my drawing and then I clipped the front view by erasing the white paper and isolating the black lines:

 After this it was just about creating several layers for the different clothes and accessories:

And this was how I colored my character.

I would also like to mention why did I chose the axe as his weapon. He is poor, and even belonging to a gang I don't see him having access to fire weapons, as powder was expensive and guns even more. A white weapon just fits and supports everything I want to transmit about my character.

With these choices in mind, I am expecting that when an audience looks at my character, they can identify exactly where he comes from and that they can understand the chronological and social factors he is inserted into. This is, from my understanding, what colors and clothing style should be allusive to in an animated film character design.

One last note on my character, that also has to do with the color's and clothing styles, is that in my story, my character is a "thug", the kind of guy that does the dirty job's, the one that takes the fall. The one that fights and would die to defend what he believes in, which in my story is the love for the Democratic ideology.

So here it is, my final character model sheet:

To conclude my work I will also leave you the final 3D models of the three accessories I chose to model for my character: the boots, the hat and his weapon, the axe.

This was a challenging project, as well as very entertaining and educational for me to go through. I enjoyed myself a lot. I should now go to sleep.

Good night!

Concept Art - About shoes...and hats! As well as axes!!!

Hello!

I have been considering my footwear decision for my gang member, and my conclusion is...the shoes I had previously idealized do not fit him. I mean, after reading about fashion in the 1850's, I came to the conclusion that the type of shoes I had attributed where shoes that would fit a character from the noble social class.

For my working class "thug" I would some "Brogans", that even though they were much more "in fashion" during the civil war, they were previously whore by soldiers and workers,since they were sturdy and trustworthy for a man! They looked like something in these lines:

 

So that's it for shoes. Now about hats...I mean, I really do think that a hat does fit a gang member at the time. First it was very fashion to wear one, second most working class men whore it instead of helmets, since..well, since they really didn't had them. Plus, I love to see my character with it! This one, without the silk stripe, is THE one:

 

 And last, but not least, the last accessory is the axe. I decided to go for a more primitive weapon, since guns were something somewhat exclusive to gang leaders and law enforcement individuals. So this is the axe type, characteristic of the time:

 That's it for now. Be back soon.

Concept Art - References for the gang member

Good morning.

I have been gathering information and visual references for my gang member character concept and his accessories. I found out that, among other things, that shoe fashion in the 1850's was so weird. Men whore quite exquisit shoes as you can see from the following images (yes the first ones are men's shoes).

I decided to go for the following style, as they are more of a regular type of shoes, whore most definitly by the average men at the time:

As for the dressing style it would have to be something related to a normal working class men, simple dirty shirt and pants, with the latter having a red stripe on them. My character will also wear jockstraps, which is a common feature among men fashion at the time.

As fot the accessories I would go for the shoes, definitly either a knife or a sword, maybe even a gun, since the battle at the time had a lot of gun shots going on, but these were probably used by the Police members, however since in America law permited the use of guns among the common civilians and guns were as well distributed by the faction leaders to their supporters, so a gun can also be something a person involved in the conflict would have had. I could use one and it would fit the story. 

However, I am most inclined to not using a gun and instead give my character a weapon that would fit this scenario in a more accurate way: a brick rock, a sword or an axe. This is, in my opinion, a much more fit weapon choice for a common civilian at the time. 

These are the things that run through my mind when I try to visualize a person from 1850's, living in a big city, belonging to the working class. Another thing that is very common fashion among men of the time is mustaches. Maybe I will include one on mine.

There are a couple of things that I should mention. First, when I chose the story to use as a background to my character, I realised that a movie had been done about this specific historical moment in the American society. However, since I have never watched the movie, I do not have a visual image of the happenings, so I am not being influenced by someone else's perspective and ideas of how things should look like, otherwise I would not have chosen this piece of story.

Another thing is why is my character a men instead of a woman. This is simply due to the fact that at the time, women were very opressed, and they had a very specific role in the society, to take care of the house and have children. This is not my opinion of how things should be among men and women, but is just an historical social fact that I am trying to be accurate with. So that's why it will be a male character, since men where the ones taking part in these happenings, as well as in other roles of the society, such as politics, economics, etc.


Now that I have gathered some references it's time to draw and model everything.

I'll be back soon!

Concept Art - Brainstorming for the gang member

Good day!

In the following days I will be developing concept art of a character that fits into a specific story. This story is about a gang member idealized by me, but in relation to a text about a 1960's gang. After some research and a lot of reading about oldschool gangs, I found out that there are plenty of them to choose from, from the Indian mafia to the Japanese Yakuza...a miriad of options.

I have decided to go for a small story about a  predominat Irish gang from the 1850's in New York, more specifically in Manhattan, called "Dead Rabbits".

This gang had it's arch enemy, the "Roach Guards", and they were constantly fighting each other at the Five Points, Manhattan. Althought my story is not about these gang fights between them, it is important to refer it, since they had similiar symbols that identified and diferentiated their gangs: the "Roach Guards" used a blue stripe in their pants, while the "Dead Rabbits" whore a red stripe. There is another symbolic object that the "Dead Rabbits" whore during riots, which is an emblem of a dead rabbit impaled on a spike.

Later on, in 1857, confrontations took place in Manhattan streets between the "Dead Rabbits" and the "Bowery Boys", another Irish gang that tormented the streets at the time. This fight was about political and ideological confrontations, because the "Dead Rabbits" where suporters of the Democrats and their representant in New York, Mayor Fernando Wood, while the "Bowery Boys" supported the Republicans and opposed Wood.

My chosen story is about a small fight between these two gangs, in which the "Dead Rabbits" fought "Bowery Boys", that escalated into a city wide gang war, with several other parties involved, among them the weakened Municipal and Metropolitan Polices. This conflict is know as "Dead Rabbits Riot".

I am now going to develop ideas for a character that would belong to the "Dead Rabbits" and could have participated in this fight, by drawing a character concept, with three accessories referent to this character.

That's all folks! For now.

Concept Art - Posing to a text

 And here it is. My funky guy posed according to this story:

"Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted"

  Now, as you might have noticed, my character is not as feminine as it would be required for this. Nevertheless, he is posing for the story, bending down, while holding his little key to open the misterious door.

 I went and tried some new programs that I have never used before, in this case GIMP, Illustrator and Flash. I have to say that GIMP is a lot like Photoshop, and Illustrator has it's similarities with the former. Flash was something really new, but it was not so hard to get the hang of the basic functionalites. This is what I managed to animate in Flash:

First Style

Second Style

Third Style

Fun stuff to do! Now i'm gonna start on another character art project, this time more serious.

Smell ya later!

Concept Art - Doodely doodling in my sketch book

Good day!

The activity I am presenting is about sketching people around me, without much detail. Doodles! On my sketch book. Well, actually I own several of them since I was 15 years old, sketching has always been something I do on my free time once in while. 

These drawings are based on observation of people poses and not so much on detailed drawing. 

I just want to say a little something about one of the poses I drew that really made me sweat. Running pose! This is something really hard to draw, specially seen from the front. I even decided to make one specific doodle out of it, so that I could improve my first drawing. I think it looks fine, although the legs should be more curved to the inside, so that the weight feeling is more accented.

As part of this activity I was suposed to make a character concept out of the drawings I made. I made one funky "big" guy, unemployed dressing style, the kind of guy that might scratch his b#ls in public...i'm sure he could live in a trailer!

 

So with this done it's time to pose this fella acording to one of three stories that have been given to me to choose from, create three styles for him and animate them. Stay tuned for an update very soon!

Digital acting 1 - Good things and bad things.

Hi all.

I will be commenting on my own animation, covering the topics in pages 256 to 268 from the book "The Animator's Survival Kit". This is a critical post to me (yes, I do speak to myself sometimes).

In my animation, there are several aspects that are in accordance to the methodology explained in the book.

The feeling of weight is almost always present. The character’s body, specially his spine, is always arched according to whether he is pulling the rock upwards of when he is in the potential position to start pulling.

However, I believe that this could have been explored further, and that there are a few poses where this sense of weight gets a bit lost. This can be seen in the poses where he is already holding the rock in the air, and makes an effort to pull it even more upwards. I feel the sensation of weight is not entirely present. Here, maybe a faster pacing could be the key to make this section of the animation even better. 

Otherwise, and without any facial expressions, I believe that I was able to express the feelings of effort, weight and felt emotion on all of the other stages of the animation.

Well this is it for now; I will leave you with another preview of the final animation.