February Sketchbook Page #4 and New Figure Drawings

February Sketches #3

Favorite Performance: Baby Boss

Brilliant depiction of baby mannerisms that isn't the cliche crawling around saying goo-goo gaa-gaa.

One Of My Favorite Acting Scenes

          Back in my 3rd year of college, I was taking 3D Computer Animation 2 with one of my favorite professors, Warren Trezavant. He always encouraged us to bring in either a single shot or a whole scene that had acting choices that we really liked. We would show the scene to the rest of the class and talk about why we feel it works so well. Then he would go through the scene frame by frame to show us the use of  animation principles that strengthen the performance(if it was an animated scene). Whether live action or animated he would also help us breakdown the scene to determine the acting & storytelling principles such as, the goal, the tactics, the physical task, visual rhythm, the offsetting of actions, how the spotlight of attention is being moved around etc.

          I still keep up with collecting my favorite performances, breaking them down and identifying which principles or mechanics are being used. One of my favorites is this scene from Rise of the Guardians, where Jack Frost and Pitch Black confront each other in Antarctica.

One specific part that stuck out to me was between 00:11-00:13 Pitch has this almost hidden smirk as he says, "...and I'll let her go." Which is a great example of a subtle acting choice that complements his personality. When Pitch gets the staff he does this swaggering sway almost like a little dance to say, "I win." As he does this he still has that smirk and gives Jack this up and down look that reveals his thought of "How could you be so foolish?" Then that smirk immediately drops, his eyebrows flick up, his "dance" stops and he does only a slight head shake when he says, "No." 

          Students starting out in animation tend to be over dramatic when they first animate a real acting scene (as oppose to a bouncing ball or a vanilla walk cycle). This scene is a great example of subtle acting. That subtlety is actually a much stronger choice for a character like Pitch. That response could have gone the route an over dramatic "BWAHAHAHA!!! I lied because I'M EVIL!!" (Not those words exactly, but you get the idea.) However, Pitch is not one of those comedic villains that screams his dastardly plans at the top of his lungs. He is calculating, swift and always lurking in the shadows, so subtlety suits him best.

Phrasing and Fixed Painting

Here are some of the mouth shapes for a character I am animating for a personal project.

Here is a previous painting I did. I realized the angular gentleman's arms were too long so I made them shorter.

For reference here is what it looked like before: http://crazyninjasquirrel.blogspot.com/2014/10/very-close-to-being-done.html

February Sketchbook Pages #2

February Sketchbook Pages

Jan/Feb sketches