Shot 2 Dogs Trust

I have now begun the second shot of the second animation for our campaign. We will not be submitting our second animation as it will not be finished in time for the competition, but we will be submitting our first complete animation. I feel that this shot is going much better than the last one, probably because the angle is much less difficult to get. I have to fix the humans walk cycle because she slows down a bit too much between steps, but i am happy with how the action of her crouching down looks. I used footage of myself doing this action to get it right. At this point in time i still need to add in-betweens to this shot.

Dogs Trust progress

I have now finished the first shot of the second animation for our dogs trust campaign. I found it very difficult to add the flesh to the stick outline i had before, especially when deciding at what point the dogs knees bend. I found Richard Williams guide to animal walk patterns helpful to understand where the knees would bend. I moved the dog forward as it walks more this week after feedback that it doesnt move enough for the steps it takes, but i still feel that I could improve this and may come back to it if i have the time. Now i will pass this scene on to Medi for colouring and cleaning up. 

Finished Backgrounds - Dogs Trust

Below are my finished backgrounds for the dog's trust campaign. 

What went well:

• Watercolour in the park and kitchen scenes
• pastel colours convey cheerful mood in the second half of the animation
• textures in alleyway scene
• backgrounds suit the feel of the animation

What could be improved:

• I messed up the living room scene by colouring the entire floor, rather than leaving some of it uncoloured or using a lighter colour. This will be greyscaled anyway but I know i could have done better by being less hasty with my colour choices.
• I also spilled a little bit of paint on the park background, which is annoying, but I didn't have time to fix or redo it.

Scene 1 walk cycle

This week i began animating, starting with a walk cycle for the first scene of the animation. This is my first attempt at a four-legged walk cycle, so i found it challenging, especially at the angle which the dog comes towards the camera. I found the following videos extremely useful in planning out the steps and timing for the cycle, especially the 3/4 guide as there weren't many videos on how to get the steps right at this angle. I found the method of marking where each step would go and at which frame very useful, the back legs usually being two frames faster than the front. I also used Eadweard Muybridge's study on a 'marching dog' useful to see how what each step looks like. 

What went well:

• Plotting each step of the walk cycle and getting the right timing
• finding the right perspective for the scene
• getting the rhythm of the body to correlate with the steps

What could be improved:

• the dog is a bit far over so i need to make him walk towards the camera more
• making the dog bigger as he walks closer to the camera
• moving the dog forward more with each step to fix the 'skating' effect