AM Week 2

So, Week 2! It's been a pretty cool week. I'm reluctantly starting to accept the fact that I'm actually hoping to launch a career as a Creative Person, or Artist. Not something I've really thought of myself as before. Animator? Hell yes! Artist? Oooh er. Creative person? Me?!?! (Side note: did you know that a question mark followed by an exclamation mark which I just used twice, is called an interrobang?! Isn't that just the most awesome word?! Look I just used 2 interrobangs in 2 sentences in a row! They're brillant! Anyway, back to my animation adventures...)

The assignment this week was to go out and sketch people in the street and then choose your favourite pose to create in Maya. I was a little hesitant about going out and drawing people. Staring at strangers isn't something I feel comfortable with, nor is drawing in public where people might come and Look At What I'm Doing. However, once I got going, I really started to enjoy myself and have decided that I need to keep sketching (advice that I keep hearing) whether out in the street, or while I'm watching TV just to practise drawing. So that when I move onto the more complicated stuff, I'll be able to really communicate what I'm trying to do, with a few drawings. And people can look at them, and know what I'm saying, without a running dialogue from me "Oh, and that's supposed to be his arm. And yeah, she's actually meant to be riding a bike. Oh, and here, they're hugging, not trying to kill each other". That's the idea anyway! And actually, I'm rather enjoying this drawing malarkey.

I found posing Stu the model harder than I thought I would. To begin with, I just could NOT get his arms to go where I wanted them to. At all. Just ridiculously useless. And I started to panic slightly as classmates had already posted some cool poses, and here was I with one arm bent double behind his back with his elbow coming through his chest, and the other one still stuck out at right angles to his body. And I thought "I must just not be cut out for this. Maybe I can still animate. Maybe there's a market out there for animators who specialize in characters with no arms. Yeah, I don't need to give up on my dream. I just need to stick to animating musical instruments ... or ... or ... double amputees ... "
However, with a little perseverance, and another watch of the "how to" video, I managed to get the hang of it. So I may yet become a fully-fledged animator, able to pose arms and everything!

Got some great feedback from my fellow students, and have submitted the above pose as my final piece of work. Looking forward to my mentor's critique.

Next week we actually get to do something that moves! It's your classic bouncing ball, but at least it's animation! I'm excited.