Pantomime shot

Apologies for the delay between posts, I've basically been ill for the whole of April, so have been struggling to keep up with my animation assignments and the day job, let alone blog posting!

However, I'm feeling much better now, so thought I'd get you up to date on my animation.

Class 4 is going great (illness aside!). I have a fantastic mentor who gives great feedback, and lots of it! He is Justin Martinsen, currently working at Double Negative in London, so I actually have a decent Q&A time! 8 in the evening - woohoo! My eyes are open, I'm not wearing pyjamas - it's incredible! You can check out his work (and even his acting skills - check out the Reference comparison section in the animation menu) here.

Our first assignment of the term was a pantomime shot (i.e. telling a story with no dialogue) where we had to pick a scenario that had two contrasting emotional beats in it. Originally, I was going to have Stewie sat crying, and Tailor (the ball with a tail) comes along and snuggles up, trying to cheer him up. That doesn't work, so then Tailor jumps on Stewie and runs all around tickling him and making him laugh.

I really liked that idea, and got a lot of positive feedback from other students about it. HOWEVER, it's my mentor's opinion that counts, and he thought that having Stewie sat there would be too static and that it's good to keep practising the ol' body mechanics. And I agree.

So after several re-thinks and different variations, this is the final shot. Still a story with Stewie and Tailor, and I'm relatively happy with it. Still don't feel like I've really made my animation sing though ... but maybe nobody feels like that about their own shots. Got a fair bit of polishing left to do, but it's getting there.
Let me know what you think!

Pantomime shot from Sarah Knight on Vimeo.