Boy and a blob (March 2012)
Monday, July 2, 2012 I wanted to add anther shot to my reel with two weeks before GDC.
Lessons learned
1. Give your audience more credit
The idea started simple, a boy interacting with a blob character, but I was wary because I felt the relationship between the characters may not be readily apparent. I gradually added more frames before and after my initial concept to help establish the scene and before I knew it the shot had managed to reach 35 seconds. Instead of adding more frames to help get the idea across, I should have given the audience more credit to be able to figure out what is happening as well as keeping my idea simple.
2. Keep the idea simple
It takes more skill to get your ideas and story across in a shorter amount of time in my experience. It’s easy to rely on the dialogue of a scene to set the tone/mood, however, this not only can be done with character interaction, but also with the environment and setting. I tend to get carried away when left to create my own shot- “What if I add this? That would be awesome! Oh, and this other thing too!” Especially with such a short deadline, a core idea that could have been brought to polish would have been more reasonable.
Things that went right
1. New workflow
Every animator has a different workflow and workflows can change from each shot they work on. My workflow while working on this scene focused a lot more on a solid blocking pass before moving forward. This really helped me get my ideas nailed down and working quickly. It also helped reaffirm how important it is for me to keep my scene clean during this pass to allow for easy editing. If there’s a part that’s not working, cut it out and start over.
2. Having fun
Although the shot is not finished, I’m happy with how much I accomplished in just two weeks. Not every shot can be a shot for your demo reel and I think the most important part is to have fun while you’re animating.
Credits:
Boy rig provided by Animation Mentor
Blob rig provided by www.animationscout.tv