working through 51 animation exercises to improve and would love your help

Jmcmil20

hey everybody, I realized I wanted this year to be different and for me to engage the community I love more..I've been working through the list of animation exercises because quite frankly I don't think I got the fundamentals I needed in college...so it's back to square one before i try more difficult things..anywho I would love feedback on this. I know there is a lot to improve but I don't know where to start or how it's reading. Thanks in advance everyone

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/b90eb4b9d846/#339310

EVernier

Hey, I went through your animation and left you a handful of notes.

Before you look at the notes I want to say you shouldn't undersell yourself. Looking at the animation, I strongly believe you have a good understanding of those fundamentals, just keep practicing and try to keep a visual reminder of stuff you should be looking at during your different animation passes (you can find a few different workflows on the internet and what principles they prioritize in each pass). I think this clip needs a final polish pass, but you're very close to having something solid.


I didn't have problems with the readability of the animation, we know what's going on, but I would add a few frames at the beginning so the viewer has time to understand the scene before the action happens.

I didn't add it to the syncsketch, but you should work on the movement of the tie. Cloth can be time consuming to animate properly, but it always looks neat in the end and adds life to the character. Not to mention you can use it to improve on your lines of action and overall arcs!

Jmcmil20

Hey, thanks so much for your help thus far.  I'll do my best to address everything you mentioned. I know polish is something I've always /ALWays struggled with and I figured by doing a series of shorter shots maybe I could address that.  It's amazing though how fast you can lose your eyes to a shot though and I hate it lol. It's hard for me to work through passes too because I always want to add too much in the beginning and I wish I could view it all like an illustration where it's organic and not a by-the-book thing ya know? Maybe in time hah.. anyway thanks so much for your help!

AGoodFella

I feel like the sneeze could be a LOT stronger. Right now, there is a lot of build up but no pay off. The sneeze feels weak. Really push it, that's what this shot is all about so really make the sneeze strong.

brucemoose

Hey man, nice sneeze I would definately amp up the timing it would have been nice to have seen it in stepped because there's a ton of things to track and critique when it's fully polished. The head is looking really nice and I like the reversal on the hands.

There is some noise on your elbows if you track it it looks like it's fk so that could be coming from your main controller or a multitude of axis.

Honestly if you really want to get back to basics and square one then I stress that focusing on the ball or the ball and tail etc will be much more beneficial practice, a sneeze like this is actually really advanced. Your screen left leg has some popping spacing issues as well.

Keep up the good work.

Jmcmil20

Hey guys, as always I appreciate you guys taking the time out to help out. Any suggestions on how to make the sneeze really pop out if that makes sense?

I'm in the process of trying to track everything better now too..I had this arc tracker from toolchefs that was amazing but it doesn't work with my version of maya. Maybe I'll use grease pencil or something instead, just thought of that.

I think my next test will be a lot simpler too to focus on some of the trouble areas you guys are mentioning now.  Thanks again for all the help, it really means a lot.