Some random, end-of-semester comments.

I found 2 great inspirations while doing my Research Paper. One is Dumbo. I think I'll be stealing an awful lot from this film. Not only does it deal with scale in a seamless way (two characters of very different sizes) but a lot of the emotions are similar to the ones I want to capture, particularly from the Matriarch elephant - she has this building anger that I'd like Rosa to go through when Dee makes fun of her. Lots more, and I found a great resource for model sheets at Animation Archive.

http://animationarchive.net/Feature%20Films/Dumbo/Model%20Sheets/index.php

I think I'm going to spend time drawing my characters in these poses/expressions/gestures.

Drawing, when I get into it, really helps me understand the face muscles. I hope that will translate to my models and hopefully it won't mean a lot of changes. I tried to be careful of my edge loops - placing them where there will be movement. We shall see.

My other inspiration is Gini Cruz Santos, a Pixar animator that just struck a chord with me. I like her sense of hard work and sacrifice. Just refreshing from the "Dude, this ROCKS!!" or overly technical jargon I hear from other animators. Anyway, I loved her work without even knowing she was the one doing it (Dory and a good deal of the Incredibles), , so now it's great to put an animator behind a character and I can watch even more closely. She also is very candid about how much time goes into animation -- something I struggle with. I rush my work. There's a difference between working fast and rushing. I need to take my time, get more feedback and really get my scenes right.

Unfortunately, I found both these inspirations a little too late for me to expand on them in my paper, but I'll add them for my final-Final paper in May.

I loved working on my 3D animatic!!! It really takes it to the next level timing wise. I was very accurate on my Shot list for the first 35 seconds but the rest is a rough estimate. I'll update that as I go along.

I'm going to take one more stab at finalizing my charachters, they're still not as smooth as they should be (must check normals) and then I'll finish up rigging and blendshapes.

Ugh. End of the semester and so much to do!