Thumbnail Sketches!

Whew, so I have been quite busy lately working on new material. I'm so excited to finally post it here!!! I've had the absolute pleasure of studying under Wayne Gilbert this term( http://anamie.com/ ) and I'm currently working with him to polish up 3 new shots! While they're not quite ready to be revealed, I thought it'd be fun to give a glimpse into the planning process and show a few of my thumbnail sketches.


These are thumbnails from one of the three shots I'm working on. Having never tackled a quadruped before, I felt it was important to delve into it before I find myself in a production setting. I did extensive research to really figure out how dogs move. After sorting through tons of reference footage I found a clip that I wanted to attempt. I was then told to cover half the dog with my hand and study the two ends separately. I decided to draw separate thumbnails for both ends of the dog before looking at how the two sections of the body worked together. It was a lot of work, but paid off hands down in the end. By the time I was done sketching I had a much better grasp of the mechanics and knew exactly what I wanted going into the computer.
It's so less intimidating when you know what you want and how you're going to get there. Don't underestimate or skimp on planning.. even if nobody else can make sense of your sketches, it doesn't matter. Taking that extra time in the beginning and having a clear idea in your head will save you massive amounts of time in the long run!

I'll post all of the shots in the near future! I'm actually even more excited about the other 2!!! It feels like a light has just turned on and I've had one "aha" moment after another lately. I'll try to share more about those "aha" concepts... but they have mostly been:
- Rediscovering the importance of planning
- Experimentation with different workflows (I really found one that clicked)
- and the last one is hard to describe.. The best way to say it is animating force versus form. Where you animate based on feeling? Feeling out the poses, feeling out the character? As I said.. not quite sure how to describe it?
Okie dokie, that's all for now. :)

*I uploaded the thumbnail sketches for educational purposes only. They are watermarked just in case. I put a lot of work into these and plan to use the shot on my reel. Please do not copy or reproduce. Thanks!*