AM Animal & Creature Animation Class

Today Animation Mentor announced the launch of the long waited Animal & Creature Animation Master Class,

Trailers & info about the class here

This Animals & Creatures course is over two 12-week classes, students learn how to animate quadrupeds, flying animals, fantasy creatures and nonhuman characters. Students use three new advanced character rigs provided by Animation Mentor and learn how to integrate animation into live-action footage. Students will learn professional workflow techniques and receive face-to-face mentoring from top creature animation talent working in the industry today. Students also have access to a rich library of lectures where animators examine their shots from feature films and share tricks of the trade!

AM's PURE AWESOMENESS :D

AM Class 6+: Polishing & Portfolio / Kevin Koch

My mentor for this class will be Kevin Koch; with 14 years in the animation biz. He started out doing traditional, hand-drawn animation, first at Warner Bros. Feature Animation, then at DreamWorks. While at DreamWorks he transitioned to CG animation, and worked on 'Shrek 2,' 'Madagascar,' and 'Over the Hedge.' Most recently he animated on 'Rio' at Blue Sky Studios, and he's now at Rhythm &Hues on 'Hop.'


Just submitted the first assignment for this class, a compilation of almost all the shots I did at AM, the first 4 are my pick for what I think of as "Money Shots" ( of course when polished end of this class).

I'm extremely excited to start this class now that I have the graph editor on my side :D also having a chance to be a full-time student is a HUGE bless I'm very THANKFUL for my PARENTS support.

on the down side the internet is VERY SLOW here in JORDAN!!! I'll upload the reel tomorrow,

& The Preparation continues

15 days to start the polishing & portfolio class at AM and the preparation continues...

Here's the Happy go lucky almost done,


For the dialogue shot "Zero", I worked on the first part


Still Fixing the tennis serve

Preparation for Polishing & Portfolio Class

Here's an update on what I've been working on in preparation for Animation Mentor's Polishing & Portfolio class. Other than experimenting with walk cycles, I'm going back to my old shots and slowly cleaning up all the mess, also been learning how to create textures and how to render out my shots, not that fancy but something nicer, instead of the default naked bishop rig.
All in preparation to polish it under the supervision of another amazing AM mentor.

here's a teaser for my dialogue shots "Zero" & "Valium"














And here's an almost done walk cycle, Happy Go lucky attitude walk



And finally a "Before-After" wip of the Sticky Door Assignment

Animation "LOCK DOWN" II

I'd like to pass something about art work flow that I have learned from a very inspiring & a very passionate animation mentor student I met this summer at Siggraph,
DANIEL ASHER HARMAN.
Work on different projects at the same time, each project in a different stage of production, one in an early planning/search stage, another in its early stages of production, another is almost done, and one that is done but you still can add to it or polish more.

This approach to will keep you motivated, will increase your productivity, and will give you a chance to bounce back & forth between different projects without getting bored from working on the same on & on.

For example in animation, jotting down ideas for future shots, gathering reference, planning for those shots, shooting extra video reference, drawing thumbnails, shot in blocking stage, Shot coming out of blocking & a shot in Polishing stage. Might sound too much but If you really want to jump to that next level, this is a very successful approach.

I'm currently working on 3 shots, polishing a walk cycle, and a Tennis serve shot and a cartoony run in blocking stage, along with planning for future shots.

Here's a teaser for what I'm working on

Cartoony Run Blocking (Jason Ryan tutorial)



Tennis serve Blocking (Haven't worked on the timing yet)


And still polishing the walk cycle