Here is my final project for my second portfolio class this month:
REFLECTION
After a month of working on this animation, I can say that I
have learned a lot and I am proud of this work. Right at the start of this
project, I instantly began to learn new techniques that have aided me in
improving my craft. In the first week, we were told to focus on only planning
and creating reference for what were were going to animate. I found the amount
of time given to complete this to be a bit much and I began animating in the
middle of creating reference. This turned out to be a bad idea because most of
my key poses were not strong enough and needed tweaking. This obstacle was a
valuable learning experience for me because I realized the importance of reference
and thoroughly planning before animating. Another aspect of animation that I
learned during this month was how to convey weight in poses. When I came into
this class with only a month of animation experience, I did not realize the
importance of contrapposto and shifting weight during movement. After finishing
all of the key poses and breakdowns, I noticed that my character was stiff but
I did not know how to fix that problem. The instructor then pointed out that
the hips did not move enough nor did it show enough weight to be a believable
pose. He then showed me how to improve my breakdowns by moving the hips and
getting his whole body to move during the actions. With the help I received, I
was able to significantly improve my animation and succeed in making my
character believable. If I were to scrap this project and start over, I would
plan out my actions more thoroughly and pay closer attention to the weight
shift of the character. All in all, I learned a great amount this month and
these new lessons have helped me create an animation that I can be proud of.
