Weird Timing...

I think the saying, "time flies when you're having fun" is a pretty accurate statement, that or when you're stressed and need to get things done. I feel like this quarter is flying by and as I'm fighting with myself to continue to do well in all my classes and make this 1-quarter animation something I can be proud of, timing has become a huge issue...literally.

As I have of course started the inbetweening process of my film and have half of my shots done, I've had to go back and re-inbetween some areas as they move too fast. Timing is probably one of the hardest things in animation, at least to master and be comfortable with..."how long should this shot be?" "should my character move faster in this instance and if he does will it be readable?" I totally understand that my understanding of timing will (hopefully) become better as I continue to make animations, but this is definitely one of the things that's bringing my confidence level down, particularly with this 1-quarter animation. I ask for advice constantly on how to fix things and where to add/take away frames, and it definitely seems to be helping.

I love this experience of making this animation about my sea turtle who wants to fly, but I definitely wish it were an experience that lasted a bit longer than 10 weeks. Things I would like to get done including full color may not happen due to me running out of time. However I had decided in the beginning that the execution of animation was more important to me than full color. The full color will probably be done in the summer, when I can devote even more time to this.

Something my friend James said to me at the beginning of this quarter during our storyboards class, has really stuck with me in the making of this production; "our stories always tend to tell a little bit about ourselves, even if not intentionally when creating an idea". This to me really is true. With my turtle, Sunny, who hatches on the beach, sees a bird and then tries his hardest to fly like that bird, but in the end figures out how to fly in his own way, it really expresses who I am...I see my friends who are about to graduate who are amazing animators, story artists, modelers, etc and I want to be just like them. But just like Sunny, I have to find my own way of "flying" and succeed in my own way.

I have learned so much from them and even though they are graduating, I expect I will continue to learn from them, but I truly have to thank them so much for not only being great mentors, but amazing friends.

So, enough of the sadness and life revelations...here are a few shots from the film:

This first one will have a few more holds, and one or two loops added to it to let the audience breathe with his reactions, but for now these are just my frames in sequential order:



This second one is Sunny's roll over from being on his back when he tips his egg over; this needs a few frames pulled:



If you would like, feel free to comment...I would love to hear some more feedback!
Also my friend James who I mentioned before also has a blog if you feel like checking it out:
http://jamespgibsonportfolio.blogspot.com/
he's an awesome story artist and his storyboards rock!

so i guess that is all for now... :)

Feeling Better...

So maybe it's just me but you know that feeling when you feel like you're behind and you start to panic...yeah that's kind of the feelings I'm having right now. However even though I may say this, I'm probably on track but who knows, "just gotta keep swimming"... :)

I do feel a ton better though, after having my friend John look at my progress thus far on my 1-quarter (tentatively entitled "Sky High"). He gave me a lot of pointers and things that I could definitely consider changing/fixing to make this film a success and learning process. He made the point that even though I may not have time to fix every flat camera shot, etc., the point of this film is to be that learning process and that I should take everything good and bad into account. That's basically the philosophy I had from last year when I made my first ever animation in my Digital Production class.

I think that is all for now. I was taking a dinner break from drawing and I figured I'd talk a little bit about stuff. :)...I'll post again soon and hopefully have more progress to show (scratch that, I will have more progress to show)...

p.s: changing the horizon in a shot makes a HUGE difference :D

My First Post

So since everyone else seems to be doing it, I decided to make a blog too; well everyone meaning many of my animation friends here at RIT...it seems like a good idea.

Let me introduce myself, the name's Baylee. The girl that is probably known most for being a huge history person (as some say, I have an obsession with Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War...ok maybe that's true, hahaha), a Disney freak, and the girl with the crazy short, spikey or "poofy" hair. But then again that's me...oh and plus I'm an animator and have always wanted to be since I was 8 years old; it's nice to say i'm finally beginning to live my dream. Also I'm from Niagara Falls, NY, one of the biggest tourist destinations in the country.

I'm in my 2nd year at RIT (or the Rochester Institute of Technology, to be all techincal about it) in the School of Film and Animation. Currently I'm working on what's called my 1-quarter, which is a film made in 10 weeks. Mine is about a character I created named Sunny, who is a turtle who wants to fly after he sees a bird do so. I'm not as far as I would like to be on it at this point since it is already the middle of week 6, but then again I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist and may over exaggerate when I say I'm "behind".

Another thing I had been doing was working on my friend Noelle's senior thesis, inbetweening a few shots here and there for her. I have to say it really helped me to get a handle on how the whole animation process works and it made me feel awesome to help her. I really think I have improved in animating and I can't thank her enough.

I'm friends with alot of the animation seniors here and it's going to be really upsetting when they graduate in a few weeks but I would like to think that everything they have taught me will be put into my future animations and passed onto the underclassmen I will begin to mentor....but let's not talk about graduation, it'll begin to make me sad and I don't want that...

Oh and by the way, the reason for the "Bayleef" name of the blog is that it comes from those seniors; Bayleef tends to be my nickname in the lab where we all work, hahaha...and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way.

So the blog is basically going to be my "website" and show all of you out there, the stuff I like to do and work on; particularly this 1-quarter of mine. Below is actually my progress so far, I'm really proud of it; it's most of my key frames timed out...they probably need a bit more tweaking but all thats left after I finish keys is inbetweens...


So I think that's all for now for this post...I'll keep ya posted...stay tuned :)