A couple of character drawings

The production of my shortfilm is currently put on hold, mainly because I've decided to focus on getting an animation reel ready for spring (march/april), and don't want to "waste" time with character design and storyboarding.

That being said, I still have a few moments here and there, when I'm doing nothing, and I'm trying to use these moments creatively and sketch a bit.
The outcome of some of these precious "nothing" moments is the following:












It's pretty much just character design, on my main character for the "Deep" short film.
I still feel very much for telling the story, and when my reel is done, I'll hopefully have time to continue it.

Cheers

Dog runcycle

Okay, so I found a rig of a dog that's way better than any wolf rig I could find, so I ended up making a dog runcycle, which fits perfectly, 'cause the poses were actually taken from a dog and not a wolf. I just figured a wolf would be more badass :D
Rig credit goes to: Sudeesh S (http://www.creativecrash.com/users/sudhi3d)


Anyways, here is the result of the 3d animation so far.
It lacks a bit of weight, and the head movement is not as good as it could/should be.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the four-legged animals, how they walk and run. There is a lot to understand and keep and eye on.

Dog runcycle from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

I hope you like it, though :)

Cheers

More wolf planning

Not a big update here.

I just erased my comments on the thumbs, and put 'em one on top of each other, and imported it into a editing app. 

Here is how it plays on ones.
I have a feeling it goes at bit too slow, and it is a bit mechanical.
When I pose it in 3d, I will have to push each pose a bit to make it more dynamic.

Anyways, here is the animation test of my thumbs:

run cycle thumbnails from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

Wolf animation

Hi guys.

I've focused my spare time animation on creature stuff atm. and I'm struggling with the challenge.

A LOT of weight distribution is happening all the time, but with some practice I should get the basics, I hope.
The assignment I've given my self, is a running lion, wolf, dog, tiger, or four legged creature of that kind, what ever nice rig I can find :)

Besides this, I've been working on a deer animation, but it's giving me some trouble, so I've desided to move on, learn some more, and get back to it.

Here are the thumbnails for the run.
As I arranged the page in photoshop, I realised I've probably drawn a bit too many, but at this stage, I thinks it's important I don't think I can make up stuff as a go, and prepare myself as good as possible.
Check them out and leave a comment if you please.

I'm not really sure about the 12 frames for the entire run. 
So far I've focused on the poses, next up will be the timing of them.

Cheers

Design week

Once again we had a design week, were we could follow up on last time we had it, and dig even deeper into the seven elements of design (line, shape, form, space, color, value and texture), and how - through contrast - we could make them work the way we want them.

First up, we did a visual representation of Jazz music. Just like last time with strawberry icecream and dark chocolate.
I don't really feel that I nailed it, but here it is anyways:

Then we spend quiet some time focusing on texture and value, how to shade/render an object, to make it feel different than another, to give it texture through value/shading.

We got the assignment to make a fully rendered "final" drawing, of a interior house burning.

That proved to be quiet a challenge.

Here is the lineart:

Then I spend a long night rendering it, trying to make sure the smoke felt diffrent than the fire, the focus point was the right place, the right levels of value, and so forth. A lot of things to keep in mind.

Here is the final result:

Drunk Goofy

Drunk Goofy from Christoffer Andersen on Vimeo.

A lot of "new" things where tried out in this week.
I decided to do the whole animation in a 3/4 perspective, which ment for the first time, to try and do a walk in perpective.

I also tried to work a bit differently with my drawings.
Instead of focusing on one principle at a time, I tried to incoorporate all animation principles into each drawing, while I did them, thinking of flow, arcs, anticipation, follow through, drag and so on.

Most of the scene is animated straight ahead, but with my initial keys as a guideline for where I wanted my character to go. For this animation, straight ahead animation felt like the best choice, because of the constant weight shift and the extreme drag in the limbs.

The whole animation is done in about 4 days, and just as with the weight lift exercise, with the great animator Meelis Arulepp as teacher, guide, mentor, animator-dude :)
-Always a pleasure.

Cheers