My Animation

[dchilders89]

Here is my demo reel. Its not great but I didn't really have anything else to post. Anyway let me know what you all think!

http://www.vimeo.com/4295476

Thanks,
David

[dmgctrl]

Awesome stuff, dchilders89!

[WillW]

neat stuff, I think the thing you need to work on more is volume and depth. Some of the characters seem to loose their shape at points. I would also recommend using characters that are designed by you rather then other peoples characters in a reel. keep it up though, your doing a fine job so far.

[johncbeggs]

Well that was awesome :)

your demo real looked really good and I hope soon I can create something like that :)

great job!

[dchilders89]

Thanks Guys! Will, In my future tests I plan to use my own characters. My character design skills are very poor and I was just using model sheets to learn the principles of animation.

David

[WillW]

Designing your own characters for animation would help you more in my opinion, because with a character you designed, it becomes more personal to you and you have a better undestanding on how the character is constructed which will help with your volume and depth. You see on model sheets that there will usually be a range of expressions, poses, angles on them, do this with your own characters and you can create a deeper personality and this will have an effect on the design too. A character with a develped personality will function better in animation.

[jeremyhopkins]

I respect Will's opinion but to offer a slightly different point of view; I think starting with established characters is great! The looseness and flow in your drawings is nice but one of the dangers of taking a pre designed character is matching it to the original work done by potentially a really great animator. It's difficult because that person isn't in the room to advise you of character inconsistencies so you really have to watch the original source material, and in the case of a psudo-realistic animal, study anatomy and structure before layering on the performance. Otherwise any strange gesture will feel out of place. You have a lot of work on your demo so maybe you didn't have time to fully flesh out and study the character. My suggestion is to continue studying from life and the original cartoon performances and try to get the drawings as close to the original as possible in terms of acting and structure. Then go ahead a put your own spin on things and bring your unique performances.
I think its great that you're spending time on the animation and not on the packaging, it might be better to have a simple, typed title card with your information at the beginning and end of your reel.
Congrats on putting your work up and for having such a beautiful flow to your animation!

[dchilders89]

Thanks Jeremy! Thats great advice! I was just exploring your blog, hows that bear test coming along?

[jeremyhopkins]

Unfortunately the bear animation is put on hold for a while. I was using it as a test for paperless animation with tvpaint but this week my cintiq died. I haven't decided what I should do but it would be too difficult to print everything out and make sure everything is properly registered. I'm thinking about doing more work on paper though and I'll see about getting some new tests up.

Thanks for taking the suggestions so well. There are people here who are amazing animators and I'm still developing my skills so my advice is more, 'if it feels right to you', suggestions. :)

[dchilders89]

"Thanks for taking the suggestions so well. There are people here who are amazing animators and I'm still developing my skills so my advice is more, 'if it feels right to you', suggestions."

Taking criticsm is part of animation I think. It is always good to see what other people have to say because they can point out things that you may have missed or didn't try. Too bad about your cintiq. I was thinking of getting one, is it worth it or do you reccomed something else?

[dchilders89]

this is just a quick test I made with a character (that was pretty much made up as I went :D). Its not perfect but it was fun using my own character. The tie overlap is a little off and so is the lipsync, but that is due to vimeo, I swear the dialogue works perfect in my original file.
Critique if you like :)

http://www.vimeo.com/4819160

[lavallelee]

wow awesome pencil tests! very good job