Week of character performance posing / keyframing workshops

Sometime the things you try in teaching turn out to be way more fun for everyone than you had hoped. I have just had a great week of character performance / posing / keyframing workshops with the 25fps@staffs students.

Started off with using the Mathilda rig from Leon Li-Aun Sooi and Xiong Lin for a twenty-five expression challenge based on the well loved on-line exercise...

Just a small selection of the exercise results

...and followed this with a recreation of classic paintings using a multitude of posed rigs.

Very rewarding to see how everyone fully engaged with the tasks and the strength of the resulting work. Plus they really enjoyed it. Cant ask for more than that. Well done everyone!

Poses from classic fine art

Important Animation note number whatever !?!... Curves curves curves (in animation)

Nearly all animation is based on curves, natural movement normally (nearly always) rejects a straight line in favour of a curve; see example from Big Hero Six below.

Wasabi, meticulous tool keeping, Gogo...and many beautiful curves...

(ps: Comedy is played front or side on, not 3/4)