I finally uploaded my animation reel after finishing class 2 of Animation Mentor… this includes my work from class 1 and class 2; only the first three shots are from class 2 (the back flip, the quick slip, and the jumping hips):

Of course, none of this will end up on my final job-searching reel. It’s all just practice. I find it a bit annoying to watch those first few class 2 shots; while I learned a lot doing them, I can still see that they need quite a bit more work. That back flip was especially difficult, and I picked a pretty dumb place for the camera to go. I should’ve put it at more of an angle so it would be easier to see both arms and legs at the same time. Also I don’t think the landing works very well. I think I was too lazy in my blocking, and by the time I moved into splining it was too hard to get the timing to right. (I wasn’t really lazy, just had a tough time managing my time that week. I’m still trying to balance work with animation studies with not going completely crazy.)

For the next few weeks I’ll be animating the lifting of a heavy box. Multiple mentors have told me: “Keep it simple! You’re still learning; this is practice!” But it’s easy to think of a box lift as being really boring. Nobody looks at a box lift and says “wow, what a great box lift!” And you see people animating all this running and jumping off walls and balancing on tall columns and you think: “Woah! I wanna do that! Like, right now!” But you have to calm down and think to yourself “silence, young grasshopper, in time you will come to wield such powers, but you first must focus on the basics.” And then you think: “But I am mortal! By the time I hold such lofty powerful powers of power, I will be be close to death and it will matter not!” And then you have to think: “Oh, do shut up!” And then you think: “Don’t tell me to shut up!” And then you give yourself a slap and get back to work.


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