Miren Animated World

CLASS 2: PSYCHOLOGY OF BODY MECHANICS with DAVID TART!!!!

2012-01-15T21:49:00.018+01:00

After Christmas´ break and a trip to Milan, I am back again!!!
I know you understand why this time you had to wait a bit!
But I have already finished week 2 of the 2nd term!!! And I have some things to show and tell you.
We started the new class the 2th January, that day I found out who my new mentor was, and tachannnnn: DAVID TART!!! if you have a look at his career you will see that I am really lucky. He has worked on several of my favourites films in Pixar, such as TOY STORY 1 & 2, Monsters Inc. ; A bug´s life, Finding Nemo, and the short film: For the birds. After Pixar he has worked in other companies around the world and apart from being a Mentor in AM, he also teachs in Denmark`s "The Animation Workshop".
Apart from my mentor I also discovered who were my new classmates, but in fact nearly half the class are quite familiar as we were together last term with Chad Stewart: Fonzo, Tom, Sue, Vikram, Gurleen and Siggi.

Let´s start talking about animation.
For our first body mechanics assignment we had to choose from a long list, and I took "the long jump". There were other cool choices, but I love "long jump" since I do track & field, and this is one of my favourites events, so, easy choice this time.
On the first week, we had to work on the PLANNING, which is one of the most important stages of the animation process, even though you don´t even need to touch the computer! and this is also a good thing. So we started with the sketches, notes and video reference, from youtube, and from ourselves.
On the 2nd week, we did the BLOCKING, at this stage we had to focus on the key and breakdown poses, and the 2 important concepts to work on, were: POSING & TIMING.
Enough words, here you have:

And to finish this post I show you a photo that tells a bit one of the reasons of my trip to Milan and a link to one of the coolest things you can see there:
The 25 th anniversary of PIXAR´s exhibition in Milan!!!

CLASS 1 DONE!!! Week 11 & 12

2011-12-19T00:37:00.006+01:00

Hi everybody!!!
This is one of the happiest posts in the last 3 months for me!!! Last Friday, 16th september 2011, I officially finished the first class of Animation Mentor: Basic Foundations!!!
It has been a really great time, when I have learnt lot of concepts about animation, how to apply them to the work and the importance of observation of real life, as well as the importance of one of the key stages for animating: PLANNING.
The less happy moment was the kind of "goodbye" to Chad Stewart, our amazing mentor during this term. It has been great meeting him every week, and have direct access to his huge knowledge and experience.
Well , enough of words, I will show you my Class 1 Progress Reel:

And week 11 BALANCE POSE and sketches:

During weeks 10 and 11 we did the personality walk. I chose a toddler`s walk, here you have my sketched planning and notes (the animation is compiled in the Class 1 Progress Reel above):

WEEKS 8, 9 & 10: Vanilla Walk finally here!!!

2011-12-06T18:59:00.008+01:00

Hi!!!
This time I am coming back a bit later, but not for anything, I have been quite busy these weeks on AM, but finally I am bringing new things.
Firstly, the promised Vanilla Walk. On week 8 we did the BLOCKING, so we put the main poses of the walk: contact poses, inbetweens (passing postions) and extremes up and down. These are the basic poses of any walk and in this case we had to make it as plain as possible. A so called vanilla Walk, is an standard walk with no personality, just body mechanics.
On week 9 we polished the walking converting all the stepped curves of the blocking into the "friendly" splines!!! it is better to become friend with them as soon as possible!!! here you have:

And going back to the sketchbook, the last concepts we have been dealing with are: CONCERNED and EXHAUSTED. Here it is my personal approach:

WEEK 7 & 8: Tailor, Vanilla walk & Physical strenght

2011-11-20T16:24:00.011+01:00

Hi one week more!!!

This time I will tell you about week 7 and 8, the one that finishes today.

A week ago, we had to work with "Tailor" a lovely character that everybody is dreaming to animate but once you meet him he is not so cute!!! because it is quite difficult to get a nice overlapping, and flow of his tail, and that is exactly what we are supossed to get with this assignment. The basic shape is a ball, and a tail, then, is a mix about our last bouncing ball´s assignments, and the pendulum one. It is also inspired by a squirrel so we were adviced to look at squirrels' video references, this part was really funny to do. So here you have my animation, and the planning, as you can see the story in the planning is longer than in the animation, because it was impossible fit it to the frame limit we have, anyway, I want to make he whole story, so you can see it. Ah! one last thing,...I don´t know, but my Tailor...looks more like a cat, specially there in the branch!

On week 8, we took again our sketchbook to draw physical strenght poses. This is a tricky concept, because sometimes we take effort as strenght or the other way round, judge yourself if they are strenght or effort poses:

And about Vanilla walk,....sorry but I have decided that you will have to wait until next week, because, it is a very short video for my vimeo account, so I will join the video of this week with that of next week.
For now we have worked just on the blocking, that is, we have set the contact poses, passing positions and extremes up and down poses. Next week we will refine and finish the vanilla walk. Bye bye!!!

Week 5 & 6: Squash & Stretch - Overlapping action

2011-11-13T23:41:00.011+01:00

These ones are the principles of animation we have been working on lately.
On week 5, we had to animate a ball in an obstacle course, showing squash & stretch. There were a lot of different circuits to choose, and we could also modified them as we liked. I chose one of them...because I liked it, it was quite simple...but indeed, this assignment became a bit complicated for me...first of all..because I chose a "pinball circuit" and I had no idea of that...so my first animations didn´t show the energy of this game when the ball hits the bumper. Finally, I managed to do something "believable", Judge yourself with the video below.

After the obstacle course and squash & stretch, we started Overlapping action, and we used the pendulum to show it. This one was an assignment I enjoyed a lot.
First, the key was to get an appealing movement of the "upper structure" of the pendulum, and then it was time to animate the pendulum itself.
Here we can see both animations, and very important: the plannings, previous thinking process to any animation.

Apart from animating, on week 5, we also had to draw poses showing DEVASTATION, and transfer the chosen one to our 3D character, here they are:

A month full of Animation mentor!!!!

2011-10-31T00:44:00.015+01:00

Hi everybody!
I think is time to write something.
It is been 5 weeks since I started Animation Mentor. Since then, I have been learning and working on some of the principles of animation such as: TIMING, SPACING, ANTICIPATION, SQUASH & STRETCH , etc, etc....
I have met lot of AM students through the site, and it is great because people is passionate about Animation and everybody is ready to help and give feedback to each other.
In this month, I have done some animations with the bouncing ball, and have worked on STU, our character for now.

Our very 1st assignment of the course was making some sketches of people in public places, and then we had to choose a pose for Stu, here you can see:

Then we started the real thing: ANIMATING!!!!
So we took the ball,...basketball or football, and then, some other two, a heavy and a light one to make contrast, and we made all them bounce:

Uppps!! I nearly forgot!!! making a ball bounce in a 3D software is not so easy,..and you need to prepare before daring to open that crazy software!! here you have these "tidy " and "readable" plannings for my bouncing balls ( you don´t have to ask if you don´t understand XD) :

But we also had to keep that good habit of making sketches and posing STU, this time with a especific goal, showing EXCITEMENT:

2011-10-17T01:10:00.002+02:00

SALTINBANKI (WIP)

Saltinbanki (WIP) from Miren Delgado on Vimeo.

ANIMATION MENTOR STARTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-09-30T19:09:00.003+02:00

Hello Everybody!
I think this is a good moment to write something here just to talk you about one of the most important choices I have made to become the best an animator I can. This very week, on 26th september, I started Class 1 in Animation Mentor.
It is being a busy week, although we don´t have to work yet on an assignment, I am having my days full of animation related activities, such as watching videos about Maya, assignments, other students reels,... and so on.

On Wednesday, it was the time to meet my mentor in the live Q&A, Chad Stewart. He has worked for 10 years in 2D animation, working in Disney studios. Then, he started making 3D animation, and among other interesting projects he has animated on Open Season, and was lead animator on Surf´s Up!!!
On wednesday I also watched my classmates introducing themselves by web cam, the first impression is that it will be great sharing the class with them!
This is just the first introduction week of Animation Mentor so, if you are curious about this amazing school - family of animation passionate people, keep following my blog because I will upload all the assignments and all your comments will be welcome!!!

Enjoy your day!!!

DEMO REEL 2010

2010-09-06T17:52:00.001+02:00

"Trailer" El pintor y el retrato

2010-04-04T22:33:00.001+02:00

Probando un poco, he hecho un "cortísimo" trailer con renders de las animaciones que tengo hasta ahora, aquí lo tenéis:

Animacíón, plano 01, terminando...

2010-01-08T22:56:00.001+01:00

Aquí tenéis la animación que acabo de terminar ( salvo retoques de última hora) , que corresponde al principio del corto.

Si vais siguiendo mi blog seguramente os sonará este plano, ya que en entradas anteriores colgue el 1er blocking de esta animación, ¿ha cambiado verdad?

Animation in progress. Plano05

2009-10-01T15:03:00.002+02:00

Aquí tenéis un render de la animación que estoy haciendo, como véis falta poner texturas, ensuciar y que en vez de esas cajitas saque del cajón algún bote de pintura, u otro utensilio.

Como ahora estoy en etapa de animación, es eso lo que me interesa enseñaros, sólo que mejor un render que un previo para entrar en la atmósfera.

La animación casi está terminada, sólo faltan unos pocos retoques y el facial. Éste plano irá intercalado con el plano 04.

Probando render...

2009-09-05T00:25:00.001+02:00

Aqui podéis ver algunos renders que estoy haciendo para ir viendo como puede quedar la iluminación, las texturas, las poses del personaje, y su nueva cara, ya que hay algunos cambios con respecto a lo que habíais visto hasta ahora. Veremos como continúa el proceso...