Class1 / Week 5: Anticipation, Squash and Stretch

How can I forget Week 5? It was a crazy week for me and I think it has been the busiest and hardest week since I started Animation Mentor. Not only the assignment jumps drastically in difficulty (at least for me) but I also was volunteering for this year's AM graduation, had a classmate visiting from LA to stay over, PLUS I was planning to attend Animation Mentor's Summer BBQ. Crazy week indeed but I had a blast and wouldn't change any of it. Except, maybe having a bit more extra time to polish my assignment.

This week's assignment was to have a ball with the weight of a basketball bounce around in an obstacle course. We also had to add two new principles to our assignment: anticipation and squash and stretch. The cool thing about this assignment is that we were giving a set of 11 different courses to choose from, each with their own level of difficulty. I thought I choose wisely, but think again! We use a term in animation called K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) and as much I tried to keep it simple, I ended up with a very complicated obstacle course. Lots of changes of direction, speed and mechanical props in my scene. I also had to work on a pose depicting "Devastation"

Despite the crazy schedule and the increase level of difficulty of the assignment, it was still lots of fun to animate. I learned A LOT about timing and spacing this week. With tons of mistakes and revisions! My ecritique was like 15 minutes long! Some students are afraid of making mistakes and they are forgetting that now is the best time to make mistakes and learn from them. And I include myself, first few assignments a was bit too uptight about grades and making everything perfect. But after getting your first C on an assignment, it will humble you really fast. I started to loosen up a bit after week 5 and it's been great so far! There's a lot to be learn from our mistakes so take advantage and experiment with your animation. I tend to learn faster by trial and error so I thought it was a great learning experience for me.

Below are my assignments for Week 5 after going back and reworking the animations and applying all of my mentor's notes. I wasn't too happy with the outcome of the Obstacle Course so I did a second version just for fun.