Here's my final progress reel for the semester. I'll upload a better version later once it finally uploads to vimeo. Thanks for checking it out.

Here's my final shot for this semester. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. I didn't get to add everything that I wanted because of time limitations. In the future I may add some leaping piranhas. For now, I'm calling it done. It was a really great shot to work on as a final because it helped me deal with, not only an andvanced physical motion. but also a lot of technical issues with constraints and parenting. Hopefully you can't tell, but there's actually 3 different versions of the character used in this shot which I had to seamlessly meld. This was something that I'd never tried before but gave it a shot at the advice of my mentor. It ended up saving me a lot of hastle in the end but was still a bit of a trial to get the transitions working nicely. I'm glad the semester is over for now as I'm looking forward to a nice Christmas break. Stop back for more after the holiday season when I start my first acting class. Merry Christmas!

Final Shot2

Here's a progression + final for my second shot this semester. I changed the ending several times. I'm still not super happy with it but I just ran out of time. I may go back later and try to make it look a little more natural but for now, I'm calling it done.

Class 3 Shot 2: Planning and Blocking

Here's the planning and blocking for my second shot (no pun intended). Enjoy.

Class 3 shot 1: Planning and Progression

Here's the planning and final of my first shot in class 3. It turned out ok I suppose. There's still a lot of things I'm not happy with, the main being the staging. I didn't want to mess with camera moves so this was the best I could manage with a static camera. However, it leaves much to be desired. Enjoy!

You may have seen these before but here are 2 self portraits. Enjoy and Happy Halloween!

So class 2 ended today. I really felt I improved a lot over this class. I wasn't too thrilled with my second shot. Since it was my fist time using a rig with a spine, I think it was a least a good exercise. My mentor covered a lot of ground especially emphasizing the importance of arcs, path of action, and strong posing. Now that I have a half decent workflow for the blocking and smoothing passes, my goal for next semester is to really focus on that final polish and my timing/spacing. Until then, here's my progress reel. Enjoy!

Animation Mentor Progress Reel: Class 2 from Skylar Surra on Vimeo.

Animation Mentor Week 8

I'm going to spare anyone who stops by here and not post my last shot which turned out rather badly from the beginning. I am however very excited about the shot I started this past week. Here's the planning and blocking. More to come soon.

Ballie Turn: Final Progression

Here's the final progression on the turn around shot. It still needs a bit of work, but overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Am has been so great and as you can see, our mentors really help us to nail the shot from beginning to polish. Enjoy!

Animation Mentor Update

Here's the current shot I'm working on for Animation Mentor. It's just a simple 180 degree turn around. I created a video of the progression from blocking to smoothing. I still have one more week of polish to finish up. Enjoy.

Here's a couple old watercolors I did a while back for an animation concept.

Here's my progress reel from class 1. It was a ton of fun and I learned so much! I'll post some of the wip videos from this semester later this week and stay tuned in a couple weeks for class 2 work.

Here's a little eye candy from a personal project I'm working on. Enjoy!

Animation Mentor Week 5

Squash and Stretch as illustrated by a ball:

Animation Mentor week 4: Weight + Timing/Spacing

Weekly update from Animation Mentor. This week's assignment: Gesture drawings transferred into 3d rig and a simple ball bounce.

Animation Mentor! Week 2

Week one was basically orientation and introductions. So, week 2 was fundamentals. We basically covered the 12 principles of animation. Here were my sketches and pose for our week 2 assignment. Next up a bouncing ball!

Subway Sketch Dump