Another 3D task we were asked to do, which I'd forgotten to upload previously, was a character pushing against a box, before giving up and looking defeated. Below you can see my attempt:

We were told to use the IK and FK switch on the rig in order to make the hands of the character stick to the box as they pushed. This helped with making the animation look more convincing.

For our final 3D task of the term, we were asked to animate one of the rigs throwing a ball from one hand to the other, using the constraints mechanic we'd learned in a previous lecture. Below you can see my attempt: 

Personally, I found using constraints difficult, but after reading through the notes I'd made and practicing the exercise a few times I was able to create something I was happy with. I do think that the ball movement is a little slow, and the throw could be more dynamic, something to keep in mind for when I animate these kinds of actions in the future. 

As an extension to our 2D animated bird task from a few weeks back, we were asked to destroy our bird using any method we liked. Below you can see my attempt: 

I decided to make my bird explode. This was quite fun to do, I enjoyed drawing the bits of the smoke/explosion.

For our last 2D Animation task of term, we were asked to animate a simple walk cycle, with no extra or added detail. Below you can see my attempt:

I think this turned out ok! Although I think at some points, the character looks as if they're sliding along the floor slightly.

I decided to have a go at redoing some of my older 3D tasks. Below you can see my attempts at using 'overlapping action' and then applying it to a simple scene.

I think by redoing this I'm gaining valuable practice in Maya and also making my previous work a little better!

For one of our 2D Animation tasks, we were asked to animate a bird in flight! Below you can see my attempt:

I think that overall the flapping looks OK! But the rest of the bird looks a little stiff...

During one of our 3D Animation classes we were taught how to animate using 'constraints'. These seem to allow objects to stick to each other or maintain a certain distance apart, which is useful for animation involving props and objects.

Below you can see an attempt at practicing using constraints!

Although using constraints is a little confusing to me right now, I think after enough practice I could understand it! 

For our Stop Motion Animation task we were asked to animate one puppet dragging another as if they were unconscious! Below you can see one of my attempts:

I think this attempt is fine, however I think perhaps I could have emphasized the weight of the puppet being dragged a bit more. Perhaps by exaggerating the puppet doing the dragging's movements.

Below you can see an altered version of my 2D character head turn. After receiving more feedback from my lecturer in class I altered a few things:

- Firstly, I animated my head turn on threes and fours instead of twos, this was a mistake, so I changed all my frames so they were on twos

- The hair would also 'pop' in places, so I went back and fixed the popping the best I could 

For one of our Stop Motion Tasks, we were asked to animate a puppet doing a 'Character Walk', which is an over exaggerated walk cycle. For my character walk, I wanted to try and make the puppet look like an elderly person. So I made them hunch over as they walked and placed their arms behind them, as they probably wouldn't swing their arms very much.

However, I do think that perhaps it's steps are a little too large and fast, usually elderly people are slower on their feet.

After receiving some feedback from my lecturer and classmates, I finished my head turn and 'take' for my 2D Animation Class!

Below you can see the cleaned up version:

I'm actually quite happy with how this turned out overall. However there are a few things which I think I could improve on:

-The 'Take' part of the animation isn't exaggerated enough

- The drag on the hair could also be exaggerated more

For one of our more recent Stop Motion tasks, we were asked to create a puppet doing a basic walk cycle. Below you can see my fourth or fifth attempt:

After receiving some feedback from my lecturer and classmates, I've decided it would be best to redo this task. Here's some of the feedback they gave me:

- The puppet seems to shuffle on it's feet when it should have it's foot forwards during some steps.

-The back foot of the puppet tends to slide a lot.

-During some parts of the walk, the legs of the puppet bend a little when they really should be straight.

I also think that the video quality itself should be improved, I didn't notice when I was animating, but the final video output looks very bleached and light. So next time I attempt this task, I will also make sure the light levels and white balance are fine before starting my animation.

For one of our 2D tasks, we were asked to animate a character turning their head, and then doing a 'take' at the end of the movement. Below you can see my rough version:

I think perhaps the take needs to be a little more fluid. I'm going to ask a lecturer to give me a bit of feedback so I can correct it, before neatening it up and finishing it.

For our 'Drawing For Animation' Class, we were put into groups and asked to come up with a short story in which a character is out of scale with their environment.  Within the group, I was asked to come up with two character designs. One for a child, and one for an old man who owns a cinema.

Below you can see my designs for the characters and some fun little doodles I did, to get used to drawing the child design.

I had a lot of fun designing and drawing these characters! I look forward to getting more opportunities to design characters in the future.

Another 2D task we were asked to do, was to animate a hand turn. First we were supposed to roughly animate our own hand turning and then after that, clean it up and make it a cartoon hand with three fingers, similar to Mickey Mouse.

Below you can see my sketchy hand:

And here you can see my cleaned up attempt:

I think the animation is OK. However, I do think the line consistency changes a little on the arm/wrist area.

For one of our 2D Animation Tasks, we were asked to animate a flour sack lifting a weight of some kind.

Below you can see my attempt:

One of my classmates gave me some feedback on this exercise and she made some very good points:

- The sack could buckle under the rock and wind back more as it picks it up.

- The sack's bottom half could also move around more 

For our Stop Motion Animation Task this week, we were asked to animate a puppet throwing an imaginary ball! Below you can see my second and fourth attempts (I think these were the best of my attempts)

I think this attempt is ok. The throw is quite fast and there's a slight pause before the puppet stands up again, which slows the standing up part down.

For this attempt, I tried lifting the puppet's foot off the ground for a short time, to emulate it losing it's balance slightly after it threw the ball. I think I probably should have added more frames into the lifting the foot up section, to slow it down a little.

I decided to redo my Flour Sack Hula Hooping exercise over again. With this attempt, I drew out an arc for my hula hoop to follow, so the movement is more fluid.

I think the movement of the sack itself is much better and looks a lot less stiff, however, the hoop looks a little stiff now...

For this week's Stop Motion Animation task, we were asked to animate a puppet touching it's toes, then standing up again! Below you can see my third attempt:

Although this was difficult, I enjoyed this task, working with the puppets is a very interesting experience!

This is a slightly modified attempt of my Flour Sack hula hooping animation. I tried to make the top half less stiff. However I think I will start this task from the beginning again, in order to add in inbetweening and make the movement a lot better.

During some of my free time, I attempted to animate one of my characters waving his hand! (Just to get in some more TV Paint practice)

I think the wave itself looks alright, but the transition in facial expressions could be a little more fluid, as could the movement of the hand up and down.

Here is my finished attempt of the Flour Sack jumping over an obstacle. After receiving some feedback from my lecturer, I removed a few frames in the anticipation period just before the jump, to make the transition from crouching to the jump seem faster. 

Here's another attempt at one of our 3D Animation tasks! This time I tried to animate Monty looking sad whilst he was walking. 

I attempted to convey the feeling of sadness by making him constantly look down, as well as walking much more slowly and dragging his feet (although if I'm honest, at the moment it looks a bit like he's sliding)

For our Stop Motion Task last week, we were asked to animate a puppet turning it's head! 

Below you can see my fifth attempt.

Although this was pretty tricky to do, I actually enjoyed this a lot! Working with the puppets was really interesting!

During our 3D Animation class this week we were taught how to animate a character walking! As a bonus task, we were asked to animate the character walking from a standing position, to add another level of challenge in there.

Below you can see my simple walk:

And this is the walk from standing:

I think the walk from standing looks a little better, but perhaps that's because starting to walk from a standing position is more natural?

For one of our 2D Animation class tasks this week, we were asked to create a looping animation of a flour sack hula hooping! You can see my attempt below:

I think the movement of the flour sack's top half is a little stiff. I may reattempt this task at a later date and attempt to fix this issue by adding a few more 'in betweens' if necessary.

For one of our 3D Animation tasks, we were asked to use what we'd learned animating a basic bouncing ball, and apply it to animating a bouncing ball with a tail!

I personally found this task quite difficult, as trying to imagine and layout how the tail would move was quite hard for me. We couldn't just move the tail and the ball in sync, because that would look strange, so we had to use 'Overlapping Animation', in which the two components moved at different speeds.

Below you can see my attempt:

I think the ball looks alright as it is bouncing, however, I do think the tail movement could be improved, as it looks quite stiff. I think if I re-position some of the key frames in the different parts of the tail, I may be able to make that tail movement more fluid and smooth.

For one of out 2D Animation tasks, we were asked to animate a Flour Sack jumping over an obstacle of our choice. Below you can see my first attempt at trying to get the motion looking right.

I think that the motion looks ok, but when the sack jumps in it's arc and lands it looks a little bit stiff. I'm hoping after speaking with my lecturer about this animation and receiving some feedback, that I'll be able to improve on this version to create something I'm happy with.

For one of our 3D animation practise tasks, we had to create a simple bouncing ball, then after we finished that task, we could animate balls of different weights or we could even give the ball a bit of character and animate it looking sad/happy etc.

Here's my attempt at the simple bouncing ball:

I think this looks ok! But perhaps the arc and movement of the ball could be a little better. Perhaps I could have exaggerated the squash and stretch a little more too.

Here's my attempt at animating a heavy ball, like a bowling ball:

I also think this animation is ok. The falling speed of the ball should probably be a little faster though, to emphasize that it's a heavy ball.

Here's my attempt at animating a 'sad' ball:

Hopefully you can tell in the video that I slowed down the ball as it bounced and made it spend more time squished on the ground. This was to try and make it seem down and a bit sad.

I think maybe next time I should try making the squash and stretch even more exaggerated in order to show more clearly that the ball is supposed to be upset.

After receiving some feedback from one of my lecturers, I decided to attempt my water balloon task again.

Here's my old version:

As you can see in the animation, I've made the volume and size of the balloon inconsistent throughout the animation. I've also not stuck to an arc, so the falling balloon switches positions as it hits the ground.

Finally, the balloon stays on the ground for too long after the very first bounce, so I would need to get rid of some frames to improve this issue.

And now, here's my new attempt:

I used fewer frames between the ball squishing and jumping up again, and tried my best to keep the size of the ball consistent whilst still using squash and stretch.

I still think I could improve a little more with the fluidity of the movement of the balloon.

Another Stop Motion task we received this week, was to animate a balloon falling gently to the ground. To do this we used plasticine to create our balloon and used paper to mark out it's falling path. 

I tried this exercise out a few times before getting a result I was happy with. Below you'll find my three attempts.

1.

2.

3.

I think I'm happiest with my third attempt, as I almost got the speed of the falling balloon right, whereas with the first two attempts the balloon fell much too quickly.

We were given a few Stop Motion animation tasks to complete this week. One of them was to animate a heavy ball falling to the ground. Here is my attempt:

I feel that although the falling speed seems fairly good, the point in which the 'ball' hits the ground and bounces a little off the ground seems a little off. Perhaps next time I attempt this task, I will add more frames to the bounce.

Our first week of Stop Motion tasks consisted of animating two types of pendulums: a free swinging pendulum and a mechanical pendulum.

The first video shows my attempt at a free swinging pendulum.

This video shows my attempt at a mechanical pendulum.

I feel that I got the mechanical pendulum down pretty well, but I think I could improve on the free swinging pendulum. Maybe next time I attempt this task I'll add in more notches to make the movement more fluid.

Whilst I had a little bit of free time today, I tested out TV Paint again! This time I tried animating a character blinking, just for fun. I think it looks alright, but the blink could probably be a little more fluid. I'll probably attempt this again at a later date.

One of our 2D Animation tasks this week was to try animating a water balloon falling and bouncing on the ground.

I've posted both the rough version and the clean version here, so you can see the comparison.

I think that the clean version looks ok! I think I got across that it was a water balloon, but I feel maybe I could've exaggerated the squash and stretch a little more.

Practised using Adobe Animate yesterday to animate a bouncing ball!

It doesn't quite have the squash and stretch I was aiming for but I can try again.