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.