Time to move on... to acting!!

On November the 1st I returned to Escape Studios for my second module this year. This time we were going to focus on character animation, probably my favorite kind of animation! Unlike creature animation, characters don't have to behave 'spot on' like real life humans. All acting must be more or less exaggerated, and because of this, I find it so much more interesting and infinitely more fun. However, by that same token, it can prove a lot more challenging to properly pull off.

First two weeks were, just like previous module, mostly filled with various small exercises involving a lot of common actions such as jumps, reaction shots, hand gestures, lip syncing and basic acting postures. All of them were useful, but just like last time, for me they were slightly overshadowed by the task awaiting all of us by the end of the module.

Unlike last time, we're not just supposed to animate whatever we want just for the sake of it. No, once more we're stepping up the game a little bit. This module, we need to choose an animation contest for which we'll submit our final piece of work. We get a lot of freedom of choice in terms of which contest we want to enter, however taking deadlines and various contest rules into consideration, the decision is a lot more difficult than it may seem at first. 

Among the suggested contest are The Rookies - an animation contest in which we're given the Spider Knight rig and have to create a 10 second long animation with it. The deadline for this one is comfortable, as we've got time until January to submit for the contest itself, even though the module schedule needs us to submit sooner. Still, it's the most time we could possibly be given. However, it comes with a lot of restrictions regarding camera work, lighting, rendering, prop usage and sound design, making it significantly more difficult to come up with a good story idea.

Second big option is the 11 Second Club, a monthly contest in which a line of dialogue is given at the start of the month, and the participants can create an animation to match it with any means necessary. This one is seemingly the very opposite of the other option. Everything is more or less allowed, apart from tweaking the audio. However, this year, the module deadlines are a lot more awkward with this one. Overall, this one feels more appealing to me, but I will need to wait with getting started on this one until December the 1st.