Put a Lid on that Iris

Last week I learned a very fascinating fact about eyes and I haven't been able to stop looking at eyelids since.

When looking at eyes, generally the upper eyelid will keep in contact with the iris. Unless you're going for a specific expression; frightened, crazy, disgusted, dopey and hopeful etc. Something where the eyes are locked to a target (usually angled down) and the brows are pulling up, taking the lids for a ride.



Otherwise, in most cases you won't likely see any white of the eyes above the iris.



Now this might seem trivial, but it's just an extra step in giving the audience something they can relate to... even if they don't know they're relating to it. A step towards believability. Personally though I find this a very important aspect to be aware of, since the viewer pays attention to and connects with the eyes the most. Even more so at AM since we're dealing with a character that has such huge eyes.

Kevin Koch's Article on Saccades / Fixations

Check out the video at the top of this page and see the eyelid moving in sync with the eye darts (actually everyone should read all of Kevin's stuff about eyes, he's got a few articles that focuses just on eye movements). One interesting bit is that when the eye moves at the very end, the eyelid reacts pretty accurately to maintain it's relationship to the iris. There's sometimes a frame of drag or overshoot, but they're pretty spot on.

I've never taken that close a look at this before and when I heard about it (source being my Class 1 mentor David Weatherly, relayed by my study mate Michael Amos), I went around looking at AM assignments and animation at the 11 second club, the white bug eyes are rampant. So go study some eyes, read Kevin's articles, and infuse that gold into your animation!

The Love for Learning

Long time no post. It's been pretty crazy at the Animation Mentor scene and just when I've sorta grasped the current concept I was learning, ten more concepts show up right behind it.

Sounds like a complaint, but it's really awesome. This part of my life has been missing since I was a kid: The quest for knowledge. I've always done well in school but there was no direction. I just aimlessly tried to get good grades because I was told that was the right thing to do. It wasn't until a few months ago that I started to get really excited about absorbing the knowledge of how humans and animals work in order to create more believable animation. I've been constantly digging deeper since.

I woke up today, sat down at my desk, and realized there are stacks of books surrounding me now. Before AM, you'd never see me with a book. It made me realize how much I've changed since opening that stopmotionanimation.com webpage.

Some of the books I've read recently that I found quite interesting:

Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone

This book probably got the ball rolling. There are really crazy bits in this book and some of it was admittedly hard for me to sludge through. But the meat of this book is pure gold. And not just from an animation perspective, but a life perspective.

What Every BODY is Saying by Joe Navarro

An Ex-FBI Agent (who the TV Series "Lie to Me" was based on) deconstructs his process of human "tells" of the body that give away our inner thoughts and feelings. He goes through from head to toe and explains what, why, how. A very interesting and fun read.

Directing Film Techniques and Aesthetics by Michael Rabiger

One of the first books I read when I was just digging into film making. It delves into very specific examples and explains why certain choices are made and how structuring and planning the scenes ultimately makes it clearer to the audience on both a conscious and subconscious level. Clarity, can't work without it!

Hope to get back to this more regularly, with actual progress and tips to share :) Till then, have a good one!

Stewfasaaa

Blocking 2:




Changes:

His leg poses were reading too human-like so now he lands hands first; more of a tigery fashion.

Changed the other poses accordingly to accommodate the arc he creates in the air. Added a breakdown before and after the land. Kind of does a gallop to settle.

Added anticipation before the jump.

More neutral starting position for more reaction in the spine when he spots the bird (still pondering about this).

Still lots to clean up. But I've already learned so much about workflow and the importance of showing your work at it's blueprint stages. I showed a friend of mine 9 poses and I had to go back and drastically change 6/9 which totally changed my entire shot. So on that front... woohoo!

Time has wings.

Continuing the adventures at Animation Mentor, these past 3 months just flew by in an instant. Overall the difficulty is rising, in part because I'm choosing to do harder assignments. My mentor even ended up stating in my overall assessment that I overextended myself :) But he quickly followed up with "... but I don't hold it against you."

One thing I've noticed that I've been lacking is follow-through. Whenever I hit an obstacle my motivation meter depletes exponentially. This is something I've been working on all term and I'm glad to report that there is progress. At the end of the day, here is what my Class 2 ended with :



It turned out okay but I'm not 100% satisfied with my performance this term. And since we have a good amount of days off on this break, I've decided to buck up and go for another test. This time with some goals in mind:

1. "One shot, one thought" (thanks Brian!)
2. Do first pass blocking with a minimal amount of poses.
3. Try IK Spine (and in this case IK hands).
4. Experiment with creature-like behavior.
5. Cartoony - break the rig like crazy. Defy physics (just a little)
6. 100 Frame limit.

Plan: Stewfasa is stalking a bird as it's flying around the area. He notices it turning around, springs from atop his ledge and swipes him out of the air - landing on the ground in nothing less than an awesome fashion.

Here goes pass 1:

Test Tweakage

Messing around with that test a little bit. I touched on the timing and the arcs a tad, toned down the legs rotation of the 2nd revolution on the 2nd bar, and started on the end spin. Here's the update: