Halloween Challenge #16

Never quite got why some people are afraid of clowns.

Halloween Challenge #15

I wouldn't open that door.

Halloween Challenge #14

A more ominous one than scary.

Halloween Challenge #13

Another traditionally made one, all in ink.

Halloween Challenge #12

Long hiatus due to trip to Germany and then hanging out with a friend for a week, but will now catch up with some that I drew during the drought.

Satan sitting atop a chair made of people.

Mid Term Exam

Mid Term Exam from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

This was the result of three days labor working on Danny jumping over a manhole.  I am personally very pleased with the little film, believing it may very well be the best animation I have done so far.  While there are problems, such as volume changes and being offmodel on non acceptable frames, it was well regarded and they gave me a passing grade.

First Semester Showreel

First Semester Showreel from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

A little late in uploading this, but I wanted to hear what my censor thought of it before I put it up on the blog.

As a matter of fact, she thought it was more than decent, and showed improvements as the reel went on, demonstrating understanding and execution of the principles I was supposed to be learning.

From now on the clips I upload will most probably be made in TVPaint, an animation software that we have been practicing with this week.

Music in the showreel provided by GaribaldiMusic.com

Advent #11 Clean Up

Here is today's advent picture, this time related to what I am working with, at least in its subject.  Its supposed to be a kiddified me literally cleaning up a drawing.  I thought it was amusing anyways.

And below is the fruit of my labors this week.  Clean Up animation is very tricky, since you have to 'fix' every drawing that the animator has made, fine tuning proportions or simply making sure that he has all the features that the character should have.

In the end I have some problems with keeping track of the volume of the character, since his limbs and body tends to shrink and grow per drawing.  But I would love to try this again, because I believe it will help me be a better animator.


Clean Up Assignment from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

Space Truckers

Director Assignment from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

This is the result of the last week's assignment.  Due to my director's school policies I am not allowed to show the full animatic/film, but I am allowed to show what I had worked on.  So in this video theres all five scenes that I animated.

The week as a whole was rather enjoyable, not learning anything new in terms of actual animation, but learning tons in terms of communicatoin, organization and hierarchy within a project.  It was an interesting scenario to constantly ask the director whether he approved of your scene, and to take someone elses opinion into consideration, since its the director's vision that you are trying to portray.

The animation itself is purposefully crude.  We had a motto in our group, which was "Consistently Inconsistent".  That means that as long as each and every one of us animates the characters differently in terms of the drawings, it will be consistent and people won't question the characters being off model, since the characters are never on model.  It was also a nice change of pace to draw something so wild compared to all the heavily constructed characters we have already done.

I'll upload today's advent later today.

Next Week: Clean Up!

Straight from Kokamo Indiana

Acting Assignment from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

 This here is what we have been doing this week.  I am personally very happy with it and think the whole week was a lot of fun.  The assignment was to animate the character Danny conducting an orchestra to a piece of music that we got to choose.  I chose Wagner's Kaiser March simply because it was a little bit more varied as well as a mix between the Verdi and Beethoven choices in terms of intensity.

Some notable problems are volume changes in the animation, having the character and his parts grow and shrink at odd times.  However, the action I think is very well done.

Next week we will have some animation director students arrive, and we will collaborate on a short 25 second scene.

And for your enjoyment, a proper scene featuring Danny :D

Generations

Interaction Assignment from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

This was my take on the interaction assignment we had last week.  Alot of fun, and a good breather from the incredibly tough Madame Medusa from before.  We had a choice between two characters to interact with Hogarth (The Iron Giant): either the Sultan from Aladdin, or Kala, Tarzan's ape mother.  I chose the Sultan, since his entire body was just composed of circles, and needed someone easy to animate.

My approach to this was to have the two have the relationship of the fun grandfather and energetic grandson.  Hogarth loves his grandfather very much, and just slams into him.  While it is routine, the Sultan is always taken by surprise when the young boy rushes into him, though he never holds it against his grandson and gently hugs him back.

Here's a hint at what we will be doing this week:

Never Again!

Medusa Progression Reel from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

I sincerely regret picking Medusa as the character to animate and inbetween.  A character such as her is way to complicated for my inexperienced hands.  No wonder it was Milt Kahl's crowning achievement, no one but him could animate her properly.

Either way, the final result turned out ok, after I decided to stop worrying if she was on model or not and focus on actually animating her.

Now I'm just worried about the clean up week, since apparently we have to clean up this scene that we worked on...

Between the two of us

Well, the two weeks of inbetweening is over now, and it was qute an experience.  After having drawn everything into the Aisling clip now, I have gotten a further understanding on animation.  No wonder inbetweeners would often become animators.  I learned alot from inbetweening this scene.


Aisling Inbetweens from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

And below I have a collection of all the 23 drawings I drew to complete this assignment.  She was much easier to draw than Madame Medusa, though her stylistic design did cause some confusion for me.

Basic Animation Show Reel

Animation Basics Showreel from Humphrey Erm on Vimeo.

This is a compilation of all the works I have done during the three weeks of animation basics at school.  I was surprised to find out that the essence of animation didn't lie in the complexity of the character moving, but rather about spacing and timing.  Obvious now, but for a guy who mostly likes to draw, and not having done a proper animation (dabbled with Flash a lot previously)I was genuinely amazed at how simple objects like balls could be given so much life just with the consideration of how far apart each drawing is spaced, and how long each drawing is seen.