1st round extremeDuring the third class I got approval to start my pose test. I just needed to add a couple more extremes to my thumb sketches and I was good to go. The pose test was to be on 8's. So you draw every 8 frames. During the pose test I had about 104 frames total. So I had 24 drawings to work out in one week. Does not sound like a lot but when you have to think of it in terms of motion it gets complicated. It was a tight deadline between working full time and living a life. I felt like I was really pushing the drawings once I started animating. However it is a strange thing when you finally see it in motion. How it tame the poses become once it is moving.

During the next session it went as I thought. Don had asked to push a few of the poses further. On top of that it seemed as if I was off a bit on which part of the dialog I was adding accents to. This caused me to re shoot my reference video and change up my animation a little. It meant going back and redrawing a lot of it. On top of that he asked us now to bring the drawings to 4's. This round I decided to be way more loose and sketchy. some frames were nothing but smudged scribbles. When flipping back and forth they seem to work. My plan was if time permits to go back tighten them up later. The first round I was trying 2nd pass extremeto keep relatively clean lines. In the end it made my animation way too stiff. Also I think I was focusing on the lines instead of pushing the extreme drawings.

Flash forward one week. It definitely helped going more sketchy. I was able to push the extremes a little more. It was tough trying to get all the drawings done on time. On a couple of the days I was exhausted while animating. The results could be seen in my drawings. I had a lack of focus and it showed. To say the least a few drawings had to be thrown out. That was when I went to bed. Frustrated I did not get further but also realised I had hit a wall. I was struggling to trying and get it all done on time. Luckily I finished it in the zero hour and got it turned in on time. I definitely could have used another day to do another pass on the shot.Reference video

Don had a few small comments on the timing. Otherwise he said it was ready to move to the next stage. While this was our last class he gave us comments and recommended we all keep going. So when time permits I will jump back into the drawings. I still have to add in the secondary animation and draw the ears in. It was a tough assignment but a great learning experience.

In Class with Don Bluth

Bartok animation drawing (Pose Test)