lip syncing practise

i found the phoneme shapes for the mouth, this is really just for my own benifit, i find that when i draw things out it commits them to memory better. so i drew the phoneme shapes for the dialog so i could get a better idea of what the technique is.

11 sec competition

the new monthly competition has opened up, and i have been planning a skit to go along with the sound clip, this months sound is from the old charlie and the chocolate factory movie, where wonka and grampa are arguing.
i have done a very rough story board of how my animation is going to look and im going to refine this over the next few days, and map out the lip synching shapes aswell.
im unsure if ill be able to finish the animation in time for the competition, but i will certaintly try, as this is a great way to improve my work flow rate and storyboard and animation skills.

11 second club

when i was chatting to paul he mentioned it would be a good idea to participate in the monthly competition called 11 second club, it starts at the begining of every month, and you are given 11 secs of dialog from a movie, and from this you have to create a skit from it and animate to it.
this is great practise because it will help increase my work flow time, and animation skills.
if you win the competition your work is then critted by top animators from the industry, and even if you dont win, other participants offer helpfull tips aswell.
so this is what i am going to be doing to help improve my skills,
aswell as working on my characters at the same time.
ideas for skits and an upload of the dialog i will be working from will be put up in the next few days:)

learning plan

for the last few weeks i have been refining my learning plan and handed it in yesterday.
i am going to start working on the advice that my tutor paul suggested. which is to enter a monthly competiton where i can recieve crit for my work, and to look at some magazines that will help me with my research for games.

learning plan

for thw past few weeks i have ben focusing my time on producing a learning plan. i have been researching what books will be usefull to me throughout my studies, aswell as dvd tutorials and internet sites, all of which will be mentioned in the learning plan.
i have run my initial brief idea past sue edwards, one of my two mentors, and she is enthusiastic about it, i have yet to discuss it with paul but i will no doubt be able to talk with him soon and get his opinions on it. this is what i have been doing for the last few weeks, and with me having a two week extension with my being ill, i will continue to work on it untill my new hand in date, which has yet to be decided.

plans for the masters

right now my main project idea for my masters is to create a female games character, create a story surrounding this character and animate a section from that story or animate the character in showreel form.

at this point i am unsure of whether or not i wil lbe modelling and rigging the character in cgi, but most likely i will enlist the help of another student to do those sections, as i do not want to be either a modeler or a rigger.
I will do doing all pre production work such as storyboards, animatics, character concepts etc.
the main purpose of this blog is to show my animation tests, and to also show the tutorials i will be working from in maya, which will be from animation tutorial dvds.
the end result will be a stronger showreel in which to exhibit my work, and also a strong games story which could be presented to studios, or at least a story idea that can be further developed after the masters for studio pitching.

currently i will be running my idea past my mentors and ironing out any loose ends with my project idea.