Chase Shields

So here we are! At the end of the term! :)

It's been a crazy busy class but really rewarding class. Brent Homman, from Disney, has been a huge help in my work. Definitely took advantage of his experience on Tangled with this last acting shot.

Here's my progress reel with the work from this class all the way to class 1. It also has the final for the two person dialogue shot I've been working on.

Another week closer to the end of the term! :) This is the first week of polishing for this shot. Basically going over and over trying to nit pick the crap out of this thing. Also get to get in there and add all the fun little details that most people will never even see.... but will "feel."

So this is the fun part! :) The final for this shot will be done next week.

So I'm finally in splines! Hooray. But I'm just polishing everything up now.

The lip sync is ROUGH! :) I know

The final version is due in a couple weeks so I've still got some time to polish this thing up.

So this week I'm still working out the main actions before I start polishing. It's still in stepped mode, so that explains the choppy-ness especially in the face. But most of the action is on 1s and 2s.

Next week I'll be going into spline and will start polishing! Also probably will have the start of the lip sync added as well. :)

So this week has been pretty fun with this shot. Just been setting more and more keys. So far the ideas are starting to come alive nicely. Just got more work to do on it. More things to try and refine.

It has been an awesome week for blocking! My mentor really liked the direction I was going in with my planning and had just a few notes on the direction for composition. I'm really excited to finally start seeing these characters come to life! :)

So here is my first blocking pass on this shot. There are still many weeks to come to refine this even more!

I'm soooo excited to get started on a new shot! My two person dialogue is finally here. So I chose to do the "Are you happy" clip from my three clips last week. Here's my planning for the shot.

So I'm done with my one person dialogue shot and now have to start thinking about my two person shot. This week we had to go out and find some dialogue clips from movies or shows. For those looking at this that might have to do this in the future, I would recommend using www.movieclips.com :)

Here are the best three clips that I found to use for my animation.

So here it is! Finally I have my first dialogue shot finished. Now, mind you, it still needs to be touched up a bit, he needs different clothes and hair, etc. But the animation is about there! Now it's just on to another dialogue shot. This time with two characters.

This week I had some great notes from my mentor on my shot. This was the first time he looked at both the body of the shot and the blocking that I did for last week. He gave some notes for me to change on the shot like how he enters and exits. Also some notes on the facial animation and the overall emotions in the shot. But here is how it all turned out! :)

Also this week we had to find 2 face poses from the internet and recreate that pose on Bishop. Here are how those poses turned out.

I'm back! :) Its been a great holiday break, but I'm so excited to be back in the swing of things!

So its finally here! :) A whole year's worth of work at Animation Mentor. Even I'm surprised at how far I've come since the beginning.

So this is a little late, but last week was definitely busy. It was our final week to make any changes and polish our dialogue shot. We still haven't touched the facial animation. When I start next term, I'll basically pick this shot back up where I left off and work on the lip sync. Then I'm on to my 2 person dialogue! :)

So here is the final that I turned in this past week.

So this week has been full of splines.... and more splines. I honestly underestimated how much work it would be to polish all the parts of Bishop. It was tough, and took a couple overnighters, but I got my shot back to where I kinda had in mind from the beginning. It's like a little light at the end of the tunnel that I was in last week. :) But now next week I get to polish this shot even more for the final. I'm not actually going to lip sync for this shot until next term. But that's a whole other concept.

So a little late this week. lol But this past week has been pretty rough with Turkey Day and Black Friday in the mix. Also this week I had to push my shot into spline. So if I have anything to blame my work on it would be that. ;) Its just the first spline pass so it's still got a lot of work still.

But on the plus side! My wonderful fiance, Jess, got me an early Christmas and birthday gift during Black Friday in the form of a Canon EOS Rebel T3. :) It's very fun to use and is my breakthrough at a hobby in photography, more to come later on that.

Oh but here's my shot so far. Also below is another hand pose I had to do this week. We had to convey the emotion "Relaxed" in our pose.

I'm finally here! Working with Bishop (lite) and working on dialogue shots! So this week I've worked on one of the shots that my mentor chose from last week. He felt that clip 2, or the interrupting piece, was the best choice. So I researched the clip and figured out what the backstory of my character would be. Since I'm animating more than just the dialogue, I had to think of everything about this character, age, occupation, education, sense of humor, etc. Also for this shot I had to develop the story telling elements as well. This shot in a nutshell is an awkward uncle comes in to give his sister in the delivery room a little too early. So his main action is coming into the delivery room with a flower. His objective is obviously to give his sister the flower but the conflict is that the baby isn't born yet. :)

So here's my blocking so far for the shot. I've got quite a few weeks to work on this so it may change a bit between now and the end of the shot. :)

Holy Tomatoes! It's already Week 6 and halfway through the 4th class! :D This is going by crazy fast, seriously. But this week in class, we are starting into the meat of acting. We had to search all over the internet to find dialogue clips from either movies or television shows that we can animate one person acting to. Then after I get graded for this week I'll know which one of these 3 shots that I'll actually block out and do for next week.

So, here are the 3 clips I found:

Sooooo this week has been fun. I've had to take out some parts that were just too busy and then polish polish polish. Basically put little dots all over my character and track those points to make sure they are smooth pretty arcs. :) After all that fun, I now have something that I could call final. Also this week is Halloween! So me and Jess carved pumpkins. I decided to carve Lightning Mcqueen into my pumpkin. Those are also below! Enjoy

So this week has been pretty fun. I've added a lot of little things to my shot and my mentor wants everyone to be in spline as well. So I tried to take control of everything I possibly could so when I switched to splines, there would be no surprises. :)

So far things are working well but I'm still noodling around to try to get it just right. The final version is due next week and will be up then.

So this week I've got my blocking done. My mentor so far has really been great. He liked my idea and my planning from last week with just a couple changes. So I took those and set all of my poses. I also have a tutoring session with Malcon Peirce this week to go over this shot. Next week I'll have my blocking plus done and more of this shot finished! :)

Its finally the start of acting! This past week started Class 4 - Introduction to Acting. I'm really stoked about getting into the performance side of animation now. My mentor is a guy named Ray Chase who is a Senior Animator at Reel FX. For those who might not know, Reel FX is a studio down near Dallas, TX that does a lot of commercial and even feature work. Recently, they have been responsible for the new Looney Tunes shorts and as well as Open Season 3.

Ray is an awesome guy, I met him also this past week in our Q&A. I'm really looking forward to this term and being able to pump out some great animation!

Now onto my shot.

This assignment is my pantomime shot. I have to create a shot within 250 frames that uses acting WITHOUT dialogue. I also have to have 2 contrasting emotions in the shot as well, for example happy to sad or patience to anger.

For my shot I have a very confident barber that messes up a haircut. So my contrasting emotions will be confidence to devastation.

I have officially made it through Class 3! This also marks the halfway point for a very short 18 month journey through Animation Mentor. I've got coming up only 3 more shots to work on from here to the end. Next term is Intro to Acting and I personally think it's where the real animators are separated from the  rest.

A quick recap of the past 9 months:

This has honestly been one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through. I've completed the Eagle Scout Award with the Boy Scouts of America, which is a task that not many people can say they have done. It took a lot of time and effort, spending many hours over the course of 5 years. Until now, that was the hardest thing I had ever had to stick with and complete. Animation Mentor has topped that by far! AM is definitely getting intense and is a day in, day out, kind of affair. Everyday I have to work at it to constantly get better. But this is a thing that will never end. AM teaches people to get into the "lifestyle" of being an Animator. I've said since the beginning of this, that "Animator's are born." It was a quote I heard from the wonderful Victoria Tripp at AM. I definitely believe this and can see it unfolding as I go through the program. But, I've learned a ton over the past 9 months, and have the sketchbooks full notes to show it! :) I'm very blessed to have the opportunity to be here at Animation Mentor and have my family to thank for making it possible. Animation Mentor is not only a school, but a whole community of some of the greatest people on the earth. They are a family that looks out for each other. I've heard time and time again that the Animation industry is really small. After talking and connecting with people in the industry I can see that's true. I haven't talked to a professional yet that didn't know another professional I know or a Mentor at AM. Overall, I am super excited to use what I've learned so far at Animation Mentor to be the best Animator I can be and work my way into the industry. Just one more step closer to my dreams.

Now for Class 3, here is my progress reel all nice and rendered. It has all of my work starting with Class 3 and working back to the very beginning.

Its the end of the term! :) My last assignment is turned in and now I'm just waiting to start into acting! This week I had to completely finish my mechanical bull shot. This next week I have to render up my progress reel and turn that in. Then I'm off to Class 4 - Introduction to Acting. Also, after this next week I'll be on a break for a week. Here's my final shot for Class 3: