My First Project

[Laminar]

Okay. So I'm a complete newbie to ASP and to animation in general. Although I can spell "bezier handle" I have no idea what one is or why I would ever need one. My artistic skills are limited to straight lines with the help of a ruler and a well worn eraser.

So it was with much trepidation that I decided to try this animation thing out. I have always had a little nagging notion in my mind that I would enyoy this and as it turns out I am enjoying it tremendously.

I purchased ASP about 6 weeks ago and have been using it every day since then. I did a small chistmas animation for the family party etc and then on to this project. Apart from some borrowed content (mouths and a stick) from ASP I have drawn/molded everything else myself (no one was more shocked at this than I...even my wife was impressed).

The project being produced is for some pre-schoolers in my life and I have designed it to be easily customizable with different children's names. Who knows maybe someday I can sell a copy or two on ebay. I envision the completed thing to be about 20 minutes in length when I'm done, but I'm at a point now where I think I could benefit from some honest criticism before I go charging onwards making the same mistakes.

Now, in my real life, I am a project manager for rather large I.T. projects which means that I am used to be blamed for everything. Including the coffee not being hot enough and the solar eclipse causing havoc with peoples suntanning efforts. This has, of course, given me a very thick skin so please don't hold back....tell me what you really think. I'm not looking to produce extremely professional looking stuff here but on the other hand I do want something that is representative of the best of my abilities so I need to know what I should be looking to improve upon.

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone on this wonderful board. Your willingness to help out is a rarity on boards like this and I can honestly say if it wasn't for the people on this board I would have given up on this project a long time ago. I have learned so much already. Thanks

Okay here is the link to that youtube place (quality sucks as usual but I'm sure you all know that by now)

Cheers...Paul.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tftzjZeOCjI

[fiziwig]

That's a great little animation! Good work.

--gary

[FCSnow]

I have seem your first effort and the only criticism I have is that you underestimate yourself.

I have an artistic background and animation has more to do with observation than how well you can draw. Your ability to see how the world moves will serve you more than how well you can draw a straight line.

When I was sitting in art class we had the one minute exercise, where we had only a minute to render as much as we could to paper. This exercise along will increase anyones power of observation.

Also a couple of classes in cinematography would benefit all newbies to animation.

Good Luck
FCSnow