That's what he is. I wanted to see if I could animate a dude walking (in Flash), and I did it. I learned a little bit when I did it. Of course it's not perfect, but when you're using inverse kinematics it's not exactly an exact science (at least it isn't for me yet). I took about a half hour and put this thing together (drawing it in Illustrator, setting it up in Flash, and animating). This is something I want to do a little bit more of in the future. I really like animation and it's something that I wanted to do when I was little. Kind of a dumb story but I decided not to go after it when I was a sophomore in my High School careers class. We looked up the salaries for the jobs we wanted to do and animators were like in the lower echelons of pay scale (like $10 an hour, it really sucked) and that changed my career path to, well nothing at the time. But it wasn't animation which is sad because I really wanted to do it. I spent most of my younger years drawing all the disney characters, and, like any talent if you don't use it, I lost it, or at least most of it. I can still kind of do it.
Anyway, the animation was just kind of an experiment, but I can do a lot of other things as well. Making someone walk is pretty difficult (well to make it look natural is difficult). Since my focus before has been on photography, it's been a real learning curve working in graphic design (Oh I don't know if I said this before, but I am freelancing as a graphic artist). I mean I know all the principles and how they apply, and also all the software, but actually putting it into practice is something else completely. I have a huge respect for the full time graphic artists. It's hard work.
Here's another one I did. Most of these were done as examples for lectures in my classes, but it helps the students get the idea of what they are supposed to do.
The above video was just a quick one I did (in Flash) for Stevens-Henager College just to put on their video displays. We needed some recruiting videos for the graphic arts programs (everyone was going into medical specialties) so we made this one and it worked, the program grew.
Yep you read right. FROZEN. This took a few days of prep work to get everything set, plus a quick run to the grocery store to get some dry ice. First I had to get a bowl (I know real scientific) and fill it with some sand so that my "Trees" would stand up while they froze. I "planted" the trees and then filled the rest of the bowl with water and set it in the freezer to, well freeze. After it had solidified a little bit I went back with a spray bottle and misted more water on the trees and on top of the already frozen water to create some texture.
After that I used some dry ice to create the blowing snow effect. I think it turned out pretty good, and it feels good to get back to doing more macro landscapes. I usually have to block out a whole night to do these things, but this one didn't take me too long, probably because I have done them so much before I've got it down to a science on how to set it up and get the desired experience.
