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Dixon Animation Reel

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Dixon Animation Reel

just grabbed my anims this weekend and began putting this together.

http://www.dondixon.com/DixonDemoSound.mpg

19.8 megs

animatordon's picture

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Thanks animatordon, I'm glad that's been cleared up, lol.

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

No problem, ya know i went to Scad for 2 years, then transferred out, great school but very expensive, finished up at colllege for creative studies in detroit michigan, before that i was at the INterlochen arts academy. How is scad now a days, bbeen a while since ive been out there.

ps. stiill tweakin on the demo I just saved over the older one.

Don

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deleted for fear of burning bridges...

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

My advice to you is,who cares what other people do, a good artist doesnt even bother to compare ones work to anothers, but instead they focus on the task at hand which is becoming a great artist, staying original, finding inspiration in others and seeing what you can bring to it to make it your own. Good, Bad, OK, are not important its the journey and what you learn and bring to the table thats important, its what puts you out there, your heart, your ideas. Cause no matter who it is, except maybe pixar :) and maybe even them, you are always gonna find critics with something to say, " that could be better" " they could have done this" Do you think pixar cares or even think about that when they are workin? Of course not, because its distracting, you loose the idea and what you as an artist are gonna bring becasue your thinking about what others think too much.

Don

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awesome stuff
nice mixture of action and acting animation
I think the music interefered with some of the lip sync stuff though

what's the composer/name of that music? I think I used to play it on the piano... back when I played...

This is going to sound funny, cause there's lots of stuff moving around, but one of my favorite bits was actually the gun blast. When he checks it out as if it's faulty, the whole "thinking" thing works well.

Yeah you're right. Sorry about that. >_<

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

No offense, but this really looks like student work. I understand that's what you are, but I think everything on your reel could be tightened up a lot more.

The first dialogue sequence could be pushed a whole lot more. I would avoid the hands on the hips pose, as it's quite cliche now. I would also push the characters poses so we can tell how she feels simply by looking at her body language.

The part where the character enters the elevator and turns around is kinda stiff. You might want to add some more overlap on the spine/neck/head to loosen things up. The reactions to the blue guy's fart could be pushed more as well. Try exaggerating the yellow and red guy's line of action when they react.

Your character has a lot of up and down motion when he's running. Runs have less up and down motion than that and are smoother. The vertical motion would work if he was supposed to be jogging. Swinging the camera aound the character is kinda unsettling. If you want to show him from multiple angles, try having different veiws in seperate "panels" on screen rather than moving the camera so much.

In your Gate Key animation, none of the character seem to have very much emotion. I imagine the guy with the key would be frightined, the guy asking for the key would be more aggressive, and the guy in the chair would be pissed off from the victims lies. You should push all three character's body language so we instantly know how each of them feels.

In your box push, the box doesn't seem heavy. I think the character should spend more time struggling with the box in the first pose and possibly moving it a tad before changing to the second pose. Also, the second pose should be pushed more. His body should seem to form an arrow pointing at the box to show the force he's exerting on it.

Your lamb chop sequence is a tad floaty. I think you could spend more time working on the spacing to make things less even. You could also push the main characters poses.

Lastly, I would get rid of the dialogue seqence that you have at the end. The acting isn't subtle enough to convey how the character feels and the staging is kinda weird too.

Hope that helps! :)

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

Thanks for the comments guys.

Mighty Mew I dont know if you meant Im a student in the sense that I graduated college and continue to learn as I feel we all do. Cause I have been working professionally for 3 and a half years now. So because I dont exactly know where you are coming from there I wont take offense.ITs funny to me when people start a sentence off as no offense and then expect it to come across in a nice thoughtful way. :) I actually do agree with some of the comments made and will do my best to make the necessary tweaks and timing adjustments.

Thanks :)

Don DIxon
http://www.dondixon.com
http://www.dondixon.blogspot.com

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Cause no matter who it is, except maybe pixar :) and maybe even them, you are always gonna find critics with something to say, " that could be better" " they could have done this" Do you think pixar cares or even think about that when they are workin? Of course not, because its distracting, you loose the idea and what you as an artist are gonna bring becasue your thinking about what others think too much.

Actually, I'd imagine that it's especially them being that way, because they have a vested interest in looking good (if not to the audience than to their peers and own consciences). In the moment, they might not think that way because they're still in the process of making the thing to be critiqued, but even then making evaluative decisions each time you change something is part of the focus that helps produce good work.

I'm willing to bet the best guy there still gets reamed more than most people expect. Heck, maybe more than anyone else.

One thing's for sure, the admirable talent level there only gets them so far. Just like smart people still have to think each time they're faced with something to be smart about, there's hard work and self competition involved in high quality feature animation. They are still human and anyone I've met from there will be the first to tell you about the constant frequency of mistakes theyl make and how hard it is to let go of each shot when they're still busy improving it. Invariably.

Oh wow, sorry about that. I didn't know you had a job already. >_< I'm really sorry.

I put the no offense part because I don't know you or how you takes crits. I've been told that I give harsh critiques and have unintentionally upset some people by them in the past. I'm working on being nicer, but I pretty much give crits the way I expect to recieve them. If theres something wrong or something that could be improved in my work, by all means I'd want to know about it. Because of that I treat other people's critiques in the same way.

"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane

NO problem mighty, i took a look at ur site, animations are pretty good, but the drawings lack alot of construction. :) Im just messin.

Don

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