"The Thieving Spider"

Today is the DAY!

This is my final submission for The Rookies Animation Challenge and I am very happy with the results!

In my last step I added lots of overlap in the arms and especially some facial animation!

Thank you for letting me participate in this great challenge. I have learned so much during this project and am looking forward to next year already. It has been special to not only see my own animation progress, but also the progress of the other participants and I congratulate you guys on completing the challenge!

Marina

My third update for The Rookies Knight Spider Animation Challenge is online!

First of all, I changed the timing of especially the jump, which makes it appear more cartoony and exaggerates the movement! As promised, I added a slight squash and stretch of the body, but did not go overboard with it, so that the poses can speak for themselves. Since the second pull looked too repetitive in comparison to the third pull, I changed it up a lot to make it more exciting and variable. I too filmed more reference for the ending to not only exaggerate it more, but also correct the timing of it.

My animation of it is not done yet though, so you can stop by in the next days for one more update!

Thanks for having a look at my animation!

Marina 

Today I want to share my second draft for the Knight Spider Contest of The Rookies with you.

In the last few weeks I focused myself on cleaning the transitions between fk and ik, exaggerate the poses and especially working over the jump of the Spider in the beginning. I additionally removed the intersections of the hands with the floor, other hands and the body. Furthermore, I added some secondary animation on the lower left arm, just as him using it as a third leg and pushing off with it.

During my process I tried different endings, just as a bounce or a roll backwards, but was not content with it. Instead I decided to futher exaggerate the current ending of him falling onto the ground.

A major advantage of that in my opinion is, that he too sees the bag fall on its own after he has tried lifting it so long.

Next up in my process I am planning on adding squash and stretch, facial animation and film even more reference for the ending to exaggerate it more.

Thank you for having a look at my animation and Merry Christmas!

Marina

I tried to pay attention to the silhouette of the spider to create lots of negative space and expressive poses!

I am happy to announce that I can now share my first update of my animation for the "Knight Spider Animation Challenge" of the Rookies with you.

Constructive feedback and tips are always appreciated!

In the first stage of my workflow, I shot lots of reference of myself trying to lift an extremely heavy object, the abrupt entrance and sneaking. Since I noticed myself, that sneaking isn’t the most spectacular action, I decided to replace it with a so called “dive roll”, as practiced in the sport of Parkour, to make the spider look more like a thief trying to steal the bag.

After importing a compilation of the best reference I shot into Maya, I started blocking my animation in Maya. Since I first wanted to get a grasp of the general feel of the character and did not want to get distracted by the number of arms, the character has, I decided to first turn off the visibility of everything, except torso, head, legs and feet. In that way, I could concentrate on the basic motion of those limps and gradually added the arms into the motion.

Next up, I am planning to clean up the transitions between fk and ik, add squash and stretch and clean up and exaggerate the poses further.

Thanks for having a look at my animation!

Marina

Bag     by Adobe Substance 3D Assets
Rig       by The Rookies