The Guardian Dragon Animation from Dragons of Atlantis

I finally finished animating the Guardian Dragon! I've been working on this project for longer than I care to think about. It was a fun project and I worked really hard on it, but it made working on it made me want to be a better and faster animator. There is an adult and a baby state to this dragon. I did the adult first and started that off with a hand drawn pencil test on paper. I scanned the keys and then from there I did the rest of the animation in Toonboom. The first portion of the adult was animated by me and the second portion after the pause when he/she turns back to face forward was animated by Greg Eichholzer. I animated the tail for the whole shot however.

The baby was animated entirely digitally. I whipped up a pencil test in Flash just because it was super easy and fast that way and then did the rest in Toonboom.

When all the work was done Greg took the animation into After Effects to add some filters to make them look a little more rounded and to better fit them into the world of Dragons of Atlantis; the webgame by Kabam that they call home.

And then... most awesomely... my voice was recorded while I spoke about the various stages of work in progress about the animation and added to the making of video to be put online to promote the new dragon!

Visual Post: Dragons of Atlantis Cloud Baby Dragon Animation

I realised that I haven't shared any of the animation that I've done for Dragons of Atlantis online. I was working on my demo reel a little while ago but for reasons it didn't get finished. I would still like to finish updating it and get that online soonish though. For today, please put your eyeballs on the animation I did of the Cloud Baby Dragon!
Cloud Baby Dragon Idle Animation from Andrea K Haid on Vimeo.

I'm already getting antsy to get back to work on my film after being away for just a week! It's like a Siren, calling me. I've watched a few movies since my painting milestone and I made a fitness schedule for myself that in theory would be easy to keep up with. Part of that schedule has me getting to the gym after work and before dinner but since I decided to do that I've ended up socialising or being too busy every evening. Argh! I would much prefer to work out in the morning but, pretty much due to my hair, that means I'm late for work every day. My hair is long and it takes forever to wash, brush and dry it. Dammit. Cut it you say? I don't think so. So I dunno. I really want to exercise more but I have a hell of a time fitting fitness into my daily schedule. Maybe I'll just try exercise in the morning again.

I have made a little bit of time for learning Maya on my own in the last week! I don't think it's going to be a stretch for me to get comfortable animating in Maya. I feel like it's completely within my reach. It would be cool to get better at modeling and just have a general understanding of more Maya tools, though animating is always going to be my specialty and passion. I'll keep at it and put up some tutorials that I complete sometime.