Character Animation 1: Walk Final Project

This is the final playblast of my final project for Character Animation. I can honestly say that I learned a lot more about walk cycles and posing than I thought I already knew.I had a lot of fun with this project, and I know that the skills I've learned from this project will aid me greatly in the future.

Even though a lot of us probably thought a simple walk cycle is boring, but it really lays the ground work for future work, and the only way I can become a successful animator to understand as much as possible about animation and how to properly use it.

Hopefully, I will get a chance to re-upload a higher quality video on here to show the character's expressions more clearly, but I'm really happy with my final result, and I'm glad I was able to accomplish this project! I look forward to more animation in the future!

- Drew

Visual Effects 1: Soft Bodies: Deadpool makes Breakfast

For our final project for Visual Effects, we had to create a video using at least one type of soft body. That was literally the entire description of the project! We could do anything we could think of as long as it included soft bodies. So naturally, I decided to use my Deadpool rig one final time.

I think this was my favorite project yet, so I made sure to have a lot of fun with it. The soft bodies were not too difficult to make look right, so I didn't try and make it too complicated. The butter melting and the pancake forming were enough for my soft bodies, and I also added some extra particles to the butter to act as bubbles.

As for animation, I really loved animating this project. Between rigging and animating Deadpool as a whole, as well as rigging and animating the pancake, I can say that I feel like I've greatly improved over the last few months and I am confident in my animations. I look forward to posting more of my animations here, and hope you'll enjoy them as well.

- Drew

Visual Effects 1: Particles - Deadpool Plays with Fireworks

For our second project of Visual Effects, we had to create a scene using at least three different types of particles within Maya. Just like the last project, we were able to create anything we wanted as long as we met the requirements.

I took advantage of the opportunity to use my rigged Deadpool model again in this project, and I really enjoyed it. Particles were not too hard after I figured out how to make each particle work properly. It was a lot of fun to make this project, though I had not finalized my rig at this point, so I was forced to work in FK for picking up the firework (which is nearly impossible). I animated everything, created the background of the scene, as well as the rig for the Deadpool model, and all of the particles. I also edited the video and added all the sound effects.All in all, I loved making this and hope you enjoy it!

- Drew

Visual Effects 1: Rigid Bodies - Deadpool's Rube Goldberg Machine

Over the last month, I've been in Visual Effects, and it is by far one of my favorite classes so far! The class gave us so much freedom, and allowed me to not only complete the projects, but also animate my own personal rigs.

For our first project, we had to use rigid bodies to create a Rube Goldberg machine. I used a scene given to me and added my own artistic touch with my own textures and models as well. I really enjoyed this project and it taught me a lot about rigid bodies and dynamics in Maya. I hope you like it!

Everything in the video was animated by me. I also created the rig for Deadpool (in the previous post) and edited the entire video.

- Drew

Rigging: Deadpool Rig

Since I wanted to start a freelance career in rigging, I decided to look around for models that I could rig, and also use for personal animations. That's when I stumbled upon this model of Deadpool modeled by tusleader.

I realized how much I could do with a rig for this model, so I spent  few days rigging it and I was very happy with the final result. Below is the final rig with all of the controls visible. The rig is made of smooth skin weights that keep the model smooth as it bends. The rig also contains IK systems in the legs and arms, as well as an IK/FK switch in the hands to switch between the systems in the arms.

I was also able to add mouth controls, as well as eyebrow and cheek controls to give him more emotion throughout my animations. Below are some examples of the rig on the model.

 Above, you can see the IK and FK systems present on both arms. The switch in the hand allows for easier animation depending on the user's preference.

I was really proud of this project, being that it was my first ever self rig. I find myself going back to it and adding more feature every day, but I'm very happy with the rig at this point, and I've even used it in multiple projects that you'll see on this blog soon! More rigs to come in the future!

- Drew

Deadpool model by tusleader
Model source
 

Character Animation 1: Eggy Walk Final

For the month of August, I have been in Character Animation 1, where we have been learning and using the basic principles of a walk to create a fluid and natural looking walk cycle.

This was my first project for the class where we had to create a walk cycle of only the hips, legs, and feet. If we finished, we would be able to add a turn, hold, and jump at the end. I was able to finish the walk (and get 100% on it :D) and attempt the turn and jump.

I'm happy with how it turned out, but wish I had more time to perfect the jump and landing pose. All in all, I enjoyed this project and learned a lot about animation from it!

- Drew

Compositing Fundamentals: 'Dogzilla' Final Composite

Sticking to the theme of old projects, here is my final project for Compositing Fundamentals. We had free range to do whatever we wanted, as long as it involved compositing in some way.

Being that my girlfriend and I had just seen 'Godzilla', we decided to use footage from the movie and composite in our dog Thor.

The result was 'Dogzilla', which features just the right amount of fun and pure terror all in a one minute video!

I hope you enjoy it!

Below are some of the shots we used to put our dog into the project. My girlfriend (Kaycee Kendrick), and myself set our dog up in front of a green screen and took some shots of him being himself.

I then took them into Nuke where I tracked the shots, keyed out the green screen, and rotoed him into the shots. Kaycee then color corrected them and added extra effects to make the shots look as realistic as possible!

We had a lot of fun with this and hope you'll enjoy it!

- Drew and Kaycee

Fundamentals of Animation: Box Push Animation

Being that this is a blog of some of my best work, I thought I'd post some old work outside of my current classes.

This was a project from a few months ago where we needed our character to push a box off a cliff using the 12 principles of animation. It was a lot of fun to create, and helped me learn a lot about how to properly edit the graph editor to create more realistic movements.

I've learned a lot more about animation since this was created, but it still helped teach me the basics for what I know now and how I use them in my current work.

- Drew

Day 1: Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!

In case you didn't know, my name is Drew Kedra! I'm currently a student at Full Sail University where I study computer animation. In the last year, I've learned so much about the animation industry and acquired many new skills along the way, including animation, rigging, modeling, shading and lighting, traditional art, and more.

The skills I've learned here have also allowed me to branch out and become a freelance artist. I currently am a freelance rigger along with my skills animation. I really love using my skills to help others in my field.

The purpose of this blog is to showcase my work as I progress through Full Sail, as well as after. Here, I'll be posting works in progress, school projects, personal work, and freelance projects I take on.

My hope is that you'll like what you see and continue to take this journey with me through animation and rigging.

Once again, thanks again for visiting and I hope you like what you see! 

- Drew