STA Blog

412K Toy Store Background

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412K Toy Store Background

Last week I began working on the Toy Store Background for the Russian animations. For this animation, a child pulls his mother to a store window to look at a toy he wants. The mother considers it but then sees how expensive it is and pulls him away from the window. For this particular background, I used an actual toy store in Moscow as a loose reference. I wanted it to be  very classic toy that the boy would be interested in, one that someone from both Russian and American culture can identify with, so I opted for a classic robot toy. Once the robot is colored, I’ll add a large price tag sticking off of it!

Week of 7/30

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Week of 7/30

I’ve finally moved to the afternoon STA meetings!

Last week, I worked on mostly RUS412 animations and illustrations. For illustrations, I finished the Oleg’s lecture dream drawing:

Now it looks very dreamy! I’m starting a similar piece that basically reuses the background setting of the den, but I’ll change some minor details like Oleg’s sleep position, the time, and the utensils on the table.

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I also finished making a trash truck for Russian animations! The hardest part was drawing the contraption on the end of the truck because I had to improvise it instead of tracing it I also made the mistake of using object drawing while filling in the color, and that makes every brush stroke its own selection instead of the entire color area. Other than that, everything else went pretty smoothly since I’ve already made 3 vehicles so mostly it was the same procedure.

I worked on a walk cycle of the mother pulling the child away from the store after she sees how expensive the toy he wanted was.

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However, Tate and Suloni decided it looked a little weird (and after coming back to it, I agree) so I’ll be making revisions to it! Look forward to the new and improved version next week 😉

RUS 412 Developments

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RUS 412 Developments

No super visual updates today! Last week, I mainly worked to get the animation aspect of the RUS412K project back on track. I had previously gotten a little behind on assigning tasks for this project, and after talking with Suloni, Samantha, Kelly, and Heather, have devised a way to make sure we stay on track with the project and deliver everything on time. In doing so, we have agreed on rolling deadlines for the animations, since they all don’t have to be completed by the end of August. That way, STAs can continue working into the semester on these animations, giving them more time to complete them. I also learned that the RUS407 semester doesn’t go live in the fall, just the spring so I have reached an agreement with the professor to push back the deadlines for the RUS407 edits until we can make sure the classes that go live in the fall will be completed in time. Now I’ve got the animation google sheet back in order and STAs are breezing through the assignments I’ve been giving them, just waiting to get audio/ppts for the RUS412 semester to get those synced up with the help of some video and design STAs before classes begin at the end of next month!

Week of 7/23

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Week of 7/23

I finally finished the design for the “This is Democracy” podcast! This is the final design that Dr. Suri chose, compared with the first design I originally submitted:

 

The Lincoln statue was a tedious process to trace, since I was afraid that if I made it more simplistic like the buildings from before it would not be as recognizable, since the statue is of a person. But I think the shading really tied everything together!

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I also did most of the color for my illustration for RUS412, as of the meeting this is what I have:

I’m going to play around a bit more with details, colors, and shading to try to match the style better. Also, I might change the time to 8pm or so and make the sky more like sunset because I don’t think fireflies come out at 4am!

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Lastly, I worked on this animation of a mother + child walk cycle! The kid is supposed to be dragging the mom over to a store to buy a toy or something he wants, which is why he’s pointing and leaning forward more compared to the normal walk cycle. Tate got the walking (legs) part spaced out so that the two don’t step down at the same time, and I adjusted the hands so that they’re connected in every frame.

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