Kenny Roy - Workflow Lecture Part I

Lately, more then ever,  I'm trying to improve my workflow  to push my animations further.
I was talking with a couple of friends currently attending AM and they told me how AM pushes you to use a strong workflow.

I then considered mine and discovered how weak it was so I decided to ask them where I could find some useful resource about Workflow.
They told me about Kenny Roy , an AM Mentor who just made a 3 part - workflow lecture and I decided to go for it.

Subscribing here http://www.kennyroy.com/ you can have full access for all the material on the website, from lectures to Articles and much more!!
His workflow lectures are very popular among AM students (and I have to thank my friends for recommending it to me).

Just because I love Bios :D , Kenny Roy is a talented Animator and AM Mentor based in LA where he runs his own animation studio Arconyx Studio.
Before opening Arconyx Studio he worked at some of the biggest studio around like ILM, Weta Digital , Rhythm and Hues and Zoic studio.

I really loved the way Kenny shows you everything because he makes you understand how workflow affects the final result but at the same time there is a fair amount of Maya video capture where you actually see him working!!

I just watched the first part of the lecture on Workflow and here you find a brief review.


- INTRO: Here Kenny makes a brief overview of the whole lecture and shows his approach to make you understand the importance of using
a strong Workflow.

The first thing he says is "write down your workflow". By doing this he made me realize how weak and poor my workflow was related to what he was going
to show a bit later.

- WORKFLOW STRUCTURE: Here he shows his Workflow. He uses a PDF to show you what are the stages he goes through and he breaks down every stage.
The main cores of his worflow are Planning, Layout, Blocking, Blocking Plus and final Polish.

- STUDY THE CHARACTER: before starting to plan the scene with Thumbnails he studies the rig he's going to use to get comfortable with the
proportions of the character so that he won't have any problem when sketching the thumbnails.

- LAYOUT: in this stage he considers what is going to happen in the shot and what he wants to be seen.

- BLOCKING: this is pure eye pleasure. Here you see Kenny blocking out the shot incredibly fast with huge quality and a great sense of cartoon animation.
He blocks out in a straight-ahead fashion and nails down all the poses in a while...I wonder when I'll be able to work like that.
He points out how important is for you to learn to work fast, with good quality and in a "editable way". He wants you to understand that you, as animator,
have to make beautiful animations that NEED to be reviewed by the director and the supervisor in order to meet their vision of the shot.
If you make something that looks beautiful but it's not open to changes (which ALWAYS occur) you have to rework your shot from the beginning!

In this stage he also shows you several tricks to nail down a great and snappy timing in the blocking stage!

This is where part one ends!

I can't wait to watch the second part and post the review!!
Happy animating :D