I like the idea... just think that you should work on the timing and expressions a bit more.

Love the idea and great blocking so far.

I agree with pmj_chin to push the poses a little more and pay attention to the silhouette on the mirrored character.

For instance, (these comments are for the poses in the mirror.)

113 pose - Maybe move the arms out slightly to get a stronger silhouette.
141 pose - I'd try moving his right hand away from his body slightly.  Also maybe I'd push that "shrug" a little more.  Like curve the spine a bit more, and raise up the shoulders slightly, and maybe tilt the head a bit more.
243 pose - I'd move his right hand out slightly.

Overall, the poses are great so far!!  I really love the 335 pose where he puts his hands on his face and is hunched over.

Good work man, can't wait to see more!!!

i agree that it is a creative idea.  i look forward to seeing the interaction when the action breaks in two.

my main crit would be that you have a lot of "twinning" going on throughout the entire piece at this stage.  both arms are almost always symmetrical.  the hands are either both at the hips, both at the chest or both at the shoulders.  try creating more asymmetrical poses and also try to work more with silhouette.  a lot of your poses are inside the silhouette of the body and the action would read better if the arms were outside, creating more interesting shapes.  frame 285 (in the mirror) is a great example of what i'd like to see more of.  that's probably my favorite pose of the piece.  although, the character in the foreground has his hand covering his nose and his other hand is barely visible behind his head.  maybe if you lower the hand in front of the face and raise the other hand higher, then it will create an even better, asymmetrical pose for both characters.

keep it up, i look forward to the next pass.

Here's another version with a lot more of the blocking in place. One of my intensions for this piece is to avoid broad, confident poses so I'm trying to make tight, tense poses which unfortunately aren't as easy to make simple silhouettes with, but I'll do my best.

I'm not too worried about the appearance of the foreground character (although I'm trying to get both silhouettes to work) because I'm probably going to blur him out in the final version to keep the focus on the mirror figure. I may, however, try pulling the focus to draw attention back to the foreground character just as he breaks out of sync.

I am thinking about changing the last pose on the foreground figure, I just thought I'd get some progress on here first. I may also avoid having the same figure actually get as far as putting his hands on his face... he'd just stop short of it as he questions (in his mind) if he made him short.

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Great improvement. It's now really starting to work.

Only thing that pops out for me is the right arm of the mirrored character on frame 356. It seems somewhat awkward. I guess it's a breakdown? I would suggest checking the arc of the elbow.

Well done. Keep it up!

Nice. So far, so good. Keep it up man.

Hi Michael,

Just looked at your blocking. its looking good so far. I have actually gone for a mirror as well, though I have gone for a slightly different spin on the neding than you have choosen. Will be interesting to see how both are pieces turn out! Just thought I'd let you know though as i would'nt want you to think I had ripped of your idea when you see the entries.

A little crit about your blocking. Its looking like a good start but I think one of the most interesting things about using the mirror is the fact there are two characters. In my piece I am really interested in the idea of the viewers eye being drawn to either the character or the reflection, depending on the pose and there angle to camera. Plus its important to have poses that work on both characters. I think I will be slightly cheating my poses at some points to help create some stronger silouettes.

Anyway good luck animating, looking forward to seeing your finished piece!

Hey Michael,

Look good... some nice attention to your poses here.  I feel it's a little busy at times, though... maybe take out one or two poses... I acting wise it will be stronger to simplify it a little.  I got the idea it was the guy foreground who was the main character.  I thought it would be better to reverse the ending... so we see the guy opposite talking to us... I think it would read better... Good work on the poses you do have, though.

I have been thinking about dropping a few poses here and there, exactly as you guys say... it's probably a bit busy. I'm in the process of shifting out of blocking to spline based curves at the moment, which means I'm unwinding gimble locks galore at the moment. II don't know why the Euler filter has decided to stop working. Anyway when I've done all of that I'll be able to see where it's too busy and I'll pull a few keys to out to calm things down.... It's at times like these I'm tempted to go back to hand drawn animation again!

Hey Mike. It seems you and I have the same idea but different perspective, which I think will make for a nice POV comparo.

Some obvs;

On fr 36 the character (in the foreground) looks like he's talking to someone on his left but then nothing comes (or happens) from that direction. I found it confusing and weakening the overall performance.

The change of pose from 88-107 looks too spliney, like a worm or a snake movement - maybe those movements don't need to be so big?

Unnatural, and, therefore, unbelievable body pose on 36-65. The same for the head/neck pose on 175 and 197. I think if you tone it down a little it won't look so drastic?

The way I did my scene is I actually internalized the line, and thought to myself "how would Dhar say it if he truly meant it?" Then I acted it out in front of the mirror. Being a little over weight myself helped too

Thanks Aaroncmt, but the neck and the intersecting arm are just areas of the animation I've not worked on yet. You can ignore obvious stuff like that. I figured I'd have nothing to post for ages if I didn't post what I had so far. I'm just making sure that there are more eyes on it than just me... in case I miss something.

I considered making the mirror talk back and having the foreground character react (the obvious choice) but then you wouldn't get to see the great reaction since it would all happen off camera to the right, with the character's back to us. I thought it would be more interesting this way and I didn't have to cut away.

Probably my last chance to post my progress up before it's all over so here's what I have so far. Don't worry about the fingers too much, I haven't gone over them yet for most of the piece. There's a little bit of polish to do on the sync switch which is proving to be very tricky and I want to add some shivering to the end pose. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

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