I had never animated this closely to a video reference. This approach definitely has its advantages and drawbacks. For example because of the visual reference always being there for me I found it very easy to keep myself on the track. But the main pitfall in this case (that I've encountered) is losing the original performance due to deviances from the reference material. Since Jim Carrey is a very animated character himself I could get away without performing on my own. The scene I chose wasn't a typical all-over-the-place kind of Jim's scene for the main acting was done by the eyes and brows.
When I started animating I was told my animation was too floaty. Then I started to use Plateau tangents to achieve sharper moves and have the character be seemingly still for a while. I believe this is the the same pitfall because in a lot of cases people who gave me feedback didn't watch the reference video beforehand. So I am sure my animation lacks moving holds.
Due to the limited number of blendshapes that I created for my character I believe I have managed to achieve a credible lipsync. Since there is a thin line between credibility and realism I tried to hold myself back from creating realistic Jim's rubbery facial expressions. It is supposed to be a cartoon after all.
I believe I've managed to transfer at least some of Ace's characteristics and behaviours portrayed in the reference video. Spending more time on it would surely bring out more character.
The finished piece is rather detailed textures-wise but the lighting is not well thought out, hence, the character doesn't blend in with the background all that well. Because of the high resolution it was rendered in (1080 HD), when scaled down, it looks very sharp and nice.
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