27

Oct

Week #9 Recap & Homework

Use the exercise we did in class to aid you in creating a powerful scene for this week’s homework:

Create a 10 second animation wherein two characters that look exactly the same react oppositely to a ball. Download the handout for further details.

  1. Determine the Universal Truth
  2. Draw your character
  3. Write the name, age, and physical description of your character
  4. Think of a scene this character is in where the universal truth from #1  is apparent. Are there other people there? Is your character alone? What does the setting look like? What time of day is it? What is being said in the scene? What is the character or characters physical doing in the scene?
  5. Determine your character’s goal and motivation for the scene. What they hope to accomplish by the end of the scene? What makes them strive to reach their goal even if an obstacle is in the way?
  6. What is the biggest obstacle your character faces in the scene? What is preventing them from reaching their goal? How does the character feel about their actions?
  7. Return to the scene. Rework the scene so that your character’s goal, motivations, feelings, and the obstacles are reflected.
  8. Add a power shift.  Do goals change? Motivations? Obstacles? Feelings about their actions?

For inspiration, observe the following scenes

While watching, ask yourself:

  • What is the obstacle/conflict? In other words, what is being negotiated?
  • With whom or what is the negotiation taking place? (with him/herself, with another character, with the situation)
  • Who has the higher status at the start of the scene? Does the status remain the same or does it switch?
  • How do the characters feel about what they are doing? What physical movements and expressions demonstrate this?
  • What is the universal truth (aka general principle, theme) the scene is portraying?
  • How is it portrayed specifically in the scene?
  • What is the specific moment that hits you over the head with emotion?
When the Day Breaks (better quality at nfb.ca) by Amanda Forbis & Wendy Tilby, 1999, pencil and paint on photocopies
Madame Tutli-Putli (better quality at nfb.ca) by Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski, 2007, stop-motion & live action blend.

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19

Oct

Week #8 – Walk Cycle Review & Homework

Great job in class today. Seriously, not only was it amazing because you were using a new medium, but you had nothing but your bodies to pull information from (sans mirror). Watch your animation a few more times and notice where the body positions are the strongest. Why do you think that is? Where are they the weakest? Why?

Check out all of the readings below before you start your homework.

Walk Cycle – The Mechanics of Motion

Walks – Timing

Walk Cycle – Williams & Blair

Walks of 4-Legged Creatures

Homework:

Animate a walk cycle of your choosing for 10 seconds. Add some personality. Be creative. Step outside of your comfort zone and try a technique or style you normally shy away from.

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20

Sep

Lecture Week #3 – Squash & Stretch Recap

As promised, here’s a supplemental reading on anticipation.

In case you want to review what we went over in class:

Lecture Notes from Week #3

If you have some time, take another look at the animations we viewed in class. Take special care to notice

  • how volume remains consistent during squash and stretch movements
  • how the use of strong poses coupled with anticipation heightens an action
  • that the character is reacting in a specific way because of his emotions, (which stem from his thoughts).  Remember – thinking leads to emotions, emotions lead to action.

Your Face  bill plympton, 1987

A recent  interview with Bill Plympton

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29

Aug

How to Complete a Drawing Assignment

You might not recognize the name ‘John Kricfalusi’, but I’m sure you are aware of his work. He’s the genius behind Ren & Stimpy and founder of Spümcø. Anyway, he came up with a great way to hone animation drawing skills using Learn to Animate Cartoons Step by Step, a $9 book from another amazing animator, Preston Blair. We’ll be using the techniques John K. came up with along with Blair’s drawings to improve our line, volume, and drawing consistency.

When you copy something you want to get it as accurate as you can. You need to train your eye to see mistakes. There’s no room for interpretation when you are copying. – John K.

It’s a pretty simple exercise. I give you a drawing assignment, you copy the drawings onto a piece of paper, check for proportion against the original drawings, redraw, and recheck for proportion.

Drawing Exercise Step-by-Step:

  1. Copy Preston’s drawings into your sketchbook.
  2. Bring your drawings into Photoshop.
  3. Bring Preston’s drawings that you copied into the same Photoshop file.
  4. Re-size the Preston drawings to match the size of yours.
  5. Put the drawings next to each other.
  6. Make notes of how your drawing differs from Preston’s
  7. Make a copy of the Preston drawing and lay it on top of yours on a layer
  8. Make the layer transparent so you can see through it to yours.
  9. Make more notes on where yours differs from Preston’s.
  10. Redraw your copy, this time trying to fix the mistakes you found.

Example of a drawing comparison with notes. Notice the animator is drawing with a photo blue pencil in order to make it easy to compare his and Blair

Upload your sketch, answers to Drawing Questions, and proper categories selected to the blog prior to the start of class.

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29

Aug

How to Complete a Pose Assignment

Every week you will be asked to draw a minimum of five poses of a person (or anthropomorphized something or other) that you believe convey the idea/emotion of the descriptive word of the week. At least one of the poses should convey the descriptive word pair of the week.

Number your poses.

On the back of the paper write:

  1.  your name
  2. the week number
  3. the descriptive word & word pair
  4. the number pose you believe  is the strongest of the bunch

Hand in prior to 9am.

Week #1 Poses by Nicolas Cinquegrani, Animation Concepts 2010 - Excitement & Aggressive Excitement

Tips For Creating Great Poses:

  • try to see the movement and energy in your subject before you start drawing. What is your subject feeling? What are they doing?
  • physically put yourself in the position. How do you feel? Where is the weight located in your body?
  • emotionally put yourself in the position. How do you feel? How does your mental state affect your posture? Your energy?
  • don’t get caught up on detail
  • think about the silhouette. Which of your poses will the audience best read if the drawing was just an outline or a blackened in shape?
  • stay loose – again, it’s about energy not detail.
  • work part to part after you’ve laid in the entire loose gesture
  • your pose should have a theatrical aspect to it
  • exaggerate the pose, push the lines of action, make the pose more dynamic and forceful
  • don’t just look. Study.
  • What makes the pose appealing? bad? confusing? strong?

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29

Aug

The Blog

The class blog is a place to post questions, answers, and insights on techniques, films, animators, equipment, and anything else that may strike our fancy. It will also be our main repository for what happened during class as well as any work you produce during this semester. Please tag/categorize each and every upload with your name and and other appropriate descriptions so that it is easy to find what our heart desires with the click of a button.

Adding Your Assignments

Every time you complete an assignment you must upload your animation and drawings to the blog before class – not during. Keep Drawings and Animations separate and title your post in this fashion: Week #X Category by  Your Name. Answer the corresponding questions in the body of the post and categorize the post appropriately.

Drawing:

Questions:

  1. Assignment
  2. Time to Draw
  3. What I Discovered In this Exercise

Categories:

  1. Drawing
  2. Your Name
  3. Week #

Animation:

Questions:

  1. Assignment
  2. Time to Animate
  3. Problems encountered
  4. Ah ha moment
  5. If I animated this again I would:

Categories:

  1. Animation
  2. Your Name
  3. Week #

This isn’t rocket science. Rule of thumb:  If I can’t find your post by clicking on one of the above categories, your post never existed.

See the example blog posts below.

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