Drawing for Animation 2 KNB122 - Assessment 2B - Animation Studies - Luke Hughes - N8618283

Final Animations

I was able to put a bit more time into my animations to further clean them up and create more polished and finalized sequences. I am happy I spent the time to do this because I feel they are much more successful now, and I have also learnt more techniques in Toon Boom with regards to colouring and shading. I pushed back the background limbs further with darker lighting to help make them recede into the distance - this was much more effective on the side views, and less effective on the others, this was because the shading wasn't graded and adjusted into the inbetweens making it feel a little static, if I had more time, this would be one of the first things I'd fix up. One of the other major changes that I think improved the animations was the addition of the ground/shadows - this really emphasized the illusion of movement on the page. 

Side Run - Final (Ninja)

I had some more time to develop something I was pretty excited to develop, a ninja character, it is quite simple, but I think the colours, and the cowl helps to add to the illusion of movement through follow-through motion. 

Front Run - Final

Back Run - Final

Side Walk - Final

Front Walk - Final

Back Walk - Final

Clean Up Phase

To begin the clean up of the animation I started with the cranial mass of the head, and then the direction of the face, developing the overall form of the head. From here I drew the neck connecting into the shoulders. I focused on the limbs in the foreground as they are not covered by the body at any point, whereas, for example, the leg in the background will be overlapped by that in the foreground, so it was vital to ensure the foreground forms were developed first. From the shoulders the upper arm was developed into the elbow, the forearm into the wrist, and then the hand. I then drew out the chest and back, focusing on the subtle C curvatures in the anatomy. I then drew in the curvature of the buttocks and thigh into the elbow joint, into the shin and calf, into the feet; all the while using the previous rough armature as reference. Now that the main foreground elements were developed, I drew in the background limbs with a lighter line weight to help emphasize the perspective along with the overlap, which I feel was quite a successful decision. 

Side Run

Front Run

Back Run

Side Walk

Front Walk

Back Walk

Rough Drawing Phase

Overall, I found this assignment extremely challenging, and I was frustrated countless times trying to get the movement, structure and anatomy correct. Eventually I came to a realisation that I was trying to take on too much at one time, so I went back to a very basic stick figure armature which allowed me to focus on proportion and movement in a very rough manor, this helped me build a lot more confidence as I wasn't worried about creating a perfect drawing for each frame which was making me frustrated, which is exactly the opposite feeling I want to have when drawing! I thought back to the most vital life drawing methods I have learnt throughout this unit, and laid down the line of action, and then the head, making sure I was drawing with the full flow of my arm to try and bring life to the lines. I then laid in the shoulder and hip lines & angles, from here the limbs sprouted off into elbows and knees, and from there into feet and hands - keeping things extremely basic. With this rough layout, I was able to use this as the 'skeleton' to my animation and underlying foundation. 

Side Run

Front Run

Back Run

Side Walk

Front Walk

Back Walk

Side Run Frames

   

Front Run Frames

Back Run Frames

Side Walk Frames

Front Walk Frames

Back Walk Frames

References

This style of drawing really clicked with me, and the way the silhouette reads so well, I decided that I would try and replicate this in my animations for this assignment. This reference was used heavily, especially for the side run. 

After quite a few failed attempts, this reference gave me the idea of developing the inital rough animation using a stick figure - without this I think I would have struggled quite a lot.

This reference reiterated a key lesson in life drawing and finding the angles of the shoulders and hips - I made sure to lay this in and studied this quite a lot, as it shows how the hips and shoulders sway and counter balance themselves.