Drawing for Animation 2 KNB122 - Assessment 1 - Motion and Character Animation Introduction - Luke Hughes - N8618283

Half Filled Sugar Bag Final Animation

After some feedback from my tutor and further analysis of my original attempt, I managed to push this animation further and have made some improvements I'm quite happy with. I've enhanced the feeling of weight in the character by varying the speed in the leaps, and increasing the distance between frames on the decent. I've added more anticipation in the first leap and added in more frames for the spin which makes the movement much clearer than my previous attempt. When falling with exhaustion, I loosened up the model as it was previously too stiff, and finally, after a bit of form clean up, I made the breathing at the end much more life-like and believable. I found it very helpful to act the breathing to ensure I was on the right track. I am extremely happy with how this animation has come out. I feel much more confident with my line work and hand drawn animation skills after this assignment. 

Half Filled Sugar Bag Attempt

This was the most challenging task of them all, but I definitely found it to be the best learning experience. I initially laid out the motion using a ball, ensuring to keep the correct shape when under different forces, stretching, squashing and manipulating. Once this was laid out I was able to add the features and details of the sugar bag. The idea was for the sugar bag to burst into life, perform some impressive leaps and spin in the air like a ballet dancer, full of life - then dropping from exhaustion and breathing heavily. 
Overall, I am quite happy with the result and I'm excited to progress further with animation in the future. 

Half Filled Sugar Bag Initial Block-in

This block in with the underlying body of the ball, helped significantly when creating the final animation. I was able to quickly rough out the animation prior  to comitting time and effort into finalizing the sequence. I was then able to go back into the final animation and exaggerate/amend any issues - i.e. the squish on the ball when landing and framing on the second jump. I will definitely take these principles with me in the future as they have proven to be extremely useful, it is much easier to create an animation with  a simple underlying body. 

Reaction Final Animation

For the final version of this animation I exaggerated the extreme drawings further, create a more dynamic movement for the character, I think this is much more effective than  my original  attempt. I then added a textured kraft paper background to add more visual interest. 

Reaction Final Key & Extreme Drawings

Outlining the key drawings & extremes for this sequence - extremes have been modified for more exaggeration in the poses. 

Reaction Attempt

This task was quite challenging, but I am happy with the final result and found it to be a great learning experience. I found it difficult to create a believable reaction / emotional response for this character, but with acting it out myself while working on this sequence, I was able to build a better understand how the body would react in this situation. I think the blink into the gasp brought a lot of life to this character and was the breakthrough I was trying to look for when working and spending a lot of time on this animation. I have much more appreciation for using reference and acting out motions to build a better understand and develop better animations. 

Reaction Attempt Key & Extreme Drawings

Outlining the key drawings & extremes for this sequence

Staggered Action Final Animation

After feedback from my tutor and further analysis of this animation it was outlined that the foot was sliding on the ground when leaning into the pull, and that the rope needs more follow through. After making these small changes the animation flows a lot better. 

Staggered Action Attempt

I had a lot of fun acting this one out in class with my peers so that we were able to build a better understanding of the motion and how the body would act and translate this into our animations. I still feel as though there are a few things missing with this task to make it  a bit more convincing. 

Throw Final Animation

This animation was a lot easier subsequent to the joint animation as I had a fresh idea of the concept of snapping joints - allowing me to  work through this task quite easily. I found that it was vital to ensure that there was a high contrast in the body from anticipation to execution of action and follow through, this was achieved through the contrast in the line of action C curve creating visual opposites and follow through of the hand once the ball had been launched. 

Jointed Limb Final Animation

I found this task really quite frustrating, it took me a long time to get my head around the way the joints were snapping and how to create this in an animated sequence. It helped to think of the joints as pendulums, this allowed me to break it down into separate motions. Using the shoulder joint as the origin, I animated the upper arm, then the forearm attached to the elbow joint, and then finally the hand attached to the wrist. 

Jointed Limb Keys & Extremes

Outlining the key drawings & extremes for this sequence

Bouncing Head Final Animation

This exercise was great to build an understanding of follow through motion - this was achieved by attaching ears and tongue to the face, the follow through determined by the physics and inertia of the object in motion. The bouncing ball was used as the base for this drawing, allowing  me to focus entirely on the follow through motion of the new elements of the face. I found it quite challenging to make the motion of the ears and tongue flow, but after adding more keys & breaking down the movement I was able to create more believable movement. I am quite happy with the final result.  

Bouncing Ball Final Animation

This was a perfect introduction to the principles of animation, a simple task that taught me about spacing and timing and the underlying principles of this. This sequence reflects a standard ease in and out spacing & timing. The simplicity of this task was quite deceiving, and ontop of learning how to animate in new software it was a bit challenging to start with. The key takeaway points I had from this exercise is understanding how to vary movement through spacing in the frames - slow at the top and fast on the decent. Also, it was important to squish the ball when landing to add weight and life to the object. At this point, I decided to try a new software package, Toon Boom Studio, and I am very happy with that choice! 

Bouncing Ball & Head Spacing & Timing Chart

This chart helped me quickly block out how the sequence will be timed & spaced out, indicating the frame number and positioning. Using this chart, I was able to quickly and easily create the animation without pausing and trying to figure out how the frames should be spaced out, because that was already completed. I found this to be a very useful rough draft/layout technique before committing time to the final animation.

Bouncing Head Attempt

Another  rough attempt at one of the exercises, this time the bouncing head - there are a few issues with this, but working through this exercise helped me significantly with the  final version. In particular, this animation feels quite stiff and the follow through of the ears is really quite poor - but alas, this helped substantially to be critical of my work and push for improvement, which I think I have achieved in the final animation.

Bouncing Ball Attempt

This was a quick rough initial attempt of the bouncing ball, it is quite messy and needed a fair bit of clean up, it is a bit stiff, the form is off  at points and the linework was a bit rough also. That being said, it was great to work through this while learning the new software and principles/techniques hand drawn animation. 

References

These are the reference images and videos that I used throughout these animation tasks, they aided me significantly in achieving the final results. 

Acting out staggered action 

Acting out joints