I came about this animation sketching different characters off the top of my head. I liked the look of this depressed guy staring hopelessly into the mirror while shaving. I decided to expand this idea with a couple more drawings. The three drawings became keyframes.
I have been on the computer for most of today, playing around with flipbook and flash. A few hits and misses, I am trying to find a way to incorporate these programs into my workflow.
I feel like I made a break while doing a ground plane in flash. I got this idea from the Adam Phillips tutorials: place a dot somewhere on the screen, draw heaps of lines coming out of it, some trees and mountains and bingo! A landscape. Next was to do an animation on this landscape (mental note: remember how much better it looks when you draw clouds going towards the vanishing point).
I roughly had an idea about how frame by frame animation works in flash and I have been thinking about timing a lot, so I did a 16 frame ball bounce animation. I drew the keys quickly, put construction lines on them and inbetweened using charts drawn on the right hand side. On the spur of the moment, I thought instead of having the ball bounce into the distance, why not make it explode. on the up of the 4th bounce Boom!
On new layers I drew a stick of dynamite and a pair of legs. It was easy to locate where everything should go because I put the construction lines on the ball earlier, so I turned a simple bouncing ball into a doomed frog. While it was quite roughly done I think the animation has potential and has opened up a doorway into a new approach with my animation.
I have found the mornings exercises of copying Donald duck very helpful when it came time to animate. I think having the proportions drilled into my brain through repetition has helped the animation process because it is not at the forefront of my thinking. I understand the proportions therefore I can focus on the other elements that go into this animation.
I implemented a system for constructing Donald on every frame. It began with the line of action. Then the basic forms of the character: the head, the upper torso, lower torso, the neck legs then feet; all in that order. Once these were established, I went through and made these forms more solid and thought about perspective as well as the forces involved. Thinking about forces helped me determine which lines were straight and which were curved.
The purpose of this exercise was to see if I could animate simple shapes and keep the proportions consistent. I also wished to display an understanding of the forces at work behind a walk cycle. On the whole, I think it has been successful, although, I found that I was lacking when it came to the neck and head. This has been something plaguing my work since day one and needs addressing.
Been getting in to Burne Hogarth's book of late, trying to gain a greater understanding of anatomy. Yesterday I started at the head and am working my way down the body. i am currently on the arm and how it connects to the torso
