Animation Principles: Term 2

Oscar Strokosz.

Personalised Walk.

With the walk I did several versions. It took me a while till it all clicked but I feel (at least the first half of) the walk is of a decent standard for a novice like myself. The animation after the pause is a bit awkward though

Previous walk

This is the walk I did when we were given the task. I don’t really like it as it didn’t follow my original plan. I was still doing strictly pose to pose and some of the inbetweens got mismatched.

Video source

The live versions. I feel like a recording of yourself is really useful for really precise and selected moments for animation like how units of action are useful for stage actors. However I feel like the self performance you do in the studio is helpful as you have direct access to it, the only negative being you can’t see yourself doing it unless you have a mirror.

The main inspiration was Del Boy’s walk in Ofah. He has a very characteristic walk which is compact and resembles the personality of a Jack Russell: cocky and thinks its bigger than it actually is.

Run

The run and jump is about a thief who jumps over a roof top and nearly falls off the edge. This was the second version of my run. Some aspects I’d improve are the arms and the shading of the arms and legs. I may shade it in after completing the line work next time.

Here are some rough sketches of the run. Not very good but I felt it helped me make the mistakes on the sketchbook and not on the printer paper

Previous run

This was my run based around jogging. I thought that because I myself do a bit of jogging it would be good to animate. I believe that it didn’t go well. The jump isn’t that good and the general animation feels stiff as the legs just sway like a grandfather clock.

7 Frame run and 3 frame run

I got the idea of testing out a 3 frame run and a 7 frame run from Richard Williams’ Survival Kit. I wanted to see what response the difference in frames would make. The 3 frame run is much more cartoony and has more urgency in it.

http://putlocker.is/watch-the-castle-of-cagliostro-online-free-putlocker.html

The animation was inspired by the opening of Castle of Cagliostro (1979) and by the character animation of Lupin in the whole film. The diversity in the poses of the character in the film give the film more energy and life.

Video source

I tried mimicking a run with a sense of urgency. When you see runs they tend to be mimicking track runners but I feel that’s limiting as they’re professional runners and most people aren’t so certain techniques of gaining momentum of saving energy aren’t known.

Picking up something heavy.

Here’s the picking up something heavy. May be based on my (in)ability to do exercise without breaking or snapping or breaking (the moustache is 100% fictional).I wanted the character to be a very skinny athlete (possibly a swimmer or a marathon runner) who wants to build some muscle but take on too much too fast.

Video source

I filmed myself picking up a weight in my room. This was when the precise acting in a video really helped out in the animation. I think it would be more helpful for when you have the camera angle and position in the desired position.

Walking up stairs and jumping down them

With this one I really felt that it finally clicked with me. While the line quality may be shoddy I felt that for an animation I was pretty chuffed. Though some points to note out are the arms do seem to go through the legs at points and I did have trouble on the mass of the objects at first.

Drawing from life.

With the drawing from life I felt that I’ve becomre more confident with the pencil and I am making more decicive lines and exaggerating some poses. I need to work on perhaps making it more detailed or being cautious about rushing it.