"Ask yourself LOTS of questions while you're animating...seriously, just ask yourself lots of questions"...some wise words right there from my mentor/amazing friend John. After I finished talking with him, it kept sinking in on how true those simple words really are. "Why do your hips shift your weight the way they do?" "What happens to your legs when you're walking?" All very simple things that we rarely ever think about until it comes to replicating those movements. Something I really need to learn and fix when it comes to my animation...
In terms of other progress, I'm asking more of those questions when it comes to researching for my thesis and the Douglass animation I'm doing. "What audience do I want to target with my thesis?" "What topic could be interesting to learn about in animated form?" Right now, the questions regarding that, are definitely not about the actual animation, but still crucial in how I will be animating eventually; especially in regards to style. I also have been contacting some of my old teachers and getting first hand advice on what they look for in educational films, animations, and books.
As I said before I'm looking into a Schoolhouse Rock feel/way of educating, maybe even taking something inanimate (like for example a Bill on Capitol Hill) and making it tell the story. Going off of that, I also want it to be visually entertaining and interactive. One example of this would be the "Your Friend the Rat with Emile and Remy", the Pixar short film.
One breakthrough I had with my Douglass animation is I found an animation that I thought was a nice aesthetic for what I want to achieve with it, especially visually. I really like the way that it is done and it is definitely something I will be looking at as a bit of reference when planning and animating my version of this speech. Here is that link, for those interested:
http://www.aniboom.com/animation-video/392134/The-Meaning-of-4th-of-July-to-Slaves/
One more piece of progress I have is as I'm reading a few animation books at the moment and trying to understand perspective a little better, I am currently in a 2D animation class and had to draw and time out keys to a flour sack doing an activity, on a selection of blocks for 5 seconds. These are my timed keys as of right now:
any comments would be greatly appreciated on not only the timing of my keys but also any suggestions regarding my thesis :)
Not knowing how you plan on it all looking when fully animated, this is what I'm seeing:
ReplyDeleteThe timing between when he jumps on the first block to when he jumps down to the second, longer block seems too quick. He needs time to see it then antic before jumping down
You sorta have poses like he's scooting across that second block, then when he gets down to the bottom one, that pose doesn't really tell me much and looks like a previous one recycled. Is that his antic to jumping onto the cylinder?
You'll probably need more time before he jumps onto the cylinder and before he drops down.
Is the cylinder behind the block? If so how does he jump so far forward? I ask because it looks like he is mostly in profile at the end there. The animation looks like he falls off, but perspective makes it seem like he jumps toward camera.
The timing of the land then fall is good for a sort of purposeful fall like it's a joke(but not if it's supposed to be a natural land then fall).