Day 7

Wanted to do a completely straight-ahead visuals animation, so did this last night/this morning:



Then joined the 11 Second Club ( http://www.11secondclub.com/ ) which is really great, so I started to work on something for this month's contest. Gotta say, this is gonna be an INTENSE animation. But I really want to do it well, 'cause it'd be great for a demo reel. I really like the character I drew for it as well, so I've been going pose-to-pose for the past few hours trying to keep the character on-model. It's actually really annoying to keep the character on-model, especially with line thickness and just figuring out how to draw him when his head is turned a different angle.

But this is going to be my first real character animation with acting. I've spent a LOT of time just acting out myself what I want him to do. It's funny, when you act (or just express emotion [or just move]) in real life, there are so many overlapping actions you just take for granted. For example, your arm swings opposite your legs when you take a walk, but at a slightly different pace. Check out this picture from The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams:

The first pose, the legs are at their widest. You'd think the arms would be too, but they don't reach the most extreme position until the third pose. So when you pay more attention to how things actually are, you can see that things move at different rates at different times. So when acting, I had to do the motions each time, kind of like, getting in character so I'd move naturally, and when I studied my movements, I saw that if I just animated it how I first thought he'd act, it would come out really awkward and unreal. So hopefully taking note of these things helps out a lot. I mean, it still might look awkward when I actually animate it 'cause I'm still beginner status, but my mind is there! So my skills will soon catch up!

Seeee ya tomorrow!