Study Task 5 - Arcs

Sequence 1 - Pendulum

This turned out to be a fun project to animate. It worked hand in hand with easing and thankfully I didn't come across any issues animating a generic pendulum.

Prior to this task we had been shown a video which illustrated the difference between animating on an arc versus animating on a straight line, and I was happy to see how natural this movement looked on an arc.

Sequence 1 - Pendulum

Sequence 2 - Pendulum motion loop

For the second sequence I initially thought I'd do a cat's tail but ultimately decided on a dragon. The initial arc guidelines I had were placed at the tip of the tail until I realised while drawing it out that the tip would look more natural lagging behind the body of the tail, so I moved my guidelines further up the tail instead.

The purple arc is what I ultimately used for guidance

I learned that there were a substantial amount of things that looked more natural animated on the guideline of an arc, not limited to pendulums, and I was happy with the outcome of the loop in the end.

Sequence 2 - pendulum-like loop

Study Task 4 - Easing

This task was meant to teach us about easing. I decided to go the stop motion plasticine route and made a sequel of sorts to my previous plasticine animation. Planning out the frames were simple enough - I had the positions of my car marked down on my stage off screen and learned very quickly that the more in-between frames there were, the slower a movement would be.

Don't Litter

I came across a small hiccup in the beginning wherein I had to turn off the zoom on my camera to fix an issue where it just couldn't stay in focus so I felt the initial easing as the car went off wasn't as clear as I would have liked. but I was happy with it easing to a stop and with the red ball of death easing into motion as it rolled off screen so overall I was happy with how it turned out. In future, I'll make sure to set up my camera so I don't need to zoom and deal with this issue again.

Study Task 3 - Appeal

Our third task required us to develop a character from a list of archetypes. I ultimately chose the explorer and thought a pirate would be perfect for this. I decided to make my character an anthropomorphic bunny, partly because I don't draw a lot of anthropomorphic characters and thought this would be a good opportunity to practise, and partly because I like rabbits and I used to have a particularly curious one that I felt was the animal kingdom epitome of an explorer.

Character Development Sheet

This turned out to be by far the most difficult task that I had come across as of yet - it was challenging for me to translate my character from mind to paper and I found myself redrawing Captain Flintlock multiple times in an attempt to get her proportions right. 

Model Sheet

I knew I wanted colours that were warm and a copperish fur colour to help fit in with the steampunk pirate theme but at the same time show that she wasn't visually a villain but not completely a hero either (as she was a pirate after all).

Final Character Turnaround

Overall I was somewhat satisfied with the finished product, though I know some of the proportions are off and I just couldn't get the three-quarter turn to work properly to my dismay. That coupled with challenge of drawing feet that are naturally tip-toe, and the critique of a friend who inferred she needed more in the gluteal region to look right, I've come to the conclusion I will need to practise extensively with turnarounds and proportions and will likely go for a more simple design next time until I can confidently maintain consistency with the various poses in my designs.

Study Task 2 - Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose

Film 1 - Straight Ahead - Plasticine

This was my first attempt at a stop motion animation (if you didn't count the pixilation which was arguably very similar) and I ended up with a few notable learning points. Similarly to pixilation for the most part, there were very little chances to redo a frame without redoing the whole scene because it was difficult to remold the plasticine to the exact shape it was before the frame change, as seems to be the case with straight ahead animation in general. 

Also for no particular reason, I made my model anthropomorphic instead of human by adding large ears. At the time I didn't think it would have much of an effect, but during filming it actually benefitted in conveying my character's curiosity.

One thing that bothered me about my animation which I didn't realise until much later was that the lighting was not constant due to my shadow inadvertently making an appearance in the odd frame here and there. For future reference I now know to be wary of my position when I'm taking the photos. I would also add a better background as that bothered me too.

Don't Text and Drive

Film 2 - Pose to Pose - Paper cut out

Pose to pose generally seems easier to deal with as it comes with a certain degree of leniency when it comes to redoing frames. However, I had a harder time with this film than with the plasticine, purely due to technical issues when it came to transferring the images into the video software (ultimately I had to downgrade the size and quality of the images just so I could work with them).

I did like how this turned out however (I ended up changing my original idea and adding a bit of pixilation for comedic value) and it was fun to see it all come together in the end.

First Flight

Study Task 1 - Timing (Pixilation)

Our first assignment required us to make a pixilation to better our understanding of timing. The main thing I realised during the planning of this project was how difficult it was to ascertain how many frames an action should take, and I found myself acting out motions “frame-by-frame” just to put a number down on paper, but ultimately it was easier to improvise while filming and taking a good few snaps so I could figure out the speed of some of the actions with some leniency when I was stringing it all together.

Death by Apples

I couldn't help notice how it was nearly impossible to re-pose for a specific frame without redoing the whole scene, and although there were a couple of things that could have been done better (I felt I didn't have enough frames of actual "flying" off the ground), overall I really liked how the animation turned out. It felt surprisingly easier and quicker than what I assume stop motion with armatures would be like.

Also I had an insane amount of fun during the filming process and I felt the little bloopers here and there on some of the scenes, though unintentional, added to its charm and character.