The second animation we were tasked with creating for this assignment was a running jump that we were able to style however we wanted, whether it be over an object/space or in a certain style.
Due to my work in the previous assignment, I had decided that the running jump would be the animation I would keep more simplified as a precaution in case I ran into issues with time management and needed to strip back part of my work, and that decision ended up greatly benefiting me as this simplification granted me enough time to complete the assignment without the need of an extension.
Despite my plan however, I still wanted to show my understanding of how the action works, along with adding an additional trait of some kind. Initially I was planning on having my character jump and swing off a trapeze, which then turned into them swinging with a grappling hook heavily inspired by Spiderman and Batman.
Below are my references for the animation. My main references for the jump itself are page 212 from Richard Williams’ Animation Survival Guide, which was the main reference we used when first starting jumps in class, and a running jump reference I had used when drawing my key poses, both seen below.
I then gathered additional references for the grappling hook and swinging motion. The former mainly being inspired by Mabel Pines’ from Gravity Falls and Batman’s grappling hooks with how the wire shoots out, and the latter being inspired by trapeze swinging and Spider-Man with how the body uses the legs for the momentum, as seen below.
Swinging References-
00:22 – 00:29, 01:44 – 01:51
Grappling Hook References-
Below are both my key poses and the finished animation of my running jump.
Key poses-
Final Animation-
When blocking out my animation, the stars and sudden pose when firing the grappling hook were on the fly decisions that I feel heavily strengthened the action. The pose itself being inspired again by Spiderman as Miles Morales in particular strikes several strong poses in the film Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse, as seen below.
Additionally in my final animation, I played with the scaling of the frames when firing the grappling hook as another sudden decision, which I feel gives a lot more emphasis to the motion and heightened the personality of the character. Lastly, I also decided to add some colour to this animation to add a bit more quality to the simplistic animation style, which I personally feels succeeds with this animation.
Due to setbacks I experienced in the semester, I wasn’t able to get much feedback on this animation, however I was able to show parts of my early key poses to my lecturers, who responded positively to the expressiveness of my running jump, which strengthened my confidence in being able to push the personality and dynamic action in a arguably more basic animation in comparison to my other works in this assignment. Thus, I’m proud of what I was able to do with the limitations I had to set myself.
Reference List-
- Batman Fandom (c. 2004). Available at: Grapple Gun | Batman Wiki | Fandom (Accessed at: 5/12/23)
- GravityFallsQuotes (2012). Mabel – GRAPPLING HOOK!. Available at: https://youtu.be/jWwYE7P55Wg?si=gIHLmkl3DTHCqo3E (Accessed at: 5/12/23)
- MoMe (2019) Animation reference – Jump 3. Available at: https://youtu.be/EoDZmyO59SM?si=WjOU7_9VN3Q09zLh (Accessed at: 5/12/23)
- Rob Weniger-Araujo (2012). Flying Trapeze – Swing. Available at: https://youtu.be/8ADCzMLvzdw?si=D-K9gxKXClv6NClz (Accessed at: 5/12/23)
- Williams, R. 2001. The Animator’s Survival Kit. Faber and Faber, United States.
- XHBunny (2021). All Spider-Man Swinging Scenes In Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse 4K UHD (Blue-Ray). Available at: https://youtu.be/8KoRJZMIi0Y?si=tGGt32TnkoNuJu0A (Accessed at: 5/12/23)