Induction Week
For our induction task, we were asked to take an image of a random object or area and bring it to life. I decided to work in 3D and chose a wall as my subject. To make it feel alive, I created a mouth opening animation, giving the impression that the wall was reacting or speaking. This approach let me explore characterisation through environment. It was a fun way to combine technical tools with creative storytelling, and helped me think about how to add personality to inanimate objects.
Week 1
Bouncing ball
As part of my animation fundamentals, I created a 3D bouncing ball to explore how timing, spacing, and squash and stretch affect motion and impact. I focused on making the bounce feel physically convincing by adjusting the speed of the ball at different points, fast on the descent, slow at the peak, and accelerating again on the way down. I used squash and stretch to show impact and rebound, exaggerating the shape on contact to make the motion more expressive.
To refine the movement, I worked in the graph editor, adjusting the curves to control the spacing and ensure the arcs were smooth and readable. to make the animation more fun I a added line art using line art modifier to make it appear 2D.
While animating I looked at timing and spacing principles outlined in The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams. His breakdown of how spacing influences the illusion of speed and weight helped me understand how to control the ball’s arc and impact points. this really helped me keyframe my ball so then I could go in between and add squash and stretch to show the timing better.
I also studied video references to better understand the timing and squash and stretch, which gave me a clearer visual guide. This helped me refine the animation and apply those principles more effectively.
2D perspective to explore depth and arc curvature
After completing a 3D bouncing ball animation, I wanted to challenge myself by drawing a 2D version at a perspective angle. This helped me explore how spacing, arcs, and squash and stretch behave when viewed from a more dynamic angle. I focused on keeping the motion consistent with the principles I applied in 3D, while adapting them to a drawn format.
Animating in 2D gave me more control over the visual exaggeration and timing. I used squash and stretch to show impact and rebound, and adjusted the spacing to make the ball start fast, slow at the peak, and accelerate again on the descent. Drawing the arc in perspective was tricky, but it helped me understand how motion paths curve in space. This exercise reinforced my understanding of timing, arcs, and volume preservation, and gave me a deeper appreciation for how these principles translate across mediums.
For this bonus exercise, I animated a spaceship navigating a maze with a flowing tail that followed its path. It was a fun challenge focused on motion flow, overlapping action, and secondary movement.
I experimented with sharp turns, loops, and speed changes to make the motion feel dynamic. The tail was delayed slightly to create a natural whip effect, using arcs and ease-in/ease-out for smooth transitions.
This exercise helped me explore stylized timing and how to make abstract motion expressive. I’d love to revisit it with camera movement or interactive elements to push the storytelling further.
Week 2
Pose to Pose
This week we had an exercise where we practiced blocking out a movement of a character to prepare us for more advanced animations. I decided to challenge myself by animating a pose-to-pose action of a character doing a handstand. I focused on creating strong, readable key poses first then the crouch, the kick-up, the inverted balance, and the landing before adding breakdowns and refining the timing.
This exercise helped me understand how pose-to-pose planning gives me more control over the structure and rhythm of the movement. I found it useful to exaggerate the poses slightly to make the motion clearer and more expressive, applying principles like staging and timing.
Week 3
Walk and run Cycles
For this exercise, I animated a 3D character performing both a walk cycle and a run cycle. These cycles helped me explore how timing, weight, and rhythm shift between different types of locomotion. I focused on making each cycle feel grounded, natural, and expressive while also experimenting with stylization and pacing.
Walk Cycle
Since I had experience animating walk cycles during my final year and undergrad projects, I came into this task with some familiarity. Walk cycles have always been a bit of a challenge for me, so revisiting them was a valuable opportunity to refine my approach. I aimed to create a stylized walk with personality, focusing on pose clarity, hip and shoulder movement, and timing. It served as a solid warm-up before tackling the more fast-paced and exaggerated run cycle, which follows a similar process but requires sharper energy and rhythm.
I began the animation in class and continued refining it at home, applying the 12 principles of animation and studying additional references to improve movement flow and character presence.
To support this animation, I revisited key resources like The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams, which breaks down walk cycles into clear phases; contact, down, passing, and up and explains how timing and spacing affect weight and rhythm.
I also explored stylized movement through Kevin Parry’s “100 Ways to Walk,” which helped me think about personality-driven motion and exaggeration.
For realism, I studied slow-motion walk cycle footage to better understand hip sway, foot placement, and shoulder rotation. These references helped me refine my poses and timing, and gave me a stronger foundation for building expressive, believable movement.
I found that physically walking around my room and focusing on my own movements helped me better understand how my head turns, shoulders tilt, and hips shift during a walk cycle. Sometimes it’s hard to interpret these details just by watching videos, especially when it comes to distinguishing left from right or grasping subtle rotations. By actively moving and observing my own body, I was able to internalize the mechanics more effectively. Learning through motion gave me a clearer sense of orientation and helped me apply those observations directly to my animation.
First run cycle
After reviewing my first run cycle, I noticed issues with hip movement, arm swing, and overall timing. The motion felt stiff and unnatural, lacking the energy and flow I was aiming for. To improve it, I did some research and adjusted the spacing, torso rotation, and overlap in the limbs, which helped bring more realism and fluidity to the animation.
I revisited Richard Williams’ The Animator’s Survival Kit, which was especially helpful for blocking out the key poses. His breakdown helped me assess which in-betweens to use and how to time the movements to match the natural bends and momentum of a run. I learned that while the run cycle follows a similar structure to a walk, it requires faster timing, larger spacing, and sharper motion to convey speed and weight.
Even though this book focuses on 2D animation, and Blender handles in-betweens and timing to a certain extent, it’s still a great resource to study. It helps me better understand body movement and supports my goal of creating fluid, expressive animation rather than something that feels robotic.
To apply the principle of arcs, I refined the motion paths of the limbs in Blender’s graph editor. Instead of letting the arms and legs move in straight lines, I adjusted the keyframes so movements were smooth. This helped the run cycle feel more fluid and natural, avoiding the stiffness that can come from linear motion.
This graph shows the motion curve for the arm swing in my run cycle. The gentle slope into and out of the curve demonstrates ease-in and ease-out, showing how the arm gradually accelerates and decelerates during each swing.
I applied these same principles across all limbs in the run cycle. The legs follow clean arcs during lift-off and contact, with ease-in and ease-out shaping the transitions between poses. The hips and shoulders also show anticipation and overlapping action, helping the entire body move as a connected system. If any of these curves were uneven with sharp angles, jittery spikes, or inconsistent spacing, the motion would lose its rhythm and feel robotic. By refining the motion paths in Blender’s graph editor, I ensured that each limb contributes to a cohesive, expressive run that reflects the principles of animation in action.
To help me visualize how the body should move during a run, I also looked at video references. These helped me create exaggerated movements that clearly distinguish the run from a walk cycle and gave me a better understanding of how energy travels through the body.
Final run cycle
The updated version feels more grounded and energetic, with better weight distribution and momentum. This process helped me understand how small timing tweaks and anatomical adjustments can dramatically improve motion.
Week 4
Flour sack and push
This week, I explored character performance and body mechanics starting of with classic animation exercises using a flour sack: a jump and a spin. I animated both in 3D.
I looked at video references of other people doing flour sack animations to get an idea of how to squash and stretch as well as weight.
I used this image as reference on my initial block out poses so then I could go in after and add my in-betweens and squash and stretch to create weight and speed as the sack lifts and lands down. ii also used the squash and exaggerated bend/poses to create anticipation before the sack jumps to create a sense of momentum before the jump and of course arcs in the jump to ensure the jump is fluid and not unrealistic curves.
In this jump animation, I emphasized anticipation by squashing the sack low before take-off, exaggerating the bend to build tension and signal the upcoming motion. During the airborne phase, I applied stretch to elongate the form and heighten the sense of speed and effort, adding a subtle hang time to suggest physical exertion. On landing, the sack compresses and wobbles slightly, using follow-through and overlapping action to convey impact and weight. These principles work together to create a jump that feels expressive, believable, and physically grounded.
For the spin, I used ease-in/ease-out to create smooth, balanced rotation. I adjusted the sack’s origin point to keep the motion grounded and added a subtle settling motion at the end to show recovery and weight shift. I also animated the bottom half of the sack to act like legs, mimicking the poised movement of a ballerina. This added elegance and character to the flop, reinforcing the sense of weight and control.
Mechanical exercise
I then went further into this mechanics exercise. I animated a character pushing a heavy box to the edge of a platform, then falling to their knees once it tips over. The goal was to convey effort, weight, and exhaustion through timing, posture, and physical reaction. I focused on how force travels through the body and how to show strain without dialogue or facial expression, using animation principles like anticipation, follow-through, and exaggeration to make the motion readable and expressive.
original push video
This was my first attempt at the box push but after speaking with Mike he said there was not enough momentum or strain being shown and that the box was moving too easily, so it didn’t show weight. The timing and spacing weren’t selling the resistance, and the poses lacked clarity.
updated push video
After my feedback I went back and made changes and it looked a bit better, but it still wasn’t demonstrating that he was pushing something heavy as there wasn’t enough anticipation being shown. The motion started too abruptly, and the lack of delay made the box feel light.
Final push video
This is my final outcome and I think there’s a great improvement in how weight and strain are shown as he pushes the box. I did this by adding anticipation before the push and I made it so he bends to inspect the box first, which adds character and sets up the motion. There’s a slight delay after he places his hands on the box, showing resistance before it begins to move. I also used follow-through and overlapping action in the collapse to the knees, exaggerating the exhaustion and making the effort feel believable. These changes helped me apply the animation principles more clearly and show my understanding of how timing, spacing, and physicality convey emotion and weight.
Here are some video references I looked at to get an idea of strain and weight:
Week 5
Basketball throw
For this task, I animated a character bouncing a ball, jumping, and throwing it into a net, all in 3D. The goal was to demonstrate believable weight transfer, momentum, and force build-up across a multi-phase action. I focused on keeping the movement grounded and physically convincing while making the timing expressive and readable. I applied animation principles like anticipation before the jump and throw, follow-through in the arms and torso after release, and arcs to guide the motion path. These helped me show energy transfer and character intent clearly.
First attempt
My first attempt wasn’t great as the ball movement wasn’t complete, and the jump didn’t feel convincing. The timing was off, and the motion lacked proper arcs and weight transfer. The throw didn’t build enough momentum, and the character’s posture didn’t reflect the force needed. I realised I needed to apply animation principles like anticipation, timing, and follow-through more clearly to make the action believable and physically grounded.
I also looked at more references and noticed that my hand placement didn’t match how basketball players actually throw the ball. Originally, I had the character using two hands, but after studying real footage, I changed it to one hand underneath and the other on the side just before the throw. This adjustment made the motion feel more authentic and helped reinforce the staging and realism of the action. It also supported the arc of the throw, making the release look more natural.
Reference
After feedback
After feedback, the animation looked a lot better overall, but the timing still felt off with the ball. I tried adding an inhalation at the beginning to show anticipation, but it wasn’t reading clearly and it just looked like the character’s back was bending. I wanted to show a breath-in moment to build tension before the jump and throw, but I think the pose and timing needed more exaggeration and clarity. This showed me how important staging and exaggeration are when trying to communicate intent.
To make the bounce more realistic at the end, I adjusted the arcs in the graph editor to follow the principles I previously studied during the ball bounce exercise. This helped me control the spacing and impact more precisely, reinforcing the principles of timing, arcs, and follow-through to make the action expressive and physically convincing.
final attempt after feedback from a friend
I asked a friend for feedback and they mentioned the ball was moving a little slow. I adjusted the timing to make it faster, and it looks much better, the motion now feels more responsive and believable. I wanted to ensure the ball followed a clean arc and was spaced correctly, starting fast from the force of the throw, then slowing slightly before squashing as it hits the basketball net.
I corrected the keyframes in my graph editor to control the spacing and impact, making the motion feel dynamic and physically convincing. These choices helped reinforce the principles of timing, arcs, and follow-through, making the action more expressive and believable.
I also added extra movements at the end to give the character more personality and make the action feel complete. To improve the anticipation, I added a shape key to exaggerate the chest movement during inhalation.
Since I couldn’t apply squash and stretch directly to this model, the shape key helped show that the character is clearly inhaling rather than just bending their back. This workaround let me apply the principle of squash and stretch in a subtle but effective way.
Inhalation with shape key
Rest pose
Reference I used to add the character at the end to celebrate his shot
Reflection
As I came from final year it was refreshing to go over the animation basics. During this Module, I’ve explored a wide range of animation exercises that helped me develop both technical skills and creative confidence. Starting with the 3D bouncing ball, I refined timing, spacing, and squash and stretch using the graph editor, supported by video reference to understand impact and rebound. I then challenged myself with a 2D bouncing ball in perspective, applying the same principles while exploring arcs in drawn space.
The walk and run cycles helped me understand weight shifts, contact poses, and rhythm. I used video studies to refine timing and spacing, especially in the run where I emphasized faster spacing and airborne phases. The flour sack animation pushed me to show emotion through body mechanics alone, using squash, stretch, and anticipation to convey weight and personality.
In the push and basketball throw tasks, I focused on force, follow-through, and character intent. Across all tasks, I’ve made my use of the 12 principles of animation, supported by research and feedback. This blog reflects my growth from foundational motion to expressive storytelling.
If I could re-visit some animations I would go back and add more secondary actions to give more character as well as improving how smooth the animations are by learning more about the graph editor and constraints as I had some trouble switching on and off constraints while animating which caused jittering. After completing my mechanical exercises, I can see how I can improve some of my later exercises such as the walk and handstand as they do not show a lot of anticipation or have the correct timing/weight.