This week, I re-joined the first world I was included in. I was curious to see what new ideas had been added since I had left, and was excited to see how the world had changed over the course of two weeks. At first, there was some confusion between group members who had been working on the world on different weeks. I proposed that we use one of the class whiteboards to write down the different storylines step by step, then join together and look at the similarities and differences of each story. We found that the stories were more or less the same and the small differences were all incorporated into a finalised story. Having numbered sections of the story made it easy to work out who is animating what – we each chose which number we would like to animate. I chose number 3, meaning my segment would be 3rd in the sequence, and so on.
To summarise the story, A girl (Eden) wonders into a convenience store (Hell Whole) where she meets the devil (Mr. Jenkins) and is sucked through a portal to a shop in the underworld… Jenkins wants to steal her skin so that he can disguise himself in the normal world. In the underworld, a shop janitor (Bubz) sees Jenkins with Eden and wants to save her, but Jenkins has broken the portal back to the normal world. When Jenkins isn’t looking, Bubz puts a mask on Eden to hide her from other demons and runs out of the shop to find a new portal. along the way, Eden and Bubz meet lots of characters who all help to find a new portal for Eden. They cross the river Styx and outrun a monster to reach the castle where the last portal remains, and Eden gets home safely with the help of her new friends.
Part three of the sequence comes just after Eden and Jenkins go through the portal from the normal world, and just before Bubz and Eden find a new character to help her get back to the normal world. It is where Eden and Jenkens arrive through the portal in the underworld and Bubz rescues her while Jenkins isn’t looking by putting a mask on her and they leave the shop. With this in mind, I got started on a storyboard.
I roughly visualised how I imagine the inside of the shop might appear. I added in notes which help explain sounds that I might want to add in while animating. The scene begins with Bubz minding his own business and mopping the floor, which I wanted to include as the team mentioned how his character could be a Janitor. Then he sees Eden and Jenkins enter through the TV portal, which carries the scene on from segment 2. A close up of Bubz’ face shows his suspicious expression as his eyes follow Jenkins across the shop floor – Jenkins and Eden’s footsteps can be heard. When Jenkins leaves for a minute, Bubz takes the opportunity to grab Eden and tell her that she needs to escape.
Phostoshop is handy to use for sketches, so I began by drawing the backgrounds for each square. I enjoy using curved line perspectives to make scenes more interesting. Similar examples of artists who play with perspective that I enjoy looking at and draw inspiration from include Vewn who I have previously mentioned, and Zorgasm, who uses Instagram as a platform for her digital art.
Vewn
Zorgasm (Sage)
I also take some inspiration from MTV’s era of experimental animated TV shows like “The Head.” All of which frequently use strange perspectives which I enjoy looking at and would like to incorporate into my animation.
After reading through chapter 4 named ‘Advancing backwards to 1940’ from Richard Williams Animator’s Survival Guide, I worked on animating different bouncing balls, keeping in mind what I had learned about inbetweens, volume and timing. Volume was the most difficult aspect to keep consistent. If I stretched the ball, I would also narrow it and if I sqaushed the ball I would expand it. I used less frames where the ball would be moving fastest, and I would draw more frames for an action to slow it down.
Before I began animating, I thought about the 12 principals of animation.
Squash and Stretch is used to keep the volume of an object the same while it moves. For example, as a ball falls downwards, gravity will make it elongate (stretch) and when it hits the ground, it will flatten (squash). The ball must always hold the same volume or it will become bigger or smaller. Exaggeration compliments all of the other principals as it adds force to an action, arc or drawing so that an action becomes more appealing for the viewer. Anticipation is the principal which adds a realistic touch to an action – it prepares the object (and the viewer) for an action that is about to happen. A character wouldn’t jump without bending its knees first, and a ball wouldn’t bounce without being thrown. Straight Ahead action is a principal that works well for more fluid motions – water, fire and anything that takes an uncertain course of action will be best animated with this principal. Using the Pose to Pose principal whereby key frames are drawn between a beginning and end frame and in-between frames are drawn between keyframes allows the animation to be controlled in a way that enables dramatic motions to be animated. Follow through and Overlapping action is a principal that is used to ensure that when an object is moving, secondary objects that are attached to it move at a different rate. A long haired character who is running will have their hair drag behind them because it is lighter and flexible – the action of their hair overlaps with their body. When the character stops, their hair will follow through and overtake their body for a few frames. Arcs are drawn to ensure that the motion moves consistently along a curved line and doesn’t jump around on the screen. Slow in and slow out is a principal that ensures the object gains acceleration as it speeds up and looses acceleration as it slows down to end the motion. It is achieved when more frames are added to slow the motion down and less frames are used to speed it up. The secondary action principal is used to emphasize the main action by adding smaller actions that are influenced by the main action. This could be a character’s hair moving slightly or smaller droplets following a drop of water. Appeal is a principal that, when applied, ensures the character or object engages the viewer by creating readable designs, giving the object or character being animated a personality and using solid drawings for the animation. Timing is a principal which is considered when making an object move believably. If the lower half of an object is being propelled forward, the upper half will move slightly slower and drag behind because there is no force being applied to it. Using the correct timing to animate this will allow the viewer to see the personality of the objects being animated. Solid drawing is a principal that is used to ensure a character or object is drawn anatomically correct, with correct shadow placement, perspective and consistent volume. This ensures the animation being created will not confuse the viewer. Using the staging principal in an animation ensures that unnecessary animation is minimal and secondary actions draw attention to what is important to the scene. If an animation has been well staged, the viewer doesn’t feel like they have missed out on moments that are essential to understanding the plot as their eyes have been drawn to what is important.
Basket Ball
Ping Pong Ball
Bowling Ball
This exercise taught me lots about how the density of an object affects how I should animate it. Heavy objects, like the bowling ball, move slowly and drop quickly with little bounce. Light objects like the ping pong ball move very fast and maintain their high bounces for longer.