Before I started blocking out my animation in ToonBoom, I took a few videos of myself weightlifting to reference, and I also looked online to find other videos that I thought had clear movement to reference.
It took me a few tries to get a video I was happy with but it has a weird angle, which is why I went and found another person’s weightlift and referenced them both while animating.
After getting these references, I started to block out my weightlift in ToonBoom but I blocked it out on 5s like Rachel does in Blender, so that way I know what I want my key poses to look like and I think I prefer this method of blocking even if it’s not traditional to 2D animation.
I showed my blockout to one of the lecturers and I got some feedback on it, which I wrote on my toonboom file.
So keeping this in mind, I started animating using an OC of mine. I started animating using the straight-ahead method, which I do nine times out of ten as I find it is the best way for me to animate but going forward, I would like to try doing key framing at some point to push me out of my comfort zone.
I should add that I also started watching other people’s weightlifts on YouTube to get inspired and I found some from which I borrowed some ideas.
For the first one, I wanted to achieve the expression and body language the animator in that weightlift achieved. I wanted to have my character act annoyed at having to pick up the weight and I think I achieved that.
I found animating this enjoyable but challenging and I have a lot to reflect on looking back.
I enjoyed taking my own reference footage but I wish I had done it in a better area because the camera angle is off and I think it affected how well I could use my reference, which is why I later went and looked up another person’s reference footage.
I also think I could have taken on the feedback I got from lecturers a little bit better by making my character actually rock back a little bit more. I did try to add small secondary actions like breathing but I don’t think I did it that well and I would like to try adding more secondary action into my animations going forward. I especially enjoy animating hands; I think they can add a lot of personality to a character and I would love to try that more.
I think I definitely need to improve on my form because throughout that animation the face shape of the character changed and contorts drastically, which isn’t ideal and I definitely need to improve on that soon. Although I’m slightly unsure how, I think it may benefit me to try tweening again and maybe drawing out all the different facial expressions I’ll need and tweening it instead of going frame by frame.
I also think my timing and anticipation could be improved. I think a bit more struggle to pick up the box and push it up would really improve the weightlift, but I was conscious of my time limit, as by this time I had only just started my lip sync and under the time constraints I had done the best I could.
For example;
This is my reference sheet for this character and this head shape is not maintained for the whole animation, which is disappointing but I’m sure I will improve with time and with practice.
I think that this is a good start though and I’m actually very excited to see where I go from here! I definitely think I have improved, even if only a little, which is still progress.