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Lip Sync Animation
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When we were first told that we had an assignment for lip sync, I knew that I had wanted mine to be comedic. I tried to find funny audio that I’d be able to use; and obviously, I had to make sure that I would be able to animate the movements! The main platform I used to look for audio was on Tiktok and I found a lot that I really liked but I couldn’t decide on which one I wanted however, Shrek stood out the most (as I’m sure you can tell). I was a little bit nervous for the lip sync as I had never done it before and I wasn’t very confident in my abilities, but it was fun learning how to!
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Audios I Researched
@stinkypoopooooooo donkey is so funnyyy🤭 #shrekandfiona #shrek #shrekanddonkey #annoyingkid
@englishmovies.series INGLÊS COM O FILME “ SHREK “ 🎥 #shrek #dreamsworks #shrekmeme #shrekeburro #shrekdonkey #dicadefilme #legends #legend #legendado #filmesincriveis💎 #shrekedit #desenhoanimado #comediafilmes💎
@itz_mares donkey is so me 😂😂 #foryou #fyp #shrek #movieclips #fypシ #fypシ゚viral #funny #memes #funnyvideos
@freskazz
@elicheco2 #foryoupage #foryou #fyp #funny #hilarious #roadto60k #jimmyneutronboygenius #soundtouse #usemysound
@.cosify me when it’s not the weekend via @kardashianshulu ___ #kardashians #kardashian #kardashianmemes #krisjenner #krisjennermeme
@ashd3nz “OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT” #meme #memes #memestiktok #reactionmemes #sounds #viralsounds #funny #edits #blacktiktok #blackmemes #blacktwitter #comedy #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #trending #viral #popular #blowthisup #makemefamous #follow #like #comment #share #crop #clip #xyzcba #xyzbca #holymemes #the
@wishtemp Pt. 2 #tiktok #funny #sound #audio #meme #trend #fyp #foryou #foryoupage
@khlomoney6 and i realized that i’m probably just perfect #fyp #scottdisick #kuwtk #keepingupwiththekardashians
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After a while, I realised I wanted it to be one of the two Shrek audios; the one about his breath or his house. I decided to go for the audio about the house as I thought it would be funnier and easier to understand facial expressions, which would give me a lot of variety. After speaking to Rachel about it in class, we had talked about how I could make it funny with the boulder comment at the end. It would be a little bit harder as I would have to use two characters and I also would have to find a house model and a boulder if I was to do it in 3D, but I really liked the idea and the audio! I researched some more about the characters; I already kind of knew the personalities of Shrek and Donkey but I thought I would just research more in case and figure out how I wanted to portray them in my animation.
(Quick Storyboard)
(The video I used; the audio I used was from 0:39 – 0:53)
We were also tasked to a lip sync for an exercise during class; this is a quick video showing my blocked-out lip sync.
At first, I wanted to complete the lip sync in 3D but after the exercise in class, I really enjoyed the 2D lip sync! I started with trying to design the two characters I’d need and I wanted them to fit the personalities. I looked up references on Pinterest as I’ve never really drawn male characters before and I wanted to get their personality across. After this, I wrote down all of the different facial expressions that my characters would be making in the animation and decided to take a sketch of the main guy’s head (who will be voiced by Donkey) and try out different facial expressions. I found it hard trying to draw a few of them so I took a video of myself making different faces to see how it would look, as well as references.
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Donkey Character
(References)
(First Sketch)
(Final Sketch)
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Shrek Character
(References)
(First Sketch) 
(Final Sketch)
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Facial Expressions
(References)
(Final Expression Sheet)
I also wrote down some notes which Rachel had told us in class and looked up some facial animation tests!
I also drew the backgrounds quickly for the animation. I struggled trying to make them as I find when I make backgrounds, they end up being kind of simple but I’m happy with how they came out:
I first began roughly timing when each character was going to speak and when it was going to pan to different backgrounds before anything else. I also had to cut the sound down a bit as it was going on to about 25 seconds, so unfortunately I couldn’t add the boulder line 🙁 After this, I tried fixing the timing and blocking in the key poses. I recorded myself acting out the audio and I actually found it really fun – it took a couple of tries but I was happy with what I had! I used them as reference for some of my poses (I looked crazy doing it at 2 am). I had recorded myself acting out everything so that I found it easier when it came to animating it but I’m too embarrassed to show me acting… So here is a quick clip ft. the cats to protect your eyes from me and my room 🙂 (please ignore the shirt it was my pjs)
I noticed for the donkey character, he was turning his head quite a bit and putting his hands on his hips so I really wanted to nail the poses. I struggled with the head turn; I remember doing it in class so that helped, but I also rewatched the lectures and a few videos to make it look better! In my animation, I wanted him to look like he was more looking to the side instead of fully turning his head.
(GIF)
After this, I began adding facial expressions and acting out some of my own so that I understood what they would look like. I also sat with a mirror to my side so that I could see the faces that I was making; this is something that I learnt in class and it really helped! I blocked out most of the expressions however, I knew they’d end up changing with the lip sync, especially the jaw so I started working on the the lips. I wrote down the audio and highlighted the vowels and worked with this to try to make the lip sync.
Towards the end of the audio, I struggled a lot more with the words ‘just beautiful’, especially getting the lips to look right for the ‘s’ sound, so I decided to quickly draw out a bunch of mouth shapes for each vowel that was used and make my own ‘mouth chart’.
(References)
(Mouth Chart)
When I had finished everything, I went through and tidied it up; I knew I would have to clean up the mouth movements and jaw as I drew them in quickly just to get the rough idea down. I also completely forgot to add in blinking so I added this in too; I found a few videos on YouTube that helped me again with this!
(My Final Lip Sync – Looped 4 times)
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Weight Lift Animation
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For the weight lift, I sketched out some quick ideas of what I wanted it to be. I knew I wanted it to somehow be comedic but I wasn’t 100% sure how to. I looked up references on YouTube and this one was by far my favourite and inspired me quite a lot!
And here are some other references that I looked at that helped a bunch!
When we were learning about it in class, I tried to create a weight lift myself on Procreate; I know it’s not the best, but it gave me something to improve on and look back at to see my progress.
(GIF)
I began by looking at weightlifting references. I also tried acting it out myself (I am now aware of how bad at it I was) but it was useful for arm movements, especially towards the end! I roughly posed out the main frames for the weight lift walk and also drew a quick background. I messed about to try to get the timing right before I began adding any more frames in. After adding all the frames in that I thought were necessary, I realised that in all of the frames, the characters were at different heights so I drew two red lines for a guide. This meant that the animation was basically finished, and I just needed to clean it all up!
After looking back on it, I felt like I needed to add a bit to the start of the animation, to show the anticipation before lifting the weight. I also wanted to change a bit when he bent down and tried to lift the box; I wanted to exaggerate his back a bit more! I also ended up adding some effects for him such as breathing, sweating and some comic effects. I had already drawn a quick frame for him at the end and one of the scenes on procreate earlier:
I always struggled with making the animation look smooth and clean, so I wanted to research how I could fix this. One thing I always thought was complicated was ease in and out but, I found a YouTube tutorial that really helped me understand it; for example, if there was a head turn, you would draw out the three frames (left, middle, right) and then in between the two extremities which would be the left and the right you would add more frames.
(My Final Weight Lift – Looped 4 times)
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Conclusion
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This module has made me more confident in 2D as I always thought it was just something that I could never do as it was too hard for me, but I really enjoyed it and I loved doing the lip sync assignment! It’s also made me reconsider what path I would go down eventually in the future (which is both a positive thing and a negative thing depending on how you look at it T-T).
I would say I struggled a lot with motivation during this module, especially towards the end. I was dealing with my mental health issues but also trying to get the motivation to actually get up and do some work which wasn’t really like me as I’ve never really been ‘behind’ like this before. This has definitely impacted my work during this module as I know I could’ve done even better if I had been in a better mental place (thankfully, I am now). Because of this, I left it too late myself to send any syncsketch links for feedback which is 100% my fault, and this is something I will definitely work on for the future. However, I still have learnt quite a lot and it has given me more experience using toon boom and blender during the class exercises and I can’t wait to see what the future modules have in store for me!
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Extra Links
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Sync Sketch links here: