PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
For this assignment we were tasked to animate an 8-12 second 2D or 3D scene, using animation techniques and principles we had learned previously. The assignment was to help with animating performance and acting in animation by creating a lip sync as well as to continue our personal practice with an animation I can include in my portfolio.
For my animation I chose an audio from the TV series Our Flag Means Death as it is a live action show that I could then use as reference for some of the motions:
I decided to animate the main character from the show, Stede Bonnet, saying this line but wanted to give him more energy and emotion in the delivery.
I wanted to use my own art style for the animation and so I first needed to figure out how to draw Stede and then created a rough reference sheet for myself. Upon reflection I think I would have benefitted from creating a character turn around of the final design/art style to use as reference also. I also looked at professional animators and studios’ work.
Research and Animation References:
I did some research into the best ways to begin animating a scene in 2D. For this animation I wanted to try out Rough Animator which I found to be a really effective app on the iPad.
Rough Animator Tutorial – Best Animation App on the iPad
How to Start Animating Your Characters : 4 Principles
From this video, I further looked at the work of animator, Michael J. Ruocco, who worked on Bojack Horseman, for ideas on how to similarly animate rigged characters.
Paper Owl Films, 2D animated film, SOL:
Klaus – Jesper progression shot
https://prokuon.tumblr.com/post/682792220372451328/the-one-piece-of-dialogue-from-hypnos-that-made-me
https://prokuon.tumblr.com/post/683701037451935744/vandermation-brenda-vaccaro-as-beggar-woman-from
I loved the facial animation of the Beggar Woman as the weight distribution and mouth motions were really effective!
Lip Sync Tutorials and References:
I also wanted to research into lipsyncing and how to time and draw the characters mouths.
I found the following tutorial by animator K-eke really helpful for drawing out sounds and words!
https://prokuon.tumblr.com/post/683701125796577280/k-eke-so-there-is-the-whole-tutorial-animated
https://prokuon.tumblr.com/post/683700874821959680/the-lip-sync-tutorial-they-dont-give-you
Aaron’s Art Tips Season2 E14 – How to Animate Dialogue, Lip Sync
I also watched a few of animator Aaron Blaise’s videos and tutorials he has on character animation and lip sync which were very helpful for understanding the animation process, and showed me the effectiveness of making a characters mouth make the sound shapes a few frames before they say it!
ANIMATION PROCESS
I recorded my own references of myself acting out the audio as a guide of character movements and how to animate them.
Reference video:
I started by drawing some key-frame roughs to give me a marker of what character positions and movements I would have to do in segments.
ROUGHS:
I then followed the BaM Animation: 4 Principles video that said to draw a rough stick figure animation to use as a guide for my characters motions in my animation.
With the rough stick figure animation I was able to animate the lip sync over the top. I did this step before drawing out my character body more accurately because I wanted to make sure that the lips would still be readable from the size of the animation however if I were to do this again, I think I would sketch out and animate the character body and movements before animating the lip sync.
LIP SYNC:
I then started drawing over the frames the actual character details and refinining the animation as I went along.
PROGRESS VIDEOS:
For my final outcome, I was unable to completely line each of the frames again to give a clean line art animation. I needed to copy and trace a lot of pieces of my character’s body at first to keep the style consistent and then also due to time constraints by the end. I had wanted to use this animation as a rough animation and then draw the clean lines over this, but I ran out of time. However, I still think it works to show the character’s movements and the lip sync itself. Now I understand better the length of time and work it takes to animate scenes especially with lip syncs.
There are issues where the animation feels a bit stiff because I have reused frames I had already drawn, and this makes the animation look a bit choppy and robotic, however, it has also been a good experience and learning should I animate with rigs like studios such as Paper Owl Films whose animation for their film SOL, I looked at as a reference for the puppet type rigging that I used on my animation.
FINAL ANIMATION
Overall, I’m quite happy with what I have achieved with this animation! This has been my first attempt at a 2D lip sync animation, and I think I did a decent job of this! If I were to redo it, I would be sure to give myself enough time to line the frames properly and colour the animation also!