WEEK 7 – ANIMATION PRINCIPLES
For week 7, we discussed the main animation principles and had to examine how balls bounce in order to practice timing and spacing in animation. We practiced using arcs as well as how squash and stretch can help make animation look more effective. We looked at references such as Disney’s The Illusion of Life and The Animator’s Survival Kit, which discuss animation principles and give examples on how to create these.
We were then tasked to look at how to animate a basic ball bounce and were given the assignment to animate three kinds of weighted balls bouncing. I animated 3 different bounces based off of 3 types of ball weights and bounces.
The first animation I made was a basic ball bounce, then a heavy ball bounce, and the last animation being a very bouncy ball bounce. I really enjoyed animating the small bouncy ball the most because I wanted to experiment with how extreme I could use squash and stretch to show motion and bounce and allowed me to be more creative and freer with this approach. I also got to test different ball rolls and various animation lengths as certain balls with have more energy depending on their bounce, size and weight.
YOUTUBE REFERENCES:
For my animations, I looked up real life videos of people comparing the bounce and motion of various kinds of balls being dropped. I looked at references for tennis balls, basket balls, bowling balls, golf balls, volley balls, etc. This has given me a good indication of how the velocity, distance, weight, density and material affect a certain balls bounce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eejc0p7nCM&ab_channel=WaxFlow1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6IV_d503io&list=WL&index=6&t=155s&ab_channel=freakjointz
We also were assigned to read Chapter 4 of Richard William’s book The Animator’s Survival Kit (as shown below) which I used as reference for my animations and found extremely helpful.
Overall, I was pleased with the outcome of my animations as this really helped with knowing the basic principles and how to effectively create motion in 2D animation. It allowed me to study and practice being able to understand the actual physics of each animation and develop my own technical skill to make them as effective as possible.
WORLDBUILDING
For our first major project, we have been tasked to get into a worldbuilding groups and plan to create a short animation together.
My group had an online meeting in which we discussed what we were doing for our animation and what order we would go in. We divided the animation into eight parts and chose the biome scene we thought we could create best. I chose the opening animation for the City and have the first part. We then decided to each draw rough storyboards and think of ideas for what part of the story we wanted to animate in our parts, and then we would decide how to transition into each other’s parts smoothly.
I drew a few rough sketches and then did a quick storyboard of how my animation could potentially go. It is of the main character going through the city and meeting their robot friend, Booyah, for the first time after he was thrown in the trash. I then plan on making them run out of the shot and transition into Jamie’s next animation part.
My storyboards are heavily inspired by comic artists such as Carey Pietsch, Chad Thomas and @DomiAlexDraws which I would like to have references to in the main animation using screen cuts and text to emphasise emotion or action. Animations like Sunburn by Studio Meala, Sonic Mania Animated by Tyson Hesse and Neko Productions, and Diamond Jack by Rachel Kim.
I hope to challenge myself and improve by drawing a dynamic scene with the characters that are emotive and energetic. I will also challenge myself to draw simple yet effective backgrounds and colours that clearly portray the land the characters are in. I plan on continuing to work with my group, gathering references and further refine and detail my storyboards.