This week was the start of a new rotation: Animation Arts: Paperwork.
The goal of this rotation is to familiarise ourselves with 2D animation, understand the vocabulary used in industry, introduce us to the lightbox, and how paper animation is made through a series of workshops.
Before starting any practical work, it was important to understand theory first. The timing of the animation, frame rate, difference between working on ones and on twos, and, of course, principles and usage instructions of the lightbox.
PRACTISE: STRAIGHT AHEAD ANIMATION
We kicked off with straight-ahead animation. By animating on twos, I created this transformation animation.
I tried to draw actions as fluid and smooth as possible while moving lines from one creature to the other. I got inspired by the object transformation using similarities between silhouettes. That way creating a more seamless and fluid metamorphosis.
PRACTISE: POSE TO POSE ANIMATION
The next lecture was an introduction to a different way of animating: Pose to pose. Understanding timing charts, the differences between keyframe (extreme pose), breakdown frames, and in-between frames. Then moving on to simple characters and creating three key facial expression poses. After it is done, finish the animation sequence using the pose to pose animation.
While working on it, the biggest difference I took note of was the planning aspect of animation. I have to think and visualise the whole animation before hand starting pose to pose, while straight ahead animation is more ”go with the flow”, more fluid.