Wings animation sketchbook

[Wingal]

Frog. Starting with a frog.




https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56663563/Frogwip.mov

[Mr-Joe]

Hi, I think its not bad, i think that you could use a bit more squash and stretch when your frog lands from leaping... really exagerate the imapact and expansion. Frogs have quite a bouncy-ness to them. The timing is pretty good, hes got some hangtime thats pretty realistic for a hopping frog, but he needs a little more jiggle.
what program are you animating in?

[Wingal]

Thanks for the crits Mr.Joe. Ill push the squash and stretch more. It was done in toon boom animate.

[Alice Herring]

Sweet! You're off to a great start. You're thinking about arcs and little story moments, which is good.

Now on to the critique:

You should really be working at 24 frames per second; so you need more drawings. Just addressing with what you have:

1. Look at drawings 3, 5, and 7; I'm looking at the tip of the nose. See the space between the drawings? It's getting smaller. That means you are slowing down; in this case the animation should be speeding up until the frog hits the ground. (drawing 7.)

2. you do need more drawings for the settle after the squash. You've got the basic key drawings, you just need to add some inbetweens

3. before he actually sticks out his tongue, the character needs to antic. (anticipation.) anticipation is used to not only draw the audience's attention what is about to happen, but also is the character gathering energy before they act.

4. Experiment more with spacing on the tongue! Right now the action is very even. (the spacing of the tongue is very even; animation should always be speeding up or slowing down. If you want the tongue to 'snap' out, then have a much larger gap of spacing in the beginning.)

5. The end needs a little more love and drawings you might find overshooting the pose helpful in places. It gives just a little 'pop' like when characters are surprised. (overshooting means going past the key drawing, then settling back into the pose. Try it!) It'll also help once you're animating on 24 FPS, you'll be able to animate on ones properly for fast actions.

[Wingal]

Well the laptop i had before wont turn on so i had to start over and make a new frog. I did this one at 24 frames. Also some random stuff i shouldn't be doing. Going to work on the frog some more. I got a cool book the mechanics of motion it has some exercises and stuff. The one im also working on now is 3 balls going down stairs. Looks like fun =) that is what ill put up next.

http://youtu.be/CWGnEUVxfvs

[Wingal]

First ball.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56663563/tenball.mov
http://youtu.be/IIgWkTCddRs

[Wingal]

Cannonball!!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56663563/Canball.mov

[Ccs]

It's falling a bit too fast, but keep it up. Timing and spacing are the essence of animation, so every exercise you can do to strengthen your sense of it will pay off!

[Wingal]

It's falling a bit too fast, but keep it up. Timing and spacing are the essence of animation, so every exercise you can do to strengthen your sense of it will pay off!

Which one? or both? Should i put it on twos? Yeah I know practice is good, but I would like to practice getting it right

[Januz]

Hey Wingal, nice progress. You might want to check out the 12 Principles of Animation from Johnston and Thomas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basi...s_of_animation

Keep up

[Wingal]

Tried to fix tennis ball and here is a double bounce ball (wtf Im not allowed to have more then 1 video now?)

[Wingal]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56663563/double%20bounce.mov

[Wingal]

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[Wingal]

[Melete]

Hey Wing, I think you have some fundamental issues with timing and spacing. Do you have the Animator's Survival Kit? Do the exercises on pages 36-39 and 48-50 (Bouncing ball and pendulum). Also, if you've never tried it before, I would recommend that you start watching some animated movies (like Aladdin) at a very slow speed, so you can see each individual frame. It might help inspire you and see the kinds of arcs and spacing that they use. I found it really helpful when I was starting out.

Nice job so far, it's good to see a work thread updated so regularly. Keep it up!

[Talis]

hi man. it`s easy to get stuck with the basics, try to sort them out quickly, it will become a lifesaver when you do more complicated stuff. Also on a side-note, since you are making a loopanimation with these bouncing balls anyway, try to loop them a couple of times, it`s easier on the eyes and you can concentrate better on the movement instead of bashing repeat all the time

Good and brave start though!!

Take care,
Talis

[Wingal]

[Wingal]

Its been a little while.

[Care]

i know its simple but i love this stuff u should make christmas cards

[Wingal]

Lol thanks Care! It just went downhill from there. For some reason the wacom makes me want to draw fast... I already have bad draftsmanship but put me on the smooth slick surface of my wacom and I go to town! Heres what happened. So instead I broke out my lightbox and drew him. I think the results are much better. Since i can only add 1 video per post now -.- see the next post.

[Wingal]

I had to scan 1 by 1 into photoshop blah. Im surprised its not too shaky usually my scans are all over the place. Will probably draw on paper more now. I should be doing 60 frames a day for practice some blog said. Ill try to do more exercises a day. First Ill finish my book then Ill make up my own i guess.

[Psychotime]

I think that needs a little more squash on the landing, and more anticipation on the jump.

[Joe777k7]

Really awesome work here! Looking forward to seeing more. If you ever get to the point of making a full cartoon i could do the music for you and sound effects

[HEAVEN98]

You're coming along really well. That last one looks a lot better/cleaner than the previous ones. I would accent the squash a little bit more and maybe even accent the jump by stretching him out.

[Wingal]

Man I neglected this thread. Im probably spreading myself out too much, working on like 3 comics right now =S. Damn I love creating soo much! Which is prob why i end up doing alot of imagination when i should do more studys. Did alot of drawing though so thats good. Anyway, starting to aim at doing at least 1 of these exercises a day for this month. Heres a dreadful walk circle. Idk why its not working out. Maybe i should paint a chicken on top of him, he has a sort of head bobby thing going on. Im going to try to make a cut out person so everything is not so jumpy at least.

[HEAVEN98]

You should upload using something like dropbox so we can go through frame by frame and see whats going on. I would suggest having the character actually walk from point A to point B rather than sliding the feet, this will help you realize the forces at work on the body (internal and external). The chicken head look is a common problem caused by the up and down and back and forth motion of the head being out of sync with the movement of the body. Making it look like it's going around in a circle rather than a wave pattern.

[Wingal]

Speaking of circles and waves, Flag =D Next thing will prob be a Preston walk, been trying to get a decent character today. wish me luck.
Off topic slightly. Today i was watching some rough animation with the charts on the side, and I was looking at what was happening and thinking about it. Im starting to think that the spacing has to do with how different the change is from one drawing to another. I read about spacing but from reading survival kit and doing the penny thing about space and time, I thought it had to do with the distance the drawings were from each other not exactly how different they were. Now i feel dumb, but i also feel empowered. I get it. Now lets see if I can make it happen.

Youtube... errors =/

[Wingal]

Yeah im not going to be able to finish this one tonight, Here's what it looks like so far.

[Wingal]

First time i didnt use an exercise. Used a reference of a short clip I saw. Yes its scary.

[Mr-Joe]

Hi there, may i suggest uploading these as a .gif file with looping enabled, i feel its easier to see problems to critque in very short clips when they are looping rather than continually having to hit the play button.