I spent the better part of the weekend just flat-out animating my Character Motivation - although not all the time. I woke up at 12:20pm today, for instance. My intent was to get it finished by Monday, but I haven't even gotten to the 5th of 9 storyboard keys yet. I've learnt SO much though in the principles of animation - I've feel that I have developed, even if just a little.
On Friday, I was going to trace over the head-turn I had done - it was 24 or so frames - almost an entire second. Unfortunately I didn't think to mark out other facial details (like the hair) during the turn, so as a result the animation in its preliminary stage just wobbles rather distastefully.
The hands also animated just terribly.
Regardless, I needed to crack on with it and besides, I could probably just fix up the consistency issues as I went along. I planned to do an all-nighter on Friday, thus the purchasing of a four-pack Red Bull. Georgia, at about 9pm informed me of an event at the SU bar that night but had to pass on the offer.
My courageous 'all-nighter' plan didn't get far, however. At 1:00am or so, I just felt way too tired. Of course, that's why I bought Red Bull but my greater conscience told me that, in the long run, I'd work better from a 7am to evening schedule than potentially half-assing my work from a brain-dead instance.
So, I dropped to sleep.
At 6:40am, up I got. Showered and such. I was ready to work when, right out of no where, the penny suddenly dropped with a horrible clang. The 'Character Motivation' exercise is meant to have us animate a character getting off a chair or similar and walk to the door in a manner related to their condition. (ex. Stroppy teenager, old man, playful child) I had gotten the 'Girl on a date' - and I decided on a close-up shot of her sitting on the sofa. Chest upwards.
But duh - I haven't actually SHOWN she is sitting on the sofa, at least not clearly. It's implied to some extent that she is (the sofa behind her, of course) yet this clearly isn't sticking to the intended brief - not close enough anyway. The legs aren't in view - there is isn't a full enough shot of her. I can't really take the risk of being vague about the setting here.
So I fell into dismay. Other than this implication, the head-turn just felt too screwed over to try and fix (although I could, even simply, but nah) I laid on the bed, head into the pillow, and just thought. I tried to relax myself. My mind laid the conclusion to these mistakes: "And now I've learnt." I wasn't banging my head against the wall with frustration - I was more afraid and fearful towards the mishap I'd created, and so for two hours I thought about what to do. I glanced at my storyboards, and crunched at what I aimed for vs. what is required. I could just animate the scene with the girl further back - either from the sofa itself or the focal length/zoom, but the face would be smaller and I'd loose that important element of clear facial expression.
But then something else had struck me - something I decided to just skip from self-assurance - the body turn-arounds. I was so fixated on pushing the narrative with facial characterisation that I ignored this pre-requisite to the scene. And now I've learnt. If I had actually taken the time bring into account how tall I want her to be, what her overall shape is and everything else - design her actual body itself - I would of foresaw the issues that would arise now. The sketchbook was still missing due to assessment (Which I also suspect a bad remark/grade is going to occur) so I instead grabbed some paper and started roughing out the general design for this character - named Fish Face.
Because I still intend to display emotion with the necessity to draw her away from view, I shrunk the body proportions to almost Super-Deformed levels. There would of been better ideas, for sure, but this one did solve two problems: one being the mud above, and the other to underline the fact I am animated a girl going on a date. Not a teen (although acceptable as well, no doubt) and definitely not a woman. I've seen two people animating the same character archetype as me, and they both tip more towards teen/womanly.
So with that said, I sketched a few designs on the proportion and landed on one to my liking - one that ultimately allows her to sit on the sofa in current view-point and yet still show her legs for sitting down. It reminds me a lot of the funny proportions in the Wind Waker, and is very much similar.
Finishing the designs, I could move on the next stage and actually start the pencil-test animation. Paranoia from my previous mistakes lingered however, and I was set on not repeating the same problem. I was hesitant to get going, so I stopped and relaxed on the bed. I thought about what to do, exactly. I thought, and thought and thought. Read a couple of pages over in The Animator's Survival Kit to reassure myself on what to do, and also unintentionally dozed off at about 8:30 or so. Awoke at 11:00, but still felt reluctant to jump off the diving board in the deep end. When it came to 1:30pm, I finally felt eased enough to know what I wanted to do, and how to go about doing it.
Originally, the animation started with Fish Face putting on some earrings - now that I think about it, I think this was, of all further actions, the defining point that you could tell (or at least get the idea) she is preparing for a date. But I skipped it, at least for now I am. Carrying on from there, I I decided on animate part 2 to 3 of the storyboard keys. Relaxing, eyes closed and looking all rosy - to the door bell ringing and opening her eyes. Only her eyes and mouth would move, so I drew the body sans the facial details - I'll template those on top.
When drawing the eyes and mouth, it gave me the opportunity to try out one approach to animation I hadn't practiced yet - spacing. Or rather, spacing in a controlled manner. I've begun to notice that the difference between the animation of your average-Sunday TV episodes to the anticipated climax special is the flexibility of the spacing - more on that later. Spacing is something I do wanted to try and become versed in since my walk cycle - while not bad, certainly had a very static feel to it. It looked like a wind-up toy doing a Samba inspired march across the screen! It's not what I wanted - what I wanted needed that special essence of spacing! (Yet again, now I've learnt)
Once the eye-opening bit was done, it was onto another simple action - although I say simple, I made this far more planned and 'set-up' than I think it needs to be. (- but then...) Doll Face raises her head in excitement to the door bell. Doll Face? Yes, not Fish Face. Why? Partly because the way she sits on the sofa. Her proportions and small size means her legs don't event flop down at 90 degrees as typical to sitting - they literally stick straight out! Her face, at least at that stage is jarring, like an empty void - that of a doll Of course this is clearly showing bad character designing but hush now - I am using this to my advantage. Doll Face is also somewhat of a pun to the nickname of pretty ladies used in Brooklyn during the 1940s.
As I am writing this now, I am still working on the head-raise. It's 13 or so frames (but likely more) and it's not even finished! Because: Above trying to avoid a repeat of wiggle-vision, I want to make different actions happen at different times during this rising transition. When I boil it down, what I want is the head-raise to be enticingly subtle. This requires spacing, and that has certainly made for a drive through death valley. Not only does Doll Face's head rise - her head tilts upwards. If any experience from the last attempt at turning head mass has taught me it's to plan everything first. Not just the eyes but the eyebrows, mouth, nose, ears, cheeks and blah blah. Everything. Otherwise I get unsure on where to put the shapes and how to change volume = wiggle wiggle.
The preparation took just way too long. I think I spent most of Saturday yesterday planning out the frames with guidelines. I'm not trying to animate a city scape here, so...I don't know why this took longer than it had to. My aim for subtly I guess. Often the case is with most animations that the subject is spaced enough between each frame that consistency, whilst very much the crux, isn't such a huge disaster if it isn't perfect since even at 12 frames per second, it goes by fast enough that we miss it; the flow comes ahead of detail. This isn't entirely true if the subject is in profile (amongst other things) but that's why I hated the two-dimensional walk cycle. But here, the start and end point of the head rise isn't very far apart so the finesse of the pencil line had to be delicate. I also haven't got the line-tester to lean on for ironing out mistakes bit-by-bit - any slip ups I make over the weekend means more time wasted trying to rectify it.
Which, incidentally, I didn't exactly spend every hour of my time on this animation. At various points I would suddenly become afraid and hesitant again, and sort of run away from the challenge due to the above. Basically I pussed out and took a few hours break. On average I spent about 4 to 5 or so hours each day. I guess that's not bad but it certainly isn't using my personal use of the light-box to the best of its worth.
Back on topic - the 13 frames of head rise proved a little tricky. From frame 1, along with the guidelines, I marked out dots (think dot-to-dot) on where the other details need to go; I saw this advice brought up in How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol. 1 of all places. Before actually animating, I first thought "Oh no, that's too much hassle. Why would anything bother doing that?" And here I am. I didn't dot out the details on all the frames since the seeing frames beforehand thanks to the light acting as a good guide unto itself, though I bet I'll see why cheeping out like that is going to bite me tomorrow once I see this tested out.
Once the head itself was roughed out, finally, I moved onto the details of the face itself. This was quite fun! The eyes were fairly scary to draw in as they were the big perspective show on the face. I had these blink a couple of times for character, and tried getting in a smooth movement of the iris. The eye-brows (as mere lines) were slightly more irritating in that, for such a simple mark, they kept on becoming inconsistent through the Extreme/Breakdown frames. Well, again, I should of marked it out on all the frames ahead of time.
Ah, and spacing the facial details. I wanted to try flexibility (or better known as overlapping action) to here, and I hinted about this above. After reading Animator's Survival Kit numerous times, I rested on the idea to do one thing at a time with the animation - animate the body and head shape first, then the arms, then the eyes/nose/mouth etc and then any drapery or hair. It's a rather sure-fire sounding system, but its catch is taking baby-steps eats a lot of time as I've come to notice.
But why flexibility?
Because living things aren't machines. We're not machines, and I certainly don't want my character Doll Face to be viewed as such. What I mean to say is that nothing moves at the same time when we animate as beings - it's one of the biggest aspects of the kinetic reality. This is also why I brought the difference in animation quality. Typical episodes of a cartoon show - Nickelodeon, anime or whatever - maintain a cheap and workable budget by using less-experienced animators. Spacing and timing is fine and straight-forward but what I notice lacking is flexibility. I don't stand with enough ground as to why, and it's also arcs, weight and easing things in that ignored often, but without flexibility - overlapping the action - I think a lot of believability is lost.
Anyway, the mouth, eyes and arms all move at separate times during the rise. With 13 frames, I thought about what would be best for what to move and open when. The mouth doesn't start opening until half way through, the arms rise 1/4 of the way in and stop 2/3 through, the eyes blink twice near the beginning and so on. When I test this tomorrow, hopefully it'll come out the way I wanted it. Easing in and out was vital to the spacing, and I can't stand stop-start start-stop jerkiness. Fluency, man!
Right now, I'm currently drawing in the actual frames on top of the 'drafts'. It's 10 to 2am, and I wasted nearly 2 hours writing up this blog. That's what I get for skipping, though. Aiming to get this done before tomorrow as I have life drawing nearly all day. Sticking in in-betweens would be nice, as I effectively want this animation running on 'ones' - 25 frames per second.
After I do the head rise, I need to rethink the system for drawing in the frames. Fortunately, action is here more spontaneous - at least until Doll Face starts walking (and in perspective dimensions too, GULP). It took way too long last time, I need to start the lip sync effectively on Wednesday as both have to be in for Tuesday next week. There's the 30 second animation for Principles (and Digital!) to think about as well.
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