It’s hard to believe, but my second of five terms at the Centre for Arts and Technology’s 2D Animation and Digital Art program is complete! This term, it felt like we really started applying the fundamentals of animation that we learned in quarter one. I felt a massive improvement in my ability to draw human characters from my imagination, which has always been difficult to do to my satisfaction. Our character design class really pushed those skills and cemented the practice we’ve been doing in life drawing. Finally, our Drawing for Animation class gave me a chance to take a crack at drawing animation layouts.
Toward the end of this term, I realized that I need to focus on improving the timing in my animation. The motion in the last two assignments bothered me – it felt too rigid and unnatural. After a conversation with a contact in the industry, I now understand that my drawings were spaced too evenly. So one of my focuses for next term will be on achieving snappy, natural movement.
Next term, I’m looking forward to beginning digital animation in Adobe Animate/Flash, and learning more about storyboarding. I’m also hoping to work on adding more rhythm, flow, and spontaneity to my drawing in our life drawing class, in which we’ll be focusing on animal drawing.
Action analysis from a clip of a baseball player hitting a home run. Action analysis from various reference videos of curling. The settle could be a little slower, and it would help to see some background elements moving to really sell the idea of motion. Walk with a heavy weight. Alright, so the bucket should move less. That said, I’m proud of the slow in to the top that makes it look like the character is throwing their weight into moving the bucket, and of the asymmetrical, perspective foot slip. This, our second to last assignment of the term, illustrates the point I made earlier about unnatural timing. The clue (which I not see) is in the timing charts at the side: they’re all symmetrical! Not the best mime-acting assignment even done, but after all, school is a safe place to learn from your mistakes. Final project for Character Design. Gary Sutherland (aka “The Envitalator” is a character I came up with for the class.) I love the idea of the chainsaw paint roller or “power roller”. It looks mean, but it would in no way help you paint faster. In fact, it would mostly spray paint everywhere, except for a small, streaky patch on the wall, and that’s what I find so amusing about it. Our first project for Character Design was for a character named Even, from a provided story about survivors of a near-future apocalypse. This was a landmark for me: the first character design I’ve done that I’m truly proud of. A set design and value study for the same provided story as the Even character above. Drawn and rendered on 12-field animation paper with pencil.
