Week 3: Bouncing Balls, Follow Through and Personal Character Designs
This week, we spent our studio time animating more bouncing balls but also started looking into follow through: the movement of inanimate objects to animate things, like hair, tails or similar. This was largely what we spent our practical studio time doing.
We started off with a bouncing ball and added limbs or tails, other elements that we could start moving alongside the ball itself. I decided to add a wig and a swinging arm to add more character to what the ball was doing as my first attempt.
Next up, we were asked to animate a creature, again using follow through to add motion to the limbs. Admittedly, I’m not that great at drawing creatures or animals since I’ve largely spent my time drawing people, so the initial plan of animating a frog descended into this weird creature with extending human hands. At some point, I’d like to go back and have a proper go.
Next up was a mask which I applied to the ball like a burglar. It’s not as smooth, often jumping back and forth in a jittery manner, but it was a good way to practice moving a cloth-like band across the character.
Up until now, I was animating on ones at 24 frames a second (1 new frame for each frame). From the snowman onwards, where I wanted to focus a little more on art and consistency, I switched to every two new frames (the equivalent of 12fps). Whilst a snowman isn’t technically a creature, I wanted to play with the physics of snow collapsing and melting, and inject life into snow which wouldn’t bounce in real life. Again, I gave it a scarf to add an object where follow through could be applied.
Lastly, because I’d seen many of my classmates use other animator’s designs as a way of playing with followthrough, I decided to try out using Studio Ghibli’s Totoro. As demonstrated in the film and just at his design, he’d be quite heavy and you would imagine him breaking the ground if he jumped. But because I gave him an umbrella, I wanted to see how far I could squash him and how gently I could get him to land without going too slowly. The end result can be seen below.
From this point onwards, I’m talking about work that took place outside the studio on my own time, and potentially may set up a future project of mine.
If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you’ll know animated documentaries, stories grounded in reality are my personal interest at the present moment. There’s something about taking something in reality and processing it through an illusion-based drawing that is equally satisfying.
I’ve been playing with art styles in my own time: previously before I started this course, I was looking at the work of Tadayoshi Yamamuro, Yuya Takahashi and Naohiro Shintani, all animators who have worked on the Dragon Ball franchise. And over time, I started exploring other artists like Hayao Miyazaki, Shuhei Yasuda and Ken Sugimori, before eventually settling down on Ichiro Uno and Tetsuya Nishio’s art styles from the Naruto/Boruto franchise. Their styles include a distinctive nose shading that only covers half the nose, yet provides a depth to said nose. The creases are particularly soft yet detailed, and the proportions are realistic, a good basis for me to start refining my own approach that will hopefully breakaway from theirs when I’m more confident.
I showcased a design for my tutor, Steve Roberts, last time. Below are a bunch of my peers that I’ve steadily gotten to know over the course, all based on the day I first met them (since they’re the only reference photos I have). I’ve also included myself since I anticipate if I do a documentary on this course, I’ll be somehow involved with my peers.
And like with Steve’s design before, I put some of these to the test with a wave, representing life at Central Saint Martins in 5 seconds. I’m not sure if I’ve fully understood follow through at this stage, as the arm sort of stops without overshooting or bouncing, and the clothes are quite static. But art wise, I think I’ve been a bit more consistent than in the past, and I think it’s just a nice short all the same.
Follow through is something I’d like to return to later down the line. Unlike last week, I don’t feel satisfied with my current outcomes. Maybe it’s my current lack of timing chart understanding, or my inability to imagine without observing something in the real world. I’m not sure yet, hopefully I’ll start animating with less hesitation in the future, and with more life in my characters.