Walking Animation Project

 

Spinning Animation Exercise

 

Character Sketch

 

Interesting Character Locomotion

Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) - Sony Pictures Animation

Robin Hood (1973) - Walt Disney Productions

Klaus (2019) - Netflix Animation

Character Transformation Animation

Vimeo Link

This animation depicts the evolutionary transition from the soft, exposed fish egg to the hard-shelled reptilian egg. In the end, it reverts back to where it started, the implication being literally that the soft egg remains within and figuratively that evolution is an ongoing process that often repeats itself when convenient. No one creature is rested on too long, as all stages of life are fleeting and continuous drafts. This also contributes to but is not the only reason this animation appears sketchy or "in process." 

I have a better hold now on how to use this program. I still have not come to a good solution for how to color the way I want, but in this case, it does not matter since color ended up being a bad idea anyway. This is definitely something I need to consider for the future, though. I went with a much sketchier style - I typically animate loosely, but this is still much more dramatic than how I usually work. It happened to align with the values of what is being depicted, but that part was not preplanned and was realized about halfway through. The big reason I made this decision was that it allowed me to make a more complex and personally satisfying animation without worrying about the time constraints of clean linework. I also really like to work this loose because it adds more personality and perceived movement, in my opinion. 

I would have liked to add a background, but I quickly realized over the weekend that what I wanted to do would either look bad or require a lot more time than I had, even without being clean. My animation changed quite a bit from the storyboard, so the flow also changed. When I attempted to add in the wave transition I was initially excited about, it took all of the attention away from the subject and made it much less hypnotic. Cleaning up the lines also made them wobbly and ironically destroyed the smoothness. After spending a lot of time editing it, I decided to keep it the way I presented it on Friday. I did meticulously fix quite a few more minor distractions, though. For example, the eye thickness wobbling on the salamander went beyond sketchy and looked gross. In summary, I have an idea of the potential to continue this, but I do not yet know how to execute it properly. 

The color was also not a good idea. I tried filling in the creature loosely, but again it just ended up being an unappealing distraction. I have been gravitating more evenly between colorless and colorful lately, so maybe this is indicative of that shift. Something feels like it is missing, though, so I will continue to play. Something I feel like I could have changed more quickly (and therefore am more frustrated by) is the weird transition between the big fish and the blank background.

I do really like how it turned out in terms of flow. I am happy with my stylistic choices, and I am proud of the timing since I struggled with it last time. This was not necessarily on purpose, but due to the centering, there is also a hypnotic quality that I am a fan of. 

 

Storyboards - Character Transformation

 

Transformation in Animation (Examples)

The Last Unicorn (1982) - Rankin/Bass Productions

The Care Bears Movie (1985) - Nelvana (6:03 - 6:07)

Brother Bear (2003) - Walt Disney Pictures (1:32 - 2:15)

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) - Will Vinton Productions (2:47)

Looping Animation

Vimeo Link

This animation is of Opabinia regalis, a ferocious little predator from the Cambrian period, attempting to grab an evasive, spiny worm. Indeed it is doomed to repeatedly and forever miss dinner. In the background, some sponges lazily sway in the current.

This project was my "learn how to use Adobe Animate" exercise. I know nothing about the software, so it is a learning curve for me after using CLIP STUDIO PAINT for 6 years. The general process is much more streamlined and easier to organize, but the vector-based drawing is a lot for me to adjust to. Things like opacity are a lot more complicated, and for things like coloring and shading, the easiest way to do it forces completely closed lines. Not my favorite, so I will have to experiment further to find something that works for me. 

A personal challenge for this animation - I was going for a more polished, finished-looking clip. That usually takes a lot of time, but I think I could get away with it by using color and having a more detailed, shaded background. The main problem is that I neither had enough time nor really knew the best way to shade. Without that dimensionality, especially when contrasted against the background, my subjects look pretty flat and dull. My other problem is that I do not like how jumpy the animation is. Part of this is that I tried to make it look clean, and this is a complex structure. So, there is much to keep track of and nowhere to hide. 

In terms of things that I am happy with: I really like how the animation of the trunk shooting out and grabbing turned out. It feels snappy and has weight - it is easily what most of my time went into. I am also proud of the color palette; it is cohesive and fits well, in my opinion. 

Class Suggestions

- Add shading to Opabinia regalis and the worm.

- Add a slight swaying motion to Obabinia regalis and maybe the worm to make it feel more like an underwater scene. 

- Add highlight to the eyes to make them look more eyeball-like than little voids.

Storyboards - Looping Animation

Jumping Pill Bug (Loop)

 

Response - The Surprise and Wonder of Early Animation

It's interesting to look back to the beginnings of animation and see how much from that time is still relevant today. Many of the guidelines we currently use are on full display in older works, especially visual exaggerations of movement and expression. If you have limited time or technology, finding more straightforward ways to make sense of a character's emotions or thoughts is an outright necessity. I think there are many good examples in the article, but the one that stood out to me the most was "The Breath of a Nation." Admittedly, my favorite is "Gertie the Dinosaur," but that's more of a personal preference for dinosaurs than the animation itself. 

Characters are brimming with personality due mainly to how they react to things. The judge's wife expresses surprise when her hair flies off her head and spins back down like a hat. It's short and simple; it gets the point across without having to take too much time showing a character completely changing posture to express any one emotion. It's also easier to animate hair or a hat flying in the air than to animate somebody, say, putting their hands to their face and leaning back in shock. When you're animating professionally, being economical is important. These small, expressive animations are frequent - another example would be the different ways characters become drunk. One starts flashing in various shades, and another starts rippling as if he's made of water. 

Another little detail I liked was that sometimes a character's line of sight will be animated into the film - something you would typically only use as a guide before erasing. It's a tiny thing, but it makes a world of difference in making the story more coherent. The line acts as a transitional cue to lead our eyes to a specific area before making a cut to what the character is looking at. It helps contextualize things so that it doesn't seem as random when there's a cut to a poster or another room. If you can't rely on audio cues or character conversations, it makes sense to use visual tricks to get your point across. (While these cartoons often include text cuts for dialogue, I'm under the impression that it's done sparingly to avoid ruining the flow of the story.)

Three Animation Examples

The Secret of NIMH (1982) - Don Bluth

Don Bluth's work in animation is incredibly famous, and he's contributed a great deal to the medium over the years. This particular scene from The Secret of NIMH stands out to me. What is most compelling to me about this scene is the atmosphere. The dramatic staging and gloomy color palette contribute to this, but one of the more eerie aspects is that the primary light source is the eyes of the owl. This is all hand-drawn animation, so creating an actual glowing effect required an entirely new idea/technology. This is real-world light being shone through individually cut-out pieces of film - part of why the glowing is so convincing. This is ridiculously hard to reproduce digitally and takes an absurd amount of time to replicate physically. The exaggerated features and movements of the characters are also huge contributors to this animation's success. Their emotions are easier to read, and their movements carry a lot of weight, making it feel like they actually inhabit the spaces they're moving in. 

Wolfwalkers (2020) - Cartoon Saloon

Wolfwalkers is a much more recent work, and the most unique thing about it is the style used. Animation does not have to be clean to be successful, and this is a good example of that. In this case, their goal is to create the effect of a painting coming to life and to replicate the natural flow of nature. A lot of neat visual tricks can be pulled off this way - shown here is how it works with rapid movement. Backgrounds become more abstract and lines become much more jittery to show how fast the characters are moving and to make the environment feel like it's also alive. Some other examples of this animation style being useful include - 

          - 17th-century woodcut and tapestry imagery - scene paneling and the structure of the city

          - jagged lines taking over the screen during moments of emotional significance

Once again, character movements and faces are heavily exaggerated to make their emotions more apparent. I think this is especially important for non-human characters as it's harder for the audience to assume emotions based on subtler cues. The running animation here is fluid, but more literally since it's directly emulating the movement of water. 

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005) - JM Animation

Avatar: The Last Airbender is another personal favorite, and I like this part for its choreography and fire. In my opinion, animation is a lot like theatre - you can't just animate something from start to finish without mapping out the entire scene. There is a lot of complex motion here, and once again, the characters' designs and expressions make it very easy to understand how they're feeling. Azula's internal crisis is apparent with her disconcerting smile, wide eyes, and messy hair. The way she moves is precarious. Color is crucial in animation for various reasons, but it's easily one of the main focal points here. The visual clashing of blue and orange fire looks cohesive, and the entire scene flows around that aesthetic choice. At least in my experience, when doing bright effects like this - especially to this degree - it's easy to make something very confusing and difficult to look at. I think what makes it work so well here is that the fire is contextualized every few seconds as the camera pans to different characters using it.