Journey of A Simple Animation

Journey Of a Simple Animation : Lessons Well Learned

Greetings, I'm Harrison. An animator in learning who just wished to practice his skills through a small animated video. No intention of taking it past a rough pass, I wanted to test my mettle so to speak. 

The final product of my adventure is simple, yet expressive I felt : 

A simple overview of the premis I had in mind while going through my process;

Our little character, we will call them B, is waiting at the bus stop in a wasteland just entertaining herself. They hear a noise, hope! However it was just a passing onlooker, unwilling to assist our little B in their struggle.

Got that? Good. With that the challenge had officially begun!!

DESIGN 

B is loosely based on a character design of my own personal creation. Her name being Bakura. The character is an interesting mix of flowing shapes in their LONG hair and puffy tail contrasted against their more solid and angular body. 

The character seemed fun and already had built in personality to help inspire motions for my animation. There was however, a fatal flaw that I hadn't realised in this stage of my process that would drastically change my initial concept. 
So I had my concept so I begun setting the scene ideas into place through a couple quick sketches of layouts and positioning for the background. 

It was at this stage that I became increasingly aware of my skill level and experience in the traditional animated arts. I initial aimed shot for the moon, envisioning a fully animated 30 second clip of an anatomy perfect and expressive character in a scenic background in a captivating perspective angle. The background sketching in this project helped me understand that I was inexperienced enough to create something "disney like" I kept telling myself; but that didn't mean I couldn't stylise my idea? 

I'd jumped into TOONBOOM HARMONY and begun creating reference for myself. I soon came to realise that even dialing back my character to simple building blocks was a challenge to replicate. 
In my hour of need, I discovered through assistance of my schooling a animation stuido called "BirdBox", specifically their animation "ChopChop". 

I was inspired to take something as simple as a rectangle and add cute little details to make the whole concept POP. 

ANIMATION

The time had come to begin the animation. 
This was my first scene animation, everything else had just been simple exercises such as the bouncing ball (which in my tests, may have also inspired this characters design a little)

Also it's cute

I started with STORY TELLING POSES to just lay my ideas out as quickly as I could. 
It may come as a shock to realise that there is more in these poses than in the final product. It came to my understanding that with things going on in life I had to minimise my workload to help be satisfied with the end result. Luckily I had a stopping point planned already for such an occasion. 

I did however draw out all the key frames before I happened upon this decision. 

After moving onto breakdowns and inbetweens it finally reached the stage previously seen. 
Side note, I'd been animating with the background image always in view as reference to place the character. I did discover the value in removing the background to view the animation and access the sizes and flow of it all without any distractions. 

COMPLICATIONS

I encountered many moments of struggle where I seeked guidance or further reference than my own pre recorded reference could provide. However I feel I learned a lot; Main one to focus on here would be the value of outsourcing and not having to just rely on my own vision for everything.
Discovering family and peer opinons really helped me visualise my work and keep the end goal clear in sight. 

I discovered that arcs are a weak spot of mine, especially visualising the motion well in advance and all it's inbetweens. Through trial and error I got into the habbit of sketching out small lines inticating the motion and likely inbetweens (some made it through my quick cleaning up of the animation.)

It definitly became challenging to track each piece of the character from arms to tail as they moved. The challenge was a welcome one in fact and I tackled it with upmost confidence and determination. 

CONCLUSIONS AND REVELATIONS

Even an animation as simple as 7 seconds requires a lot of time, dedication and effort and will encounter it's own basket of challenges. I know for future works I aim to push myself further. Discovering my weak points and strengthening them to increase my animation prowess. 

I learned many things this time around;
- Character Design and it's hassles
- Staging, Timing
- The deep importance of understanding character arcs
- Seeking a second opinon
- Aim high! But don't be disapointed if you can't reach those heights (yet...)

Leaving me with nothing but pride in my work and confidence that my further works are going to be full of challaenges I can't wait to overcome.