Jumping animation
Animation: Weekly assignment no. 3
Our 3rd weekly assignment in Animation class was to make a flipbook animation where some of the 12 principles of animation were applied: arcs, timing, squash/stretch, follow through/secondary action and slow in/slow out.
First, we were given a reference image from the internet, where a few keyframes and extremes were already drawn. Our first task was to draw on some arcs for the head, hips and ankles to follow. Then, we were supposed to draw on a timeline where we’d mark where and how we would spread out the different frames. After that, we were asked to draw all the inbetweens, before adding an element where follow through & secondary action could be applied. Finally, we would make it all into one flipbook animation.
This was my initial sketch/filled out reference sheet:
(The notes I gave myself may or may not be correct.) It was very interesting forcing myself to visualize and really think about how it would look in the end. Following the arcs was definitely a help, although it also shows the importance of planning things out well, at least when using this method, as some of the proportions may have ended up skewed due to how I drew my arcs in the first place.
Then came the hard part…tracing the pre-drawn frames into the flipbook I’d made. This was incredibly difficult to do, as our school doesn’t have a light box (and neither do I - yet!) I had to get creative, using my laptop screen, phone screen and natural daylight as primitive light boxes. However, I found a manageable method and eventually finished a rough animation.
Then came the clean-up part. I thought the lanky body type of the character resembled that of Pearl’s from Steven Universe, so I decided to make a few alterations and additions that would make the character a simplified version of Pearl! I went over each frame and added clothes and other details, coloured it, and then…
It turned into this! I was very happy with the finished result. It’s definitely not perfect, but then again, this was only our second assignment! I had so much fun with this, it didn’t even feel like work in the end. :D