#weight project

[dacrazyhead1]

Weight Project Final

This is my final animation for Weight Project. During this project I understood how important is weight in animation and how much of charm it can give to an animated character. Exercises are made in 3 different animating styles; hand-drawn traditional, stop-motion and digital 2D. The main idea was to see how different it is to animate and present the feeling of weight in each animation. Of course, each technique has its advantages and disadvantages compared to one another. 

[dacrazyhead1]

Weight project references.

For the weight project, I studied motion and movement from the video clips, that we have filmed ourselves lifting, pushing and pulling boxes. Not only I tried to learn while observing, but also I have done all those things myself to better understand what I will be animating. 

[clawsia]

first attempt to pick up

[clawsia]

Decided in the end to join all the projects.

[katemercer]

Weight Project: Pull

I used Edgar again for the pull animation. I focused a lot on the reference video for this animation since I had been animating a lot from my head for the last two animations. Again I liked the timing and character of this one, however I still need to focus on the placing of the feet for the character because it’s not very accurate. I also think there could be more anticipation when he pulls the second time. I really enjoyed this project, even if it took me much longer than expected.

[katemercer]

Weight Project: Push

I had a lot of fun making this character struggle while pushing the box. I decided to animate on TvPaint for this one because of how much time it took me to animate the pick-up on paper. I not only wanted to show the weight of the box but I also   wanted to give life to the character (who I ened up naming Edgar) while he struggles. I am pleased with the timing however to improve it I would focus on the placing of the feet to keep them level and not as wobbly as they are. 

[katemercer]

Weight Project: Pick-up

I wanted to challenge myself with this one by going back to animating on paper. I struggled to keep the size of the character the same, especially since I wasn’t looking at reference while animating. Instead I read The Animator’s Survival kit. Having said that I think there is a believable amount of weight to the box however to improve it I think there should be more inbetweens when my character adjusts himself to pick up the box. To finish it, I want to clean up the sketches, add some more inbetweensand give the guy a table!

[katemercer]

Weight Project: Reference sketches

I started off the project by doing a few quick sketches to gather an understanding of how the body transfers weight. I did these in about an hour while watching the reference videos. From these sketches I realised how much the body squashes, stretches and spreads to balance itself when pulling/pushing something heavy.  After this I was eager to start animating!