10:SOLIDITY OF DRAWING

When you do ita animation don't drawing...SCULPTS.
You must do it a solid drawing, remember where the lines are curves and when solid objects overaly on others.(as the nose for example).
We will seeing a correct anatomycal construction for animator in the next tutorials so we can seeing the way to give "solidity" to your characters.

Star Trek Tribute

Before to sleep iìve do it this little tribute to Star Trek..

9:EXAGGERATION

As we have seen in the animation one of the most important thing to remember are to create contrast to helps audience to understand well what's happens.
So exaggerates are one way to create contrast..
If you give a look to sample above the same drawing are exaggerate (left) and normal(right).
The pose on left are clearly hungry..the pose on the right are ambiguos...
Please always exaggerate, a emotion, a pose, an arc...but be carefull, don't exaggerate everything, cause the scene can be reads by audience as "distorce".
Always use your sense of balance.
Balance are the heart of any art.

8:TIMING

Timing are the thing makes difference between a good animation and a bad animation...
You can have good drawings, wonderfull arcs, sweet overlappings..but if you haven't timing, the animation are bad..
Timing are strictly linked to x-sheet and the use of charts...of course slow in and slow out are part of timing.
When i animate i try to imagine a kind of musical rhythm....
music..pause..music...
The pause are important....the pause are everywhere...a music, a sing without pause are flat,boring..try to give rhythm to your animation and you will give life....

SAMPLE OF SECONDARY ACTION

7:SECONDARY ACTIONS

The secondary action as an animation wich are necessary to underlines the primary action.
THE SECONDARY ACTION ARE NOT THE OVERLAPPING AND THE FOLLOW-TROUGH
A character enter in the stage walking and stops (master pose) are very worried... (i think are the singer of a band, before the test for x-factor)
On this pose the animator developped other animations called SECONDARY ACTIONS to increases the mood of the character.
The finger taps nervous on the table...the expression are really in panic.
Usually when i've done the full master animation (without overlapping and secondary action)i taking one more time the animation and on the master pose WHERE I INDICATE SECONDARY ACTION i begin to drawing secondary action (also the moving hold are considered a sort of secondary action but i will talking about...)

SAMPLE ARCS

6: ARCS

ARCS:
The arcs are fundamental to makes ORGANIC ACTION.
The bone's junction are based on pivot, so WHEN A OBJECT ARE FIXED ON A PIVOT AND ROTATES ON HIM there always an arc.
All the actions are based on arcs.
When we must rough an animation, infact, i talking always about FLIPPING ON 3 POSES.
because drawing a poses and flipping the precedents two give THE CORRECT PATH OF AN ARC.
To causes CONTRAST (the contrast remember are the way to understanding the action!)
please working on opposited arcs.
IN OTHER WORDS WHEN YOU DRAWING AN ANIMATION TRY TO FOLLOW A ARC ON AN ACTION; AND THE OPPOSITED ARC ON THE NEXT ACTION.
Arc:

SAMPLE SLOW IN AND SLOW OUT

5:SLOW IN and SLOW OUT

SLOW IN and SLOW OUT:
This rule are very important cause cause the slow in and the slow out gives at the animation fluidity and naturalness.
Normally we can operate on two ways to makes slow effect;
With the spacing and with the timing:
SPACING
If we adjust more drawings at the begin of an action and more drawings at the end of an action do we have slow in and slow out;
As we can see on the pic above the chart are stuctured in this way..
When an action begin and an action finish?An action involved in an animation are gived by the arc used for the animation.
When begin the arc there are the begin of an action, when finish this arc there will be the end of the action.
TIMING
If we operate with the timing we gived 2 on the x-sheet at the begin of the action, 1 in the middle and 2 at the end of the action.
That's are the way used by the old Disney's animators.
THE GOOD WAY
Anyway the better way are to combined the 2 methods.
The spacing where adjust more drawing, and the timing.
That's will give you a better fluidity, and overall a good timing without compromised the action

SAMPLE OVERLAPPING AND FOLLOW TROUGH

4:OVERLAPPING E FOLLOW TROUGH

Overlapping and follow trough are the physical reactions gived by an action..
In other words EVERY ACTION CAUSES A FOLLOW TROUGH AND A OVERLAPPING on the parts attached at the body as the hars, a cap, etc...We called this parts "appendices"
Analyzes this two rules:
FOLLOW TROUGH:
When the appendices follows the arcs and the action lines of the animation, this process, are called FOLLOW TROUGH.
Please looking at the sample above.
OVERLAPPING

When the action finish, there are a late of this stop beetwen the various appendices.
This late where the ACTION OF THE APPENDICES FINISH AFTER THE POINT OF STOP OF THE TOTAL BODY, are called OVERLAPPING

posetest of Lynda

http://www.ranfanimation.com/video/lyndaposetest.mov

That's are the mov

3:STAGING

The staging are the position of character on the screen, the composition of scene.
Also staging can be considereed the clearity of silouhette.
The staging are very important cause a good composition in the scene cause a better understanding of the animation by the audience...
In the sample as we can see, there are a good silouhette and a bad silouhette.
In the bad the cup are invisible..the legs caused confusion...also in the bad composition, the character are half-cuts and are too big...

Sketch a character from your immagination

2:ANTICIPATION

Anticipation:
The anticipation of an action help the audience to understand the action...ergo, the action without anticipation can't be exist....
When you do it an animation you must think always "i must drawing this pose..so i need the CONTRARY FORCE of this pose.
One of the best samples are the baseball player..first to throws the ball charge the body over in the opposite force of the action...
As we can see also in that case we have creates CONTRAST
ANTICIPATION

1: SQUASH AND STRETCH

This is the first rule of animation.
Squash and stretch are not only the deformation of the shape, but are also finding the right contrast beetwen the pose, a "closed" pose (squash) and a "open" pose (stretch).
The contrast are very important in the animation process cause
MORE CONTRAST=CLEAR READING
Squash and the stretch:

Animation Test for LOKY

old characters..

Dear old character...i've draw 9 years ago......so i will do it a animation test soon....

LYNDA THUMBTEST

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE MOV
The thumbtest..the dialogue are from ELVIRA

GIRL's POWER..thumbtest of an animation

this is the models of LYNDA i've done to do it a dynamical anatomycal animation:

SKETCHING A PORTRAIT

SKETCH A DRESSED GIRL

SKETCHING A DOG

The labrador of my mother
RAISSA

CHARACTER FOR A TV SPOT

CHARACTERS FOR A TV SPOT : ROY

MUSHU

Tirth step: DRAWING and TIMING

This is not only the tirth step..infact there are other step to follows, thi is the final rough animation with overlapping and secondary actions...
But i will show you in some future posts....
The step to follow are anyway:
Drawing the primary animation
TEST
Drawing the overlapping with his secondaru actions
TEST
Drawing secondary actions
TEST
Drawing secondary actions
TEST
till you are not satisfyed you must adjust secondary actions to improve the details of your animation.
When you've done NOW by the x-sheet you can takes the right charts for your key animation..remember are not only the space between two drawing gives the SLOW IN and SLOW OUT but also the TIMING so...when you fills the x-sheet please REMEMBER to put 2 frames in the slow in and slow out and 1 frame in the rest of animation.....

second step....LET's YOUR EMOTIONS BRINGS YOURSELF

in the second step i've drawing all the key necessary to "link" between the thumbs created before, WITHOUT overlapping and secondary animation..i concentrates overall on:
Squash and stretch
Anticipation
Arcs
Exageration
and TIMING...
When i've do it the pose test THE X-SHEET MUST BE ALMOST THE FINAL COMPILATION.
So testing just you didn't find the GOOD TIMING FOR YOUR ANIMATION!

First step...PLANNING!

Planning your animation! this is the first step..do it a thumb test...
In that case i've start with a dialogue so when i've do it the thumbnails i'm based myself on the phrase's division...so the footage have been taken by the phrases directly..
I've do it a first x-sheet....

the traditional way...

today where are lost in the sea of pixels...i'me a fan of my tablet pc..a tx2025el..i loves PAP 4.0 or Flipbook..i'm going crazy to think i can animate everywhere..but anyway..the traditional way.have always a good taste..
I've use the "old" technics of animation.
The light of table are off..my reference are ONLY flipping everyway.....
This is a demo of my technics :-)

How capture a models..lifedrawing

Grabs the model...takes the forces of the lines..improve your skylls...

Come back...

Good morning to everybody...
Today i've take one more time in my hands my animation blog.
Pheraps i've dreaming something wrong tonight...
Anyway.. i will post my stuff and some tutorials.
If you want to contact me please leave your e-mail in the comment :-)
LET's START US THE BLOG..after one year...