Experimental Animation

Because Moodle is being (in the politest terms possible) massively crap this is the only version of the finished experimental project that I can upload.

Video tests

Trying desperately to get the animations to show up, I've made 4 WIP's of the current progress of the 11 second club project.

The animatic, with the most basic movments planned. The final shot of the storyboard that I hadn't decided on ended up being used as I liked the idea of the third party being next to the confrontation rather than in the distance as I'd previously planned.


The first attempt, I was originally going to rotoscope the flames which would have probably been ten times easier, but instead I drew them out using a few beginning frames as reference. Turns out flames are very hard to do.


The second vid. Slightly more detailed in the actions.

The third WIP has more detail in the movement of the characters. I removed the red lines for this version so the blue lines would be more obvious and changed the gesture of P's from both hands to only the one because I thought it looked more natural.


Fourth Wip and not far from when I start inking. The lip sync was added before the eye movements as I wanted the mouthes to be as exaggerated as possible without relying on the eyebrows for the expression too much. It's hard to lip sync mouth movements like "ay" when that expression normally appears as a happy mouth shape, so I had to twist some of them to look angrier.

The Rough Work

Designs for the Eagle have been done. It isn't meant to do much body wise apart from react to Z's rant at the end, so all the movement is in the face and head.

The Warhol-print was just for some colourful fun.

Most of the Eagle's reactions are drawn here for reference in the animation. I will probably have to do one for Z and P rather than trying to guess what the face will look like.

Design wise, it's just a big eagle. Not much more to it than that.

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Okay, I have tried repeatedly (last time was about the eighth) but I cannot get videos to upload on to my profile with the current internet, either with blogger or youtube. If I can find a connection good enough to get some up I have some WIP's to upload, but until then it's a no go.

Who stole it?

After trying to finish the arduosly boring task of filling in the dope sheets for the experimental animation, I've started to jot down some rough character sketches ready for the 11 second club project.

I had a few ideas for the project. One involved two archeologists arguing over the removal of an artifact after the former had put it back in it's rightful place, except that didn't make any sense with the "Why would I put it there " part. Another was either two foxes/lizards or two roosters with a stolen egg, which made slightly more sense as they wouldn't have a reason to leave an egg there. They all ended with the offending eggs parent (being a lot larger than the main characters) showing up at the "He stole it!" part.




I didn't really feel the ideas were that good, feeling more average than anything and as three of them were the same scenario with different characters I wanted something different.

Thinking of an example where someone would be angry at somebody else for stealing, and also why there would be a crackling sound in the background, I remembered the old legend of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and thought it would be a good scenario if he was completely unaware of how bad an idea that was.

So I've stuck with that idea! Here are some of the designs for Zeus, although I've put it as Z in my storyboards to save typing his and Prometheus' names out over and over.

Also, yes, there is a vampire Zeus and Left4Dead Bill Zeus. Don't ask.

(No designs for P as of yet as they aren't scanned.)

Here are the storyboards. The idea is that in the establishing shot, the humans are worshipping the great big fire, which is meant to be the crackling sound in the background of the sound file.


Most of the shots are static to make it easier on myself animation wise, but this means that the facial expressions need to be suitably deformed.


The backgrounds are noticably sparse. I'm slightly confused by the amount of detail we're meant to put into the animation, so the layout design is something I'll need to look out later. As the characters are so static they aren't moving around the area that much, so its more for setting the scene than anything.

Here the final shot is not inked as I'm sort of stuck with it. Either Z is shaking his fists in the distance at the "He stole it!" line, with confused people in the foreground, or he is addressing a large eagle relating to the legend. I've got two issues with these- if its the former, then Z is no longer the focus and the scale of whatever structure the two are observing from has to be large enough to be impressive but enough so that Z is still visible. If the latter, although the two characters are the focus I'm worried the appearance of the Eagle would come out of left-field for some people.

Until I can test the scenes with an animatic I can't decide between the two currently. The storyboard will be revised gradually in case I need to modify the movements to be more exaggerated.

While I do have an animatic it is extreeeeeeemely rough, barely even stick figures. Uploading it with my current internet is proving almost impossible, so when it's improved I'll load a copy on to youtube and post here.

Quick Test

Here's a tester lip sync of the sound file for the 11 second club. Just going on what I'd written down on the dope sheet in terms of the sound meant that the lip sync seems very flat and emotionless, so I need to add more notes to the sheet.

Change of Emotion

Here's the final version of the change in emotion. I can't remember how I came to this mildly immature idea, but I stuck with it ayway. Should probably do something easier next time (I feel I've said that a lot).

Emotions in animation

This weeks subject is about changing emotion in animation, so I thought it's about time I posted more examples of such a thing on my blog before I get started. I tend to work without any reference, so this time I'll try to find a mixture of stills and footage to use. (all of which belong to the original owners).

Here's some examples of the ways different animations can express the same emotion.


In calmer poses the body is more like the characters natural shape to show that they're relaxed- there's no need to exaggerate anything on them.



This pose doesn't use much body language but the exaggerated facial expression shows that Gir does indeed love the moose.

Here the animaniacs are slightly stretched upwards, like the emotion is so strong they're being literally pulled off the ground.

This one is more maniacally happy than the others, but can show how easily happy to anger to sadness can happen just by changing the eyebrows.


Another borderline manic/happy pose, more exaggerated than the animaniacs. Everything seems to generate outwards from the character to show the energy.

More negative emotions-

The posture is rigid, but not explosive like Zim. This character is angry but shows it in a more reserved way in the way he clenches his fists close to his body.



This is the complete opposite of the above in terms of action. He's still rigid, but the facial expression and threatening gesture make his anger much more explicit, especially coupled with Stimpy's own frightened expression.


This look of fear is just that- a look, but the position of the ears on the characters head reflects animal expressions.


This ones all out. The character is so frightened they've turned into a ball, fur stood on end in all directions.

This is really more of a recap for myself so I know what sort of things to look for in a performance, depending on the type of character involved. It seems like more realistic characters rely on more subtle facial expressions than the deformity that more cartoony characters can get away with.
(Heres how I looked after finding all the images------¬




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For the experimental animation, I'm trying to think of some examples using the methods described but I tend to confuse "abstract" with "experimental", which makes looking for footage confusing for me. One example I could think of that although I think it's made with compositing different film footage rather than an animation technique it is timed with different pieces of footage depending on the sound- Star Guitar, by the Chemical Brothers.



(Have I posted about that already? I can't remember). I had some problems trying to find a video that wasn't disabled, so here's a link in case this one is too- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S43IwBF0uM&ob=av3

Here's a little something too, for some really, REALLY exaggerated facial expressions. May involve Halo.
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Here is a version of my emotion changing animation, hopefully expressing surprise and disgust. You can see its a work in progress, but as the roughs are done I thought I'd upload the video earlier.