Some time ago I did a drawing of an indian man. I, along with my mother, thought that this was a very successful drawing and I really wanted to take the character further and use him for some animation. The drawing can be seen further down the page. At first the idea was to do a close up scene with him using the drawing as a keyframe to get started. However, the God of Doodles had another plan! While doing a playblast of a scene for Cartoon Saloon I started to sketch him in a full-out run. The sketch had a good raw energy to it (first one was the one down in the right corner) and I kept on going almost keying out the poses for the run. I did the sheet in about half an hour, threw down a few notes, scanned them in and started working them over in TV-Paint adjusting them for animation. I love the feeling of being on a roll putting every line down in just the right manner. (Not every line maybe...look to the lower left corner) Feeling the flow of what the drawings would be like in motion. when I sketched these out I tried to have in mind all the time how to take it further than a simple generic run. How to add an interest to every sketch, while still having it compliment the previous ones. When every sketch is strong enough on its own to show what's going on, then the foundation for an appealing animation is laid out. Going into the first pass on the animation the drawings will have to be adjusted to unfold an overall pleasing flow playing out the motion intended. This can be a very hard compromise, I think. Maintaining the uniqueness and strength of the sketch while toning it down to be a part of the continuity is a delicate process. In the end it should only make the scene better, so the compromise should be to strengthen the animation without taking too much away from the single frames. Next post I'll show how I am trying to get through this process safely with strong drawings together making a strong animation. As always I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter, so please don't hesitate to leave a comment, thanks.
Here are the two first scenes I have animated for the short film, Seanduine, accompanying an old Gaelic folk song. The song is about a young woman marrying an old man for his gold. My classmate, Louise, animated the old man chasing the donkey in the bottom scene. Enjoy! (The clips above and below are copyright property of Cartoon Saloon)
I did a quick sketch of an indian yesterday and had a strong urge to color it, so I did! I am currently planning the animation I want to do with this shot and I am looking very much forward to see these colors in motion. I have never really done much in color, but I am starting to get a glimpse of the incredible possibilities this aspect of the media holds in store. What I find particularly interesting and what I will try and explore with this scene, is first off how the shadow layers on the basecolor can be used to define and enhance both depth and form and second how textures, here the markings on his face and body, can add another dimension of detail and believability of form.
Below the finished picture is a breakdown of my process. It goes from the rough sketch and step by step, simplified a little, to the end result.
For the past three years I have tried to in cooperate drawing successfully into my workflow when approaching a scene. It is not up until recently that I have started to feel in control of both the animation and the drawing aspect of the scene and make them go hand in hand as I believe they should for a scene to breathe organically. Either the drawings turn stiff in the attempt to maintain the character model, the animation gets compromised, because it is adjusted to fit the drawings or it simply takes too long to draw the frames to keep a healthy continuity going for the animation. These have been the problems I have run into during my self-study and now feel I am starting to shake off. What have helped me in this process is what I would like to share in this post.
What I first off had to realize was that the animation and overall feel of the scene and character has to be priority number one. Everything else should be in the scene to support this. To be able to support an overall feel of a scene I have to know what that feeling is and break it down as simple as possible. For example the scene I did called 'the old couple' had one keyword to the entire scene; joy. Every drawing in this animation should depict this feeling. This approach brought something into my animation that I had not been able to bring earlier. I can best describe it as my intention and emotion for the scene getting integrated in the 'masses' (the characters) I animate. The reason I say masses is because without the transfer of emotion and intend they are exactly that, masses. They only become characters in my eyes when they appear to have a will of their own. I think I brought some will to the characters in this scene by not trying to control it entirely, but letting it play out with the the clear emotion of joy in mind while creating it. Too much control over a scene will in my experience hinder the characters in it becoming actual characters. Let them surprise you and take the scene to another level, where you bring them life and they in return turn to life as unique creations rather than an empty shell, a thought of what they should be. I used a different approach on how to implement the drawing aspect for this scene which I think worked really well for me. I told myself repeatedly that no drawing was tied down before the part of the animation it supports is working as I intended it. Even a storytelling drawing is only two frames in your scene! I benefited a lot from this way of thinking about it.
Distortion is necessary to make a scene work. It took a lot of personal struggle to begin to grasp this and how to implement it naturally into my work. I find that it has to be controlled through drawing. I tended to get scared of 'ruining' the design of a given character in my animation and it turned out as a string of illustrations lacking believability and move too mechanically. A thing that helped me start to push this issue aside was to think of where to implement changes of shape into my scenes. To see a breakdown or extreme as a chance to bring in a unique shape for the mass animated works well for me. Do not think of the breakdown or extreme as a the middle shape between the keys you might be animating to. These are great opportunities to push your characters model around and be imaginative about it. I try to have fun instead of feeling restrained basically, which is harder than it sounds. With this approach I find that a lot of the drawings in the animation get to be unique while they still serve their role as frames in a scene. I find that animation and drawing go well together this way since the drawings now bring interest to the animation and compliment the it better. There will be more interesting movement through the change of shape and less straight-forward in-betweening which in the end will bring a more interesting look to your scenes.
It is important not to let a single drawing stall you and ruin the continuity in your work. I find that if I am having trouble with drawing a frame in my animation it is because I am unsure what is happening in the animation. I then either re-evaluate what I planned for the animation, get really rough with it and try to hit something that animates with the surrounding frames or simply leave it to come back to. For me it is really important not to get stuck since I forget my priorities and get lost in the drawing aspect of the scene, which will in the end ruin the scene.
Drawing in animation for me is about adding finesse and characteristics to the scene and I want to add it from the beginning. This is hard, but I am truly pleased that I do not settle for anything less.
Here's a link to the scene I mention with the old couple : http://frederik-villumsen.blogspot.com/2009/03/one-week-of-1st-pass-animation.html and a link to the thumbnailed golden poses for the scene: http://frederikvillumsen.blogspot.com/2009/04/animation-sketches.html
Not all scenes are about great emotions and life and death though, and I think it is important to be able to take these grand thoughts down to a level where they can function in smaller and less grand scenes. I recently did a short cycle scene for Cartoon Saloon, where I think the drawing is a good example on how I like it to be for animation. The character is riding on the back of a wild goat. There is not a clear emotional state of the character or at least it is not in focus, but every drawing is drawn with the action in mind and as first priority giving me a clear idea of where to push each drawing instead if letting it be its own.
(All pictures and animations in this post is copyright property of Cartoon Saloon)
Mike Nguyen has written a post I found very interesting. It is about distortion in animation and here is the link: - http://rainplace.net/?p=270
Thank you for reading, I hope it has been of interest! You are very welcome to share your thoughts on the matter or simply comment on the post. I am always interested in input and hearing from like-minded people with a passion for animation.
I was fortunate enough to get the chance to do the animation for the chorus of the Puc music video. I got a single key drawing to build upon and a take on the timing of the scene, but I had fairly free hands to make it work and that in a funny fashion.
Below is shown the drawings I did for the animation and the timing I ended up with. The cycle is repeated across the screen and it has two different jumps, similar in down and push-off, but different in its hang-time to contact. (All pictures and animations in this post is copyright property of Cartoon Saloon)
I would also like to share the workflow I used for this scene. It was great fun cleaning the scene up by animating with pure shape instead of the usual linework. So, here's a little overview of how the drawings progressed. Especially the pass from rough animation to filled color shape was fun. It offered an opportunity to push the shape language of the animation and really work on a flow that animated well as well as compliment the graphical edged style of the design.
Here's how it all looks when played out.
The animation has been approved and is moving into compositing soon, nice!
I just did my first animation scene at my internship at Cartoon Saloon and luckily I have permission to share it on my blog! The scene was for a short music video called Puc, but unfortunately it got cut in the last review of the animatic. I'll be moving on to my next scene later today. It is great to get to do some animation and I am looking forward to help the guys out as much as I can while I am here.
The scene below is copyright property of Cartoon Saloon
I was asked to help design the characters for Paw Ravns graduation film. Paw is a student at The National Danish Film School studying to become a director for animation. I worked on and partially did the character designs for Paws mid-way film 'Nima' and I hope we can achieve something similar in quality this time. I think it could be interesting to show every step of the way from the first rough ideas to the final designs that have to be done for the end of October. So here are the first sketches I have done for the character work. I did them all in the breaks I had yesterday while waiting to get some work approved for Cartoon Saloon.
Denmark is now Ireland, Viborg now Kilkenny, The Animation Workshop and Hydralab now Cartoon Saloon and Maya is TV-Paint, other than that everything is basically the same for me.
It has been a great and very pleasant start here at the Saloon and people have welcomed me and Louise from my class warmly.
Hopefully I will get to show some of the work I will be doing while I am here, but for now it will be written updates.
While I am working for Cartoon Saloon I will also be designing the characters for one of the National Danish Film School graduation projects! I hope that I will be able to show some of this work as well on this blog as the character designs progress.
I've been fairly busy the last few months and haven't taken the time to write on my blog. Now's a good time though. All my work on the various bachelor projects is done and third year on The Animation Workshop has come to an end. Instead of a quiet summer holiday in the sun I am going to spend my time working on a very exciting short film project! You can check out some shots from the miniature sets here : www.blog.machinefilm.com Two months of high quality CG animation should do me some good, I think. A few days after I finish on the production of Machine, the short film, I am going to Kilkenny, Ireland, to do my internship at Cartoon Saloon. I am very excited about both the opportunities I have been given during the rest of this year and I am sure I will have some interesting stories to tell on this blog from my experiences. Also check out www.cartoonsaloon.ie
Beside the fact that I'm not thumbnailing or sketching for a scene, stop motion has a very familiar work flow. I get the scene handed from the director, I look at the animatic, look at the notes the director has given me, I write my own notes and questions, I have a talk with the director and hopefully I get my questions answered and NOW I'm ready to stand on my own for a while and create the foundation for a strong scene. I take a deep breath, I clear my mind, without forgetting everything the director told me! I imagine the scene as I see it finished. I run it in my mind over and over and take note of all things happening that I like. Big storytelling beats as well as small gestures that I like for the characters. Usually the animatic, and thereby the director, will have a fairly set timing on all scenes. On 'Forest' this is very much the case and the creative freedom does not lie in overall timing and story beats. It lies in all the character animation between and around the beats. The poses might already have been settled on as well so this isn't where I can experiment either. I find that especially the transitions and the timing of these as well as secondary actions are the areas in which I can make the scene into something more than what is to be seen from the 'blueprint' of it. When I have a strong idea of how I would like the scene to be, I arrange for another exchange of words with the director. In this meeting it is very important to me that nothing is left unaswered. If some of my ideas for the acting or speed of the actions don't fit the directors plan, we need to come up with something he likes together, which usually works for us, or I have to rething parts of the scene. I already once tried starting animating a scene, while still having unanswered questions in my mind and it really doesn't work for me. It distracts me in the sense that the scene feels open to input and new ideas and this makes my mind wander off. When I animate, I want to focus on getting my planned motions down best as possible. So I get all my questions sorted with the director, before I start animating. If I am still a bit unclear about what the director wants with a scene after our first couple of talks about it, I blog it out roughly and we take it from there. The timing of transitions and of the scene in general is what is most unique about stop motion, I think. In Maya I can slide my keys around as I please and in hand-drawn scenes I can change the frame number and add, replace or take out frames in the process. In stop motion I don't have this possibility. This forces me to fully understand the velocity and motions involved in the scene, before even starting to animate the puppets. Thumbnails, small sketches or notes are all ways to remind me of my thoughts about the scene. I've done a few scenes now and I tend to mostly do notes as planning with the occasional sketch or two. (see planning sheet above for as an example) Every frame is unique and importan in the sense that I wont have the opportunity to go back and adjust it. This demands all animation senses to be on high alert for every frame, which is what I am learning the most from these days. It is also exhausting and at times it is very tempting to capture a frame even though it isn't spot on and I only kind of know how my arc for the right ear is going to be like! This is where professionalism, stubborness and self-discipline plays in and I find that it can be a real challenge to work on a scene for two to four hours without loosing concentration. Luckily our time schedule allows breaks when we need them. They are very needed to get a high quality result, I think. And this is what we want!
Stop motion animation stands to as an amazing challenge that will leave its marks on the way I animate. It's hands on and trial and error with immediate failure or success! And during it all you find some great friends in the puppets.
Here's a linetest of the latest scene I've done for the fabulous film 'Forest'! It's so great to finally get to animate the main character of the film and implement all the small traits Tobias's given him.
I'd like to write a bit about the approach I take on a scene like this. So in the post above you can read about my work flow and planning in a stop motion scene. Now I haven't been doing this for a very long time, but I am finding it very insightful to try and would like to share the thoughts I have on it. So if you dare, check out my next post! And if you already read it while reading this, because you don't check my blog often enough, well go read it again and leave a question, comment or a hearty hello!
I took a 30mins break from the scene I am currently doing for the bachelor film 'The Lumberjack' and did this small facial piece. I am going to put a big fat 'WHAT!' in it. I have a lot of small things, especially facial animation, that I would like to test and this seems like a really fun way to do it. Not too much planning, just going on my gut feel. Here is the clip.
This scene is the second one I've done with the big wolf for the bachelor film 'Forest'. In this scene we cut to the wolf in mid air jumping over a fence. As it lands it starts a low sneak towards screen left. I have animated the actions only on the 'y' axis and in composite the animation will be dragged along the 'x' axis. We chose to do it this way to save space in the greenscreen room.
Finally I got the go to start touching the puppets for the Bachelor project 'Forest'. I have spend the last two days trying out stop motion animation for the first time and I am loving it! Already now I can feel that a lot of practical knowledge about animation can be gained through this very hands-on method of animating. There aren't room for shaky hands or clumpsy feet or friends and ctrl-z is non-existing! Here are two small test scenes I did with the main character of the story, enjoy! I know I did!
This is how the scene looks at the moment. There are still a few things I want to get more into, but in general it communicates the mood and feeling I set out to depict. It has been very interesting to try out this new approach and I think that I have taken a really big step in the right direction. I will ellaborate more on the work methods I used and the thoughts and choices made. Please feel free to leave a comment with ideas, critique, praise or questions. Hope you enjoy it.
I've spend around a day sketching the characters now, getting into drawing them, coming up with the actions of the scene, the diferent beats and trying to build up poses that would give me the opportunity to reach my goals for the assignment. As I wrote in the previous post, Mike Nguyen and Alex Williams are both at the school at the moment and I have meetings with them both tomorow about my thumbnails and plan for the scene. Should be very interesting to hear what they have to say to my doodles. The sketching phase isnt over yet at all, but I thought I share with you the first raw drawings I've done that fits the acting and action I want to animate. Please feel free to comment with suggestions, questions, critique or praise as always.
The hairdresser scene has been put away for now, the scene for Tod Polson has been finished and send with him to Thailand and I am not ready to take on a new assignment finally!
For a long time I have wanted to animate the two characters I am going to spend my next weeks alongside. I have both Alex Williams, who is now our Animation Supervisor, and Mike Nguyen, who is teaching the first years, to overlook the early stages of my scene. Can't be much better than that really.
I spend about two and half hours talking to Mike the other day and he had a lot of great things to share. I will write a post about my conversation with him soon.
The focus of this assignment for me is to create a more believable and emotional performance as well as have the characters interact in such a way that the viewer clearly feels that these characters are filled with life. I will try a more straight-ahead'ish method to reach this goal. Mike is stopping by my workspace tomorow to talk about thumbnails to animation. Cant wait to hear him out on this.
For now, thumbnailing and imagining funny situations is the focus. Here is a drawing of the characters who will star in the scene
I just had the great honor of animating a small scene for our pre-production supervisor, Tod Polsons. It is for his upcoming short film 'Escape of the Gingerbreadman'.
The animation is done and I will post it when Tod feels that the time is right to start showing clips from the film.
The scene is still to undergo a few changes color-wise and a few things will happen in composite as well. I wanted to show the same still-frame from the scene in and without color. I am still amazed how powerful an effect the colors are to animated characters. The shape, form and volume are so clearly defined all of a sudden. Of course it is there in the line work as well, but when it gets mass it really changes.
This is where I will leave this scene. I'll try and get it critiqued from some of the teachers I've had during the past years and hopefully get some good feedback. The scene served its purpose very well and I feel a level of animation that is to my satisfaction..for now! Next up is some illustration work for a classmates bachelor film. I will also be doing a scene for Tod Polsons short film *Escape of the gingerbread man* sometime soon. So some exciting assignments ahead. Please feel free to leave a comment with critique or praise here on the blog. Until next post...
So, second walk complete. I didnt want to copy/paste anymore so he only makes it half-way to the other side. The character walk and design comes from a sketch I did this weekend. (See sketch-page in post further down the blog)
My hairdresser dialogue scene is almost done. It's been an entensive assignment and I felt that I this week needed something to diverte my attention. The Hairdresser scene will work as a step between the technical aspects of animation and a more performance minded way for me to approach a scene. Therefor I want to do a walk every day this week. This will leave me with nearly no time to plan or get caught up in too technical matters. It's straight-ahead and about extracting a character in a simple and clear manner. I did this one yeasterday and I have almost finished the one for today. It's work very well for me at the moment to have something more loose to take on when I need a break from the heavy dialogue scene. Hope you enjoy the walk.
I was trapped in a train for two times three and a half hour this weekend. I decided to let some of the impressions made on the way get to me. All these sketches represent the people I met and observed. Yes indeed, it was a peculiar journey!
I did this overview of the headshake from the scene. Match it up with the planning sheet I posted if you are interested in the process of going from timechart to actual drawing. I am quite pleased with the flow of the mouth shapes in this part of the scene so that was just another reason to post this overview. Enjoy.
mandag den 26. januar 2009
Here is the scene as it looks right now. Most of what is needed from now on is filling in drawings without killing the pace of it all. It'll hopefully be done at the end of tomorrow.
My name is Frederik Villumsen and I am a student at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark.
I just began my 4th year at the school with my internship at Cartoon Saloon in Kilkenny, Ireland. I hope great times are ahead and that I will have some interesting things to show and tell about here on my blog.
Enjoy
