first steps (or bounces . . . )

Hi everyone!
Due to unexpected difficulties (translation: BUCKETS AND BUCKETS OF SNOW resulting in some school cancellations) there hasn't been a post around here for a while. Never fear though-I've been keeping busy! I was able to find some helpful tutorials on YouTube, especially the "String Bing Workshop" videos by Toniko Pantoja. I watched some of those and took some notes, and it really helped me understand how to go about the logistics of animating a shot. The videos also gave a lot of good advice I hadn't considered, such as heavily limiting use of the onion skin tool. This is essentially a tool in digital animation that allows you to overlay the current frame with the previous frame; in traditional animation it's done by using a light table. I had just assumed this was something animators use all the time, but it would seem that using the onion skin can become a crutch, so it's a good idea to rely more on flipping the drawings (this is exactly what it sounds like-flipping through the drawings to see how well they are connecting). I also learned that I don't need to be scared of timing charts! They can get really complicated, but the basic idea makes sense: more frames = action happens at a slower rate; fewer frames = action happens more quickly.

My next move is to practice applying the new lessons I've learned to my animations. As I said I would last week, I'm going to share some of my very first attempts. I actually made these quite a while ago before I really knew what I was doing (ha! I still don't know what I'm doing!) and hence they were photographed with the camera on my old phone which was kind of poor quality. But I wanted to get them up, so here they are in all their grainy glory. :) I'm honestly a bit nervous to post these since I'm pretty conscious of how flawed and beginner they are, and that even all the problems I can see aren't even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the problems that are there.

Bleargh. Anyway, that's enough of that! Here are the videos.

The bouncing ball! This is a classic animation exercise to help you practice the fundamental animation principles like "squash and stretch". To animate a bouncing ball, you need to apply basics of timing, maintaining volume, etc.. I've done several of these exercises but this was my very first one (and the only one I've photographed, as the photographing is surprisingly time consuming!)

This might have been a little too complex for my current skill level, but I really really wanted to do it. So I did. Yay! Clearly I still need a lot of practice in fundamentals, but this was a very fun animation to do and it allowed me to try applying some of what I know. :) Oh, and as with the bouncing ball, this is a rough pass-it hasn't been cleaned up or inbetweened (more on that later, hopefully!) or anything else. But it's a start!