#8 Expressions to the Extreme

NOTE: Sorry I'm uploading this late again. When I was planning my schedule for this new season of learning PS, I didn't plan ahead for holidays or when I would get sick. I planned on spending two weeks on each study (refer to the last post if you don't know what I'm talking about), which would give me a total of five days of working on it at school. These two weeks, I only worked on it for three days, so this study didn't end up being as informative as I would've liked. But on the next study, I think it'll all be well. So...

Let's keep it going.

Let me just start by gushing all over Jelly Sunday's animation, because it's pretty awesome how much they were able to convey with such a small number of keyframes. To show an emotional change in the little girl's face, it goes from one drawing to the next with no inbetween except a small anticipation at the beginning. An example of this is at the 20-second mark. I loved that, because it expressed a lot of emotion, but it didn't require much work on the animator's part. And seeing why my animation from last week didn't look so real, I realized that the girl in the short film had a pony tail which kept moving after she went from one pose to the next. Basically I forgot to include some follow-through in my animation. It just made me see how much of the detail in the video was thoroughly thought out.

By the way, I use some words that might not make sense to people reading this if they don't know about the animation principles. If you want to learn, this video explains them perfectly.

Onto the next part of this post, here's the thingy I ended up making:

12 fps 

There are a lot of negatives about this animation, but there are also some positives. First, to start with the positives, I just want to say that this has been my longest gif. For that reason, I also had to cut back on some of the quality. Secondly, I really liked how I didn't have to put much effort into everything. I also liked the colors (although not the color's animation) and the follow through I was able to create with the ears.  

I will now stop boasting about my skills. Here's the negatives...

This animation sort of sucks. I think it's because I  just created this character out of the blue without planning ahead. His proportions change from one pose to the next, and it makes it have a very unprofessional quality to it. Adding to that, I should've moved his body as he changed positions. He looks really stiff. That's what the girl in Jelly Sunday looked like too, but it worked because she didn't have to turn around as much as this guy. 

It's also my style to add wobbly lines to static poses so it looks like the character's still alive. I never noticed until halfway through making it that Jelly Sunday didn't feature almost any wobbly lines. I hate myself for not noticing, but not as much as I do for not making his facial expressions as exaggerated as they could've been.  It looks like I didn't even try to exaggerate his face. That was the key thing I wanted this animation to have. I guess I just lost focus throughout making it. I need to focus on staying focused!

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Next week, the gif I post will be a rough animation of the one I will finish the week after that. I noticed that I don't have time to create a separate gif every week; I will just focus on making an amazing one every two weeks! That's all for this week guys. Peace out.