I'd like to try again

[v.veidt]

I'm curious if any of your examples are traced. You don't need to be embarrassed, most of us start out that way. The important thing is to be true to your abilities.

That said, your strengths seem to animals and, potentially, props. I think this has something to do with what Riven Phoenix refers to as the "process of invention". With human anatomy, you're trying to draw a complex organism you don't understand, but with other creatures and objects, you're developing the anatomy on your own, so you understand it. While I'm on the topic, you may want to consider buying his videos. "The Structure of Man" is an excellent introduction to human anatomy for people without access to a proper class. It only costs $90 and the first 19 videos are available for free on his website, alienthink.com, so you can make an informed decision.

From there, I'd like for you to look into gesture drawing. I know there are a few videos of Glen Keane demonstrating his process on youtube. That's a good place to start.

Assuming you don't mind, I'm going to work with the animation sample you posted to illustrate a point. I'll post it either when I'm done or tomorrow morning. It's getting pretty late for me.

[Cloakndagger]

None of my examples are traced, no. All of these drawings were done in Corel Painter Sketch Pad on my Cintiq 21UX. The animation was drawn manually in TVPaint. I understand the need to be completely honest here with you, and I have been. I just like anime and I've failed many a class growing up because I was sketching away in notebooks. Gesture drawings, I feel gestures are one of my strengths. I suppose an example would be the nightcrawler picture I posted above, but when I doodle on a napkin or such it's usually an extreme gesture. That being said I recognize I have much to learn and I'll take your advice on gesture drawings and look at the introductory videos.

Also, I'd love your critiques on my animation. To be clear, I put in what I estimate to be 100 hours of work on that clip, 99 of those hours being the actual action of the character and coloring (What I mean is the fading in and out of the stick figure/normal figure/coloring was just a technical process that took me an hour after I asked how to do fades on the board). I'm pointing out the length of time because I realize it's very inefficient, but I just wanted to make something as perfect as possible for my first experiment. Mr Fierlinger had asked if my animation was traced as well, so I'm a little dumbfounded by the notion coming from multiple people. These are all freehanded. I do look forward to your input tomorrow, thanks Veidt.

[v.veidt]

That's good to hear. If the samples weren't traced, it means you're farther along than I expected. It likely also means you're your own worst enemy right now. I'll show you what I mean when I'm done working over your sample.

[Cloakndagger]

Heyas, any update?

[idragosani]

My impressions from your pictures ...

I think your artwork is pretty good, although, just for the sake of broadening your horizons, you should get away from copying the anime/manga style and start sketching from life and developing your own artistic style. This isn't to say the anime style is bad, but your work will stand out more once you develop your own style of creating characters, otherwise it will just appear derivative.

I think the reason your drawings seem "traced" is, to my eyes, the sketches seem to have been drawn using the outlines only -- again, copying the anime style -- rather than constructing the figures using simpler shapes. This is really what you will have to learn to do character animation, otherwise your characters will not maintain their volume correctly and will make animating much more difficult.

I am sure more learned artists here can provide you with more insight... this is just my first impressions. You are off to a good start, your line work is pretty good. Drawing people and animals from life will be a big help, something I need to do more of myself!

[v.veidt]

Heyas, any update?

Sorry, I'm busier than I expected. If I have time, I'll try to finish the sample I started tonight. If not, I'm lucky that tomorrow is my day off.

[Cloakndagger]

Thank you Drago (may I call you that?), that is the kind of critiques I'm looking for. Your comments are interesting to me, I've never thought of my methods before, but looking at them, yes, I do draw outlines. It's just the way I taught myself. I'm certain practicing the human form will help me break out of that habit (for the purpose of making different angles easier as you said), but I'm curious to see pictures, or maybe a clip of animation of someone who uses a shapes method over outlines. What's the industry norm? Do you guys know if anime studios draw in the classic sense of blocking then drawing over it, or do they use a different method? Also, when you say line work, do you mean the quality and stroke of my lines? If so, how is it different from others?

Veidt, thanks again. I'm in no rush, just excited to learn from your critiques. I'll be here.

[idragosani]

Yeah, I sent you a blog to check out, from Rad Secrist, he goes into a lot of detail on developing structure and form for animation. I think slowtiger posted some blogs earlier on in this thread as well. And there are plenty of books out there on drawing for animation, like Richard Williams (if you want a super-technical presentation), Preston Blair (very old school Disney-style), and Tony White, who has written several books in the past couple of years on animation. If you have time and money, there are online courses, too, such as on schoolism. com (I recommend Stephen Silver's class on character design).

And like Paul said, be prepared to spend a lot of time drawing and drawing the same thing over and over....

[v.veidt]

Alright. I'm just going to copy and paste the notes from the video description. Feel free to ask questions afterward for more detail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3kPB30WkFQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


First and foremost, slow down. I noticed immediately that your original video was shot on 1s. My (though incomplete) gesture version is timed on 2-4. That means you did 2-4 times as much work as you needed to accomplish the same goal.

Second, gesture. When planning an animated scene, it's most important to get the flow of the motion. Work through it with simple sketches like the ones in my video. The result is less time wasted and a more polished movement in the end. I'd say that aside from all the delays, it only took me about 2 hours of work to plot out this motion and resolve most of the timing issues. How long did the original take you?

Third, ease in and out. There are no breaks between the wild takes in your scene. While I didn't do the best job of illustrating this point, one simply can't move that way. By slowing the action at the end of a big motion (like the stabbing step forward), one can give the impression of weight which will result in a more realistic final piece.

Fourth, exaggerate. Animation is a medium made for experimentation and play. Take advantage of it! You have an opportunity to stretch reality infinitely, let it show in your actions.

Fifth, and this is just a matter of personal preference, cut out the chaff. For a scene to be effective, the audience needs time to understand what's on screen. If the character moves too much or performs too many consecutive stunts, the audience may become confused or annoyed. Have you ever seen a cartoon and thought "everything's moving all the time"? It can make one nauseous.

Sixth, keep your flow of motion consistent. If a character's weight is moving in one direction, it can't reverse that direction without a significant effort. Try drawing a path for your character to follow. If he kicks to the right, make him follow through to the right. The resulting path should be curvy, which will yield a natural movement.

Seventh, and I know this is getting long-winded, try to avoid drawing a scene at this angle. It's one of the least natural and appealing angles for a scene in animated film. In fact, the only time I see this angle is in video games. This angle makes it difficult to define perspective well, add an environment, make dynamic and interesting poses, and involve the audience without breaking their suspension of disbelief. Personally, unless it was a 2D game, I wouldn't want to see this on a portfolio. Be more interesting. Look into books on screenplanning and storyboarding, they should provide more detailed instruction.

[Cloakndagger]

Thanks for your effort man. Going down the list:

First and foremost, slow down. I noticed immediately that your original video was shot on 1s. My (though incomplete) gesture version is timed on 2-4. That means you did 2-4 times as much work as you needed to accomplish the same goal.

What is 1s, 2s, 4s? Something to do with framerate? I did this at 24 frames/second if that matters.

Second, gesture. When planning an animated scene, it's most important to get the flow of the motion. Work through it with simple sketches like the ones in my video. The result is less time wasted and a more polished movement in the end. I'd say that aside from all the delays, it only took me about 2 hours of work to plot out this motion and resolve most of the timing issues. How long did the original take you?

A long time. I didn't use key frames, didn't think of it at the time. My next experiment will use key frames. I understand the importance of them in plotting movement and saving time and it honestly just slipped my mind when I sat down to begin animating.

One of the major things I wanted critiques on was my methodology, so I might as well give it to you here:

1) Without using keyframes, I drew out the entire animation with a stick figure. (about 20 hours of work, movement studying, jumping around in my apartment)

2) I drew in the character. I zoomed in on the character 3x and drew the entire thing zoomed in. Zoomed out, my character was too small to achieve the detail I wanted, so I got used to staring at pixelated lines for the goal of a clean look character. I assume there's a better or different or obvious way to do this that I'm missing. (50-60 hours)

3) 20 hours of coloring. I had macros set up on my Cintiq stylus buttons, one for paint bucket tool, the other for manual draw. I would fill in what I could with the base color using the bucket, click the button for manual draw, fill in the holes, then shade a similar way, mostly using the manual tool. I estimated each frame to take me about 15 mins, with a few exceptions, so this put me around 20 hours for coloring.

Knowing my methods, can you elaborate on gestures and flow of motion? Also so I get a bearing on it, how much of your suggestion is stylistic preference? I'm trying to understand what is universally considered the best (and most efficient) approach and what studios would look for and why, or whether methods are diverse and unique to specific groups or assignments, and why.

Third, ease in and out. There are no breaks between the wild takes in your scene. While I didn't do the best job of illustrating this point, one simply can't move that way. By slowing the action at the end of a big motion (like the stabbing step forward), one can give the impression of weight which will result in a more realistic final piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuViG2-w_To#t=01m22s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByMZYcDk18M#t=00m026s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Both those links should take you to the exact moment I want you to see. Both those moments feel the way I wanted my animation to, wild and fast. The clips I posted were entertaining to me and I understood and kept up with it. How much of your critique is preference versus advice? With my level of inexperience I have no objective view on it, so I apologize if I keep asking you that.

Fourth, exaggerate. Animation is a medium made for experimentation and play. Take advantage of it! You have an opportunity to stretch reality infinitely, let it show in your actions.

Must everything be exaggerated? I'm imagining things like Akira or Princess Mononoke where the combat and general movements were very realistic (with some extraordinary exceptions of course, I just mean normal movement and fighting). I guess this is another way of asking, isn't this sylistic preference?

Fifth, and this is just a matter of personal preference, cut out the chaff. For a scene to be effective, the audience needs time to understand what's on screen. If the character moves too much or performs too many consecutive stunts, the audience may become confused or annoyed. Have you ever seen a cartoon and thought "everything's moving all the time"? It can make one nauseous.

I guess this is just about the target audience. I like my fight scenes like the ones I posted above. Gets the adrenaline pumping.

Sixth, keep your flow of motion consistent. If a character's weight is moving in one direction, it can't reverse that direction without a significant effort. Try drawing a path for your character to follow. If he kicks to the right, make him follow through to the right. The resulting path should be curvy, which will yield a natural movement.

'

I was hoping the motion on my animation was realistic, I'd love further elaboration on what parts you didn't think looked good, and what I can do to remedy that so that I can hone my realism.

Seventh, and I know this is getting long-winded, try to avoid drawing a scene at this angle. It's one of the least natural and appealing angles for a scene in animated film. In fact, the only time I see this angle is in video games. This angle makes it difficult to define perspective well, add an environment, make dynamic and interesting poses, and involve the audience without breaking their suspension of disbelief. Personally, unless it was a 2D game, I wouldn't want to see this on a portfolio. Be more interesting. Look into books on screenplanning and storyboarding, they should provide more detailed instruction.

Be as long winded as you want to be, I really appreciate them time you're taking here. You're right, this angle is unappealing. This was an experiment in movement and a first animation for me, so I wanted to keep it simple.

I'm trying to decide what my next move needs to be to further myself. I'm afraid of committing to something that won't help me, or in the wrong order of what I need. So far I've taken four of the AlienThink.com Human Figure courses, and I'm loving them. I realize I must learn to draw the human figure so that's priority number one. When I'm not doing that, I'm reading the forums here, reading the David Levy book I bought, and I'm itching to start another animation project that I have in mind, a short scene with several camera angles, backgrounds, multiple characters, etc. Before I commit my time to that, I just want to make sure that's a wise direction to invest myself in, rather than something else you guys here might think I should tackle first.

I suppose the answer to that question hinges on what I want, and I'm still not quite sure. I'd love to work for an animation studio, but not as a drone with zero creative freedom. I think my ultimate goal is to be independently creative, and watching the videos from this gentleman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7F1kVEz ... ure=relmfu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), he makes a very strong argument for being freelance, and his goals are identical to mine (Make a trailer for a show or movie, submit it to a studio and hope they pick it up).

In the meantime, I'll continue reading and working on the human figure until I'm more confident in my next direction. Thanks again.

[v.veidt]

Going back down the list:

1) This isn't frame rate, but exposure. It's simply the number of times a frame is recorded before moving to the next one.

2) The animation I posted was entirely gesture. There were no keyframes, just straight-ahead animation and the occasional inbetween to improve flow or timing. As for your workflow:

1: Good, that's the way one plans a motion. You'll find that the bulk of an animator's exercise consists of modelling poses and actions.

2: Before drawing in the character, one should plot the proportions, otherwise the final product may be unusable. After proportions comes construction (which I can describe in detail later tonight). At this point, animation should be rough because you will need to make changes as you go.

3: Between the initial animation and colour, one should cleanup the animation, then ink the final lines. Only at that point is it appropriate to colour.

Everyone has their own method because animation is a very personal artform. As for what is considered best, that's something which comes with practice. I naturally draw gestures like the ones posted, but some people draw scribbles and others can get by without the step entirely. I'll add a post specifically on this topic later tonight.

3) I understand what you're going for there, but it's still important to transition between poses, otherwise the film will cease to be animated and will turn into a stiff slideshow. While those samples were quick, there was still a noticeable ease-in/out, though much of it was obviously recorded on 1s. More important, though, is consistency of direction. I see you've asked for further elaboration on that, so I'm going to annotate your video to highlight problem areas. As for preference versus advice, there is no way to get around ease-in/out.

4) I thought like this at one point, but I learned the error of my ways during my first internship, which happened to be with a Japanese studio. While your examples are more "realistic" than, say, The Looney Tunes, they are entirely exaggerated. Compare any frame from any of your examples with a photograph of a real person. It's not photorealistic, so you need to understand how many liberties are taken. I can see that you're most interested in Japanese methods of animation production, so I'll make a separate post on that. In fact, I think I'll start a new thread to compare and contrast methods between countries. Sorry to put this off, but I don't have very much time for the next two hours.

To put it bluntly, all animation is exaggerated whether one notices or not.

5) I understand the level of action you want, but there's a craft to consider. The differences between your clip and the ones you linked in the above message come down to layout, direction, and, most importantly, cut. The professional clips were many cuts (or shots) within a single scene. The angles and focus changed to keep the audience involved. Also, there were pauses in the action (for instance, when Goku is thrown into a post in the first clip, there is a significant delay before the action starts again). Try studying fight scenes you like. You'll discover that there's a rhythm to it.

6) Again, I'll annotate your video to elaborate.

7) I can help you choose a project that will advance your abilities. If you have skype, send me a PM and we might be able to coordinate something. I always feel energised when teaching people.

Look forward to more posts tonight.

[Cloakndagger]

I feel lucky to have your ear, and I would love to set up something on Skype with you for a future day or lesson. I understand your limitations on time as well, so take as long as you need to respond to me or my questions. Could you go into detail about exposure rate? I can't quite wrap my head around that. If I had to guess, I would say in the DBZ clip a 1s example would be the machine-gun punching part, where action is so fast it requires multiple frames in a small period of time, and slower movements can be expressed with less frames so 2s or 4s is used (again just a guess). At that point, I'm confused as to what the difference is between framerate and exposure, how they connect, and when different numbers of each is appropriate. For example, if I'm running 30 frames a second on animation, but only expose say, 20 frames of that, didn't I just waste 10 drawn frames in that second?

I'll send you a PM for skype! Look forward to your reply.

[slowtiger]

Cloak: you really should get your hand on a book! "How to Make Animated Films: Tony White's Complete Masterclass on the Traditional Principals of Animation" should be a good start. It contains all the basic principles (like one's and two's) and will save you a ton of time.

[Cloakndagger]

Many thanks, I'll look for it on Kindle.

[slowtiger]

It's a book about animation. It contains lots of illustrations in full colour. I doubt that a Kindle version would suffice.