Animation Studies- Walk Exercise-Research

To begin this task I started by looking back at the books that I picked up from the library which were Animation Notebook by Tony white and Timing in Animation by Harold Whitaker which I believe will assist me in creating my 4 walks for this task.

Below are the pages that I am referencing-

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Hopefully these pages will aid me in creating 4 unique walks for this task.

Aaron Blaise-

After this I began looking at animator’s that have an influence on my art. To me Aaron Blaise has been an inspiration to me for about a year when I found his Youtube channel I haven’t stopped watching it. Below is the Youtube video I found that introduced me to the animator-

After watching this video and learning more about Aaron I wanted to watch all of his videos and get as much information as I could.  I am still currently watching Aaron’s Art Tips season 2. These art tips have helped me through the year with certain tasks that we have previously been given and hopefully tasks we receive in the future.

I feel that Aaron has influenced my art tremendously in the last year through his Youtube channel and his experiences that he shares about working with Disney for over 20 years, travelling and Photoshop Tips on digital painting which I find extremely useful as I have no experience working with graphic tablets.

Aaron worked as a 2D animator or Supervising animator  for Walt Disney for 21 years. During his time he worked on the “The Rescuers Down Under”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Aladdin”, “The Lion King”, “Pocahontas”, and in 2003 co-directed “Brother Bear”. Which earned him an Oscar for “Best Animated Feature film”.

Some of Aaron’s work that I love-

John Lassester-

I started taking an interest in Johns work through a quote I had heard in the Pixar Documentary  “The Pixar Story” the quote was “The technology challenges the art and the technology inspires the art”. Watching this documentary and hearing how John spoke about animation reminded me of the reasons why I want to do animation in the first place.

This short documentary above was a nice way to see what goes on in a day of John Lassester’s life. To me it was nice to see the workflow within an animation studio and how the film is constantly changing and growing.

Next I began looking at the 12 Principles of animation below is a simple video explaining what they are. I thought this video was quite cute-

12 Principles-

1. Squash and Stretch- “The squash and stretch principle gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as they move. This is done by expanding and compressing the character’s body.”
2. Anticipation- “Anticipation is used to let the audience know that a major action is about to take place.”
3. Staging- “Staging is the principle that every pose or action that a character makes should convey a clear intention.”
4. Straight ahead action, and pose to pose- “Straight ahead and pose to pose refers to the techniques by which animation is crafted. “
5. Follow through and Over-lapping action- “The follow through principle argues that when a character is in action and stops, nothing stops all at once.”
6. Slow-in and Slow-out- “Slow-in and slow-out is another principle designed to add realism to the movement of characters.”
7. Arc- “The arc principle is that almost all actions in life have a slightly circular motion.”
8. Secondary Action- “A secondary action is an additional action that reinforces and adds more dimension to the main action.”
9. Timing- “Timing helps create the illusion that an action is abiding by the laws of physics.”
10. Exaggeration- ” Exaggeration is all about overstating certain movements in a way that helps evoke a point, yet doesn’t ruin the believability of the scene. “
11. Solid Drawing- “This principle encourages animators to be mindful of the fact that while forms may be presented in 2D, they should strive to look 3D. “
12. Appeal- “Obviously, not every character should be appealing. But this principle posits that animators should strive to create images that will be interesting and compelling to audiences.”

Information acquired from- https://ohmy.disney.com/movies/2016/07/20/twelve-principles-animation-disney/

Then I picked up this magazine on the way home from easons suggested by Alec below are some of the pages relative to this post-

I then looked at Disney’s Illusion of life and The Animators Survival Kit to help aid me in the task of giving the walks personality and also to get use to sequence. I’ve had this books for over 2 years now and they have been a great help in getting a better understanding of animation.

For The Animators Survival Kit I looked at the pages below to help me get a better understanding of walk cycles. By looking at there feet, hips, knees and tempo the page below is what I’m referencing. (Link Below). While researching I actually stumbled across one of the Final Years blog Edward Boyle I believe. ( links below.) Looking through his blog I see that we’ve done similar research in terms of the walk cycles below are some images I also looked at for this assignment.

Reflection-

Looking back over the work that I have researched I am quite happy as I love research work even back from high school researching has always been my most favourite part of a project due to the learning experiences that come with researching different topics.

References-

1. Creatureartteacher.com. About Aaron Blaise. Available from: https://creatureartteacher.com/ [Accessed 26th March 2018]
2. John Halas,Harold Whitaker. 1981. Timing for Animation. London. Focal Press.
3. Tony White. 2017. Tony White’s Animator’s Notebook. [S.I.]. CRC Press.
4. Image. http://www.wordpress.com. Available From:https://edwardboyleanimation.wordpress.com/2016/01/04/walk-cycle-research-3-animators-survival-kit/ [Accessed 1 May 2018]