Here’s another study we do early in Digital Animation – the walk cycle. As common and mundane and as walking may be, there’s a lot to learn here, especially if you want to go into animation. Once you break a walk cycle down, you’ll have a much better appreciation for a task we accomplish daily ...
This assignment in Digital Animation helps students get better familiarized with character turnarounds and keyframing. A simple figure eight motion turns into complex drawings and timing requirements.
Here’s a study we did in Digital Animation about the principles of a bouncing ball. This is typically the first assignment animation students do — it shows them a lot about the fundamental concepts of animation; starting with the squash and stretch principle.
Caricatures are always fun to try out, but always pose incredible challenges for various reasons. Caricature artists spend years developing their own cartooning style and techniques to get an authentic yet humorous (but flattering!) images of people. Here’s a look at some caricature studies we did earlier in the year. Can you figure out who ...
Here’s a look at the product of our early Wacom training series. We did this using bitmap artwork in Photoshop, so that posed a few problems, none of which, however, we weren’t able to overcome. Enjoy!
After a bit of practice with Bart Simpson and Mr. Bean, I left it up to our students to create their own unique character model sheets and turnarounds. After a challenging outing, here’s the ones that went above and beyond and nailed the concepts.
As we looked closer at facial expressions, we pried open the oh-so-valuable classic by Preston Blair, Cartoon Animation. If you’re serious about cartooning and animation, this is probably already in your library, if not, why isn’t it?
The Mr. Bean model sheets and turnarounds are Digital Animation’s first foray into one of the major aspects of any strong animation: character design and appeal. Here’s our first look at the featured artwork. Thanks for ACME Animation for the model sheets.
[UPDATE] Jessica’s “Cherry Blossoms” was awarded “Best in Class” by her peers and also won “First Place” in The ACME Network’s Advanced Storytelling competition! Way to go, Jessica! In a recent animation project we did in Digital Animation, we took a haiku (either one that already exists or one we came up with on our ...
The Haiku was an assignment that mixed poetry and animation. A haiku is a 3 line poem consisting of syllable limitations. The first line may on have 5 syllables, the second may only have 7, and the third may only have 5 again. The job of the students was to create a haiku and then ...
The Jet Pack assignment was designed so that students would be able to take Mr. E-Z, or a character of their own, and create a dynamic video that revolved around the character and a Jet Pack. Difficulties for this project was the making of a story that revolved around a character finding, buying, or having ...
The Walk Cycle is a 9 frame animation that creates the illusion of a continuous walk from an animated character. Students were required to recreate these 9 scenes to create a character walking in place for at least ten seconds. Difficulties were keeping the character consistent as well as creating the flow of walking. Another ...
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Last year when the Digital Animation students were shown kinetic typography, it really sparked my interest in trying to create one. This year I finally got the chance to. Some of my first attempts at kinetic type were dull but learning more about the program made it so I could do more, like camera rotations ...
The figure eight assignment was all about being able to make the character, Mr. E-Z, do a figure eight with a jet pack twice. Some of the difficulties of this project were creating a smooth flight path that didnt look choppy or have missing views as Mr. E-Z flew. Others were creating a scene that ...
The Bouncing Ball assignment asked the students to use the squash and stretch action to create a smooth movement to animate a ball bouncing. Some of the difficulties were to keep the ball a consistent size throughout the entire process. While some students use the oval tool in Toon Boom Studio, others chose to hand ...
Character Frenzy — one of my favorite assignments. I can quickly see what appeals to you in terms of character design and, on top of that, what type of person you are! Honestly, the types of shows you watch, animated or not, reveals a lot about people. At any rate, great stuff this year! I’ve ...
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