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Animation Exercises | Beginner to Advanced

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SBW - The art of Inbetweening: Timing Charts

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How to Inbetween | animate anime in Flash

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How To Time Your Animation | Advanced Flash Timing Tutorial

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SBW - Inbetweening and Timing Charts Demo

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My Special 2D Animation Method - (Advanced)

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[[TUTORIAL]] 7 Tips for Smoother Animation

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Animation Approaches, Styles and Software

Visual Storytelling

Animation Principles and Process

Visual Dynamics

Global animation inspiration

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PADLET GUIDE: Animation Principles and Process

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PADLET GUIDE: Animation Principles and Process

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Padlet purpose:
This padlet provides an easy entry overview 'map' of animation principles and process, particularly in gigital or handdrawn 2D Frame by Frame animation. But many of the principles apply also to effective rotoscoping and Stop Motion.

Contents

Overview and links to Disney 'Illusion of Life' 2D animation principles

Creating Magic: Lines on the Boil

Creating movement: Time, Space and Frame

Creating meaning: Eye Trace and directing attention

To open the padlet:
Click on the square with arrow on the top right below.

To open the 'paddles':
Click on the paddle title or image, whichever shows a ‘hand’.
If no hand shows, click on three dots top right and expand.

To close, check whether or not the ‘paddle’ has opened in a separate window on your browser. Closing that will bring you back to the overview padlet.

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Walt Stanchfield’s ‘Drawn to Life’ is much more exploratory and less dogmatic in guiding the animator through a wider range of exercises in perception and gesture drawing.

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Animation basics: The art of timing and spacing - TED-Ed

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Distinguishes between fluid animation and smooth animation:

Smooth is about the frame rate – how many new frames occur per second of animation. To get smooth animation, you just need to draw plenty of in-betweens until all of your animation is on 1s.

Flow is about the gesture of the drawings, the arcs, the drag and follow through of a movement (see Disney principles and Japanese animation). Flow is more complex to get right than smooth.

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How to Create Atmosphere in Animation (Part 1)

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Here the layering is even more complex, with multiple loops for the dance of each skeleton.

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The first hand drawn animation by Winsor McKay makes extensive use of looped cycles for both 'boiling' and narrative action.

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In ‘Dogs’ Hodgson skilfully varies the type and extent of boil in his expressive drawing to create feelings of nervous anticipation, energy or chaotic movement and lack of control. The drawings seem to pulsate with the anticipatory and upbeat music.

There is a constant shimmering/flickering of expressive crayon lines based on variations of the thickness, tone and colour of the drawn lines and crosshatched shading. Then occasionally the figures are quite and the lines quiet.  Other times the figures are still but the lines vibrate energetically to show anticipation. Sometimes the figures move and there is less pulsation on the lines to throw attention on the narrative. Sometimes the colour shapes pulsate and shift more than the lines, sometimes figures, shapes and lines all move energetically and dissolve into chaos. For moving objects central to the narrative, boiling in outlines is reduced with more subtle variations in colour shading and crosshatching to create atmosphere without detracting from our understanding nuances of narrative and expression.

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A man takes his dog for a walk in the park where they encounter other dogs and their owners. The film explores the relationship between a man and his dog highlighting their contrasting approaches to life.

Original Format: 16mm
Year of production: 1981
Duration: 6mins 39secs

KEY CREDITS:
Director: Jonathan Hodgson
Producer: Jonathan Hodgson
Sound: Jonathan Hodgson
Production Company: Liverpool Polytechnic

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Here even the blank background at the beginning boils to maintain interest and give a sense of anticipation. Probably the only true looped boil.

The animation starts with a blank screen that shimmers with slight variations in white/cream while a shrill cild/female/robot/alien? distorted voice sings a vaguely familiar melody. This creates tension and anticipation waiting for something to happen. Then the voice suddenly changes to the more familiar deep male opera voice as the childlike simple pencil drawing of a man’s face moves slowly at the same speed and horizontal position across the screen.

The apparent boiling in the thin pencil drawing of the face is probably not always looped. The drawing ‘boils’ with slight apparently random changes in the drawing as a whole – size and shape of the face circle, eyes and pupils and length of the line of the mouth. The effect of these continuous small variations as the face moves across the screen makes us try to constantly see and interpret emotions in every slight variation in shape and size of outline, eyes and mouth. But as there are several sources of movement happening we cant quite grasp it, emphasising the feeling of powerlessness and transience in the title.

There is a real poignancy of sameness, thinness of the line and blank expression of the face in contrast to the heavy emotion of the ‘we will overcome’ vincera aria that also references the masculinity and tribalism of football matches as well as the operatic strength itself. The title ‘since the better’ then adds a layer of loss and past ‘glory’.

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i always want to go back to since the better.  Pavarotti can help me.

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Howard Wimshurst tutorial Adobe Animate. If two characters are interacting then draw them at the same time going back and forth, but on different layers, so the interactions can be fully developed together. Make figures move and swing. Add motion blur lines. Bring in energy streaks like Ross Tran. Do streaks on ones, character on 2s and 3s, with redrawn resting poses that ‘breathe’. Can add lightning flash with reversed colours.

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How to Increase Intensity and Power in Animation

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Animation process: keyfranes and inbetweens: Howard Wimshurst

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Animation process: keyfranes and inbetweens: Howard Wimshurst

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Howard Wimshurst tutorial Adobe Animate. Focus on end and extreme poses first, get these right and flowing. Then in-betweens. 24FPS on 2s, or 1s and 3s, or even 3s and 4s.

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How To Bring A Sketch To Life | Animation Walk-through

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It is most common in animation to draw on twos, this is both because drawing on ones is double the amount of work and because working with twos lends a smoother appearance to slower actions, avoiding unnecessary jitter that can accompany shooting on ones. It is generally thought that working on twos adds a particular liveliness to a fast action rather than working on ones, which can make an action appear more leaden.

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Animated Motion Part 5  Direção Norman McLaren

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Animated Motion Part 3  Direção Norman McLaren

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Animated Motion Part 4  Direção Norman McLaren

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Animated Motion Part 2  Direção Norman McLaren

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Animated Motion Part 1   Direção Norman McLaren

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Experiments in visual music: Norman McLaren

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Experiments in visual music: Norman McLaren

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In parallel to developments in US from the 1930s animators like Norman McLaren  at Canadian Board of Film were experimenting with other areas of animation and filmmaking, particularly the relationship between space and time in perceptions of movement.

Their experiments included more abstract hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound that have become very influential in contemporary digital animation. They are particularly relevant in discussions of frame rates and ergonomics, animation of objects and motion graphics used as complement to figure animation.

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11. Solid Drawing - 12 Principles of Animation

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10. Exaggeration - 12 Principles of Animation

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8. Secondary Action - 12 Principles of Animation

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6. Slow In & Slow Out - 12 Principles of Animation

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5: Follow Through and Overlapping Actionj

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5: Follow Through and Overlapping Actionj

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5. Follow Through & Overlapping Action - 12 Principles of Animation

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4. Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose - 12 Principles of Animation

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2. Anticipation - 12 Principles of Animation

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1. Squash & Stretch - 12 Principles of Animation

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Williams, R. 2009. The Animator's Survival kit, London, Faber & Faber.

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Narrative montage: Cycles, Loops and Layers

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Narrative montage: Cycles, Loops and Layers

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Cycles can loop, oscillate, or even appear to be stationary.

The use of cycles is often motivated by economy because it saves on drawing time. But the type of cycle that you use also make up the meaning of your film.

Looped cycles are most commonly employed on particular layers within a frame. Sergei Eisenstein described this layered looping within a frame as ‘vertical montage’:
“The simultaneous movement of a number of motifs advances through a succession of sequences, each motif having its own rate of compositional progressions, while being at the same time inseparable from the overall compositional progression as a whole” Sergei Eisenstein, Eisenstein Volume 2: Towards a Theory of Montage (London: BFI Publishing, 1991)

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‘Boil’ is the term used to describe an animated effect in which the outlines or surface of an otherwise still character or object are made to wiggle or quiver in drawn animation. The eye would be drawn to very still objects if everything else is moving. Boiling movement is used to sustain the illusion of movement in the animation overall and provide the impression of life or liveliness. Even when an object, character or scene is at rest it is not still or motionless, it ‘boils’.

In drawings there are always variations in thickness, tone and colour of drawn lines and colouring in some media. These variations can be emphasised or exaggerated eg in the textboards and specific parts of the dinosaur drawings below to direct the eye. Boil can also be achieved by looping together several tracings of the same image (usually between 3 to 8 drawings).

In traditional animation boiling is almost inevitable because of the nature of analogue drawing and/or filming process.  In old film there has been some degradation in the film chemicals that make us aware that this is an ‘old’ film, evoking a sense of nostalgia.

In contemporary animation like Peter Millard and John Hodgson where technology gives greater control over production and editing there is often very conscious use of boil to direct the eye in ways that reinforce the narrative, and for emotional effect. Sometimes this is ‘boil’ in the sense of looped animation, other times it is variation in drawings as frames are drawn and/or painted. It is often quite difficult to separate the effects of the two or make out what is due to drawing, and what is achieved through processing with filters in digital software. Often there is a combination of all three types of flickering in an animation.

Questions about boil:

What ‘boil’ technique is used? Why do the lines move and what elements, if any are allowed to be still?

Does the pace of the boil emanate throughout?

What emotional or narrative purpose does the use of boiling serve? Does it make for a more lifelike effect or is the boil deployed humorously?

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Bacher, H. P. 2006/2013. Dream Worlds: production Design for Animation, Burlington MA, Focal Press.

Blazer, L. 2016. Animated Storytelling: simple steps for creating animation and moving graphics, USA, Peachpit Publications.

Glebas, F. 2009. Directing the Story: professional storytelling and storyboarding techniques for live action and animation, London and New York, Routledge.

Hall, R. 1995. The Cartoonists Workbook, London, A & C Black.

Hamm, J. 1967. Cartooning the Head and Figure, New York, Penguin.

Murch, W. 1995. In the Blink of an Eye: a perspective on film editing, Los Angeles, Silman-James Press.

Sandler, M. 2018. Visual Storytelling: how to speak to your audience without saying a word, Studio City, CA, Michael Wiese Productions.

Seger, L. 1992. The Art of Adaptation: turning fact and fiction into film, New York, Holt Paperbacks.

Shelbourn, C. 2010. Drawing Cartoons, Ramsbury, Wiltshire, The Crowood Press Ltd.

Simon, M. 2005. Facial Expressions: a visual reference for artists, New York, Watson-Guptill Publications.

Stanchfield, W. 2009. Drawn to Life Vols 1 and 2, London and New York, Routledge, Focal Press.

Thomas, F. & Johnson, O. 1981. The Illusion of Life: Disney animation, Glendale, California, Walt Disney Productions.

Thomson, R. & Bowen, C., J. 2009. Grammar of the Shot, Oxford, Burlington MA, Elsevier, Focal Press.

Williams, R. 2009. The Animator's Survival kit, London, Faber & Faber.

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Creating meaning: Eye Trace and directing attention

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Creating meaning: Eye Trace and directing attention

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All animation is an exercise in applying the principle of ‘eye trace’. This is a principle of film- making in general but one that is essential for the illusion of animated movement to work.

‘In The Blink of an Eye’ by Walter Murch, (1995) sets out the principle that the viewer’s eyes will focus on a particular position on the screen and editors exploit this to allow less jarring edit when one shot follows another by ensuring that the action or image is located in the same part of the screen.

This is also known as ‘registration’ in animation. A keen awareness of eye-trace allows the animator to play with the audience’s expectations and surprise them. The registration protocol was developed for hand-drawn animation to ensure that each subsequent drawing uses the same co-ordinates so that the illusion of movement between frames is not interrupted. In other animation the registration is looser and is intended as such to draw attention to the variation that ‘eye trace’ allows.

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Creating movement: Time, Space and Frame

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Creating movement: Time, Space and Frame

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‘Time is what prevents everything from being present all at once’ Henri Bergson. The animator seeks to control at what pace, rhythm and direction things appear.

“What happens between each frame is much more important than what exists on each frame” Norman McLaren, Computer Animation

Difference between film and animation?

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Mimesis vs abstraction? 2D animation principles and process

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Mimesis vs abstraction? 2D animation principles and process

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2D animation in particular is inevitably a process of abstraction. It is not possible for the human eye and brain to follow infinite details in moving images. Even in video, motion blur between frames. a process and the malleability of time is its primary material. It is not the image, drawing or shape of each frame that matters in animation, rather it is the difference between the frames that generates the illusion of movement in animation.

It is the animator’s ability to control and play with these intervals between frames that matters. It is important to think in terms of intervals, rates of change and flux, rather than thinking in terms of still images or compositions.

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THOMAS, F. & JOHNSON, O. 1981. The Illusion of Life: Disney animation, Glendale, California, Walt Disney Productions.
issuu.com/laramoon/docs/f._thomas___o._johnston_-_the_illus

Disney and many other animation studios are concerned with animating figures for story-telling. Disney animation is often pointed to as the ‘gold standard’ – noticeable in comments on African animations that those refer much more favourably to smooth Disney-style animation than more obviously African graphic styles.

Over time Disney developed a series of principles to train their animators to produce their distinctive cartoon style.

The 12 principles of animation by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson have been particularly influential in animation training courses today.

1) squash/stretch
2) anticipation and leading attention, can have multiple levels
3) Staging/exaggeration/sequencing to make things clear
4) straightahead/pose to pose drawing
5) Follow through and overlapping action
6) slow in slow out
7) arcs
8) secondary action
9) timing
10) exaggeration
11) solid drawing
12) appeal

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12 Principles of Animation (Official Full Series)

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Cycles and loops: Zbigniew Rybczynski's 'Tango' (1980) is a montage of numerous short film sequences of one or two characters in the room. Each character/pair of characters is filmed separately (black line and no shawdows) in the room, then cut/masked out and overlaid in multiple cycles for each character in multiple permutations in a separate film of the room itself.. The repetition of cycles for each character is obvious – a tango of life repetitions. The different cycle layers means each cycle is in its own little bubble of separation. The different combinations and permutations of multiple character bubbles are chaotic and often surreal. The only interaction is where the old woman picks up the ball at the end after everyone else has gone, making that a very poignant moment.

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DRAW NOUNS, NOT VERBS:
“emotional shorthand to suggest mood, status, behaviour or conditions “inherent in the nature of things, or at least our interpretation of their subconscious”

FEEL THE POSE: THE POSE IS AN EXTREME
"Do not attempt to capture the model, but rather capture and draw the gesture.
"Animation allows the characters to be freely caricatured in action, but thought they are stretched and squashed to unbelievable limits, they must be recognisable as that character at all times."

Based on sources:
Hall, R. 1995. The Cartoonists Workbook, London, A & C Black.
Hamm, J. 1967. Cartooning the Head and Figure, New York, Penguin.
Shelbourn, C. 2010. Drawing Cartoons, Ramsbury, Wiltshire, The Crowood Press Ltd.
Simon, M. 2005. Facial Expressions: a visual reference for artists, New York, Watson-Guptill Publications.
Stanchfield, W. 2009. Drawn to Life Vols 1 and 2, London and New York, Routledge, Focal Press.
Thomas, F. & Johnson, O. 1981. The Illusion of Life: Disney animation, Glendale, California, Walt Disney Productions.
Williams, R. 2009. The Animator's Survival kit, London, Faber & Faber.