Animation: Run cycle WIP I

This week we need to create a runcycle! So instead of wasting a day thinking of ideas for characters I got my super talented buddy "Eddie Jensen" to design me some characters. We opened a chat in skype for some brainstorming and he knocked out these drawings in a couple of minutes:

All images belong to Eddie Jensen:

I picked design 2 because it seemed really fun to animate and draw.
So below are a few sketches when trying to think of keys and what run I would do:

And finally the first ideas in flash:

Animation: Zombie walk WIP 2

Unfortunately I didn't manage to finish the animation this week, but I'm happy I have a workflow that works for me now. It's a combination of flash to get the movement and timing right, and then photoshop for the cleanup.

Animation: Zombiewalk WIP I

EDIT:
Now includes squiggly arms and stuff:

For some reason there is some fragmenting and a halt in between the loop, but it's a work in progress so doesn't matter that much. But damn..I kind of forgot animating is not easy! Now to add arms, and then clean up. It's not going to be perfect but I want this to look finished by Sunday evening and there's lots of work left!

Late Valentine Sketch

Animation: Walkcycle keys explorations

Animation: Walkcycle Thumbnails & Exploration

This week I want to do a walkcycle, so starting off with some ideas and thumb nailing:

1) Scared girl tied to a sleeping crocodile:

2) Zombie tied to heavy ball:

Further exploration of the zombie idea (which seems most manageable to do in a week:

Facebook Artpage 300 strong

300 likes on facebook deserves a sketch right? Nothing better suited than Leonidas from 300.

1)Ink

2) Colors:

3) Since the body shapes really don't seem to work on color, google random image form web to hide mistakes :P

Eddie Caricature + WIP

Long time ago I said I'd try and do a caricature of my budy and artist Eddie. I needed a quick break from my animation, so did one up:

This is early process: I first did a drawing and blocked in some greys on top:

Here I started to detail the important features (eyes and mouth):

Finding life in poses

These are based on some poses from the web to train my ability to inject life into these poses.

Animation: Super Ball Animation FInished..kind of

I forgot to post the finished submission for this animation. I wanted to put together a step by step video but don't have the time at the moment. Anyway here was the result, I ran out of time to fix up the cape. It seriously gets a lot bigger at the end :P

Hyena Pirate Sketch + Step by Step

Got up at 3am for a live drawing session on webex, and I couldn't access the site. Aarrrghhh, so instead I did this sketch:

The sketch:

The linework: (Always flip to check if it looks good):

The silhouette check: (Is the design readable?)

Sketches

To break sessions of animating, I like to sketch. Here's a digital sketchpage.

Flash vs Photoshop for Frame by Frame Animation

As I am figuring out how to animate, what software to use etc..I might as well share my learning experiences. For this week I am animating a ball who figures himself to be quite the superman.

 This is part 1: The animation without the cape. I did the rough in Flash and then worked in Photoshop (still not at a clean up stage though).

The Flash rough Animation:

 The Photoshop "cleaner" version:

So what about Flash vs Photoshop?

 FLASH:
 + Very quick to work in
+ Intuitive and reliable for frame by frame animation
- There are no brushes with with opacity or texture
- For some reason I don't draw as well in Flash

 PHOTOSHOP:
+ You've got your brushes at your disposal
+ Great handling
- Frame by Frame needs 1 layer per drawing, so for this one I had 69 layers
- Once you have a decent numbers of frames, it's impossible to draw in onion skin mode (Frame rate buffering).
- Not great for quick rough tests or to make any changes

 IN SHORT:
You really don't need Photoshop unless you want to make nice drawings, so use it for clean ups. Leave the animating to programs like Flash or Pencil (although Pencil only has 1 frame onion skinning? What's up with that!?)

Animating more Balls!

So today I will be drawing balls all day long :P
These are my preliminary ideas and a really quick test in flash for the cape animation.

Sketchdump

Back to Basics: Animation 102

Started today with a quick animation of a bowling ball. I tried it first in Photoshop, but photoshop is a pain in the *** to animate with. The problem is that I seem to not have the same control of my line in flash! Practice, practice, practice right?

Tutorial: Sketch Brush in PS

This is by far my favorite brush to sketch with in Photoshop: