End of the road for THIS exact animation clip. I plan on re-doing this scene with higher quality layout and planning. I love my Lynx Twins and I want to have a scene where Aiden waves to the audience, only to get "attacked" by his sister.
This has been an amazing learning period for me. I'm very excited to see how much I can improve. I have many faults and flaws, but my heart was set on doing this.
No one taught me how to animate. This has been a solo venture. I can't express how much playing with this in the last few days has taught me. There is now a long list of "Do THIS" and "Don't do THAT" to follow. Below are a few things I learned myself simply by "getting sloppy" and diving in.
Wire Frames. Make sure lines for wire frames are not the same colour as final line ink and are on a layer that you can draw a final ink on top of. Use wire frames to keep body parts where they need to be. Hard to justify an arm that has grown an extra 2 feet in length. Use Rulers and wire frames to keep your animation consistently in the proper places. Features go on the top layers (yay Tracing!)
CLEAN UP MISTAKES and LOOSE PIXELS. Everything gets copied to every copied frame. EVERYTHING. Clean as you go. Going back to 50 different transition frames to clean up after yourself is NOT fun.
Make every picture perfect and COMPLETE before proceeding to the next, if on the final top layer. Once a mistake is embedded and cloned, it's now a part of your animation. How much work did you really want to undo?... Didn't think so. Fix it ASAP.
Use the Onion Tool! Being able to see the last few panels translucently on the page you're drawing while making a transition is a god-send.
Play-test your animation. Check timing. Fix delays/skips and anything 'funny" before proceeding.
Save OFTEN. Ctrl-S is your FRIEND.
Make a plan. Go on. Do it. Make a paper comic sketch of transitions and animation plot. Having a plan makes life better for all, especially yourself. Without seeing a running animation it's hard to measure out pacing and motion direction. Having a visual static guide to point out key points to focus on really does help. I admit, I did not do this with THIS animation sample...
Don't be afraid of lack of skill, or making mistakes. It's how you learn. Enjoy the struggle, and laugh at your short-comings.
Finally, watch tutorials on how to animate. There are hundreds of tips and tricks that I have not learned yet.
Animating is pretty cool and fun. Lots of things to learn. Even if you can't draw, you can make a rubber square do a rolling animation. Even someone like me, with less than 5 days into this field, can make a very short cartoon. If you CAN draw, or just really REALLY want to try animating, you CAN. Go get a free program like Pencil2D on the internet and jump on in.
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Published:
6 years, 1 month ago
18 Mar 2018 11:34 CET
Initial: 38b8575adc26e5feecf179d21dc45c21
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