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Hear ye hear ye animators!
I hope you remember this iconic scene taken from the animated featured movie 'Frozen' by Walt Disney Animation Studios. The song lyrics still ringing in my head,"do you want to build a snowman?". I know it can get pretty exciting when you're building your snowman(animation). After having a spark of an idea, and 'roughly' knowing how you want to animate your scene, you quickly fire up the animation software and off you go. Though I love such enthusiasm and passion, I have to ask you to hold your horses before you do more disaster to the idea you love. we all need to properly equip ourselves so we can have the best result. Also to be satisfied with the final result. Hence, I've come up with3 Essentials before you start that animation
Planning
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This is probably the single most important tip that animators must always remember before starting an animation. As simple as it seems, thorough planning goes a long way to finalizing that perfect animation scene. I remember when I was attending an animation workshop by Disney, one of the lead animators told me
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IKR! There is a reason why Disney stories are always so likable and appealing to the crowd. There must be a reason! And that is because they spend countless days, weeks and months in planning. This may seem like an 'extra' step for you, but it will definitely save you a lot of time in the long run and your work will look so much more solid and professional.
Truth be told, there are times when I just want to start animating that shot, sometimes pride takes over and I 'think' I know what I'm doing. Trust me, it ends up with a mediocre set of work which I know I can do better if I plan better.
Observation/Finding Insights
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When I was talking about planning, You also need to know how to plan. This second essential tip is vital and it becomes better and better as you consistently practice this 'skill'. This skill is called
Stalking
I'm just Kidding! :D Maybe..... Maybe not... But yea, stalking or not, animators need to have an eye for their surroundings. To Observe what the normal people wouldn't observe. You must first understand that observation is not simply looking at something casually when you're alone at a park.
Basically, you need to observe every detail about that kid, mother, the guy is doing. The actions, what causes that effect, what sends that ripple of consequences.
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Let's take this short clip as an example. Yes, the little girl slipped and fell, and that is totally normal, everyone sees that. But an animator who observes this scene whether in real life or from video references, we must be trained to see much more than this. Like how the little girl on the right was jumping a little, and that was what caused her to fall. How she was also happily singing from her expression and lips. So with this information, she was probably dancing instead of 'just jumping'. The next thing is how the sister reacts to her falling. That shock expression, that eye dart, all comes down to how an animator observes and analyze a scene/situation.
All the strong exaggeration you give to animation or poses comes from observations. So you should train yourself to be more attentive to the little details and the overlapping actions. Through all these observation, you can probably remember them and when you're animating a scene, it will definitely add realism to your animation when you add that eye twitch when she's about to cry.
Referencing
Lastly, what holds everything together and one of the easiest most effective way to help in planning is referencing. References can come from all sorts of form, from books, photographs, videos, movies, animations, and footages of yourself.
A lot of people might think this is 'copying' someone else's work. What I would say if it's a good reference, why change it? What is more important is finding the best references for the shots you are going to make. Anyways, artists 'copies' and finds 'inspiration' from other artists, just that they do it really well. One of the best way to find really good pose references are from comic books or from an anime show. These shows usually have really dynamic key poses like how Goku charges up his 'Super Saiyan'.
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Other than comic books and anime series, you can also find good references in live action or animated footages. Let me say this again ,'It is OKAY to follow good references'. When you feel that that particular Pixar scene is what you're aiming to go for, then by all means, use it as your reference and try to follow it as closely as possible.
Lastly, if you do not have any references suitable, you can go ahead and video yourself the exact scene and how you imagine it to be. Shoot a few takes and choose the best one, or merge several clips together to get the right expression from the shots.
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Animation is not just something that you can do in a day, it takes lots of dedication, a lot of hard work and discipline to want to always learn and make it better. Although, there will be errors or challenges when your shot doesn't seem right after all the planning and going through the essentials, but that doesn't mean you can skip any of these 3. I hope that you've picked up something in this post and let's keep doing what we do best. :)
This is a repost of my article that I've written a long time ago on Steemit that I find it to be very useful and well written. I have decided to share this long animation series that I've written on Steemit again for the sole reason to share knowledge with my larger followings now compared to last time.
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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://zord189.steemblogs.club/2020/01/25/animation-essentials-to-kickstart-your-animation/