No. 125, Storyboard into Animation, Part 2

I have mentioned before how the animator as storyboard artist might often put more into the storyboard than an artist who does not animate would do. But when it gets into actual animation, that animator will then go deeper still.

Things occur to the animator as she or he contemplates and then works on a scene--things that will not have been thought of.

Take the first two storyboard  drawings from the scene we have chosen. They show the Old Man having caught the card out of the air, then inserting the card into his breast pocket.

But let's look at everything that that will entail in my animation.

He catches the card.

He looks at his pocket.

He aims the card.

He inserts the card into the pocket.

The finger comes up to tap it in.

He taps it all the way in.

 Could this have been done more directly? Might I not have just used the two basic poses from the storyboard and been done with it?  Of course I could have done.

But that is basically the difference between full animation and TV animation. The proponent of full animation always is asking himself, "How can this be improved?  How can it be made interesting?"

Naturally, as one working on my own personal animation project, I have the freedom to indulge myself. There is not much 2D animation being done today that permits such extravagant expenditure of drawings, time and money. Only in CGI animation will you find such lavish attention to this kind of nuance.

Special Note: You will see from the framing of this scene in the storyboard that the legs and feet will not be included in the shot. But I have drawn them in because the Old Man will turn and walk out of the frame, and so I need to know where his weight is and what his stance is. Even standing with his feet in one place as in these drawings, he is still balancing and shifting his weight about, so it is important to draw him right down to the ground if possible.


Next: The Pencil Test for the Whole Scene--wait for it!!