Acme Punched! A 2D Animation Blog: No. 133, Let's Talk! Part 2

For People Crazy About 2D Animation!

Acme Punched! is for people crazy about 2D animation. It may be enjoyed by beginners and others, but it is aimed at animators who know already something about the process of animation and the basics of character animation. In large part, it will attempt to provide a deep look into the problem solving that goes on in my head as I work out a scene, often in step-by-step posts that I will sometimes enter in "real time", without knowing in advance what the outcome will be. Mistakes and false starts will not only be included but emphasized, so that the creative process of animation will be portrayed realistically. And, while my own bias is for 2D drawn animation, many of the effects and principles discussed here can apply to CGI 3D animation as well. I hope the blog will prove useful and instructive for all.

-Jim Bradrick

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

No. 133, Let's Talk! Part 2

Working with the Soundtrack

For the Old Man's dialog for this scene, I have a four-second track to work from. Here is the sound clip with the accompanying storyboard panel.

Key Drawings

Beginning the animation, I made several key drawings--the drawings that best represent the style and spirit of the animation. As is often the case, my key drawings are also some of the extreme drawings in the scene. But a key drawing may not always be used as an extreme, as for example the storyboard image above, which puts across the idea without actually being useful as an extreme.

The scene's initial pose. Note that this is a rough.

Another rough. He is saying, "You never know..."

Here, a cleanup, where he is saying "fail."

First Pencil Test

The scene will amount to about 50 drawings when done. In the first pencil test, I have done only 28 of those drawings, but I am able to time it out to the soundtrack by adding extra hold frames wherever there are drawings missing.

We are using the Disney studio numbering method which specifies that if you are working on two's (two exposures per drawing), then beginning with 1, all the drawings will have odd numbers. Therefore, a sequence on two's would be 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15. If I have drawn only numbers 1, 3, 7, 13 and 15, then I expose the pencil test as follows:

Drawing 1, two frames.

Drawing 3, four frames (includes two frames to account for number 5 which is missing.)

Drawing 7, six frames (includes two frames each for numbers 9 and 11, which are missing.)

Drawing 13, two frames.

Drawing 15, two frames.

When you then play the pencil test, there will be some jerkiness but it is possible to match the dialog to the images and see how the action flows. In this case, there were a couple of areas where it was critical to see the full action, and where I therefore made sure to add in roughs of all the drawings.

Here is that first pencil test.

Next: A second pencil test in which many more drawings are present, and then a final test including all of the drawings.

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