Project 2: Toolkit 1: Animation Showreel - First Year: 2018-19

Links to all my work from Nat's lessons:

Toolkit 1: Morph Animation

Toolkit 1: Pendulum 

Toolkit 1: Bouncing Balls

Toolkit 1: Character Balls

Toolkit 1: Halloween Animation

Toolkit 1: Walk Cycle Animation

Toolkit 1: Walk Cycle Animation 2

Toolkit 1:Run Cycle Animation

Toolkit 1: Pick Up Animation

Toolkit 1: Putting On Hat Animation

Toolkit 1: Adobe After Effects Experiment

Toolkit 1: 2D Animation Lip Sync

Toolkit 1: 2D Animation Lip Sync With Face

Toolkit 1: 2D Throwing Animation 

Toolkit 1: 2D Life Drawing Animation

Toolkit 1: Maya Lip Sync

Toolkit 1: Maya Lip Sync With Body

Toolkit 1: 2D Flour Sack Animation

Reflecting back on my 2D animation work, I feel that I have learnt a lot in terms of using a new type of software, and how animation works, and the different principals that need to be applied in order to bring life to an animation. Before these lessons I didn’t consider much in terms of what it takes to make an animation look good and authentic, such as using squash and stretch, and considering timings in order to get the effect you want within your animation. For me, my favourite part was not only witnessing my drawings move, but learning what it takes to do these things, and the different people who enhanced the animation industry such as Lottie Reiniger.

One of the pieces that I'm most proud of in terms of bringing my work to life, was learning to lip sync in Maya, and having the model act out the audio sequence using a rig. This was the most fun for me, as it allowed me to become a puppeteer in that sense. I also enjoyed creating the Halloween animation, as I feel this part was one of the first lesson that included adding some form of character, although the character doesn't move, only blink, with different objects bouncing behind her, allows me to see how much detail and consideration needs to go into each element of those drawings to make the animation look right.

However, I do feel that I could have put more time into my final animation of the flour sack, I did add principals such as considering weight and time, by holding frames and skipping to others to add more of a unique look, however the duration isn't as long as I would have liked it to be.

Overall, I feel that this has been a massive learning curve for me, who at the beginning of the year had never really done 2D animation, to learning about the principles and how important they are in order to create a successful animation. Something I would like to improve upon is trying to keep my drawings somewhat consistent as at times different aspects shrink within the animations, I have produced in these classes.