Fresh Snow - Half of 2nd Rough Draft Storyboards Completed and Test Story Reel

So, I finally broke in my technically 2nd rough draft but, I will call it my first for now to be more serious about it. Here is my rough storyboards for the first minute and 30 seconds of Fresh Snow. Fresh Snow is a total of 2:58. So it is about 3 minutes total. I have a lot of work to go but, this is just what I worked on today. :3 Lots of work ahead! :) Stay tuned! I have to add some things in between and what not but, it is a start.

Pavel : Revised Character Design

Here is Pavel's revised character design. I am going to be making turnarounds, expression, and pose sheets for him. I am also going to be working on my second draft of storyboards for Fresh Snow. I am going to apply all that I have learned from my new tutorials and hope it goes fantastic :) I will keep you all posted with my progress. I hope you like him! :3 He's a Siberian Roe Deer.

Aaron Blaise's : Fundamentals of Animation - Secondary Action, Exaggeration, and Appeal

The next videos that I watched today were Aaron's videos on Secondary Action, Exaggeration, and Appeal.

In the Secondary Action lesson, Aaron said that it is common for animators to confuse secondary action with follow through and overlapping action. He said they are totally different things! He said follow through and overlapping action happen due to the main action whereas secondary action is an action that is happening separately but is in support of the main action. The example he gave was a character thinking of what to do and the secondary action is that character also scratching their head. It is a second action separate but in support of the main action.  Another example is a ballerina jumping but the motion of her arms is a secondary action that is in support of her main action, jumping.

The next video I watched was about Exaggeration. In this video, Aaron mentioned there is different levels of Exaggeration within the animation world. He said animator's exaggerate animation to clarify what is happening for the viewer. One level of exaggeration is Pocahontas and bear and the hare film where the characters were so lifelike they did not have much exaggeration. But, another different level of exaggeration was Roger Rabbit where exaggeration is taken to the extreme. Aaron said it all depends on what level of exaggeration you want to use to convey your character's world. He said you must ask yourself what world does it fit into? All animation and exaggeration must be consistent for that world otherwise it will not mesh.

The next video that I watched was about Appeal. Appeal in the terms of animation means making something real that your viewer can relate to. We can find appeal in the character's acting, the look of the character, and the design of the character. It doesn't have to be all 3. Aaron said that whenever he tries to design a story character he gives them a backstory to help understand that character. For example his bear character he wanted her to be a mother character with round shapes and soft eyes. His elephant character he wanted to look fun and real chill kind of dude. So he said to ask yourself what kind of person/ character are they and how can you make it something you can draw over and over again? Appealing characters should be real, honest, and interesting Aaron says.

Aaron Blaise's Fundamentals of Animation Course: Anticipation, Follow Through and Overlapping Action, Arcs, and Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Action

I have been on a tutorial binge been watching a lot of videos. It's been a real treat and it's awesome to see and learn so much.

The next video that I watched from Aaron Blaise was his lesson on Anticipation. He says that anticipation is used a lot! He says that because anticipation is a natural part of physics its used almost constantly in animation or at least he said it should be. Anticipation is the anticipation of a particular motion. For example when a character punches something, we anticipate the build up of the punch as he prepares to punch, before a character gets up they have to hold their hands on a chair, before a character jumps there's them going down to prepare to jump, there is lots of anticipation. He showed a demonstration where a bunny was anticipating his jump and followed through with that animation. You definitely want to feel the physics of your animation. Physics is what we do naturally all the time when we move and react. Drawings tend to be closer together during anticipation before a big move or an action of sorts.

The next video that I watched was Aaron's Follow Through and Overlapping Action Video. I learned what these were. I learned a lot of these in college but, I am stepping back through them again and re learning them from a new perspective. Aaron said things move at different timings than the rest of the animation that animators have to track such as: hair, ears, clothing, etc. Overlapping action is for example: a punch but the rest of the body moves differently than just the arm and fist which we need to take account of and make sure it is moving properly.

Follow Through is momentum follows through after the action is completed and shouldn't just stop. So for example when you are punching your body will continue to move and complete the action not just stop moving once you punch but it will complete the follow through of full action anticipated previously.

Aaron said animation we tend to think no both sides of the brain because we not only have to be creative but we break things down, observe from life, and have to think in a logical position of how physics works and how things move and react in real life. He also says once you understand all the principles of animation, you will use them constantly and sometimes you don't even think about it you will just begin to do it out of habit.

The next lesson that I watched was on Arcs. I have watched some previous videos from Aaron's scene approach videos but in this one, he goes into detail about what arcs are. Aaron says that in nature everything seems to move in an arc. To draw using arcs adds fluidity to your animations. You can use arcs in storyboarding, drawings, animations. It adds realism to how we move, walk, throw, jump, planets move, and etc. By adding arcs of motion in your animation by drawing in a set arc path it adds realism, grace, and life to your animation. It creates a beautiful path of motion for our viewer's eyes to follow. Aaron said he really learned about arcs a lot more when he was working on Disney's animated feature: Mulan.

The next lesson that I watched was on Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Action. Aaron said that animators can animate in 2 main ways: Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Action. Straight Ahead  is animating a scene straight on on the timeline without using key poses to guide your animation. Straight Ahead is used in Stop Motion animation where animators animate from beginning to end guiding their character and they really feel out what's happening and just go with the flow of their motion. Straight Ahead can be great just getting the feel of your character and it can be a lot of fun and a faster method however it can cause problems such as: loss of volume in animating characters. It is used a lot less.  He demonstrated an animation where Straight Ahead Action was used.

He then talked about Pose to Pose Animation. Pose to Pose is the most common method for animation. Pose to Pose is where you animate a scene using key poses and move from pose to pose to set up the scene and animation. This method is great for animating a complex character, lots of action, emotion, and dialogue. It tends to be much more accurate but you can get lost in drawings and it can become stiff if you aren't careful. Pose to Pose animators typically make thumbnails of their rough action ideas and then use those to create their key drawings later on. Aaron said that he tends to work this way. Pose to Pose helps you get a sense of direction but it can be often different than your final animation delivery. Be open to change he says.

Aaron Blaise's Fundamentals of Animation Course: Animation Demonstration Video, Slow In and Slow Out Video, and Staging Video

Today, I watched the rest of Aaron Blaise's Animation Demonstration. I watched as he used the squash and stretch method during his inbetweens. He said you can create some awesome squash and stretch during your inbetweens to really push your drawings. He said the magic of animation happens even more once you get all your hard work done and get to your inbetweens. The animation starts coming to life even more than you imagined it. Inbetweens should go pretty quick just get them done fast and accurately as my old huntington professor would say :). Aaron reminded me that be sure your keys are precise and then with your breakdowns should be and then inbetweens are a little more loose and fast. Definitely work loosely he says. He encouraged to push your drawings as much as possible. You want to be able to read your animation well and if it is a lip sync you want to see and read those lips well. Aaron adds inbetweens based on the timeline when he feels there should be one and this is interesting it makes the process seem more focused then just adding drawings. He gives a lot of life to his demonstrations making the process seem more interesting than I used to perceive it to be.
The next fundamental video that I watched today was, the Slow in and Slow out video. In this lesson, Aaron explained in more detail what slow in and slow out is within animation. Aaron said that anytime he is animating a character on the screen whether they are walking or whatever that you want to create a slow start and a slow ending to your animations. This mean that there is a slow beginning and a slow ending to your next pose. This can even apply to film in a sense as well. He says that slow ins and slow outs help it from starting harshly and stopping harshly. This creates a nice soft edge to your animations and this is the term animator's tend to use known as "Fluidity".
He said that when you create your slow ins and slow outs you start with nice tightly spaced drawings and the animation speed picks up then as its slowing down you get more nicely tight spaced drawings to end it. He says out of all the animation fundamentals this is the most used he says. He said the only time he does not use slow ins and slow outs is when a character is fighting, thrown or shot out of a canon and so on. It is not used with abrupt fast actions.

The next fundamental video that I watched was Aaron's Staging video. In this lesson, I learned more about what staging is and approach it properly. Staging is an approach to animation where you focus on how you "stage" or portray your character or scene to your viewer. You can do this in a few ways: your camera location and your character's position in relation to their location. Aaron said that you want to convey your character or scene in the best way possible for your viewer. He gave me a few examples. He explained about having 2 characters on screen, how to portray a dominant character, a desolate background with a character, lonely characters, and compressed backgrounds. The biggest thing you want to ask yourself Aaron says is : What is the action or emotion that needs to be conveyed here? He said the further your character gets on screen -the broader your action has to be. You can exaggerate moments, make things subtle by framing things tighter to get more subtext, and ideas can be more broad by accurate staging. It was a great lesson, short but straight to the key points!

Aaron Blaise's Fundamentals of Animation Course/ Complete Animation Course: Animation Demonstration Video

Today, I watched the next video in Aaron Blaise's lessons that I had purchased. In this lesson, he taught how he approaches his animation process. In this he did a lipsync character body animation. He explained that he likes to create thumbnails in Adobe Photoshop to get ideas of his key frames and it lays the groundwork for the process. Then after you get those poses drawn for the keys, you can then start working on the breakdowns. He mentioned that we need to keep things loose while you are drawing. He said definitely don't get caught up in all the details because that will mess you up. This is something I struggle with as an animator and he mentioned that and I have hope that I can continue to improve as an animator and concept artist. Once you get your keys all mapped out he said while you are working strive to create dynamic framing. Animators need to feel the acting. Acting it out yourself is encouraged he said.

The next step after creating the key drawings is to focus on the breakdowns. This can be intimidating and hard but if you focus all that hard work goes a long way. He said the way he works is after the keys and breakdowns he begins to animate straight ahead. That's just how he does it. He tried to create a slow and deliberate animation that works into an explosion of energy. He said that every shot is important. He said that you don't want to focus too much time on one drawing. That is something that I am working to get better at myself. He said moves can be big but he said you can find it. The further away the drawings, the faster the animation will be.

He said continue to think about arcs often. He said that it really helps you find yourself and your art in the process and helps your animations look pleasing to the eye. He said continue to work loosely and don't get too sloppy. He tends to go back and forth between adjusting poses and drawings. Scrubbing through your drawings is a great idea he says. I stopped at 50:09 for the day and will be continuing my tutorial tomorrow. :) Great process and I feel like I am understanding animation much better this time around than when I was in college. I have matured more and feel more focused internally so these courses are awesome! I highly recommend them! Here are some shots of his tutorial that he was showing me. :)

Aaron Blaise- Fundamentals of Animation and Scene Approach Course: Scene Review, Mouth Shapes, Breakdowns, Inbetweens, and Arcs

Today I spent my day before going to work catching up on some 2d computer animation tutorials from Aaron Blaise's Fundamentals of Animation and Scene Approach Courses that I had purchased. Today I worked on these video tutorials: Scene Review, Mouth Shapes, Breakdowns, Inbetweens, and Arcs.
In the first video, I learned about the beginning stages of creating a lip sync and how to create good key poses. I really enjoyed Aaron's animation process. It feels way more interesting and not as complicated to learn as most approaches to animation that I have learned. He puts a lot of fun and less imtimidating factors into it but keeping me in the know with animation techniques. He works in Tv Paint but, I will be using Adobe Animate for now.
He taught me how he writes words on screen in the exposure sheet. How to create good changes in pose. He showed me how he creates pose tests within key poses. He calls this a "Pose Test". In this phase we do not want to worry about words but getting the characters pose and action focused on screen. Then after that we talked about creating a smooth out with breakdowns. He mentioned we are starting to hit the dialogue at this stage creating rough ideas of mouth shapes.

In Aaron's next video, we talked about mouth shapes. He said that this takes place after the pose test. In this stage, we tackle the dialogue and add mouth shapes. This was cool to learn. As an animator I tend to focus on every little mouth shape I make when I pronounce words but, he had a great way of teaching this to me. It is different and more interesting than I expected.

Aaron said that common mistakes he sees young animators make is drawing every shape for every word. He said we don't want to focus on just letters we need to think about the sounds that our actor is making. He had a lip sync where a bear was saying "Listen to me mister" and talked about how someone was their knight in shining armor. He said animators need to focus on when the mouths are opening and closing like the Muppets. He said once you get that you are about 90% there! He went over how to use the timeline in Tv Paint. He said it just lays in the dialogue track which automatically loads into the timeline! I definitely want to get Tv Paint sometime when I get more stable financially.

He then talked about exposure sheets and frames. He explained the nature of how they work and that you can write the words right in but, he tends to choose the wave form when he does it. He said this is how he did things at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He says we always make our mouth shapes before we make a sound from our mouth. He said sometimes it can be up to 8 frames before we say it. He says that 1-2 frames ahead we hit the dialogue if not longer. He says its better to hit the dialogue spot on or a little bit ahead than later. He said 10-12 frames ahead can look spot on too depending on the dialogue! I used to think that was unheard of so this was such a valuable lesson for me.
The next thing he did in this tutorial was that he added breakdowns. He turned on his light table and sketched it. He said the breakdowns are some of the hardest to do. He said it helps you create the flow of the drawing where it will go and the inbetween of key drawings then after you get your breakdown you can tackle those inbetweens which he said are much easier to tackle! He said while doing this we need to focus on creating arcs and slow in and out with our drawings and track that movement of our characters.

It was amazing watching him animate his bear character. He made animation seem less complicated to me. He said you want to hit your consonants hard! He said focus on the way that your actor is saying the words. They don't necessarily pronounce everything the same way that many people do. Everyone talks differently and that is a key focus that makes animators so special. We can bring to life a person or a character and make their dialogue really come to life! He mentioned and gave tips on how to deal with quiet dialogue. You want to ease into the dialogue and may have to hold poses. He said a great way to work is to have little thumbnails on the right screen if you are working dual monitor and your animation timeline on the left side. I didn't check but, I believe that he is a lefty too! Rock on to that! So am I! He mentioned that you want to hit your poses gracefully. Slow ins and slow outs make it smooth and make it graceful. He said that thumbnails keep your animation under control and give it direction within your work. He said after this stage is when he would take his work to a director. He said then he would put inbetweens into it. He said slow action tends to be drawn on 2's. 24 frames per second. He said that the human eye accepts gaps as they are and that was what was so cool about animation which I completely agree with him!

He game me wonderful insight about timing animations and the space timing between drawings. He said 12 frames produce jittery animations but we could accept it and he said 3 frames or 4 per drawing is choppy! He said that is a big no no within animation. I will keep that in mind. I may...or may not have done that in college. So thank you Aaron this is super duper helpful! He said that you want to make sure that you are animating ahead with your work. We need to focus on making the character make sounds before we see or hear them. The big takeaway was : "Don't just animate all words but SOUNDS!"

The last video that I watched for today was the Breakdowns, Inbetweens, and Arcs video where he demonstrated how to do these on his animated bear turn. He had a bear that moved his head to the right and blinked during that head turn.

I enjoyed his demonstration very much. I watched him draw his breakdowns. He was drawing on 2's. He also demonstrated how to create "Charts". This is what I've been dying to learn! Charts indicate where inbetweens go.

He mentioned there are two chart styles that he knows of and uses often and they are : Halves and Thirds. He said its like a sideways bird and has listed numbers which represent our key frames breakdowns and inbetweens. I feel much more knowledgable with these now. He used the halves style.

He said with halves - the inbetweens will get progressively further away from each other. How do we do this he helped demonstrate it for me. Very insightful here! Basically its a chart for your keys, breakdowns and the inbetweens for those. He said a good way to animate using arcs is to make and use anchor points like tracking a nose or a chin to follow your character to create wonderful movement.  He gave more insight but due to lack of time I will pass on writing it all but great and wonderful stuff here! :)