Paper Stop Motion

In class Today I'm working on a stop motion project. We'll be working with construction paper and pins to create animatable puppets. I'll be using mine to create a quirky 10-second animation of a vicious teddy bear biting someone's head off.

To achieve this effect, I'm going to need to swap out the bear's head about 10-14 times to get it to grow and shrink (construction paper is not as malleable as clay). It's much easier to maintain proportions using this medium, but a little harder to get fluid motions, as it's restricted to what the puppet can do.

box lifting in progress

Now, after all that thought about weight in animation, it comes time to put it into practise in one of the most direct ways possible. I am now to construct a figure lifting (or pushing) a heavy box. As usual, making the key poses first proves very helpful, so getting that done first is priority. I find that timing here, in particular, is vital. Where should the character speed up? Where should he get stuck? How long? how fast will he rise? After the keys are done, I'll do some experimenting. to this purpose, I've constructed a very simple character.

Beginning study of weight

I wouldn't quite say that weight is often an important consideration within the practise of animation, but that it should always be on the animator's mind. It pervades every step of the animation process as it is what really lends that sense of believability to any animation.

 I have had to factor in weight before as part of other animation projects without even realizing, but now I will begin to look more deeply into its succesful execution. One of my first projects in this vein will be a speed project involving a simple character lifting/pushing an object. But realistic weight is not confined to interactions with heavy objects. It can and should be applied to anything that is animated, from characters to inanimate objects to the environments thereof.

Box perspective

I find myself a good way into the process of making my hopping box in perspective. Having begun by drawing out my grid and "tracks" which my box will follow (though not on the ground),

 I proceeded to map out the jump's arc for the front and back bottom edges. I used these to map out each frame of the jump. I found, in the first test, that it lacked ease-in and out, so I added that in a bit more for the second test. Ahead is the addition of squash and stretch et. al.

Run cycle: completion

As I approach the final stages of my run cycle, I'm seeing more and more how careful planning pays off. My original legs and torso, though well thought out, have a few quirks. the top of the shoulders flops back and forth in a somewhat awkrward fashion, but it's nothing I can't work with. The three-dimensionality, however, is looking better and it looks more like a proper three-quarter view. The final step that I am currently tackling is the floppy bit. I'm going to have to choose between something that flows behind the character, like this hair:

or something more rigid that follows the motion of the figure, like an antenna.