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Animation Practice

  • Writer: Matthew Leonard
    Matthew Leonard
  • May 18, 2021
  • 4 min read

For these animations I decided to use Toon Boom instead of Maya as my main passion was for 2D animation and I hadn't quite used Toon Boom yet so it was a good learning experience to get used to it now for future animations.


ACTION TO ACTION


The first animation practice I did was an Action to Action pose which depicts a character thinking whilst tapping his mouth, then scratching his head and then has its idea action with his finger in the air. Here's what it looks like:

The animation was originally supposed to only a thinking pose and a eureka pose, however thanks to the help of my teacher I decided to add a few extra small animations which helped bring the character to life a little bit more.


I also used Syncsketch to help me translate each of the animations into separate poses which helped make it clearer to pick out an extreme pose and exaggerate it in the animation.

One thing that I did learn after I did this first animation was that I was actually doing the framing wrong as I was adding keyframes which wasn't necessary since keyframes are only really used for motion tweening, whereas I was doing frame-by-frame animation instead. I picked this up after and I got working on the next animations with a more efficient work flow.


SIT STAND SIT SETTLE


For my next animation I did something called a "Sit Stand Sit Settle" or 'SSSS' for short. This required me to animate a pose of a character sitting and standing which was definitely a step up from the previous task, however I was up for the challenge.


Just another small note, I actually did the referencing for the first 4 animations all on the same day hence why I wear the same clothes in them all. I did actually end up realising that this reference material wasn't great as it didn't show all of my body and the low angle meant that the proportions weren't exactly correct when translating it to Toon Boom. Nevertheless they still helped me out a lot and I still continued with them despite this.


For this sitting pose I wasn't too sure if they wanted a loop or an animation of a character sitting and standing so I decided to do both and play it safe. Here's how both of them look:


If we take a closer look at the animation, you can tell that the main thing I did here was how the positioning of the feet remained in place as I sat down. I noticed this during the translating stage which helped me a lot during the animation as it made my job a bit easier realising this. I think the animation is definitely a huge improvement to the first and I'm incredibly happy with the results of it.


WALK


Arguably the animation which took me the longest time was the walk cycle. This was also the first instance where I had to restart multiple times as each walking cycle just looked completely off. This was also the first instance where I decided to look at other references other than my syncsketch reference to see if I can get a better attempt with it. And sure enough I found this one on the internet which helped me out a ton:

Before this I did use the Richard William's tutorial on the walk cycle, however it was making me focus too much on straight ahead animation when my personal preference for animation like this is pose-to-pose. Nevertheless, after a few tries here were the results by the end of the animation:

I think it definitely captures the lazy walk I wanted in my SyncSketch reference and I personally think it looks incredibly smooth. The only mild criticism I'd have on myself is that I think the arm looks a bit weird. Maybe it's just me but I think the pivoting of the shoulder looks a bit too unnatural but I think the hand shape might be the reason it looks off. Still a fantastic animation which I was really proud of.


SNEAK


The sneak was another one I struggled with a little bit as I had to go back onto it after getting it reviewed by my teacher saying it didn't look too much like a sneak, and honestly he was right. In the referenece material on SyncSketch I couldn't actually see my feet placement because there was a table in the way.


I thought it would be smart to just use the walking cycle instead and change the arm movement to make them look sneaky, however instead he just described it as a 'Monster creeping up on someone' which was a pretty funny comparison. However, I did end up changing the walk after so that the character places his toes on the ground first before the heels which makes it so he isn't creating as much sound as the previous animation was. Here's the result of this animation:

Again, not much to say but I think this turned out a lot better after the fixes. I also want to mention how helpful it is to gray out the limbs behind the body as it definitely makes the animation a lot more satisfying to the eyes.


LIFT


After the past 4 animations I was quite confident going into this knowing a lot more about Toon Boom. What helped me out a lot with this animation is that I used a much better reference compared to the others which showed my whole body, including my feet positioning. Here's what it looked like:

For the animation itself, I did the pose-to-pose method as always as it's consistently giving me good results and tends to look a lot better when working with poses like this. Here's the outcome:

Again, another piece I'm really happy about and I think it's boosting my confidence a lot with the software and animating in general.


In conclusion, I just want to stress about how important doing the "observe, translate, animate" method is. Each of these animations have followed this rule and it has helped me out tremendously. It proves how great creating your own references can be when you're trying to animate a pose. Translating them is just as important as well for timings and picking out where your extremes, your breakdowns as well as your in-betweens are.

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