Shot 2 rough animation!

Hello!

Seeing as I didn't post anything yesterday besides that poster, I figured I'd make it up for anyone curious in seeing how the actual animation part of my film is coming along.

So here's shot 2 from my film, which was the first I worked on.

First, the storyboards:

Shot 1 is completely different at this stage, since I prolonged it more over the summer for a much neater intro pan. Shot 2 is relatively unchanged in the animation besides me adding a helmet onto Toby's character design.

With a helmet on him, I felt that I solved two problems:

1- It added a little more interest and personality in some scenes (like in the video you'll see below, where his helmet falls over his eyes and he needs to adjust it)
2- He's a miner. He kinda needs some head protection all up in this.

Here's my rough pass animation for the shot:

Over the course of last year, I fell into a more gesture-y style of animating, with less of a focus on keeping the shapes consistent and more on the body language. So far, it's been working out alright for me, and in my next pass for the shot, I'll focus more on shapes so that he doesn't go crazy all up in everything. I've also grown to like straight-aheading animation in between keyframes (rather than going by 8s, then 4s, then 2s...). I think it gives more control over mistakes that show up, making them easier to spot early. The animation is more fluid and makes it feel less controlled as well. I dunno. I like working like that.

Anywho, so far I've rough pass animated 8 out of 21 shots in my film. Several of the ones remaining are relatively quick, easy shots, so I'm hoping to have most, if not all, of the rough pass done by the middle of next week. After that, I'll focus on a tighter pass that'll add in some arcs, secondary actions, follow-throughs, and all those neat little principles that aren't quite being represented here yet. Also shapes. Lockin' those down a little better, too.

So far, I'm pretty on-schedule. No stressin' as of yet.

Til next time!