Notes to Self: Animation

Best in Show
Most entertaining
Best foreign film

Elements of a ball bounce:

• Perpetual
• Apex
• Stretch. Most likely only 1. Same as contact.
• Contact
• Squash/Super squash. Not elastic though.
• No strobing
• Straight up and down.

Rule of Odds.

Do not find position through halves at first since that would make for a quicker ending.

Keep the animation positioned near the top of the page for easier flipping.

Work without the light at first. It is more spontaneous drawing from a blank page then from a tracing. A light table is for finding exact position.

Squint off of the animation to detect mistakes.

Make sure it is dark enough to read.

Keep field guides straight.

What reusing drawings, apply the correct horizontal to each foot.

Use arcs and not straights.

For spacing, perhaps the necessary amount of pages should be calculated beforehand and then draw until the requirements are met. Numbering system changes too often.

For rotation, move the larger limbs before the smaller. Shoulder. Elbow. Hand. The lower leg moves after the upper. To make up for it the lower leg moves faster.

The torso doesn't change that much in a second. Be careful of drawing different positions since the torso may seem to spasm.

Depending on the mood of the person, is the heel raised as high?

Do not shade the back leg with the same color. It makes it difficult to trace.

Back foot should not be on the same horizontals.

Chapter 9
Due Date: November 1

Your mental and emotional processes are what motivate you, and without motivation you would accomplish nothing. And without enthusiasm, motivation would atrophy before you could make a quick sketch. Your mind is like a projector-whatever you choose to put into it is what will be seen. The switch is motivation, and the electricity/power is enthusiasm.

Man-the artist- is a creative being. If you take that away from him, he is less than his potential.

Awareness of creative energy will be strongest in the springtime when the earth around beings hum with renewal of life. Not dependent on springtime though. A mere rededication to creativity is all man needs to start the creative juices flowing and then suddenly there is the energy-energy that seems to feed upon itself, so that each moment becomes a fresh start, each experience a new event, and the vision is forward-looking with anticipation and wonder.

The preparation for drawing is aligning ourselves with that creative energy, becoming a channel through which it can find expression.

Think of the universe as being full of energy and that energy is swirling around us waiting to take on some form. All we have to do is open up our consciousness and allow it to enter-and in a way that no one else in the world can, express it.

One of the more potent forms of positive thinking is subliminal input. It is a potent vehicle to guide your mind in the direction you want it to go or change some undesirable direction it has inadvertently taken.

Surround yourself with the best drawings you can lay your hands on and perhaps a few "quotable quotes" of a positive thinking nature.

"Success is the result of an attitude that can find the postive, worthwhile aspects of everything it comes into contact with and denies anything that may be negative or hindering."

Animation has a unique requirement in that its rewards are vaguely rewarding and at the same time frustrating. Our inner dialogue must be amply peppered with encouraging argument. We sometimes have to invent or create an audience in our minds to draw for.

Our fellow artists only partially serve us in that respect. We go to them for criticism not for praise.

We can't see our audience but it is real and it is something to work for.

30 minutes of stretching and aerobics each morning. At home, one hour of competitive tennis every day. Hikes on beach.

Mental hygiene. Must be a personal choice and one which helps keep everything in perspective. Use of religion, philosophy, yoga, zen. Whatever it is, it should serve to activate the juices and to stir up the desire to improve yourself to reach beyond yourself-beyong where you are now. It has to make you want to express yourself, to create.

Impression minus expression equals depression.

Today's drawings bring out the best in me-if I bring out the best in today's drawings. It becomes an expectancy factor, and attitude factor. Two great energy source.

Never drive home from work by the same streets twice. Observe new houses, trees, gardens, and look at them. Look into store windows. See the set up, the merchandise, the signs. Sketch it in the mind's eye. Observe passerby. Posture, walk, rhythms.

Chapter 8
Due Date: October 25

It has been said that you can’t save a bad story with good animation, but no matter how good a story is, it still takes a series of well-gestured drawings to capture the interest and involvement of the audience.

Encourages students to have a one drawing story in mind as they draw from the model so the essence of that story will project itself into their drawing.

In the gesture drawing class we have models that suggest a character, but the artist has the opportunity to fine tune it to suit this or her own liking.

Angles invariably create tension, and intensifies emotions – in a word, grab the attention of the audience. (Telescope model)

Rumi: “Let your impressions be the clarity; your pens and pencils be the language that tries to say it.”

“True seekers keep riding straight through, whereas big, lazy, self-worshipping geese unload their pack animals in a farmyard and say, ‘This is far enough.”

Applies to area like singing. Stop singing. Stop singing words and tones. Concentrate on telling the story. Just “talk” the song on the proper pitch. Study the parts well while learning but while performing, forget the notes, the dynamics, the key, the beat and just tell the story.

You don't want to burden your viewers with how much you know or don't know about anatomy or how well you draw belts and dress seams. Just tell the story with simple, easy-to-read gesture drawings.

Hold the pencil farther up the shaft.

If you're not thinking about the story behind the pose, you're just drawing lines.

Story should be down in 10 lines.

For two models, the desired result is not a dual action, but rather dual characters blended into one, action.

You should surrender to the delights of expressing yourself in drawing. If you don't feel that need now- you should expose yourself to more dramatizing, even if only in the form of books, movies, and plays, thus creating a desire to express those things.

"You must be very careful in the use of a mirror. It teaches an actor to watch the outside rather than the inside."

See it in the mind, and feel it in the body before trying to draw it on the paper.

Kathe Kollwitz

Hours should be spent with anatomy book, old Disney films, and scenes of the old masters like Milt Kahl and Ollie Johnston to develop your mechanical side.

Also read a great variety of authors- novels, biographies, psychology, metaphysics, and of course humor to develop your essence side.

Don't wait for the light to come on-immerse yourself in the search now.

Get involved in subtle and uncommon gestures. The films you work on are uncommon. They require a more diversified range of emotions and a much more sophisticated style for communicating them. It requires a little introspection-analyzing your own feelings to come up with an "uncommon" gesture.

Body language is used to real one's social position, one's attitude, and one's needs; also there are gestures of love, friendship, and hatred.

Practice, observation, constant sketching, "osmosis", and even emulation of the Disney masters past and present should be among your daily pursuits.

Anatomy is not the answer, acting is. If anatomy were the answer, an actor could go out on the stage and just stand there-naked.

Chapter 6
Due Date: October 18

Push the first impression even further.

Scenes are lifeless when Photostats are traced. Live action actors do not move from extreme to extreme as animation characters do. Actors mince through parts like a cloud changing shapes in a breezy sky.

Character picking up a very heavy object. Knees are bent at all times cause of weight.

Take a moment before you start to see the pose.

A drawing has one theme, and that theme must be featured or the drawing disintegrated into a montage of unrelated climaxes.

A drawing is like a parable, which is a story told to convey a lesson. If the story reveals the meaning of the lesson it is a success, but if it is just a cute story, it falls short of its reason for being.

There are as many if not more subtleties in a broad pose as there are in a subdued one. It may not take as much concentration to draw an action pose as a subtle standing pose, for you can get away with more. But if you apply the same effort in seeking out the subtleties of a broad pose as you must do for a less active one, you would end up with a really nice drawing, not merely a recognizable action.

Don't settle for recognition, go for subtleties.

If the animator were to study the mime, he would find that the hands and feet are one of the most important parts of the body in the representation of an action, or of a character, a mood, or a gesture.

Illustrations with only hands and feet, arms and legs explain poses much better than heads and torsos.

Lazy lines. Lines that didn't describe anything like shape, texture, softness or hardness. Same line for a beak and feathers. Feel the difference and inject that feeling into the drawing.

The line used to lay in the pose or action (acting) can be all one kind of line, as long as it is flowing, expressive, flexible, searching, and basic. The line to "finalize" the drawing must describe the shape, texture, and malleability of each part.

When the chin is pulled down, the cheeks stretch and usually there is a bag under the eye.

When the mouth smiles, it pushes all flesh up. You are drawing the top of the cheek. The highest part is found at a point where the mouth would have touched it had the mouth line continued up that far.

Ch 5
Due: Oct 11

"This is what the model is doing, or thinking,"

Draw squash and stretch and weight distribution.
Composition, shape and form, perspective, line and silhouette, tension, planes, negative and positive shapes.

• Weight distribution - how the figure balances itself because of what it is doing.
• Thrust - Body language usually requires a body part to be thrust out. Hip out. Shoulder up, Knees apart, arm out.
• Angles add life and movement. straight up and down is stiff and static.
• Tension - Never draw one appendage without planning a counter move with its opposite. Tension is brought about by the appropriate use of angles in a drawing.
• Pull off the perpendiculars. Pulling from one border and pushing toward the other.
• Figure and ground, figure would fall if something weren't done.
• Between outstretched arm and opposite outstretched leg.
• Imagine a large rubber band connected from hand to hand, foot to foot, knee to knee; hand to knee, head to foot etc. Tension is simply the stretching, pulling, elastic force, pressure or exertion that takes place in a pose or an action.
• Straight against curve. squash and stretch. Emphasize and clarify gesture. In quick "first impression" gesture drawing, two lines is all you need to locate and suggest the various parts of the arms and legs- preferably one straight on the stretch and one curved on the squash.
• If the body leans forward to grasp some object with its outstretched hand, there must be stretch and there must be an adjustment in weight distribution such as counterbalancing with the opposite arm, or placing one foot closer to the object than the other to keep the body balanced.
• Eye contact with the object funnels attention. Path between the hand and object, eyes and object are clear of obstruction. Opening hand in anticipation for the grasph.
• Extremes of the pose - pose prior to a change of direction. 

Search for

• The overall structural personality or character (tall thin graceful soft doll-like comical)
• Essence of the gesture. How figure enacts the pose. feeling evoked. Refer back to the feeling.
• Rules of perspective.
• Important angles. Squash and stretch.

Avoid when gesturing:

• Thick and thin lines. Do not use thick for shadow or to balance a lopsided drawing. Use it to emphasize a tension, thrust, or pull.
• Shading. Save for portrait study.
• Putting more details in one area than others.
• Texture.
• Putting down lines simply to get lines down. Takes more time.
• Using many instead of one.
• Working on one part without think of the opposite part.
• Don't copy.

ASK 102 - 117
Due Date: October 9

Tendency to lean in a walk.

Slower it is, the more you're in balance. Faster, out of balance.

Walking is a process of falling over and catching yourself just in time.

Going down on a walk, we speed up. Gravity is doing some work. Arm is at their widest point.

Women take short steps in a straight line. Legs closed. Little up and down. Skirts restrict.

Men are off the line. Legs apart. Equipment. Body action on strides.

We don't get weight by a smooth level movement.

Exaggerate the up and down from a rotoscope or else it floats.

Up and down of masses gives the feeling of weight.

We feel weight when the mass comes down especially when it's preceeded by a straight.

Contacts - arms opposite to legs for balance and thrust
Passing/Middle/Breakdown/Halfway - Up because leg is straight.
Down. Bent leg. Arm swing is widest.
Up. Push.

Down after contacts. Up after passing.

First thing to do in a walk is set a beat.

Generally people walk on 12's. March time. Animate on 16's or 8's.

We can change the height of the positions.
Lean forward or back?
Kicking out?
Wobbling?

Start with contact positions in planning a walk since the head and body parts are in the middle position. Starting with the down, the image is already static.

Start with contacts for general use. Down for unconventional.

Chapter 4
Due Date: Oct 4

Experiment with switching modes. Color. Dark and light. Masses. Depth.

First Impression - Moment of inspiration: a moment of utter clarity: that instant of pure seeing that Betty Edwards calls the Äh-Ha moment. Extremely vivid summation of all the important elements before you.

Gesture drawing with alive model should be short that a quick first impression can be summoned.
Short pose sketching also give a higher sense of awareness so the creative juices flow more freely. Seeing becomes more acute. Gives a feeling of spontaneity in the drawings. Condenses the whole process of drawing so that a gesture can dominate the wholeness.

Quick sketching encourages experimentation and alternate interpretations. Trying for variations will sharpen observation and hand/eye coordination. Help seek out subtle nuances of the gesture.

Not copying but finding a gesture that will be applicable to any character you might have to animate.

Draw a gesture like you would a simple shape. You do not sketch a bit here or there, going over what you have done and continue or seeing only small sections of line.

Feeling the pose is actually pictturing in your mind doing the pose. What attitude it invokes.

Assume a new mood with each change of pose.

Divide inthree parts. Draw one with the next in peripheral.

ASK 212-216, 273-284
Due Date: Oct 2

In a run, it is nice to have the spine shape reversing.

Pushing the head forward helps a runner get over a hurdle.

"When you think you've gone far enough - go twice as far!"

Get lots of lean into the bodies.

Delay one of the legs to prevent twinning.

If a person jumps in the air, get the arms and feet going to avoid floating and give weight.

To make something more fluid and loose, have:

• More stretch
• Compression
• delayed parts
• More arm reversals
• Secondary action.

 273

Only three thing in animation

1. Anticipation
2. Action
3. Reaction

Use big anticipation. It communicates what is going to happen. The audience sees what is going to happen and so they go with it. We think of things first and then do them.

Usually the anticipation is slower - less violent than the action. Slow anticipation into a sudden transition means a fast action.

Before we go one way - first go the other way.

For walks, start the walk with the foot nearest to where he's going.

Don't ever show the hand hitting the chin. Show the hand after it's past the chin and the chin has moved out of place.

Leave out the contact and show the hand past the hitting point.

Don't do what is expected. Surprise gag.

Giving snaps to things by having a quick anticipation.

A take is an anticipation of an accent which then settles. A strong movement to show surprise or reaaction.

You need at least 6 frames to read any accent.

A hard accent recoils.

A soft accent keeps on going.

Sounds is on the bounce back. One frame after the contact.

ASK 217 - 245

Due Date: September 25

2 flaws:

• Everything moves around the same amount.
• Everything is flashing around all over the place.
• We want to have a stable image and still have flexibility.

Breakdown

• Where we place it brings flexibility. Unstate and get subtle movement which was still 'limber'.
• Gives character to the move.
• Stops things just going boringly from A to B.
• Simple overlap gives us action within an action.
• Ken Harris - Exact tracing of drawing "A" or "B" that favors one or the other.

Body sections

• Head
• Shoulders
• Chest
• Arms
• Pelvis
• Drapery
• Legs
• Feet

People unfold, one part start first, generating the energy for other parts to follow.

Counteraction

• One part goes forward as another part balances by going back.
• One part goes up as another balances by going down.

Breaking means bending the joint whether or not it would actually bend in reality.

To break joints successively-

• Where does the action start?
• What starts moving first?
• I it the elbow? The hips? The shoulder? Head?

In most big actions of the body, the source, the start of the action is in the hips.

If all the joints do not break at the same time, we'll get all the flexibility we'll ever need.

Displace the hit.

WS Chapter 3
Due Date: September 27

Factors of concern

• How far from the object are we and
• What is the angle of perspective.

Rules of perspective

• Surface
• Size
• Surface plus Size
• Overlap
• Surface lines
• Foreshortening.

Draw side view if foreshortening is bothering you.

Symbols in animation are simple. Fewer lines, fewer jitters. No anchor point then hard to keep from drifting.

4 basic words: structure, angle, squash and stretch.

A real solid drawing is one in which the clothing is doing what the body is causing it to do.

How big around is the shoulder opening?
How is it attached to the bodice?
Does it taper?
Does the shoulder seam attach at or below the shoulder?

Drapery lines would have to animate as a secondary action - the primary action being the body itself.

Most Disney characters only have wrinkles at the joints, and then only where there is pressure applied by bending or squeezing. So they'll occur at elbows and knees, and at the waist when seated.

Women's clothes have wrinkles caused by pleats, gathers, puffed sleeves, etc., but you can always count them on two or three fingers.

The Complete Book of Fashion Illustration, by Sharon Lee Tate and Mona Shafer Edwards.

Pipe fold
Diaper fold
Zigzag fold
Spiral fold
Half-lock fold
Falling fold
Inert fold

WS Chapter 2
Due Date: September 18

Simplify sketches. Draw because you like it. Draw and look at drawings.

Cheap sketch book. Interest in life will grow. Ability to solve drawing problems will be sharpened. Creativity will surge. The more you use up energy, the more you produce.

Face it if your drawing is not satisfying. Start another and all the faculties that are required to make a more satisfying sketch are being awakened.

Do quick speedy drawings but also some long detailed ones.

Landscapes have gestures that can be beneficial for analyzing action.

Take notes. Dull maybe become wisdom later.

Walt Stanchfield Chapter 1

Draw ideas, not things; action, not poses; gestures not anatomical structures.
"Drawing a burnt match, the anatomy wouldn't be drawn. Instead a match whose anatomy has been burnt and twisted into an agonizing shape. A shape that if I imagine myself being in that state-if I feel what has happened to that match has happened also to me-then this is the feeling that I have to draw, to portray."

A drawing or scene is final when a sensitive depiction of an emotion has been made.

Drawing for animation is translating an action into drawing form so an audience can retranslate those drawings back into an experience of that action. You want to visualize an action for them to see-that is, to experience. That way you have them in your grasp, your power, and then the story can go on and the audience goes on with it, because they are involved.

"In every physical action, there is always something psychological and vice versa." Constantin Stanislavsky

Animation is really a pantomime art. A good pantomimist, having a thorough knowledge of human behavior, will, in a very simple action, give a positive and entertaining performance. There will be exaggeration in his anticipations, attitudes, expressions and movements to make it all very visual.

The pantomimist, working within human physical limitations, will do his vest to caricature his action and emotions, keep the action in good silhouette, do one thing at a time and so present his act in a positive and simple manner for maximum visual strength.

Gesture is the vehicle used in fitting a character into the role it is called upon to act out. Our interest is in seeing the differences in each personality and their individualistic gestures and, like a good caricaturist, capture the essence of those differences.

Essence, applied to drawing, is the motive, mood or emotion as displayed through the gestures of the physical body.

What is going to make an artist out of you is a combination of a few basic facts about the body, a few basic principles of drawing and an extensive, obsessive desire and urge to express your feelings and impressions.

Illusion of Life (47 - 69)

"When we consider a new project, we really study it... not just the surface idea, but everything about it."

• Squash and stretch
• Anticipation
• Staging
• Straight ahead action and pose-to-pose
• Follow through and overlapping action
• Slow in/out
• Arcs
• Secondary action
• Timing
• Exaggeration
• Solid drawing
• Appeal

A smile defines the lips and the relation to the cheeks.
Don't think you're exaggerating enough. Oswald example.
Little interior lines are not necessary since the whole shape, conceived properly, did it all.

Anticipatory moves lets the audience know what is coming.
Expecting it, they can enjoy the way it is done.

Test staging with silhouettes
Staging an action, be sure that only one action is seen.
No poor choice of angle or upstaging by another action.

Consider perspective and watch how the background relates to the animation.
Vary the intensity of actions. Have accents, surprises, smooth flowing actions contrasting with short, jerky movements, and unexpected timing.

Appendages continue to move after the figure stops. The head, chest, and shoulders usually stop together.

Secondary action should emphasize the main action. The speed of a moment can show mood such as excitement, nervousness, and relaxation.

Chapter 7: Principles of Animation

Drawing Principles
"Hey, you've drawn an arm--what you should have drawn is a stretch."

Liken drawing to the science of cause and effect. The principles of drawing are the cause of a good drawing and when those principles are used, the resultant effect is a good drawing.

Principles of good drawing and creative thinking are dependent on each other. You'll probably come closer to a good effect with a heavy emphasis on creativity--but you will then have to have an extra good cleanup person to put the finishing touches to it.

28 principles

• Pose and mood
• Shape and form
• Anatomy
• Model or character
• Weight
• Line and silhouette
• Action and reaction
• Perspective
• Direction
• Tension to extreme
• Planes
• Solidity
• Arcs
• Squash and stretch
• Beat and rhythm
• Depth and volume
• Overlap and follow through
• Timing
• Working from extreme
• Positive and negative shapes
• Straights and curves
• Primary and secondary action
• Staging and composition
• Anticipation
• Caricature
• Details
• Texture
• Simplification

Dropping jaw can show weight when Tigger is leaping.

A location of a joint is more important than the joint itself. For instance if an arm shape has been established, it cannot have an elbow bend in an improbable place, no matter how well the elbow is drawn.

Drawing element ("Caloric" value)

• Squash and stretch (500)
• Anatomy (300)
• Angles
• Straight against curved line
• Gesture (750)
• Overlap (500*)
• Diminishing size
• Surface lines
• Foreshortening (300*)
• Surface (400*)

* Calories with asterisks are from the rules of perspective.

The closer something is to the primary action, the more it will be influenced.

Animate the action as if you were it.

Every move we make has two elements: anticipation and opposing force. Use angle against angle, squash against stretch, close proximity to openness.

Three poses to study and portray each action:

1. The Preparation - telling the audience something is going to happen,
2. The Anticipation - gathering the forces to carry through with the action, and
3. The Action - carrying out of the intended action.
4. Plus, of course, all the follow--through, overlap, and resulting residuals.