In my 503 feedback, I was told that to improve, I should draw more in a sketchbook and practice the 12 Principles of Animation for a better understanding of motion. Naomi has been hosting life drawing classes during covid and I have always thought I would be too uncomfortable to enter that scene. But I think understand a good line of motion is necessary. Though it was hard to have dramatic and exaggerated poses in a small bedroom space.
Apparently I joined in their first duo model class, which was very hard for me to keep up. I started off with a very crayon like pencil that kept catching the paper and I slowly realised that the pencil helped my flow a lot better. I think I gradually started to understand the process more and did become slightly more comfortable - though I was self conscious the entire time, even behind a screen.
Listening to a few of the professionals KK has gotten us all in contact with, they pressed how mandatory these sessions are and I think it will help me if I keep attending. But I do also know there are places like Line Of Action to help with life drawing if I still find it uncomfortable. Or equally, I watched a free talk by the CG Master Academy, and the speaker was saying how important it was for him to make his own reference videos. He works in a production where you get the storyboards and then he has to animate the scene 2D, and then rig it in to 3D. But he said he likes to record a visual of himself before the 2D because keys in a storyboard don't show subtle actions. Storyboard/animatic artists don't think about where blinks or hand gestures need to be.
Another important thing they mentioned about the 12 principles was the idea that the 'bouncing ball' isn't always the same material. And I think that when I animate with an intention to exaggerate, I always assume the material is stretchy rubber. But in the case of King Kong, the bouncing ball becomes a hard bowling ball. Once one motion has happened, the ball needs to be given momentum and weight to gain power again. If two bowling balls collide, they roll slightly and ping and move at equal speeds. Equally, you can have a character like a flea who is so animated and exaggerated that the bouncing ball doesn't have time to squash and stretch because it's so extremely light weight it won't have enough pressure to squash on the floor. Pixar use hand gestures and expressions to create most of Woody's appeal in the opening shot, before you learn his story, setting and personality traits. He waves his arm around a lot as a secondary action whilst he's walking and talking - and they make it so the hand is always guiding the eye to where Pixar want you to look - between his expression and the movements of his feet.
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