AGI Studio 1 - Folio 2 - Work Progress 3

1 - RATIONALE: Intention

While I have created walk cycles before, I’ve never actually created a run cycle. Though there a lot of similarities between the two, there are also a few differences that drew me into wanting to create my own run. I decided early on that I wanted to try make this a completed animation within the time I allocated to myself in 2 weeks, and I’m quite happy with how it ended up turning out. I animated a character from a web series I have been enjoying lately in lockdown, and just decided to give it a shot, needless to say I’m really stoked with how it came out. I put some rules in place before hand to allow me to complete it in the limited time, mainly being the limited frames, and requirements that the hair and cape flow in the wind.

2 - CONTEXT: Field

Movement is one of the key principles to animation, and being able to understand how different characters move, is a key point in emphasising character, personality, and mood within a given scene. The last thing you’d want is for a really dramatic scene to take place, with a character bounding around happily without a care in the world. Sometimes studios are also given very little frames/time to work within and so they need to use minimal frames to express their work. This can be both a style choice, or also a budget choice. With large action movements, like a run cycle, it’s important for an animator to emphasise that sense of power/urgency, depending on what’s needed for the required scene.

3 - METHOD: Conceptual, Technical, Craft & Management

My whole intention on creating these animation tests for this folio, was to hopefully create a piece that I could happily look at and reflect upon given the year’s events. It’s been a really hard time to stay motivated, and to stay focused on one particular topic. Given that, there hasn’t been much work I can look at and feel proud of, it’s all been a lot of pre planning and production work. I’m really pleased with my work with this animation cycle in particular, as I’ve been able to create a completed, coloured, and shaded work, that I feel works quite well for a run cycle.

4 - PRODUCTION: Tools

I’m really happy to say this is my first completed work I’ve animated within Procreate. It was a lot of work, particularly when it came to colouring the animation itself. When it comes to how Procreate works, with animation, each layer is another frame. Given this, you need to merge the colour, lines, and shading all into a single frame, compared to say TV Paint, where you can have whole separate layers for everything. One thing I really like about procreate though, is that you can easily move and adjust the screen placement. I was able to zoom in really close to animate details, compared to using my wacom tablet with TV Paint, which is a lot clunkier to move around.  

Downloads:

Download File: 1603887153_tommyrunfinal.gif
Download File: 1603887169_tommy-run1.gif
Download File: 1603887180_tommy-run2.gif