Stephen's Animation!

Hey everyone!  I decided to take a break from the History of Video Game Music series to share what has been demanding all of my time: animation!  It's been a lot of fun and is something I love to do.  Here are some of my completed animation assignments I've done thus far.

This is called the bouncing ball test.  It looked like a bunny that was hopping at first so I put bunny ears on the guy.  After changing the timing, it looks better.  As the bunny descends and ascends, he stretches.  When we lands, he squashes.  Squash and stretch are one of the principles of animation.

This is your typical walk cycle.  Arms are interesting because you have to break the joint at one point to make the animation smooth.  It's crazy, our eyes don't notice the broken joints in characters because of the illusion of motion.

This one is another walk cycle but it stays in place.  The challenge with this one was making it believable that he was staying in place.  Adding more detail, like muscles was a lot of fun.

This is the quadruped walk cycle.  Quadrupeds can sometimes have two different leg movements.  It can get pretty frustrating.  If I was going to draw an elephant, that would be a different story.

Animation has been a lot of fun.  Seeing my drawings come to life is just amazing.  Drawing all of this has also made me appreciate how much work goes into animated films.  One second of animation can be about an hour of work--and that's just one movement.  Tails, eyes, clothes, and other details is often done after the principle animation is finished.

Hope you enjoy what you've seen here.  I'll be sharing more in the future.

-Stephen