Planning & Video Reference

As we covered animation workflow in our previous blog, we will talk about planning in this blog.?

Before we begin any shot, it is important to plan and study the reference, plan the timing, and acting choices. This seems to be a tedious and monotonous task for beginners but it saves a lot of time while animating.??

To plan any scene, the first thing we must do is “OBSERVATION”.

?You heard it right!?

Sounds like a piece of cake, right? Hey, but it isn’t. What we mean by observing, is studying the world around us.

A couple of weeks back, we went on a trek, one of my friends was ahead of me, and instead of trying to catch her pace, I called her out to wait, she turned back, gave me a funny look, and went ahead without waiting. Okay, all this story seems boring. Let us dive deeper into this to understand it more

As an animator my first observations were, the way she turned back, the head is the first body part to turn, followed by the entire body with some delay in the spine, chest, shoulders, and arm movements. There is a nice follow-through in her hair and the way it settles down. An animator would see a nice arc on her eyebrows when she gave a funny expression out of tiredness and a little smirk on one side which breaks symmetry in facial expressions. The way she shrugged her shoulders and turned back to carry on her path again shows that she was already tired and not in a mood to wait for anyone.?

Observation is the utmost most important skill we all must learn as animators. So, train yourself to observe the world around you and do not creep out people by staring at them :D wear sunglasses ;) With these points, planning your animation becomes your second nature and you are already on your way to becoming the best in what you do.

In the planning phase, video references play an important role.?

Most beginners think that using video references is cheating, but it plays a significant role. The references will help in making the animations better in delivering believable and unique performances.

The reference must be interpreted and understood. Observe your reference thoroughly, Find the key poses, note down the in-between poses, and observe the line of action in each pose and how we can make it better in 3D. Think of pushing the poses, making them more readable and appealing. There are some online tools to study video references, one I would recommend is Syncsketch.

Always remember, reference is just a guideline for blocking key poses and rough timing. Start the blocking using references and apply your art to it. Do not rotoscope the reference, it will result in lifeless and sloppy animations.

There are so many reference materials we can find online, or you can shoot the reference materials of your own.?

Types of reference materials:

1.??????Photography

2.??????Comic books

3.??????Live-action movies

4.??????Personal reference?

Until next time, Happy Animating :)