For this demo I used my dog from the Me & Max show.
The process was the same as in the other demos. I started off with my standing pose of the character in a 3/4 front view.
I then went through and acted out the jump action. I did an analysis of what my body was doing and figured out where all the various keys would be for the different parts of the body: when my bum reached it's lowest point then my head and then my arms on the anticipation, then which part moved up first, my legs or shoulders and how was my spine going to bend. Then what my arms and legs would do at the high point, how my nose would overlap and the weight transfer up from my hips into my chest. Which foot would land first, would the toes trail or lead. Would I land on my toes or heels? How would I drag my arms and hands, how would they overlap on the lowest opint. How far was I going to cushion down? How many times should I bounce in the recovery and how much? How will my arms and hands settle.
All these things must be considered before you start your animation. Answer these questions and you'll know what it is that you're going to animate and how each drawing will look.
These are all the drawings I did for the morning class demo:
And this is the alternate version I did for the afternoon class:
I then did a pencil test and played around with the timing to get this:
I put in a one second hold at the beginning of each version.
When I say that I played around with the timing, what I mean is that I'll shoot all the drawings on twos and then watch the animation as a loop and make a decision as to whether or not it looks like it's moving properly. If I think something is moving too fast, I'll add in frames to hold that drawing for longer, which makes it slower. If it's too slow, I'll take out a frame so that it's shot on ones. If it's still too slow, I'll take the drawing out all together, unless it is a primary key that I have to have in, then in that case, I'll take out frames from the drawings before and after the key.
Once I'm satisfied with the timing, I'll make a note on each of the keys as to what the new number is and whether or not there is to be any inbetweens. I'll also indicate with a timing chart if I want something to slow in or slow out.
I'll then go through and clean up the drawings if they're too rough and add any details that might be missing from the original design, like eyes, ears, or hair. I can then go back and add the overlapping action to stuff like the ears and tail. Finally, I just inbetween the whole thing.
Then I'll shoot another pencil test and do any final playing with the timing, shooting stuff on ones and possibly deciding to go back and add inbetweens to the broader actions to smooth them out and shoot those drawings on ones as well.
One final pencil test to be sure it looks exactly the way I want it to and if it's good, I'm done.
Here's the final pencil test.
Here's the final version in color.
Check here for a .pdf of major things to watch out for in this assignment.