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Job No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
Proof - 2 Page:69
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Job No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
Proof - 2 Page:69
Inevitably, capturing the work of facial expressions requires practice, and extensive observation of models and people in everyday life. Depicting emotion or physical states – surprise, fear, drunkenness, anger, concern, etc – requires paying special attention to the body, eyebrows, eyes, mouth and forehead. The expressions of different emotions are sometimes quite similar (for example, anger and confusion), so it is necessary to pinpoint what the difference is and to give it particular emphasis in the drawing. Once this emotional range has been addressed, then the technical aspects of executing mouth shapes should be looked at. Watching a model deliver vowels and consonants is very helpful in this regard.
Job No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
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Job No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
Proof - 1 Page:70
Dope sheet a planning tool for animators that allows all intended visualised action and sound to be
broken down by frame, scene and sequence to provide instructions to the rest of the team. Also known as an exposure sheet or a camera-instruction sheet.
Practice
For the character animator, the capture of facial expression and physical movement is completely instrumental in the construction of character. Many animators hone their skills in this area first by observing animals. Because so many animals feature in films from the United States, it is important to truly observe the animal in order to avoid slipping into the clichés of animal representation already established by countless cartoons. Animal observation remains pertinent for drawing, however, because animals express themselves almost purely through their physical presence and actions.
In traditional scripts, the human character often has a profile, and may be understood through his actions and his dialogue throughout the story, ie his character is deduced from text and interpreted accordingly. In animation, characters are often defined first through their design – in model sheets, action sketches, etc – and are therefore informed by their physical demeanour and actions first. Characterisation is first and foremost, though, not who a character is, but what a character does. It is crucial, therefore, to identify the traits within a personality that makes a character recognisable and readily visualised. By looking at animals, prospective animators need to identify what it is that makes that animal so recognisably true in and of itself.
Once the soundtrack has been heard over and over again, the animator should identify the key expressive words, and begin to use a dope sheet to notate the planning of the vocal expression in relation to its animation. Wherever the animator thinks the delivery is at its most exaggerated or extreme, this will be where the corresponding key frames should go. Again, such a sequence should be executed first as a thumbnail storyboard, and the sound matched to it as quickly as possible, however inexact and unspecific. The proper timing of the action is crucial in that it must ultimately match the timing of the vocal delivery. A line-tester should be used to carefully match the timings of the key drawings against the sound; the drawings can then be numbered and entered on the dope sheet. It will then become clear how many in-betweens are necessary. This normally leads to the identification of key sub-poses/vocal actions that define the complete movement. Once all the main drawings are in place and timed out, the mouth movement and the last in-betweens can be executed, and follow-on animation, eg hair and floppy elements, can be
completed. At all points, reference should be made to the developmental drawings of the animals/characters.
Drawing characters
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aJob No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
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Job No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
Proof - 2 Page:71 Thinking animation > Drawing characters Mouth studies artist Kimberley Rice
Kimberley Rice here gives consideration to when the cat opens its mouth, recognising that lip-syncing is pertinent to the movement of the animal overall. In her sketches of some of the characters from Disney’s
Sword in the Stone (1963), she
considers mouth positions as expressive indicators in advance of lip-sync.
Job No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
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Job No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
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title
Azur and Asmar
animator
Michel Ocelot
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Job No:01055 Title:Basics Animation: Drawing for Animation
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