Nick's Daily Animation Study Thread

[NickFechter]

This new thread, along with the other new one that I just created, are part of my New Year's Resolution to improve my ability to draw and animate.

I may have been posting daily drawings on the O.D.A.D. the past few months, and I'm happy to say that doing so has somewhat improved my drawing skills.

But let's face it, I am one laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy butt-hole

I certainly do not feel that I have been nearly studying and drawing as much as I should be, and because drawing and animating is so much like exercising, if you don't step up your game you will eventually hit a plateau were your skill level stays the same. Never improving. Stagnant. Dead...

I've been waging a war with laziness for far too long, and these two threads are going to help me win this war once and for all!

This particular thread will deal with studies of animation, a subject that I haven't actually been studying at all as of late, and that makes me reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally upset...

Therefore, upon this thread I promise to post AT LEAST 2 seconds of animation at the end of each week, which roughly averages out to 6 animation drawings a day, which also will be posted on this thread each and every day. For the purposes of study I will be only animating the classical flour sack character, who can be easily conformed to exercises dealing in technical and entertaining aspects of animation due to it's simple construction. Effective January 1st, 2011

Why am I doing this? Because, I sincerely want nothing more than to be held accountable for my shortcomings, and establishing a goal on a public forum puts my integrity at risk, and without my integrity, how could I even stand to look myself in the mirror each morning?

I want to model these two threads after the ODAD thread (which I still plan on maintaining by the way). So I don't want this type of open commitment to be solely used by me, everyone and anyone is free to join me and embark on this journey to improvement. All I ask in return from any participants is that we help hold each other accountable for any slacking that may occur.

And please! If anyone sees me starting to slack on my commitment, feel free to call me names, send me nasty emails, and call me out on my failure to uphold my word.

This new year I AM GOING TO IMPROVE MYSELF!

DEATH TO LAZINESS!
Nick Fechter

[Rodney]

Of all of your current Daily taskings this is the one that I'm concerned with the most but I'm impressed with the way you've broken the tasking down to (more or less) six animation drawings. I think it is important not to burn yourself out and it can be so easy to do just that... life always interferes.

Based on my understanding of the drawing of extremes and inbetweens (see the ongoing topic on drawing extremes) I find your goal very approachable and attainable. If it was full animation on 1s... I'd be calling the head shrinks! Six drawings is very doable but 48 seconds a week on 1s (1152 drawings a week... give or take) that'd be a whole other thing!

When approaching animation from the standpoint of Pose to Pose (extreme to extreme) with a Breakdown/Inbetween in the middle I think you are set for success here. It sounds like you'll be targeting animation (more or less) on 8s with six extremes per day... three basic poses per animation. Something like that. I was wondering if you had miscalculated the number of drawings required for 48 seconds of animation until I re-read that you expected to be drawing six drawings per day. 6x6 is 36 drawings a week (gotta give yourself at least one day of rest per week to reset, refocus and recover!) but that really will only account for about 4 seconds of animation on 8s. Not sure where you'll make up those other 44 seconds but if the key poses are there and the extremes and breakdowns in place the remainder is mostly brute force labor.

Someone validate my math please!
48 seconds at 24 frames per second divided by 8 (that's 2 extreme drawings and one breakdown for each second)... wouldn't that require 144 drawings?

If planning/thumbnailing out 48 seconds of animation versus full animation that becomes infinitely more doable of course. I see wisdom in focusing on the flour sack.

From a purely practical aspect I'm not sure I'd limit yourself to the flour sack for the entirety of 2011 but you are the best one to gauge your own interests and capabilities. You've certainly got my support all the way. One of the things most online communities devoted to animation experience is a distinct lack of focus on moving/changing images... animation!

Rock on Nick!

[macprofilms]

This sounds right.

[NickFechter]

Whoops! Did I say 48 seconds!? Dear lord I'm stupid! I really meant 2 seconds of animation a week (48 frames, DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR )

That's for pointing that out Rodney! I've got proof-read my posts more often...

And thanks for the nice little quote Macprofilms, even though I do all of this from my laptop, buts it still a witty pun

[Rodney]

Whoops! Did I say 48 seconds!? Dear lord I'm stupid! I really meant 2 seconds of animation a week (48 frames,

...and here you had me thinking you were the King of Animation!
(The future is not yet written... you still may be)

Got it. 48 frames it is then.
I do think you may need 8 drawings per week though and not 6... for 2 seconds (2 feet of animation).

My rationale... if animating on 6s:
1-7 (first two extremes)
7-13 (2nd set)
13-19 (3rd)
25-31 (4th)
31-37 (5th)
37-43 (6th)
43-49 (7th)

More or less.

This presumes a cycle where frame 1 and frame 49 are the same. If that is the case you'd only have to draw 7 drawings otherwise you'd have to draw an eigth. Of course if the following week you begin where you've left off...Woo Hoo! Right on schedule. There's your drawing-a-day.

Okay everybody, I'm just learning myself so feel free to call me out on this... I'm not known for my math.
Edit: Perhaps the math would work best with you drawing on 6s. That's what it appears I've broken it down to so I've adjusted my factoring up there.

You've got me on pins and needles here.

[NickFechter]

http://www.donbluthanimation.com/vid...?showvideo=616

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Here's what I've managed to create so far, and tomorrow I plan on breaking it down (although that might end up not occuring or at least being posted rather late due to my busy schedule tomorrow).

I think this thread, out of all my other threads, is more welcome to critique. So please, feel free to offer any advice if you have any!

Comments and Suggestions are Welcome!
Nick Fechter

[arif]

Whoops! Did I say 48 seconds!? Dear lord I'm stupid! I really meant 2 seconds of animation a week (48 frames, DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUR )

oh....now i got it..i was amazed when you wrote you would do 48 seconds per week....wow....ahhahahahahahah.....
i cant critic this thread as i am far behind of this topics....:laughing:...jsut keep going on....

[NickFechter]

Hi Everyone,

I apologize for not having posted anything yesterday. As Rodney had pointed out, life tends to interfere with our work, and life certainly did some interfereing into my drawing time yesterday...

I'll be making up for it today with 12 animation drawings, so I'm going to be posting a more complete pose test at some point today.

All the Best,
Nick Fechter

[NickFechter]

Hey Everyone,

I regret to inform all of you that I'm having family issues as of late, and I am taking a brief absence from the forum. I thank all of you for your words of encouragement, and I hope to return to my studies soon.

All the Best,
Nick Fechter

[NickFechter]

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

I'm excited to say that there's a local film festival that's going to be held in my area, hosted by a studio called R-Squared Productions. They'll also be hosting an amateur film contest at this festival, and I plan on entering!

The deadline for this contest is April 18, and I plan on creating a partially animated animatic for my submission, since full animation would be beyond my capabilities for what I plan on making.

Above are inspirational sketches of the story I want to tell, here's the story itself:

On a warm and beautiful night, a peaceful village of chickens begins to settle down for the night, unaware that a devious couple of thieves lurk in their midst with even more devious intentions. Two conniving Possums, the older named Bumblebee and the younger named Jupiter, silently make their way through the sleeping village to the shrine that lies in the village center. In this shrine lies a golden egg, worshiped by the chickens for it's beauty and its similarity to an average chicken egg. Bumblebee and Jupiter, however, only care for the egg's monetary value, and plan to steal it. Once they finally reach the egg, Bumblebee realizes that he would have to share the wealth of the egg with Jupiter, convincing him to concoct an evil scheme of his own. Allowing Jupiter to take the egg from the shrine, Bumblebee quickly runs over to the cermonial gong, bangs on it loudly, and conceals himself. The gong alerts the chicken villagers, who manage to capture a bewildered and confused Jupiter before he could get away with the egg. Once Jupiter is carried away to imprisonment, Bumblebee comes out of hiding and steals the egg for himself. The following day, Bumblebee is confidently strolling through a field with the golden egg in hand, happy that the wealth of the egg will bring him fortune that he no longer has to share. But suddenly, the egg hatches, revealing that the golden egg was not a chicken egg, but a dragon egg. The dragon hatch-ling then incinerates Bumblebee with his fiery breath, proving that evil wishes, like chickens, always come home to roost.

I hope to begin the storyboard process very soon, so keep an I out for that!

All the Best,
Nick Fechter