Character Walks (Walk 2 - young child full of joy for life) [Feedback]

[Second Year] Performance and Character

Week 3 - 7th Oct 19 (P.a.C.):

Reflective Evaluation

Following on from animating three different types of walks with the joyful kid animation I still must do a rejected lover animation. As with animating the limp I tried again to use the Keith Rig and did produce a joyful skip animation, however, this proved very difficult and I was not happy with the animation produced. Therefore, I decided to use the Buckid Rig again because as previously I felt more familiar with this having used it last year and successfully for the limp animation. 

As mentioned previously in Blog 1 I felt uneasy in my chair which made me feel unsettled and unable to focus. Also, similarly to Blog 1 I still felt a little agitated with trying to master the Keith Rig despite having tried to familiarise myself with this previously and trying one of the animations with this Rig.  I only used this for this animation as my mum said that she felt it would be a positive experience to try to get used to a different Rig and that ‘practice makes perfect.’  However, I soon realised after unsuccessfully trying to get to grips with the Keith Rig that I needed to step away and use Buckid Rig and revisit the joyful walk version of a previous student’s animation to be able to move forward.  By doing this I felt more self-assured that I could now produce the animation. (Kharn141, 2016 [Joy])

The feedback I got from my classmates in today's Formative Feedback day was very constructive.

Me: I also tried this with the Keith rig but struggled sooo much.

Me: This was the hardest one.

Johny: So, you know in (the joyful skip) there's quite a lot of up and down motion. I would say initially putting the body on more of an incline, leaning forward. So, it's actually the body having a forward lean and then the feet are coming out to catch and propel the body forward.

Bobby: At the beginning you can kinda see the foot closest to us are slides backwards at the beginning of the walk.

Me: Just because I thought it was starting to get ready to do the skip.

Johny: You’re always going to lose a bit of belief when the feet slide especially at the same time. There can be reasons for that, but you know consider that at least planting one of the foot. Look you got really high production values on this. So, you've actually created a little render environment which is good. So, watch out for things like when the feet are sitting on the ground plane because they're not quite touching the ground plane it's like you can see underneath his feet slightly where the shadows go, I might be a hallucinating that bit.

Caroline: I think if you're trying to do a skip, when Johnny was taking about the leaning of the body. I think when doing a skip, you need to think about the up and down movement, using the knee as a driving body up into the jump.

Johny: So, there's a flying position in the skip, led by the knee and it's a really unmistakable pose , you can really see it.

Me: The Keith rig looks a bit terrible here, but I tried to do the best I could with this rig, but it didn't work out very well.

Johny: I think you might be defying physics a little bit there. It looks like its floating a little bit there. That can work, you can defy physics, you can hang the character in the air a little second longer. I almost feel like his feet want to (flailing in the air as he hangs up there), he could be madly in love because he's floating on air. He could get away with that.

On evaluating the animation when using the Keith Rig the figure was floating too much and he was very slow in his skips and did not show much weight as he came down which appeared unnatural.  Also, when the character started to skip his feet slipped along the floor, which did not accurately portray how skipping looked in reality.  

On reflection, I now realise that the reason this was occurring was because I was unable to portray the character going from the step of the skip to gain speed for the skip.  Furthermore, this was occurring because like before (with the limp character) I was unable to visualise my character skipping, which made animating difficult.  I recognise that this may have been due to not having previous experience of doing this type of animation, and that I tend to learn from errors I make and then practicing making them right.

(TeachThought Staff, 2019): highlight that when learners are aware of errors when working on problems, they can overcome these issues and work at a deeper level and become more autonomous than learners who are provided with the correct solutions and not have to work the issues out for themselves.  Evaluating my own problem solving in this task, I would agree with this statement as I have found that by determining and fixing errors myself, I can now use this learning experience for the next time I am carrying out a similar task. 

Due to time constraints I firstly, worked on the parts of the animation I felt confident with and then moved on to work on the errors I had made.  However, I now acknowledge that it would have been more productive to work on the errors first because these were more difficult and more time-consuming, therefore, giving these more time and attention would have been better time management. I now recognise that by leaving the parts I was most familiar and confident with until last I would not have felt as stressed because the difficult elements would have been sorted out first.

Furthermore, after completing the animation and as mentioned in Limp Blog (Jordan; 2019, 7 Oct), I also recognised that the facial expressions of the character did not show enough joy, which highlights to me the need to consider this for future animations and to ensure that I am fully able to visualise the effects I am looking for before commencing the animations.

Furthermore, after further evaluation and analysis and taking into consideration the class feedback received, for future animations requiring a Joyful skipping character, I would record myself or ask my nieces or nephews to skip in joyful way in order to mentally visualise how this looks and to help direct my animation strategies.  I could also look for resources online such as films, or from children’s television series which would help depict skipping in a joyful way and with natural childlike qualities to help my character appear more naturally joyful whilst skipping. 

I will, therefore, dedicate more time to carry out appropriate research when animating specific qualities in my characters prior to beginning the animation, which would also help with my visualisation of characteristics which will be required.  Furthermore, I also need to carry out observation which would transform movement into animation (Jordan; 2019, 1 Feb) which will be beneficial for me when working on elements of movement, expression and exaggeration of naturalistic characteristics.

I need to become a better observer and focus on seeing rather than just looking at something. I need to be more immersed in the how and why of the object I am observing to be able to understand and create a high level and realistic animation. (Gain, 2016)

References

Gain, A. M. (2016, 25 Nov). O.T.A. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://alicemegangain.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/o-t-a/ [Accessed 27/11/19]

Jordan, L. (2019, 1 Feb). Animation 102 (Briefing & Buckid Poses). [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://lewisjordan160998.blogspot.com/2019/02/animation-102-briefing-buckid-poses.html (said by Johny Byrne Lecturer)

Jordan, L. (2019, 7 Oct). Character walks Animation (Walk 1 - Person Walking with Limp) [Feedback]. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://lewisjordan160998.blogspot.com/2019/10/week-3-character-walks-animation-walk-1.html

Kharn141, (2016, 16 May). Second year animation - Joyful Child [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/rBLZY4FDBQ8

TeachThought Staff, (2019). 9 Ways To Help Students Learn Through Their Mistakes. Retrieved from https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/9-ways-help-students-learn-mistakes/

Williams, R. (2001). The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators (pp. 346). Retrieved from http://index-of.co.uk/Animation/The%20_Animator%27s_Survival_Kit.pdf