This has been the hardest piece of coursework of my life.
I loved the idea of working in multi-media animation. The idea set my mind alight with possibilities.
In the end I settled on making a marble run animation. I could use one background and make the balls out of plasticine, card, paint, and other materials. And that’s what I did!.
I now have a fifteen second marble run which when looped shows a ball changing colour and size as it moves down the run before vanishing into a hole and reappearing again endlessly.
I found some mediums easier than others. Stop motion came as naturally to me as a duck takes to water.
Cut-out animation gave me a super-smooth movement that is a joy to watch. My first attempt with paint used like cel animation was a nightmare. But the second attempt where I painted, scrubbed out and repainted the ball was not only really easy but really fun! I must do it again. My one piece of digital 2D was hell. It came out alright. But I stand firm in saying my brain does not handle computers well. I can only learn programs mechanically like a bird in a Skinner-box. The bird does not know how the food button works. Only that it works sometimes.
My greatest hell and greatest joy was doing 12 frames of classical animation. Drawing not only the ball but the whole background over every time. I Had to pull overtime twice. Once working until midnight the result is not very good. The spacing is all wrong and the colours on ball are not consistent enough.
Here it is again slowed down
But instead of discouraging me it just makes me want to try harder. I’ve put more effort into this half second of animation than I have anything else in my life.
Over these past two weeks I’ve learn that spacing is just as important as timing. That I love animating but hate filming my work. And that hand drawn animation lights a fire in me to create that nothing else in the world does. Even if it’s harder than Far Cry 1 on nightmare mode.
I Shall return!
John's Learning Journal 
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