MY Animation

Let’s get something straight. I hate writing these journals.

I’ve complained in the past that writing about being on an art course while trying to complete said course is like trying to write a dissertation on tightrope walking while walking on a tightrope. Counter intuitive.

But this time it’s been worse than ever. I’ve spent more time writing about my work in the past week than I actually have working! If I was a tightrope-walker I’d still be back at the ladder typing about what I was about to do while the audience got bored beneath me.

 

So what has happened that I can learn from and talk about?

With my format decided for me all I had to do was get to work. But with very little time. I talked the Morgan (Who will come up a lot in this journal) about what I could do in the time I had. We agreed I’d save time by using second long animation cycles and and boils (cycles of two or three near identical frames of animation used over and over again to give the illusion of a still image without it looking flat and lifeless). So I could animate more. However Morgan insisted for the first few drops of rain to sync them to the first few piano notes. I baulked at the Idea. I haven’t animated to sound of any sort since 2010. I wanted to do everything either to a cycle or make it a “Moving Background”. That’s apparently when you draw a whole image over and over again  to give the illusion of a camera moving. That’s not way I wanted to use it. It’s just that that a lot of the sequences that couldn’t be cycled like a ship cresting a wave

were basically an object moving in a straight line  from left to right or right to left. Perfect for animated backgrounds. But those would be very time consuming. Hence the need for cycles and boils to balance things out. Even working at the miniature scale I mentioned in  “What I’ve done so far” https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/11/04/what-ive-done-so-far/ I would have very litttle time to do this work in. So I’d need to cut corners where I could.

 

I chose to work solely with my coloured pencils. Sticking to one medium would keep me focused and save time.

I made keys for all the sequences so I could make the whole thing if I had time.

It felt good to be back at the animator’s easel and lightbox. Thanks to having done these thumbnails I was able to draw the keys effortlessly. It took time. But I don’t remember it being hard the way drawing normally is. Some of them even came out fantastic. Looking like miniature works of art.

I only varied off using the colour pencils for the river plants one. Using crayons instead.

I think the choice was justified.

 

I had all I needed to make the whole thing. I got very little of this actually done. I won’t make excuses for myself. There are things I could have done better. All the problems I mentioned in “Why am I so bad at this?” https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/11/04/why-am-i-so-bad-at-this/

And Learning about learning https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/10/29/learning-about-learning/ were still dogging me. But I gave it my best shot.

I came in everyday and stayed in late. Forcing myself to keep working even when I felt like I was dying.

 

 

I started with the boil for the daylight raindrops

And when that was done I started making the rain cycle

Once again I decided to animate on 3s. The industry minimum. It meant I could have second long cycle in eight drawings. Considering I already had two keys for this cycle it would only take six drawings. What a way to save time.

I found the darker colour of the raindrops made things a bit a bit hard to follow I’d sometimes draw raindrops in the wrong frames. And erasing or covering over things in coloured pencils is not easy.

I realised putting the pencils back in the box every time I finished using one was wasting time. I needed a system. I selected all the right colours and kept them in on the desk under the animator’s disk.

Not only did this cut down on time reaching over to my pencil box over and over again, but it meant I HAD to pick a limit on the colours I used. I found that it was a good way to keep my work focused. And it probably mad the art better too.

 

 

The cycle was bit tiring. Before I did the lead-in to the cycle. The first few raindrops. I would do the moon scene first.

I pulled out the keys I made and made an in between. And I realised that I couldn’t see any of the things I was tracing because the colours were too dark. I came up with a solution. I’d animate the moon and clouds moving with pencil drawings

And then I’d trace over the pencil drawings to make the actual animation. Effectively animating and then inking on my own. Something most classical animators never did.

But to save time I’d animate on 5s. I knew that would look bad. 3s is the industry minimum. If something is on screen for 4 frames of more it will look static to the viewer. I knew what i was getting into. I did a cycle of waves crashing against a cliff on 5s last year. I knew it would look janky. I just hoped the fact the moon was moving very slowly would counteract this. It didn’t. in fact I think it hurt the illusion of any movement except the end. I actually the the waves from last year looked better. I think the reason for that is then I was making small objects move across a large amount of space. Here I was  making a large object move across a small amount of space. I guess that made things choppier perhaps? Maybe I should make sure that objects moving slowly have a higher framerate? One thing I know didn’t have was despite all my best efforts I couldn’t keep the placement consistent. The scale meant I didn’t have enough room. That and the lines being too thick to keep it easily on track. it was still probably my fault in the end. But the odds were against me.

I did learn somethings though.

The keys for made the moon had multiple shades of blue in the sky.

This looked nice. But it was time consuming and I hadn’t gotten the balance right. So I  downgraded to one type of blue. And I think it looks okay.

I also think my linework and understanding of lighting got better when making this. All the right details are in focus and the that moon sure looks bright. i was also able to phase out some extra details tat weren’t needed. Making the piece look better and quicker to animate. If I want to keep making this type of animation I’m going to have to refine both these skills.

So no, while the moon animation didn’t come out good I don’t regret making it. It was a learning experience.

I may also try animating on fours in the future. Just to see if there’s a way of getting an okay result with them.

 

I know had to do the lead in raindrops for the cycle. and something in me just caught fire. I told Morgan I wanted to animate them to sound.

We opened premiere and used a neat little tool to find out exactly what frame in the animatic each note landed on. Here’s what it looks like

The green arrows tell me where the notes are

Useful eh? Morgan says back in the old days they’d

So I had nine notes (It looks like eight because the first two are very close together) to animate as single raindrops as the rain started. We pulled out an old fashioned X-sheet

to figure out where all the frames would go. The nine notes would be the raindrops hitting the water. And I’d animate the raindrops falling and splashing around those pics. Any extra frames with no rain would be filled with the bail frames.

I’d animate this on 3s, moving into 2s or 1s whenever the raindrops  separate raindrops  or splashes overlap with each other (Which happened a fair bit).

 

Making this felt good. Animation is intoxicating because when it gets challenging you feel like you’re using all of your brain. every action feels like it has weight and purpose to it.

I’d animate the raindrops first, and then draw the background behind them. And I think I genuinely started to get better at working with coloured pencils. I was able to use light touches, soft blends, hard lines, and focuses with more intent and precision. Making frames that had more visual structure and appeal than I normally do. I was also able to use the scaling down of details i’d discovered on the moon sequence to simplify the drawing and work faster a tiny bit. Though I could have done better there.

 

It took me long time. Not helped by all the writing I had to do on the side (Actually the course demanded I do more writing than drawing at this point). But I got it done.

I must thank Morgan for finding a camera lense that could film these small drawings close up and still get good lighting. And for filming my work while I was still writing and drawing like a madman.

I’ve barely eaten or slept this week. My last real meal was breakfast on Monday (BTW. The cooked breakfasts they serve here are excellent). I think I’ve given it my all.

 

Yesterday Morgan and I sat down to film the Raindrops start. Morgan seemed to be baffled and horrified by the timing I’d drawing up. Animating on 3s is strange enough to him being old school and never going below 2s (If only I had such lesure). But jumping from 3s to 2s to 1s and back again seemed like black magic and pure stupidity to him. But I felt i knew what I was doing. I had to.

We filmed the rain starting and the rain cycle. And it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever made.

 

Ever since I decided on pursuing animation I’ve wanted to make pure hand-drawn animation. Drawing everything in the frame each time. Giving it the fluidity and sparkle and life that only this kind of animation has.

My main inspiration was the work of the Illuminated Film Company. Who would do the best to capture the look of hand drawn picture books in animation, And they would often completely hand draw everything for characters, or even whole shots. I love the living, breathing, magically quality this gave their animation. Especially on the film Grandpa

The whole world feels alive in this animation. Not even Disney animation has this kind of vibrancy to it.

Grandpa was based and book by John Burningham. A man with a very sketchy style

The fact they were able to almost recreate his style in animation amazes me. Morgan says that must have done it using cels and a certain type of pencil. Hopefully I can try this technique some day.

Illuminated used this technique in a more refined and beautiful, but more restrained style in their most famous film The Snowman.

These are the biggest influences on my style. But I was also inspired by the backgrounds and some of the animation details in The Angel and the Soldier Boy.

See the ship on the sea at the time code 1:09 to really see how stunning this film looks at it’s best.

I think this type of animation has the same human element that makes stop-motion so appealing and more. It feels beautiful and mysterious.

 

Over time I found independent animators who would do even rawer work without cels at all. Just pure animation for every frame.

Animators like Fredric Back. Who’s film ‘The Man Who Planted Trees’ may be the most beautiful animation ever.

Or British animator Karren Kelly Whose work has a strange energy to it.

And it goes without saying that these works not only determined what type animation I would make and what I’d make it with. But how I’d draw it to begin with.

 

When I finally saw MY pure hand-drawn animation I was, for the first time, amazed by my own work. And I am not ashamed to show it next to my influences. I’m not on their level yet. But When I saw my raindrops falling for the first time I KNEW this was exactly the type of animation I want to make for the rest of my life. Nothing will ever be as good to me again. I hope in time I can incorporate the strengths of all these influences into my animation.

I only have 25 seconds of real animation. But here is my mission statement. Here is the sort of animation I want to make.

I think I did well.

And at Morgan’s insistence, here is the verion with the animatic after the animation runs out

And here is the animatic in full.

 

Editing this thing was complete hell. Even worse than usual. It took most of the day. Without Morgan and our computer expert Neil I would have been totally lost. It feels like Adobe Premiere was made just to make people’s lives unbearable. The worse it got the more I feel certain that I was right in choosing to work analogue. It means I have to put up with as little of the BS as possible.

 

My thanks once again., To Neil  for making Premiere useable. To Own for believing in me. And To Morgan for everything.

 

Now I need a shower and a shave.  Maybe something to eat too.