Research

Online Sources

• Animation Magazine
• Animation World Network
• Cartoon Brew
• Skwigly
• Stash
• Wired
• Gizmodo
• Zippy Frames
• Animated Views
• Traditional Animation
• On Animation

Print Based

• Stop Motion Magazine
• Cinefex
• 3D World
• Computer Arts Magazine
• Animation Magazine

Books

• The World History of Animation - Stephan Cavalier
• Encyclopedia of Animation Techniques - Richard Taylor
• Women and Animation, a compendium - Jayne Pilling
• The Animator's Survival Guide - Richard E. Williams
• Drawing with Dynamic Perspective: Art for Animation and Live Action Film - Meryl Rosner

Places

• Cardiff Animation Festival - 20th/22nd April 2019
• Manchester Animation Festival - 13/15th November 2019
• The Cartoon Museum - 35 Little Russel Street, London

Pendulum

After the ball bounce, we moved onto arcs and pendulums.

I created a stop motion of a pencil swinging in an arc.



Next, I tied a ball to a string and swung it like a pendulum. Using photoshop, I traced the movements of the ball and created a smooth animation of its movement.



After some peers reviews, I realise that the pencil does not need a frame of it straight up as it makes the movement clunky and reads as a ticking pencil rather than a swinging one. The fluidity of the movement is removed and it becomes mechanical.
I really like my second animation. I moved the placement of the string to make it more natural and used what I had learnt of squash and stretch to show speed and direction. The ball is only spherical at the top points of the pendulum.

My second attempt at a pendulum was much more successful. I remembered not to have a frame of it straight down and spherical as it would look static. I used the string to also show the bounce and swing of the ball. I think adding the hand that holds the string would improve the animation as it would show the swaying of the hand that swings the ball, emphasising the movement and grounding the string.

Ball bounce

In this task we had to create two stop motions using the line tester of a ball bouncing. The first was of a simple ball dropping and bouncing on impact. We focused on squash and stretch to recreate the motion accurately. By distorting the shape of the ball, the motion is slicker and shows the speed of the drop and force of gravity/movement.

Next, we did a second ball bounce but this time it was across the space rather than down.


My first version of this was too slow and I felt that the first bounce looked out of place; the way i distorted the shape of the ball made it look more like an extra force was making the ball move rather than it bouncing on impact.



To fix these errors, I corrected the timing by deleting certain frames.



Then I reshot the first bounce to make it look more natural. When I squished the ball this time, I was more mindful of the shape I was making.
I think that these experiments were successful- I used squash and stretch to create an accurate recreation of the movement I observed. I think this skill will be useful to show speed and also exaggerate movements.
If I had to do it again, I would speed up the first ball bounce experiment. I think it is too slow after editing my second video for the same reason. However, I think that it was through evaluating my second one that I could better reflect on the first.