Animation Boot Camp - Week 2 - Takes

Week 2 of Animation Boot Camp was takes. Takes are a way of reacting with an emotion shift, that includes an anticipation, overshoot, and then a settle. An important thing to remember is that not all emotion changes are takes. Since I talked a lot about the rigs in last weeks work, this week I'll skip a lot of that and jump straight into the takes.

Here I was going for a smooth confident guy, possibly looking at a girl he likes. He then takes a closer look only to be surprised by what he sees, what he sees is up to the viewer, but the fun part is making the audience guess. Here is a breakdown of the 4 main steps of the take.

On the last day I really wanted to have some fun with the take so I tried to push the Norman rig to its limits to try and emulate a Tex Avery style. This time our character really sees something he likes but at first he's not quite sure. So the emotion shift here would be curiosity to very surprised.

Sometimes you can add appeal to your animation takes by giving a bit of story to your scene. This may be adding some sort of antic to the beginning or end of the animation. Its also incredibly important to treat the eyes with a lot of care (especially when the camera is more zoomed in.) Keeping in mind the mechanics of the eyes will add more life to your animations. Some include leading with the eyes (having them look at something before the head turns all the way), blinking to anticipate turns, and including eye darts. All these factors together will add to the animation. Here are the key poses for the second take.

Next time we're taking a look at peels, a way to add some secondary motion when moving hands and feet around.