APRIL 2017
The 'HAPPY/SAD' challenge.
For animators, the ‘pose’ is everything. Without strong poses its impossible to create good animation. Therefore, unless you focus your attentions fully on improving the strength of your poses then your animation bar will never be raised.
I find that giving students ‘emotions’ to play is a great way of unleashing their pose creation potential. To encapsulate a single emotion in a pose – i.e. to tell a great story with a well-crafter gesture drawing – is the essence of all great animation. Therefore, the challenge this month is to do precisely that.
Above are 4 random Google image shots that reflect the emotions of ‘Happy’ and ‘Sad’ – two of each. You do not have to use these poses but you do have to start by creating 2 major storytelling poses of your own – one representing ‘HAPPY’ and one representing ‘SAD’. Make sure that these two opposite emotion poses are the strongest you can create, using a character of your own choice and focusing mainly on ‘body language’.
Next, when you have created your 2 extreme emotional poses, I want you to next place between them 2 more transitional poses that will lead us from the ‘Happy’ pose to the ‘Sad’ pose. Including them all on one image file, I want you to present your 4 character gesture poses in this order… 1) very happy, 2) less Happy, 3) a little Sad and 4) very sad.
It is of course not possible for the majority of you to any animation with the time we have or the facilities you have at your disposal, but that would have been wonderful if it were possible. However, by making the playing field even by you creating 4 sequential, gesture poses like this, you will each be able to lay the foundations for good animation, were you ever later able to do that.
So folks, work hard at the transitional body language of your 4 poses, taking your character from Happy to Sad. You can add props or even a background to each of the 4 gesture poses if you like – although they all have to be on one image and I will solely be judging you on the quality of the 4 transitional gestures you present.
So ‘good luck’ with our April Challenge – and don’t forget it’s the ‘transitional body language’ here that I’m looking for above all else!
Tony. J
Deadline:
Submissions need to be in by midnight on SUNDAY, APRIL 23rd (Pacific Time)!.
Submissions need to be in by midnight on SUNDAY, APRIL 23rd (Pacific Time)!.