The follow through exercise was one of the earliest animations we did within class, proceeded only by the bouncing ball. I initially used CC Animate to create this exercise as TV Paint wasn’t available and I wanted to see if I was able to use another digital program. I found Animate quite difficult to use and initially struggled with figuring out the program. Once I had gotten into a bit of a groove with Animate, I decided initially to copy my bouncing ball frames as a base and then work on the follow through elements separately to create the following.
Although I wasn’t happy with the outcome, I had eventually to move on to other exercises. I came back to follow through briefly in December before the formative assessment and tried to neaten up the impact point at the bottom of the bounce, however by this time I was unfamiliar again with Animate and found it difficult to work effectively.
After the formative assessment I received some useful feedback and decided to restart the follow through exercise, this time working on TV Paint. I started by creating a really rough sketch of a more complex character, working on a single layer, just to estimate movement and get an idea of design.
I then reworked this in separate layers for the head, body, whiskers and ears. I made this a conscious decision based on the difficulties I had in timing the movement all together when working on the initial version. I also started the sequence in mid-dair rather than on the ground, as I found it very difficult to match up the movement at the the point of impact as the movements are smaller and subtler that the point of suspension. I found this far easier and more successful as an approach.
After showing this to Christina, she was able to give me some really useful advice on the follow through for the ears, she explained how they would react to the up/down draft of the wind in movement as was able to help me think about the weight of the ears in more natural way. This allowed me to rework the ears so they moved as a result of the body, rather than looking like a flapping motion.
I was also encouraged by Shaun and Emma to think about the environment and horizon line in the animation. Up until this point, I had only ever thought of the floor as a tool for finding a landing position or creating and consistent point of contact for feet. Adjusting the line so that it didn’t intersect with the character but still gave the impression of ground was a very simple change but worked really effectively. I also added in some dirt spray effect for the feet and ears to create an impression of ground movement which helped to sell the impact of the character.