Spacing- From the Agent Bird Archives

This week I shifted focus away from freelance, and onto animation for the film.

 Looking at the numbers we need to animate 3 shots a week to be on track for animation completion in October, it's a hefty goal but we are keeping to it. 

While animating Paisley and I have noticed that I need some serious work on my spacing, it's a principle of animation I must have lost after school, so I'm taking some time here to relearn. Several of the shots I've completed have looked like the character was running through water, an effect I don't really want.  

The shot you see above here was the first shot I've worked on where I felt like it *Felt right*

While not final, this above image shows one frame in black, and the previous and next frames in red and green. On my first pass, that you can see below, I felt a large space between frames wasn't going to work, that it was going to look weird.

But as I continued and began experimenting with the spacing, I found it game the animation this WEIGHT I hadn't been able to accomplish before.

This next gif covers the next pass in rough animation, where I'm blasting through frames trying to nail down the movement and timing. This pass is less about form, more about life. 

This shot was also a good exercise in adding the finishing touches to my new 3D/2D integration process. Attaching the toonboom footage to a camera in maya is a life saver on this process!

Below, just as at the top of the post is the final animation for this shot. it's not very long, but I'm excited to apply what I've learned to the coming work. This week puts us down to 26 shots to go! I gotta get crackin.