Student’s Animation Portfolio

Student’s Animation Portfolio

by | Aug 5, 2013 | Animation

I had a student, Tom, who had recently completed his animation portfolio. I am very proud of him and I would like to acknowledge his effort in this post. Over the past 2 years, with consistent 2 hours weekly of contribution to his animation skill, Tom started out learning animation from zero to newbie animator. Tom began learning animation as a hobby as he likes watching anime. Even if it is a passion for him, it was not an easy journey because he tends to get confused very often. Every week, he stretches and challenges his capability of doing things that he is not comfortable or familiar with. He starts to realize that short cuts without much prior planning do not really produce good results. Thorough understanding of a subject is very crucial in learning. Without a clear fundamental understanding of the learning subject, we might not build a solid and stable foundation for our building. Over time, Tom got used to such stimulating exercises that makes him search and try different solutions to overcome his technical problems. When an approach does not work, doing it repeatedly will never produce a new result. Be open and learn to find new solutions to any problem. Eventually Tom becomes proficient in his animation skills and he is able to handle most of the basic animation exercises on his own. Most importantly, he did not give up whenever he meets a new challenges. It takes time for one to be good at anything and giving up is never a solution. Giving yourself time to reflect and time to learn is more important than...
Fireball Character Flipbook Animation Tutorial

Fireball Character Flipbook Animation Tutorial

by | Apr 15, 2012 | Animation, Popular

Drawing a flipbook animation that involves human movement requires several steps. This fireball character flipbook animation tutorial shows you how to start drawing the skeleton poses, followed by the volume and eventually the flesh. You can be skip the volume of a human stage provided when you are familiar with human muscle drawing.   Character Flipbook Animation Tutorial - Skeleton Pose The rationale behind drawing the skeleton first is to serve as a preview of the action. Take for example a 5 seconds animation which will be played at 25 frames per second (fps). The artist will need to draw 125 frames of drawing. Wow! Without the skeleton animation to act as a preview, any changes along the production will requires a lot of time to redraw. This definitely reduces in production efficiency. Once the animation is drawn in skeleton, it should be reviewed by the artist and the director.  The checking ensures the animation and motion looks close to the end results. In this video, I’m going to animate this bovine casting a fireball, similar to the game called Street Fighter. The bovine will store his energy by his waist and eventually releasing the power in front of him, shooting a fireball outward. Begin the animation with a neutral pose. This serves as a proportion guide for the character. When in doubt during the animation process, do refer back to the neutral pose to check if the character’s proportion is consistent. Consistency is very important in human animation. I do not want my character to grow taller or shrink in size unintentionally.   There are two types of animation approach during production. They...

Need help in animation?

Step By Step Checklist To Realistic Animation (Printable Version)

Use this cheat sheet to help you monitor your animation progress. I've also included check points to help you apply principle of animation which will make your animation looks realistic.

Need help in animation?

Step By Step Checklist To Realistic Animation (Printable Version)

Use this cheat sheet to help you monitor your animation progress. I've also included check points to help you apply principle of animation which will make your animation looks realistic.