Okay everyone, I have something new for us to try out! I am going to personally be animating from Richard William's Animators Survival Kit, starting from the simplest thing he ever shows us: the ball animation. (and going from then on) From there, I will do every single exercise he shows in order. Even if its complex like the one of the character picking up a piece of chalk and writing on the board, which is the second exercise. The goal is that through being pushed to the limits and being forced to animate the simplest and the most complex, I will improve.

I want you to join me on that journey! Now I am not going to say that you have to post every week or every day, or even that I will personally do that. I know everyone has their own schedule to keep, and personally the military can give me very random working hours, so its unrealistic to expect that from you or me. What I will require is that if you are going to post in this thread, you can't go out of order! You must read up on the exercise in his book (message me about the book, please!) and then animate it. You can add your own personal spin to it, but I do not want you to add shading or color or anything else unless its part of the exercise. Keep it simple, don't lose focus!

Here are some ground rules:


* Must animate in order from the ball animation forward, no skipping exercises!

* Must be large (500x400 at least) so that we can see your animation with some amount of clarity.

* NO STRAIGHT AHEAD ANIMATION! You must use pose-to-pose or a combination of the two. Read the book for clarity on this subject.

* Must show some level of effort in this! (consistency is key!)

* Do not add detail or color or shading unless it is part of the exercise! We don't want to get distracted from what it is trying to teach us! If you desire to do this anyways, post the rough version here and then add all of that stuff for when you post it elsewhere.

* Use a well known and reliable uploading source. Choose something that won't be down in 6 months. Also try to keep these exercises separate from your other files so that you can ensure you don't delete anything…you will probably need these animations as references down the road, so keep hold of them!

* You can use stick figures, but you still must follow the same physics that the author uses. Use easing, follow-through, etc. just as he teaches it.

The animations don't have to be smooth or neat, try not to worry about the individual drawings too much, its the animation that matters. If you truly want to improve, I hope you are prepared for this, because I promise it will help you and you will become far better if you do it. Even as a stick animator you can still do these exercises, as it will help bring believability to your animations.


TL;DR

I am going to animate based on Richard William's Animators Survival Kit (Ask me about the book in a message please!), and I want you to animate too! Animate each exercise in order from the ball animation forward, and read the rules before you start!

Those who animate the most exercises (the top 3 animators) will be shown here and there might possibly be rewards (a trophy perhaps?) if you reach a certain amount of exercises posted first.

Here is what I animated based on the first exercise:
http://www.truploader.com/view/792515

One thing that I didnt do but that you can do is you can animate any kind of ball. It could be a rubber ball, a bowling ball, a volleyball, whatever you want. And you can show it bouncing off of a wall or anything that shows the techniques conveyed by the exercise.

Second Exercise:

The pendulum!

http://www.truploader.com/view/710547

The point of this is to animate a ball tied to a ball in a loop.

Third Exercise:

Finger Stretching

http://www.truploader.com/view/298609

The point of this exercise is to try different timing, to get used to easing in, easing out, and using both in the same animation.

Damn, how long did it take you to draw the hand?

Quote from Javelin

Damn, how long did it take you to draw the hand?

well each drawing maybe a minute or less, ive drawn hands for a very long time man, haha. Those hands were lazy, take a look at this:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/478487

Thats something I was known for back when I was tomocles.

I am sorry I havent added to this yet, I got extremely busy making characters and sprites....I am on the keyframes of the next lesson, so I will post here soon enough.