This document contains notes and reflections from an animation student on various animation exercises completed during their studies. It includes summaries and critiques of animations created, such as a walk, run, and picking up a heavy object. Video recordings were used as reference material. Inspiration was drawn from animations in films like Castle of Cagliostro. The student felt their animation skills improved over time, though notes areas for further development like arm positioning and mass.

1. Animation Principles: Term 2
Oscar Strokosz.

2. Personalised Walk.
With the walk I did several versions. It took me a while till it all clicked but I feel (at least the first half of)
the walk is of a decent standard for a novice like myself. The animation after the pause is a bit awkward
though

3. Previous walk
This is the walk I did when we were given the
task. I don’t really like it as it didn’t follow my
original plan. I was still doing strictly pose to
pose and some of the inbetweens got
mismatched.

4. Video source
The live versions. I feel like a recording of yourself is really useful for really
precise and selected moments for animation like how units of action are useful
for stage actors. However I feel like the self performance you do in the studio
is helpful as you have direct access to it, the only negative being you can’t see
yourself doing it unless you have a mirror.
The main inspiration was Del Boy’s walk in
Ofah. He has a very characteristic walk which
is compact and resembles the personality of
a Jack Russell: cocky and thinks its bigger
than it actually is.

5. Run
The run and jump is about a thief who jumps over a
roof top and nearly falls off the edge. This was the
second version of my run. Some aspects I’d improve
are the arms and the shading of the arms and legs. I
may shade it in after completing the line work next
time.

6. Here are some rough sketches of the run. Not very good but I felt it helped me make the mistakes on the
sketchbook and not on the printer paper

7. Previous run
This was my run based around jogging. I
thought that because I myself do a bit of
jogging it would be good to animate. I
believe that it didn’t go well. The jump
isn’t that good and the general
animation feels stiff as the legs just sway
like a grandfather clock.

8. 7 Frame run and 3 frame run
I got the idea of testing out a 3 frame run
and a 7 frame run from Richard Williams’
Survival Kit. I wanted to see what response
the difference in frames would make. The 3
frame run is much more cartoony and has
more urgency in it.
http://putlocker.is/watch-the-castle-of-cagliostro-online-
free-putlocker.html
The animation was inspired by the opening of Castle of
Cagliostro (1979) and by the character animation of Lupin
in the whole film. The diversity in the poses of the
character in the film give the film more energy and life.

9. Video source
I tried mimicking a run with a sense of urgency. When
you see runs they tend to be mimicking track runners but
I feel that’s limiting as they’re professional runners and
most people aren’t so certain techniques of gaining
momentum of saving energy aren’t known.

10. Picking up something heavy.
Here’s the picking up something heavy. May be based on my (in)ability to do exercise without breaking or
snapping or breaking (the moustache is 100% fictional).
I wanted the character to be a very skinny athlete (possibly a swimmer or a marathon runner) who wants
to build some muscle but take on too much too fast.

11. Video source
I filmed myself picking up a weight in my
room. This was when the precise acting in a
video really helped out in the animation. I
think it would be more helpful for when you
have the camera angle and position in the
desired position.

12. Walking up stairs and jumping down them
With this one I really felt that it finally clicked with
me. While the line quality may be shoddy I felt that
for an animation I was pretty chuffed. Though some
points to note out are the arms do seem to go
through the legs at points and I did have trouble on
the mass of the objects at first.

13. Drawing from life.
With the drawing from life I felt that I’ve becomre more confident
with the pencil and I am making more decicive lines and
exaggerating some poses. I need to work on perhaps making it more
detailed or being cautious about rushing it.