Sack Hop Animation 2nd Pass

Sack Hop Animation 2nd pass from Mlong128ir on Vimeo.

So here is my 2nd pass at this particular sack hop animation, I made some minor changes to it after this like some things with the hands, but overall this is pretty much the final version. Mike went over my last one with me as mentioned in my previous post and gave a great critique and sat down and animated over my drawings to really emphasize the points he was making. The major thing was to push the delayed parts to allow the drawings to breathe more naturally, to create overlap. I've always tried delaying parts, but when Mike sat down and showed me on my own animation it all just clicked. I wasn't delaying enough, he was really able to push things (check out the drawing below of the 1st squash on contact) and just by seeing the still drawing it feels like it's in motion. I naturally tend to try to move everything all at once so texturing the timing of separate parts of the body has to be a conscious effort for now, I just didn't know by how much it should be done. Hopefully it will become more and more a natural tendency.

Another thing he had mentioned was in some of my drawings while the boy is in the air, I jump from the beginning to the end poses and shapes too quickly leaving myself nowhere to go for the follow up drawings. That's why in my original a lot of the drawings are very similar, they're just advancing forward in space. So to counteract that he had me change the sleeve to a ball form while in the air for a frame to give a transition from the concave to the convex sleeve shape so the change is more pleasant. Edit: Here's a simple diagram I did to clarify this.


He also had me push the curve of the torso in the ascending part of the jump so that it can have somewhere to go while in the air by reversing direction. Also he reminded me to add change between the drawings by making sure the angles in the pose, in this case the torso/upper legs/lower legs and sometimes the bag increase or decrease in succession rather than just having a squash, a stretch, and then another squash that last several frames into another stretch. Seems like an obvious concept, but it's so easy to get sidetracked when focusing on the other things. Here's Mike's quick diagram from when he was telling me, so simple but it drives the point home.



Finally Mike really pushed the head and neck out to give it that urgent strain that somebody in a potato sack race would have, which he then delayed way more than I had. He also really pushed the contact squash more than I had which gives it a bit more spring and personality. Here are all of Mike's drawings in sequence that demonstrate everything I mentioned up to now.

And here I my originals below so you can compare, they look really stiff and lifeless in comparison.


Mike now wants me to animate more kids hopping, this time giving them all different approaches to the hop that display their personalities. From hitch steps, to small quick hobble-y strides to stutter steps and large leaps, anything that will break it up and make the scene breathe.

Sack Hop continued

Sack Hop Animation from Mlong128ir on Vimeo.

Here is my latest version of the sack hop taking into consideration many of the notes Mike gave me on the last two. This one actually is about the 5th version of this particular hop if you take into account all those eraser marks you can see at the beginning. Right now I feel it's just "good enough"mechanically but can be better overall, Mike had a few notes on this one as well and felt the bottom portion was working fine, but the upper body can use some work. The way he put it was, "You have the technical aspects down, now it's time to work on the emotional." He said next week after the holiday he will sit down with me and draw over my drawings to demonstrate exactly how he goes about doing that. I know I'll have many "A-Ha!" moments when I see him plus-ing my work as is always the case when I see him demoing. Stay tuned for the results from that in a couple weeks.

Also this time around I tried out Vimeo, I think it preserves the video quality better than Youtube. Hopefully you can all see it.

Sack hops

For those of you who visit my blog (anybody left?) that may not know, I've been fortunate enough to be allowed to hang out around July Films www.julyfilms.com a few hours a week and learning some things about animation from Mike Nguyen www.rainplace.net okay learning A LOT of things.   It's been a great experience and I can see the growth in my work and confidence in animation. Staring at a blank page before getting started is no longer as scary and intimidating as it once was.  

Above are two quick animations I did last night at July overlayed into the same video. Both share the same first two drawings, and both need work. The ghost images that appear are due to this being done on old pieces of animation paper, it pays to recycle. Just thought I'd share since I thought this place could use an update.

Another FX post

Here's an explosion I animated a little while back, just trying some new things. It was fun to do.

Just a little something

It's been a long time since I last updated, and some people have been giving me a hard time about it. Maybe I'll begin updating it more often to silence them all.

Here's a flame FX animation loop I did the other week really quick, my first time trying to animate fire. It's not looping very well though.

More pictures of the gallery

This is my fiancee' Miyuki's sketch wall, she included her wonderful life drawings in hers, and most of the flip books are hers as well.

Here's my sketch wall, including my Herobear maquette and my Shere Khan maquette which is still very much a work-in-progress.

Another closer view.

Successful Gallery Opening!

I would like to thank everybody who was able to make it to Miyuki and my gallery opening this last Saturday night at Cal State Fullerton's Exit Gallery, we had a good time and hope you all enjoyed our work. Miyuki will be opening it this week until we take everything down Thursday evening, so feel free to drop by and take a look if you have not already.

We have sketches, flip books, our pitch we made for Nickelodeon for last year's competition (made it past the first round of eliminations but not the second), as well as some of my early childhood drawings to contrast with my current work, and a TV playing our animation that we have done in school. Here are some pictures I took after everything was finally put up.

This is the wall of animation, we have flip books to flip through as well as some of the drawings posted above for a better look.

This is a small portion of my sketch wall.

My Herobear maquette is also on display, poor guy still needs his cape.

Another portion of my sketch wall.