The professor checked on our Bouncing Ball Films today. Once again if you did not film your bounding ball correctly the professor will be expecting to see it re-done by next class. Afterwards he showed us how to properly set up a 1 and 2 point perspective grid for our backgrounds. Here are some background examples for one and two point perspectives. One point perspectives Two point perspectives: Those of you who did not receive a grade for your Bouncing Ball Film should correct your backgrounds accordingly and make sure you have enough light when filming. After that short lesson the professor went over the 12 Principals of Animation with us. You can view the 12 Principals Of Animation by clicking here: "The 12 Principals of Animation". Here is a video to help you understand the 12 Principals as well: We spent very little time observing the movement of a tail frame by frame. The purpose of this was to get an idea of what the bow on our character's head will look like when animated. The flow of the tail is very similar to the way the flow of the bow will be. Observe the movement of the squirrel's tail and the dog's tail in the Preston Blair Cartoon Animation PDF on pages 92 and 95 (according to the PDF, not the actual page number). Both tails are following the wave principal and forming an "S" shape before going in the opposite direction during flow. View page 127 of the PDF to get a better understanding of the wave principal. Moving on, it is time to characterize our bouncing ball, but, before we can do so, we must put in our in-between drawings of the ball. I've labeled the timing charts with "A" drawings also known as, our in-between drawings. (The "A" drawings are in blue pencil with boxes around them.) In case you can't see; the "A" drawings are: 1A, 2A, 3A, 9A, 10A, 11A, 12A, 13A, 14A, 20A and 21A. Before we could draw the in-between's we were instructed to get 4-5 more sheets of the 10x12 inch acme paper, which wasn't enough because we needed 11 sheets, one for each of our new drawings, so make sure you've got enough. Now remember our ball's path of action sheet we made in class on Day 5? We're going to need to draw the balls in between according to the timing charts above. Here is my bouncing ball path of action sheet on the light box. Here is what my bouncing ball path of action sheet would look like with the extra ball drawings. Here are the extra ball drawings alone without the path of action sheet. In a way I kind of cheated. I took my path of action sheet and a fresh sheet of paper and drew the extra balls on the clean sheet. That way I didn't have to flip back and forth between 3 sheets to make a proportionate ball for each of the "A" drawings. I'm not suggesting you do this, though. It may seem like the easier way out but I only did this to show you where each of the "A" drawings should go. The point of the exercise the professor was trying to teach us was how to draw our animations with the flipping method. Make sure that your light boxes are on! To do the flipping method you will need a 1st pose and a 2nd pose of your drawing. You want to draw the between drawing, ("A" drawing) so place the 1st and 2nd pose down on your light box. (In this case start with drawings 1 and 2 of your ball animation.) You will need to put a clean sheet of paper on top of those two drawings. In the lower right hand corner of the clean page you will put "1A". To draw 1A you will look at drawings 1 and 2 and do your best to draw an equally proportionate circle to those two directly in-between those circles. Do not worry if the circle is over lapping, it's supposed to. You can check to see if the size of the ball is equal to the others by taking the page off of your peg bar and lining it up with your other drawings. You can use the same methods for your other "A" drawings. Don't forget to label each drawing with its number and "A". (#A). Once you have finished all of your "A" drawings you can put them in order with your animation and film them. Film the ball the same way you did the first time, just without the background. (Look to Day 5 for the Timing Versions if you don't remember.) You have created a slow in and slow out animation. Adding more drawings to the ball animation made the ball appear to be traveling upward and over the arch a bit slower than before. The next step is to add a character face to your ball. Choose a character sketch from your homework assignment and draw that character's face into each ball. Start by drawing the character faces into the key drawings first. Make the job even easier by drawing the character's face into the drawings in-between those next and so on. Use the flipping method the professor taught us in class and experiment with rolling order to be sure you've got the character animation down right. Rolling Order Method Don't forget; when drawing the ball character in its stretch and squish form you should elongate the face and/or tighten the face by having your character close its eyes when it hits the ground. If you plan to take it up a notch and have your ball character turn while it is bouncing, be sure to adjust the center line and eye lines of each character so it appears as if the character's face is rotating. Use guidelines and tick marks to line up the facial pieces. That's all he assigned for us to do. My goal is to take it a few steps farther this week. Here is what I will try to complete by next week: Bouncing Ball Film with improved background. New 2 Point Perspective Background. Drawing the character on each ball. Adding the bow/scarf on the character's head. Filming the Ball Character with a 2 Point Perspective Background AND SHADOWS! Observe the ball's shadow below: It's a little fast but notice when the ball is higher in the air, the shadow shrinks. When the ball is closer to the ground the shadow grows to about the same length of the ball. Keep this in mind when putting the shadows into your own animation. Now, I know I darkened my ball with black marker, but that's not going to stop me from completing the assignments and more with top quality. I've got a little something in mind so, what I did wasn't a complete fail. >:-) If you want to succeed in animation you've got to push yourself to do something you've never done before. Wish me luck on my goals! I hope you aim high too! :)