Hi!! I was wondering how you get your animation so smooth, like butter.
Especially on that lineart, I’m always having trouble but your looks very effortless and consistent, what are your secrets?
-thank you
[sorry if asked before, also hi from TikTok! Thank you for the kind words, I admire your work and its always a treat to see it in my dash (^_^)]
Hello! Thank you <3 honestly there’s a few reasons it’s so smooth. (Get ready for the ramble I love talking about animation)
First on the lineart I use Toonboom to animate and it’s a vector based program. That means I can edit a line’s curves once I draw it. I don’t have to erase it to change it. I can grab a point on the line and stretch it where I want. So that’s why the lines themselves are pretty smooth, I have a lot of control over them.
As for the motions themselves people can think that frame rates equates to smoothness and while having a lot of frames and inbetweens can do that, it’s way more about the movement that makes something smooth. I tend to work on twos, threes, and even fours. This means you see a frame at 12 frames per second, 8fps or even 6fps. But it depends on the timing of the motion. When I animate the fps isn’t consistent. Faster motions tend to get a higher fps meaning you see it for a shorter amount of time. While slower subtle movements I tend to put on 8 or 6 fps which means you see them longer. Easing of the timing of the frames as well as easing of the motions themselves leads to smoother animation.
Another key point is that objects travel in arcs, always. Unless they are stopped by something. When I animate, I use onion skin religiously. (Onion skin allows me to see previous or future frames on a low opacity) that way I can check my motions and arcs. here I've marked the path of travel for his hand, hips and head ad he bows.
My method for animation tends to be pose to pose. Meaning I’ll draw all the key frames (the important poses that tell the story) before I fill out the inbetweens. Now inbetweens doesn’t always mean you draw a frame that’s exactly between pose a to pose b. You still have to think about the motion you want to achieve and keep in mind your arcs. Additionally you can add secondary movements or actions to help with believability in actions. Animation is all about performance and exaggeration.
But another technique is to animate frame by frame instead of pose to pose. People tend to use this method for effect such as water flowing, fire, or in my case I used it when I animated the capes. Since the cape drags behind the animation and is influenced by what the character does. I animated the cape after I animated the character. I went frame after frame thinking about how the cape would move both with gravity in play, and being moved by the character’s actions.
Using reference is a big help when animating. I had to act out actions to make sure I got things right when making it. I even got a towel and threw and shook it around to see how it fell.
Another thing about getting it smooth is I use a lot of easing in and out of my motions. If you are about to punch something, you don’t just move your arm towards what you need to punch, you’ll draw it back first to build up the punch. That’s easing into a motion. When you stop moving your arm you’ll either overshoot and draw it back a little if you moved it fast and stopped abruptly or it slows down to a stop. Things don’t stop abruptly. Think about a car. When a car stops you have to slow down considerably, it’s not immediate. So same with your motions. I always ease into a motion when it starts or ease out. It can definitely make the actions more believable and smooth.
Again, because Toonboom allows me such fine control over my lines. to ease in and out of a motion I will copy and paste the last frame and adjust it slightly, continuing the previous motion so that everything settles nicely. This shows only the previous two frames. you can see I didn't draw any new lines (except for the cape) I just adjusted his pose. This helps me stay away from lines being shaky because I didn't redraw them.
This last thing I’ll talk about is more subtle. But follow through and secondary actions are so important. In my animation for example, when sun bends down, his body starts moving a lot faster than his head. Sort of like the body goes first and then his head slightly lags behind. It follows the movement of the body. Another example of a secondary action that follows through would be the movement of the little wings of the cape on their chests.
Ok I lied there's something else. SMEARS, I love smear frames. those are great at making things smooth. Usually smears don't stay in view very long and need to show rapid motion so you can stretch a character or pose or show multiple limbs to make motions appear faster. Here I added a ton of arms to show he was wind-milling them around as he fell, and he has a third foot to show the rapid motion of his leg as it swings upwards. Smears can be fun because you can get away with a lot. Be loose with them! I didn't even draw his face here.
Or this one that's a couple frames before that leads into the fast motion.
Once you learn and practice all these things (and more, there's more principles of animation!) your stuff will get smoother. I don't always think about all of these every time I animate, I've done it for years so its ingrained into me. Sometimes I'll think about it to make sure I'm getting motion right, but usually its just second nature. it just takes practice and getting used to it.
Hope this helps!
You can also try watching animation analysis videos and I recommend looking at old 2d animated Disney movies. Or go frame by frame on any animation you like. I've analyzed so many animations that I love and just absorbed their techniques.
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Went on a trail ride with another girl I haven’t ridden with in a while l and said “hey let’s try this trail!” and then I nearly got us stuck in a fucking swamp
I literally said “haha, come on Bertie (my horse) it’s not like it’s quicksand” and then boom! it kind of WAS though and my pony is fat but she is small, so she got stuck up to her knees a few times but oh my god, poor Buster is a normal sized thick ol halter hog quarter horse boy and he almost went down. he sunk in on the left side up to his stifle. that’s like his hip man that’s like. Almost the butt. that was high-as-a-horse’s-hips mud. That was horse-thigh-gap-height mud. Oh my god.
This obviously scared the horse so then he scrambled out as best he could and he took his mom into a bank full of many sharp little trees and she almost came off and then had to get down and back him back into the mud to get him out and around the trees again
Was my horse as affected? No. Was I hit so hard in the face by tree branches that I bit my lip? No, but her horse reenacted the neverending fucking story for a minute there and she got pistol whipped by branches and I felt so bad 😭 in fairness, she never objected to exploring. not in fairness, it was absolutely my dumbass idea
This is why no one wants to ride with us, even when I try to have a chill walk-only lazy little trail ride I still manage to get us into some kind of chaos, because my riding style can only be described as Quaintly Unhinged™️
As pet tax, here’s my pony and her stupid stray dog she adopted, brave survivors of the sticky icky swamp
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Heyyyy Jules, it's been busy so I haven't been on Tumblr a lot so return art! Killer into for Axe killer Gris
You *rattles you like a maraca* I have ideas i have ideas to go with an axe killer gris hehehe
So what goes REALLY WELL with a crazy axe man? A crazy forest/wild man
I thought of, you know, the woodsman and the big bad wolf go hand in hand and are usually enemies, but what if they were lovers instead heheh and I also pictured that one princess Mononoke scene, Gris threatening to off Ingo and all Ingo could do is admire Gris.
So, thought process and au ramble time + art: (sorry I wrote a lot :3)
Gris is a crazy, deranged axe murder in this au (haven't come up with a name), they're in the forest and wilds and will terrorize any outsiders that come near them because they're very bitter about other people and wants their space.
So for Ingo, train man enthusiast, to fall for this villain, he'd also need to be chucked into a wood chipper and look extra ragged and hobo-ish with a dash more angst :3
I'd imagine this version of Ingo, 'Hunter' Ingo I'm calling him, would've had his head hit just a little harder when he gets eeby deebied. So on top of having no memories, the injury basically wipes his memory. Also he isn't found by any pearl clan members but by wild pokemon (I was thinking either Sneaslers or Zoroarks but I can't really decide what fits better), so Ingo creates new memories and thinks he's just a weird looking wild pokemon. He was always that and needs to rehabilitate himself so he can be a contributing member of the pack.
He does get separated from his pack one day and finds an abandoned camp with some various items such as a mirror and a broken festival mask. He sees the mirror and immediately recoils because he hasn't seen his face in months and had no memory of what it looked like. When he does see his reflection, he doesn't like it because he can feel something in the back of his mind wanting to come out and break free, long lost memory just itching to come out but it hurts his head. So he dawns the mask to prevent anymore bad feelings coming back.
He's in rough shape, he's stronger and faster but he's very reclusive and nonverbal.
They way Ingo and Gris would meet in this au would be just somewhere out in the wilds. Gris is hunting for food and spots Ingo, but they can't keep up with him. It isn't until Ingo pounces on Gris that they realize Ingo was the one hunting them. They scuffle and eventually Gris's mask falls off.
Ingo sees and has a tarzan moment where he realizes that he's not a pokemon and the reason why he feels so different than his pack was because he's actually human, and Gris is the first human he's seen since he woke up in the icelands.
The two go their seperate ways and retreat because neither one wants to be dinner.
They run into one another again and again, but hostility lessens each time. One because Gris sees that Ingo's very off, he's not civilized at all, and two Ingo wants to know more about being human and so far Gris is the closest one for miles.
The 'trying to kill each other for food' stops at some point and they forge a friendship. They hang out and exchange food. Gris would teach him manners and how to talk (I'd still think Ingo would be very quiet, but when he does speak it scares Gris half to death because of the seer volume he has).
At some point Ingo decides that he can no longer live with his pack and moves in with Gris. Together they form the local legend of the Axe Man and The Hunter.
Neither one is doing well (cough cough i would draw a proper aze murder gris n ingo but I'm not feeling blood atm (maybe for Halloween >:D)), but they fit comfort in one another still because they are in love and can be cute and deranged together because I said so <3<3<3
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