Mascot Animation Test

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neeters_guy
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Mascot Animation Test

Post by neeters_guy »

Here are some test animations I did of a mascot I designed last year. The project was cancelled, but the client was gracious enough to allow me to show what work I had done.

Mascot Animation Test

Image


The walk cycle was traced from the Jupiter Dog animation by Larry Whitaker (included with Digicel's FlipBook).

Comments are welcome as usual. One thing I would like to know (particularly from you working pros out there): Is the quality here sufficient for commercial work?

Thanks, all!
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Imago
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Post by Imago »

Not bad at all!
I think it can be good enough for commercials.
Sorry for my bad english... Q_Q
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AmigaMan
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Post by AmigaMan »

The animation looks pretty good to me. Maybe a little more work could be done on the jump/land. Some squaush and stretch would probably improve that greatly too.

The logo is good but I think if the 'thumbs up hand' was made much bigger as if he was thrusting it more to camera and it was out to the side more in the blue area it would be vastly improved. It's best to try and get it so it reads as a sillhouette if you can. It's not always possible and I often make this mistake myself. It's just that the thumb, at the moment has a bit of a tangent with his neck feathers and almost looks like it's pierced on the end of a feather?

The standard of the artwork is excellent though.
Paul Mesken
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Post by Paul Mesken »

It's a pretty good animation. I immediately got a sense of the character when seeing this (a friendly cool guy, a bit like "The Fonz" of Happy Days). That's the most important thing.

But the character could have been stated stronger and more boldly. I miss the bold statement in the walk and the standing posture at the end. In the walk, notice how his head moves. It rocks back and forth (as do his shoulders).

If you study "Singin in the Rain" and compare Gene Kelly to Donald O'Connor then it's clear that Kelly is the stronger of the two. But why? They make the same moves in "Moses supposes" and O'Connor is highly athletic (as can be seen in the "Make them laugh" routine, where he even walks up to walls and backflips). But Kelly keeps his head still. His head and torso form a unity which constantly leads the movement and is all about attitude. O'Connor, on the other hand, constantly jiggles his head in response to movements, his torso facilitates movement but doesn't keep up an attitude. He looks flimsy compared to Kelly.

So, head (and torso) movements shouldn't be a consequence of a walk when attitude is important but the walk should be a consequence of the attitude. And in an attitude there's always a body part that leads (or recedes, in the case of fear it's all about retracting the head). In actions it might be feet or hands that lead the action (a swinging fist, jumping feet, etc.). It all comes down to a single arc or line around which everything else of the body is build. This way you get purpose and unity. Your animation needs more of that : strongly stated attitude and posture.

AmigaMan has a good point with the landing. It could use some (over)extremes, just for a single frame. The same goes for when the eagle looks around.

There's a minor thing in the standing posture of the eagle at the end. You took his right hand, flipped it and used it as his left hand. That's like a spelling error. You can't do that in a 3/4 view and you even shouldn't do it in a full frontal view. It destroys depth and it's a sin against the "no twins" rule :)

As a technical thing : get rid of the shading (apart from that on his beak, which serves more as an indication of material than shape anyway). Shading is very tricky and you, basically, just follow an outline. This will not create depth, it will just make things fuzzy (and Disney didn't need shading). The same goes for the folds in his leather jacket. I can see that you want to bring across the idea of leather (big fat round folds and soft transition between light and dark by selecting a light and dark color which are close to each other) but if you bring in folds then they should follow the action (Burne Hogarth has a good book about this : "Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery" but in animation it's best to rotoscope it). What you're left with are wrinkles that don't animate. Moreover : all this "leather action" creates new shapes which obfuscate the more important lines of action. Bringing in shading doesn't necessarily make things better. It can make things way more chaotic and draw attention away from the lines which indicate action.

It's far easier to create depth with T-Junctions, lines that overlap other lines. Like this :

Image

Sorry for the lousy drawing (football is nearly on and I want to see Germany win so that we can beat them in the finals and erase the disgrace of 1974 :wink: ) but it does show the idea of T-Junctions. With T-Junctions you get depth without getting into something as tricky as shading. And even if you get shading right then it can still destroy an animation because it introduces shapes that do not follow the basic shapes that you use to show action.
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lwaxana
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Post by lwaxana »

Nice work! I agree with all the feedback you've received so far. You've created a really like-able character. Having him high-five a really different character is a perfect way to convey his friendliness. And it's shown visually so we're accepting that he's a friendly guy below our threshold of awareness.

But I don't think his confidence comes through. In the thumbs up shot, his eyes are pointed down and to his right which is the "awareness of body" direction. It makes him look he's actually only pretending to be confident.

Another thing is that I can't tell how goofy he is. Is he a cool badass who never wants to look like he's trying? Or more of a class clown type who acts really goofy because he's so confident that he doesn't care? The walk cycle makes him seem like a comedy character - like he's dancing in front of the fans to get them excited. But even that would work better if he looked more confident. If he's both goofy and cool, (which makes sense for a mascot who needs to look tough against the other teams, but fun and peppy for his own team), how does it all fit together? For example, Gob Bluth from Arrested Development takes himself seriously, but does things others would find silly like the magic shows and the segway.

So I guess I'm reiterating Paul Mesken's points. If you can get the rest of his personality to come through as you've already shown his friendliness, you're golden. :D
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neeters_guy
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Post by neeters_guy »

Wow, thanks for comments guys. Working in isolation like I do, it's hard to notice what's working and not working, so having a peer review like this really helps.

AmigaMan -- Thanks for your suggestions. I have to remind myself to look at the big picture sometimes.

Paul Mesken -- I admit flopping the hands was a cheat, but now that you point it out it does looks odd with front view hands on a 3/4 body. Thanks for the indepth comments and the helpful sketch.

lwaxana -- What I should have done is write a character bio. I just winged it (sorry) and he evolved from an angry bird to a fun bird (The Fonz is actually a good description). The walk was rotoscoped from a different character type altogeher, which explains the incongruity.

Just for background, here are my first sketches ...

Image

...and one reference I found on the internet that I used for inspiration in the final version.

Image

Anyway, thanks again (you too, Imago). You all have given me lots to think about and work on.
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