A Slew of Pencil Tests

Today I'd like to thank everyone so far who has helped me out with getting into SCAD and helped me in Georgia. I would like to welcome all my new readers, and hope you all enjoy my Blog, and my "occasional" appearances on 7th Row Center. You may be seeing more of me up there, but for now check out the latest podcast at www.7throwcenter.com.

Now for more cool animation stuff! Today I'd like to present not one, not two, but 3 pencil test animations. The first I showed last week was intended to be looped (which i never figured out with YouTube), while these are not.
The first is a short pencil test of a bouncing ball. I've done this exact exercise before, except in a computer using Adobe After Effects. While After Effects works great with this type of situation, it kills the entire point of the exercise. You will notice in this one that there is a "squash and stretch" involved as the ball bounces. When played at full speed it looks natural, but frame by frame it looks odd. This is a standard technique to show movement in animation, and mimics how a photograph or live action film blurs movement. The important thing here is to get the timing and make a realistic looking bounce. Doing this in the computer lets the the computer do ALL the work. You give it a few commands, it does the rest. But by doing it by hand, you really have to learn how to draw, how to figure out the timing, how to adjust the speed of the ball, etc. One thing you have to do here is learn when and how to use Ones and Twos in animation. (see previous posts about Ones and Twos).

 

Next is a variation of the same thing.  Instead of just being a bouncy ball, it is a Bob-omb, with a cute twist ending.  I took a loot of effort to get the roll of the bomb just right, and I think it works out well in the end.  UNFORTUNATELY... youtube is crap, and has managed to destroy the file.  You can not see the joke, or even half the animation.  What you are suppose to see is a match fall on the left hand side of the screen just before the bomb is thrown.  Then as the fuse goes down, the match explodes instead of the bomb, waking up the bob-omb who is confused by the whole thing.  Sorry for the bad quality, I'll see what i can do to fix it later.

FINALLY... This last one is a pencil test of Timothy the mouse from Dumbo.  All the Key frames (which are the most important frames showing the extremes of the motion) are photocopies of the actual pencil tests of the character.  All the inbetweens are drawn by me.  In total, I drew 10 images out of the set of 16.  It is my favorite of these so far, and is really exciting to see.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to the character, Timothy is owned by Disney.  I have posted this as a student project in the pursuit of studying the animation.  As a Disney employee, if anyone has issue with this, please contact me directly.

 

Well that is all for now.  If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.  I hope to soon post a review of the Lion King in 3D, with a focus on the stereoscopic 3D, but also on the movie as a whole.  Be sure to check out Dumbo on Blu-ray and DVD!  Till then...

Sayounara!