Sem 2 Reflection
This semester I attempted to fix my mistakes from semester 1 and spend less time worrying about adding all the details in the very rough sketches of an animation. By doing this I managed to spend more time on polishing the final animation and pay more attention to things such as consistency and line art. I believe that this has improved my quality of work and also taught me to be more careless in the initial stages of an animation as it could inspire me to experiment a bit more instead of sticking to what I know best.
When starting semester 2 I was slightly nervous as animating and drawing humans has always been one of my weaknesses however my attitude towards it has changed during the course. I found it slightly difficult at the start of the semester to work with human characters and often encountered problems animating weight and making sure that the characters weren’t very disproportionate which is most noticeable in walk cycles at the start of the semester. In the next weeks I tried to improve on that and I think I have improved slightly through my partner project in weeks 3 – 5.
I also found the life drawing classes we had to attend to be very helpful in improving my line art and tone. Since then I have noticed that I have become better at drawing smoother lines which is something that I was struggling with before.
Alongside using the resources I used in semester 1 for studying animation I have also started using sites such as line-of-action.com to practice anatomy. Typically, I use it to do some quick rough pen drawings as I have always struggled with doing quick sketches since I would constantly focus on the details. Although I still need a lot more practice, I believe that I have improved my anatomy and proportions greatly since the start of the course by doing this.
I found working with a partner in week 3 – 5 to be quite challenging but also really interesting. I was used to working on projects by myself so having someone else draw key frames for my character forced me to try new, more abstract things such as having the characters head float which I probably wouldn’t have done if I was working by myself. At first, I found it a bit difficult doing my partners key frames as I had to use a completely different art style but overall I think it turned out well and it was a great experience.
This semester I aimed to improve my anatomy and become better at animating human characters which I believe I have achieved. If I could do the projects again, I would definitely make sure to try and spend more time on each project and also do more work in my sketchbook as I felt like I haven’t done that enough this semester. I would also make sure to use different animation techniques if I was to do these projects again as I have mostly stuck to digital.
Overall I am quite happy with the work I have produced so
far however all of the projects I did can definitely be improved.
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