A Lost Scarf - Short Animation

 

This is a traditional animation I made as a personal project, where I managed all the phases, from the idea to the clean up.

In this animation I wanted to challenge myself, including a series of difficult elements in animation such as a walk combined with a twisting of the body, a run in perspective, "hands" (paws) that interact with a fabric, and the waving scarf, but above all, the duration (a scene in traditional animation of 18 consecutive seconds is really tough!)

Furthermore, until now I have mostly worked on animations with a more flat/cutout/snappy/pose to pose animation style, while here I experimented with a more complex, harmonious, volume-based style.

Below I illustrate the 3 phases of my animation process (rough, tie down, clean up)

Rough

In this rough I used a mainly “straight ahead” approach, where I drew one pose after another, following the flow of the movement.

Furthermore, as some animation masters advise, I didn't use onion skin, to push myself to think and imagine the volumes three-dimensionally in my head, and not see everything just as a series of flat shapes moving left and right.

What I focused on most at this stage was telling a story through poses, trying not to stop at representing the action in a linear/standard way, but committing myself to finding those small facets/nuances that enrich and make even a simple action unique.

Then, in addition to this, I also paid a lot of attention to the gestures of the poses and to maintaining a natural flow through the use of “movement arcs”.

At this stage I only draw what is necessary for the general idea; I leave out details like fingers, tufts, or overlaps because they would interrupt the flow and stiffen the poses.

As for timing, at this stage I define it very freely, “by feeling”, I will define it later.

Tie Down

In the tie-down phase, I focus on two aspects: defining the design, adjusting the volumes and adding details, and defining the timing, adding all the time charts, essential for the next phase.

Also at this stage, if necessary I add additional poses.

Clean Up

In this phase I redraw all the poses with a definitive clean line and then based on the time charts I draw all the in between.

Finally I add the color and background.

Here the comparison of the three stages