Moho Forum

I am totally newbie of any art. I am a healthcare worker, never draw or make anything "move" except "force" my patient to move, then suddenly attracted by animations and crazy about it. I found AS 5.6 last year. I can't help buying AS6 immediately. God, before SM released the AS 6, I came here every day, tried to find out how soon I could get it.

It is real first "movie" in my life. The AS6 is so so good, a lot improved. I tried flash, toon boom, I just gave up.

My 1st anmation is very simple: walk-standing-squat-pick up-walk-draw. But it took me 2 nights to figure out how to "pick up", finally I got 2 ways to do it.
I teach myself with Kelly L.Murdock's book"Anime Studio", and VTC training video.

My first animation, just practice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRJxphvu ... annel_page

That's a really good start. It sounds like you've got the 'bug' now.

Have you got any animation books like Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair, The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams or Animation The Mechanics of Motion by Chris Webster? They will help you take your animation to another level.

haha, I think he already has the animator's survival kit, the animation is just like the first exercise of that book.

Nicely done. Your character has a lot of charm for such simple shapes.

One tweak I would suggest is more up and down motion of the main torso when walking, I think it would make the movement look less "slidy".

When people walk, they leg and hip functions like an upside-down-pendulum. One foot is planted firmly on the ground and acts as the fulcrum, while the hip swings up and down in an arc. Meanwhile, the other foot lifts and moves forward so it can make the next pendulum.

(This is true across the animal kingdom, by the way, although sometimes complicated by more than two legs. Also, when we run, instead of being pendulums, we are pogo-sticks. )

Of course, in animation, we can play with these ideas a lot to make all sorts of funny walks, but I think it will make your character feel like it has real physical presense and weight if you experiement with the pendulum idea.

Hee, just thought of another idea. You have a pause when he picks up the "drawing thing" (marker? brush?, not sure).

I kind of interpreted that as he was thinking what to do next. It might be fun to have him do something like tap his chin with the tool, like people do when they are thinking. Adding those little gestures that people make can breathe a lot of life into an animation.

No doubt as a health care worker you have an opportunity to observe all sorts of human behavior and gestures, and you can use that.

(I should mention that I'm a beginner at this stuff myself, but am really good at thinking up work for other people to do. )