#I’m not sure if this pose was super anatomically possible but I wanted it to look kinda like a cooked shrimp lol

[yourfavoritehouseplant]

🍤🍤 RIP Anomalocaris, fly high in shrimp heaven king 🍤🍤

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Just a quick fix

my orc evolution post is taking a while, so in the meantime here is a quick draw-over fix of the dnd 5e orc illustration

(image description: the official 5e orc illustration from the monster manual. The orc has short legs, long arms, and a sloped posture. Their head is very short with a compact face from the top of the head to the nose, but very long from the nose to the wide square jaw. Something about the way their open mouth has been drawn makes it seem like they may have dislocated their jaw. Their thick fur and hide armor lines up so closely with the outlines of their exposed arms and the side of their torso that it looks like their body might have to suddenly shrink to fit under the thick layers. The only hair on their body is a small tuft at the very back of their head. end description)

This is clearly going for a sort of gorilla body shape, and I am not mad about the general proportions at all, short legs with long arms is also how I draw orcs (though not quite so exaggerated, usually.) the head shape, to me, looks a bit bizarre and not very functional. the mouth is only a little open here, but the placement of the cheekbone so high up on the face with the chin nearly at the collarbone means their jaw has to be so long on the side, and I’m not sure that gives it much room to open very wide? Most animals with big jaws actually have them very short on the side because of physics. Shorter fulcrum, less effort to open the jaw super wide. And this illustration also shows off a topic I want to do more posts on eventually: thick layers of armor that still somehow manage to be skin tight. It makes no sense.

Just to help my point, here is a draw-over of where the body seems to be under the armor, as well as a drawing of how the skull would look:

(image description: The illustration above is faded so it’s barely visible, and in a dark blue I have outlined the exposed parts of the orc’s body, and then speculated more lines under the armor based on how thick the armor appears to be. To the side is a red drawing of the orc’s skull traced from their head shape. It appears to have only a partial lower jaw because the back row of teeth that should have been visible at this angle were apparently too low to be seen, making the jaw completely lopsided. end description.)

I could probably have even gone a little more dramatic with the forearm and waist shrinkage under the fur and hide layers. But as you can see here, their pelvic area would be oddly shaped and very short, and they don’t seem to have much space for wrists. The belly is definitely in need of some extra pounds, it’s so much skinner than the upper torso. So now here’s my own drawing to fix this anatomy:

(image description: a drawing of an orc, in the same pose as before with a sloped back, long arms, and short stocky legs. This orc has a much larger belly and arm muscles than the previous one. They also have way more hair all over their body, and their head shape is much more similar to that of a gorilla, with a wide jaw and a large fleshy forehead. The skull illustration to the side shows that their cranium is still rather small, but the jaw lines up with the upper skull better and is much shorter on the sides. end description.)

Orcs should always be as beefy as possible, in my opinion. I went a little further on the gorilla theme the original one seemed to be vaguely attempting. Gorillas have big bellies and really muscular arms, and a tall fleshy lump on top of their heads. So I used those traits here to flesh out the orc better. Fixed the positions of the legs a little and made their arms line up better with the three-quarter perspective here. And added so much more hair. That poor other orc was so hairless. And now here is a version with armor that’s actually as thick as it looks:

(image description: same orc as before, now with armor made of fur and hide. The armor changes the body silhouette quite a bit, adding a lot of thickness to the shoulders, waist, and forearms. end description.)

With how thick the neck got, I couldn’t reasonably fit the necklace of teeth/bones from the original illustration, so I made it into a neat collar attachment instead. 

So that’s how I would adjust the orcs in the dnd manual to look a bit more anatomically functional!  I’ll post my orc evolution illustrations when I finish them, there are just some poses that are giving me trouble lol.

[franeridart]

Anon said: How are you just like "Oh these are just some warm up sketches" and post a full finished piece, while I'm over here sketching a triangle person and calling it a finished piece.

I dunno if this was a legit question asking for a legit answer, but I do happen to have a legit answer so I might as well give it! If I wanted to go into detals with it it’d take me forever though, so allow me to separate it into two points to make it easier

I learnt how to be very fast in putting down my lines and trained myself into not overthinking every single dot I put down. This took about five or six years of drawing daily and a whole life of drawing occasionally before then, because to do so you need to reach a point where you’re drawing something you’ve drawn so many times that by now your hand sort of goes without you needing to think about it much, so it’s not a fast process, but boy is it worth it. Mostly learning how to not overthink it, overthinking it used to be 90% of my time spent on a drawing and dear god did it suck the joy out of everything I drew

I have two very distinctive ways of approaching a drawing, one where I actually put effort in it and the other where I just want to let the squiggles out of my pen, and warm ups are the second one - the lack of effort I’m putting in can have different forms and show in different ways, so a warm up could be a fully colored piece as it could be just a pencil doodle, depending on where and on what exactly I’m being lazy: it could be the type of tool I’m using that allows me to draw without having to line, it could be a very tiny canvas that lets me avoid a ton of details a big canvas would demand. I might be cutting the time I usually put in making sure my anatomy is correct, I might be using a shading technique that takes a tenth of the time my usual one would, I might be using a style that’s just easier and faster to draw, or drawing characters I’ve drawn a trillion times in extremely generic poses and clothes. There’s a lot of things that I can do to make things faster for me! It’s skills you gain as you draw a lot - you learn how to draw things the hard way, and then you realize that along the way you learnt how to do them the easy way too

hope this actually answers your question! If it was a question at all lol if it wasn’t then sorry for rambling, please pretend I didn’t say anything hahaha

Anon said: I love your newest comic!!! So adorable!! I noticed Bakugou's mom does the affectionate hair rustle thing to him in the manga/anime, do you think Bakugou subconsciously does the same to show affection cause of it? I love the way you draw faces and poses, it's so expressive!!

Ahhhhh thank you so much!!! And yeah, it might be! After all we do take a lot from the people we live with even without realizing, and he’s already so similar to his mom!

Anon said: I saw your bakushima comic from October 9th (2019) where Bakugo falls asleep studying and Kirishima sets him down on the table properly and it was so soft my heart is crying

;;;;; !!!!!!!! I’m glad you liked it!! <3<3

Anon said: If it not to much, could I possibly get a Ochamina doodle pls? I just love some sweet lesbeans 👉👈

Awww I’m not taking requests right now, but I’ll keep it in mind for next time I want to doodle and don’t know what!

Anon said: I love your art! I envy you.

Please don’t! There’s a lot of reasons why being me isn’t a lot of fun - if it’s just my skill you envy, then all you gotta do is draw a lot! 

Anon said: i just went through your entire kiribaku tag and omg it was beautiful seeing the progression in your art skills but still keeping the same funny/cute/heartwarming/etc traits you thought up for their dynamic!! i hope that makes sense haha !! love your art keep it up

It does make sense!!! Thank you so much both for looking through the whole tag and for thinking so, it means a lot to me!! ;;; <3<3

Anon said: Hey fran! I hope you're doing well(especially with quarantine and all)!! I really love your anatomy and how fluid and stylistic it can be! It's super fun to look at! I wanted to ask you if you ever did any in depth studies on anatomy? Like muscles and bones. I've heard a lot of artists mention the necessity of studying bones/muscles, i'd really like to know your opinion on the subject

Ahhh god thank you so much!! And... hmm let’s see if I can word this properly and have it make sense - always keeping in mind that this is just my opinion, of course!

If all you want to do is to draw, then all you need to do is to pick up your pencil and draw - it’s really that easy as far as I’m concerned. You don’t need to know anatomy in depth to just draw, everyone has seen a person, everyone knows how a person looks. That is, if all you want to do is to draw for the sake of drawing. If you want to draw an anatomically correct looking human being, though, you do need to know how anatomy works - and the deeper you’ll go into studying it the more correct your people will look. It’s kind how everyone can draw a bicycle, but if you want to draw a realistic bicycle you’re gonna need to look up references for it, you know? It’s all on the level at which you’re interested in drawing, the more technically skilled you want to be the more you’ll have to study

As for my personal experience with this, I hate studying with a passion. Studying puts a damper on my enjoyement of everything, and drawing isn’t excluded from this - you put a book in front of me expecting me to study it and suddenly I never want to pick up a pencil again. This means that I never sat down and studied anatomy in depth and all in one go just to learn how to draw a human being, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t, slowly and now and again and in bits and pieces, study parts of the body to get a better understanding of it. I know better about the skeleton than I do about muscles, and I still have enough to learn about everything that anyone who’s studied anatomy properly would find a trillion mistakes in everything I draw, but my way of going about drawing has always been and always will be putting my enjoyement of it first and foremost, so I’m not interested in putting myself through a tour-de-force to learn everything there is to know about anatomy just to make my doodles look appealing to someone with a medical degree haha I’m just doing me, and when the mood is right I look up how to properly draw something, but until then I just do it as best as I can with my limited knowledge, being fully aware that what I’m producing is far from accurate but being willing to make that compromise for my own comfort

So that’s my opinion on it lol it all boils down to how important it is for you to know how to properly draw the human body - of course it’s gonna look more professional and better if you’ve studied it, but everyone has their own priorities, you know?

Anon said: Thank you for your hard work, seeing an upload from you is so nice, and the colors are so pretty

Thank you so muuuuccchhhhh!!!! TTATT <3<3<3

Anon said: Opinions on Tokoyami Fumikage 💕

One of my top faves in the whole manga, actually! I have a drawing in the making of him, I should get back to it..........

Anon said: HOLY SHIT FRAN THE TOES HOW YOU DRAW THE TOES SO WELL FEET ARE THE DEATH OF ME AND YOU’RE OVER HERE DRAWING TOES THEY’RE SO GOOD PLEASE TEACH ME YOUR WAYS!!! -❤️

Thank you!!!!!!!! So pretty much my way of learning this specific skill was being obsessed with elves when I was fifteen and wanting to draw them all the time  and also for whatever reason being convinced that they were not supposed to wear shoes so I just drew a lot of feet with references and tutorials and stuff till I could draw my elves properly. Which isn’t necessarily what you need to do to learn how to draw feet, but, I mean, it worked for me lol

Anon said: I love ur Bnha ships and all but what would u do if some of them didn’t become canon??

Oh, I actually don’t care about that at all? I don’t expect most of them to become canon anyway - like, ochadeku sounds reasonable and kamijirou seems to be getting there, but everything else I never even considered it as an actual possibilily. I don’t really ship because I want to see my ships become canon, I just like the potential in what I can make with them? If that makes sense? They’re just fun to think about and I like making fancontent, that’s all there is to it really haha honestly if I had my way no ship would ever be canon ever ha ha ha

Anon said: Slep is for the wek

No actually sleep is for Frans who want a chance at getting up tomorrow morning without an headache for once, so I should do that and go to sleep already lmao

[f-nodragonart]

How do you draw folded bat wings? I tried to look up references but it looks so dark and such a mess that I can't figure out what's going on. All my dragons have their wings sticking out and I want them to relax and fold their wings, but I can't figure it out.

first, know that having a good grasp on wing anatomy is the first step, so I rec checkin out my crash-course on vertebrate wings, if u need it. I’ll try to summarize some of the more relevant points when necessary here, tho

that said, real-life folded bat wings are actually a lot messier than u might expect, as bat bones/joints are SUPER-duper flexible

tho this may also be a consequence of their legs/hips being right there, splayed out where the ends of their fingers fold up, and other body types prolly wouldn’t require that particular zig-zig crinkling of the fingertips

I also doubt that that level of flexibility would even be available in the bones/joints of dragons as large as horses, or even just dogs, though I could be wrong about that

either way, I’ll give you some examples of how I approach folded bat wings in my designs

so here we’ve got a standard folded bat wing. note that the LOWER arm is the most visible portion of the the arm anatomy-- the lower arm pulls up over the upper arm, and the fingers curl up under both arm sections 

the “tightness” of the folding can vary, depending on the look you want. real-life bats obviously have CRAZY flexible wrists, and can tuck their fingers snug up against their arms/bodies all the way down. and I’m sure you could pull the wrist up a lil closer to the shoulder if need be. however, I believe the position as I’ve drawn-- with the lower arm hanging a bit down towards the front of the body, and the fingers loosely tucking in-- could be a perfectly comfortable, relaxed position for folded bat-dragon wings. this is especially considering that bat wings would be located more towards the midline/sides of the torso rather than right up near the spine like birds, meaning gravity would pull on them a bit more easily, possibly lending to this loose pose. BUT that also depends on the exact wing muscle configuration-- wings generally have pretty good ‘locking’ mechanisms when tucked closed, so tighter tucking is a perfectly reasonable possibility

I will note that wings ought not to be tucked up on top of the back. even bird wings located closer to the spine don’t rest their wrists above the shoulders-- the wings still hang to the sides, with the wrists held near the front of the body

I can’t imagine that pulling the wings back constantly is very comfortable, much less a position that affords the wing muscles any rest

tho the elbows would prolly need to be pulled next to or above the hips a bit, so the elbows don’t interfere with hind leg movement

on that note, also notice the anatomical proportions of the wings and how they affect the look of the folded wing. the upper arm of a wing will ALWAYS be shorter than the lower arm, so when they’re folded up, the wrist will stick out in front of the shoulder. usually even in front of the front limb shoulders, depending on the size of the wings (I think I drew these wings a bit small in comparison to body size, but we’ll just pretend this guy ain’t a particularly strong flyer)

the finger proportions are actually very similar to human fingers, in that the sections closest to the wrist are longest/thickest, while the sections closer to the tips are shorter/thinner. this means that when the fingers fold up, the bases will have long sections without joints, while the tips will be able to curl quite tightly, which you may be able to visualize more precisely here

the bend back under the arm at the 3rd joint may, admittedly, be a bit too sharp even by bat standards, so the fingers may still need to follow the line of the body

but I still think the fingers should be able to curl up under the arm just fine, honestly

now, while it’s important to know the underlying structures here, also note that certain parts of the folded wing (like fingertips) simply won’t be visible due to the membrane

and this is where folded wings get tricky-- not only is it hard to keep track of what’s covered up, but also what sections are connected to one another! hopefully the above diagram helps you visualize how the membrane lays over the overall arm structure at least, but being able to follow membrane connections in different positions takes a bit of familiarizing with overall wing anatomy

(also note that for ease of seeing the base anatomy, I’m not adding in most of the membrane wrinkles I usually would. just keep in mind that bat membranes are embedded w/ a lotta lil tendons that help scrunch up the membrane and hold the wings steady)

I will at least point out one particular section of membrane that trips folks up a lot

here, it’s important to remember that the back edge of the membrane (specifically the plagiopatagium section), connecting back onto the body, is ALSO connected to the back of the arm AND the pinkie finger. thus, we must keep in mind the flow of this section of membrane in the folded wing. note that it may very well cover up part of the visible finger(s) (particularly the pinkie) just before they tuck underneath the arm, as I’ve shown above

now, something fun about bat wings is that they’ve got ROTATION in their wrists! so, unlike birds, you can give yourself some freedom in how many of the fingers are visible, when folded up

I WILL say, though, that real-life bats seem to go for the latter folding, more reminiscent of a bird folding their wrist sideways next to their lower arm rather than curling the wrist underneath the lower arm. but, again, bats have way more leeway in wrist flexion, so I think any of these wrist positions are perfectly possible for a bat-winged dragon

and this flexion will also be affected by the kinda palm you give your wings. while many dragon artists give their dragons humanoid palms, real-life bats don’t actually have palms-- the metacarpals that make up our palms are actually the base bones of bat wing fingers. thus, bats just have a tiny connection area of carpals to connect fingers to arm, allowing for a frankly crazy range of flexion. while I’m not sure about how exactly a palm might affect flight, I don’t think they’re necessarily a problem so long as they’re downsized (palms proportionally the size of human palms compared to the arm would be WAY too heavy/thick for flight..) and retrofit for flight in shape (think about oncoming air currents and what parts of the palm would need to be more/less stabilized or aerodynamically shaped)

also note that, if the wing has a thumb and it’s visible, then the front edge membrane (propatagium) is gonna attach to it

like so (depending on the exact position of the thumb, of course)

now, I know some dragon artists like to curl the tips of the fingers up over the elbows, like this

and like, sure, the tips may be visible past the back edge of the membrane, if you go for the finger-tuck where the fingers follow the line of the body. or if the fingertips aren’t typically bat-like, but are stiffer and incapable of comfortably curling up. I’m specifically thinking of designs with faux-feather cartilage, or those with pterosaur-like fans of cartilage fibers across the membrane, leading to more bird-like folding

but idk, this desire to pull the fingertips up over the membrane THAT far seems uncomfortable and unnecessary? like, I really don’t understand why a dragon wouldn’t simply tuck their fingertips up against their body, following underneath the membrane, as a bat does. if anyone wants to argue me this point, I’m willing to hear it out tho

so, I know that was a lot of hyper-specific info, but if you step back for a minute and just take in the overall look of a folded bat wing, it turns out folded bat wings are WAY easier than most ppl realize!

truly, so many people overthink like, where the fingertips end up, or how the membrane overlays the arm. but once you understand how it all fits together, you can condense the look of it into basic shapes like this

and you can add or subtract detail depending on your style, how defined you want the arm to be from the membrane, how wrinkly/detailed you want the membrane, etc.

hope this helps!

-Mod Spiral

[empanadadooblez]

hey do you have any tips on drawing bodies in general? Your art is incredible and I like the way you draw muscles on girls to show off their badassery. I'm having a hard time figuring out anatomy and poses. You gave off a really good long explanation on how to draw certain characters. So if you could, would you be able to show a process on how you draw bodies.

awww, hello sweet anon, I can give you a general list, but if you’re looking for something with pictures and examples, you are welcome to shoot me another ask and I can most definitely do that for you. 

Also p.s, if you’re guys ever want to ask a question, it’s a little easier for me to answer when you phrase it to something specific, it lets me focus on the details cause I can’t name everything all at once sometimes. 

please tell me to elaborate on these certain subjects if you want, I’d really like to help you guys and give you tips, these are some that I’ve picked up on along the way anatomically, but remember that you can take realistic anatomy and stylize it however you choose, it all depends on your style!

but here we go:

ears start at the top of your eyes and end at the bottom of your nose

wrists end at the crotch

space between the eyes is approximately one eye

pectorals connect up to the deltoids

the nape of your neck arcs slightly, it’s not flat!

sternocleidomastoids connect to the centers of your clavicles

neck is about the same width as the head

arm is composed in a chain link pattern 

try using a tilted diamond/square shape as a base for hands

So these are good places to start experimenting, once I realized a lot of these, my art improved so much more. There’s a LOT more that I’m sure I’m missing, but again if you’d like me to elaborate on any of those little bullet points, just let me know.

What I can tell you is that you shouldn’t be afraid to just DO YOU.

Some artists can draw super realistically, but chose to go with a stylized version that they like better. Again, it’s all about what you want.

I, for one, EXAGGERATE A WHOLE FUCKING LOT.

While maybe it’s possible, it’s not every day you see the height and size differences I show between the characters that I draw in real life. I looooove body and facial differences between characters and it frustrates me when I watch shows where everyone seems to have the same body size/type ugh 

For example, working with Aged Up BNHA, I base their bodies off their quirks, enough said.

Kirishima is a shield, his quirk is one that can be used for offence AND defense, it revolves around BRUTE STRENGTH so of course I’m going to make him big and beefy.

Bakugou’s explosions provide him with the brute strength, he doesn’t need to have bulging muscles because his explosions are what give him force, he propels himself with them. Bakugou needs to be compact with firm joints, strong legs that help him land and broad shoulders to take his blasts. And self indulgence talking here, but I’m not gonna ignore his canonically tiny waist omg

Sero’s quirk doesn’t give him the luxury of physical enhancement, he built his body up himself. Like Bakugou he needs those strong, thick ass legs to land AND jump when he uses his tape like spiderman omg. Sero’s definitely got a runner’s body, he’s trim and tall, but not lanky in the least, he’s all lean muscle as opposed to Kiri’s weighty build.

Mina is a dancer, just recently did we witness that, bless her soul I love her. But given that, LEGS and hips. Mina’s quirk, like Sero’s, doesn’t give her physical enhancements. Her acid might be able to be shot out of her hand, but I think she needs to be able to pitch very well too, so that girl’s got some fucking arms on her. 

Kaminari is about the same as Bakugou. He can still do damage at a distance so he doesn’t need the brute strength the way Kirishima does. He’s one of the smaller of the boys, slim but not scrawny. He definitely needs to be fit (as do all heroes) and I think he’d be FAST and once he’s able to get a better handle on his quirk, be able to use that to his advantage the way Bakugou does.

Outside the Bakusquad, I’d like to mention my Momo! Some one wrote an entire thing about this that inspired me, but long story short. Momo is a girl with a quirk that requires BODY MASS in order to function. Her fat cells are what are manipulated into the matter she uses to create objects. She NEEDS body mass, she needs meat on her bones that aren’t just her boobs for fan service. She creates WEAPONS and my girl can and will be strong enough to wield a medieval saber if she wanted to. Along with fat, she’d have muscle, strong enough to benchpress a fully grown man

And finally Izuku! Like Kirishima, Izuku’s quirk is one that needs brute strength as well, his body needs to be able to hold up to the strength of his own quirk, this is All Might’s quirk we’re talking about here people omg. Baby needs to be broad and well compacted, maybe not to the extent of All Might’s body, but again, he still needs his mass to throw his quirk around and be able to take 

I’m sorry!!!! I don’t think you were expecting me to talk about this, but this literally is my PROCESS. The body type you choose for your own character and others that you are working with tell a story in their own right. Anatomy can give you clues on personality, the way you depict and present a character as well.

At the end of the day I’m working with Heroes, they need to be strong and their quirks are able to find home in their bodies. I’m not afraid to put muscle of these beautiful girls or throw some curves on the boys. It’s okay to completely go off course from the canon standard

And sweet anon, I thank you so much for the compliment, but I’m still learning myself. I can try and help you, so please just let me know anytime and I’ll try and work up a tutorial of sorts for you guys

Learn from the artists around you as well, study their work and try and put two and two together, because oh my god I had the discovery of a lifetime when I started piecing together some of my own favorite artist’s anatomy just this year!

Also, just a suggestion, but I wouldn’t mind recording myself draw certain body types for y’all if you want!

Thank you to those who read the whole way through, I hope this answers some of your question omg I went off on a tangent there 💦

- Panda ❤

[japangabby]

Anime Figures - How are they made?

(Source)(Source)

Anime Figurines are commonly made out of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) which is a type of very sturdy plastic. It is a cheap material that is very sturdy and not ductile (easy to bend or break). 

Once the character has been chosen to make a figure from, the production team must decide on the expressions, pose and accessories which the character will have. This aspect must also be looked at from the customer’s point of view to show what the use experience will be like of the figure. 

Once this is done, they must ensure, among other things, that the figure will achieve the correct look - considering it is a 3D sculpt of a 2D character. 

The next people who handle the sculpt are the prototypers. They will create rough drafts of how the character and pose will look, either using traditional methods of sculpting, or 3D modelling in a CAD software. Apparently, although 3D is great, is is more suited to sculpts that will be absolutely symmetrical, as it doesn’t work well with dynamic poses or gestures well, nor demonstrating flowing fabrics as well as traditional can. The following image is a draft sculpt by  Hiroom!

The next stage after the prototyping is another interview. “Good Smile calls this meeting a direction review - to make sure the direction of the figure's on the right course, there are a number of points they need to check, like:

For figures of humans or animals: does the figure look anatomically correct? Does the bone structure look natural?

For fabrics and leather: does the texture and sculpt look realistic?

Can this figure be mass-produced? (if a figure involves too many small, intricate details or parts, it can become very difficult to scale production)

For Nendoroids: does the overall image match the form and cuteness of the Nendoroid series?

For scale figures: does the figure look correctly balanced (aesthetically and physically)? Do the hair and clothes match the movement of the figure?

If these points are all confirmed, then the figure's all ready for the next round of approvals.”

They are then mass produced- based on either a 3D print or traditional sculpt. Silicone molds are created from the base model and then the figures are cast in PVC. The manufacturers must figure out how to effectively blend seams, hide marks and holes from the casting process so that the figure looks as good as possible. It can then be painted by hand. 

I decided to research this process as it’s relevant to Japan and is an industry that i’m really interested in. I also initially intended to make a character sculpt for Akiko Itone out of super sculpey, so I wanted to see how it’s officially made in industry to see if I could get any tips and compare the two processes. 

[sleepy-ki-blog]

Evaluation

My focus in animation 102 was always going to be stop motion. Animation 101 helped me realise that Maya and I just don’t click or get along and I’ve still being trying to get a grips on Toon Boom, having left it alone for a period of time meant I’d essentially forgotten how to use it; Intro to the Making Of helped me reintroduce myself though. Kick-starting the module off with looking at posture and body language was definitely interesting – it’s something I enjoy – so it was nice to have a lesson on internal and external displays of emotion depending on if they’re more introverted or extroverted. The drawing exercise was fun too; I want to work more on dynamic poses and silhouettes as a 2D artist so body language is important in that. Because it was for the purpose of an armature exercise the drawings didn’t need to be too anatomically correct as they’d be translated into that and Buckid on Maya.

Using Buckid was a test and a half. As I’m not great at Maya as is, learning rigging was tricky and took explanations from James until I understood how it worked. And it was still a bit of a nightmare even just making still poses of him. Because he has a cartoony and simple silhouette (big head, small body, hands are like mittens so no fingers, big feet) translating the posture drawings I did onto him took a bit of interpretation (especially because his legs were quite limited due to the small length). But it was actually a fun experience and I ended up with some good photos of him and honestly, I was quite proud of them? Animating in Maya may be difficult and if I were to do stills again I’d probably need a reintroduction to how the rigging works but the end results this time around didn’t turn out too horrible. I even managed to slide in a little fun pose before the lesson ended once I’d gotten the hang of it. Classmates helped me out with the rigging and using the programme too which was super helpful, it made the lesson fun and we made Buckid dab and all those good memes which really helped me feel more comfortable in class too?

Regarding the armatures. Using them for the first time was difficult as I wasn’t used to moving something so stiff around. Also the anatomy is very lanky – long legs and arms – so the arms never seemed to sit right on screen. I also couldn’t put it in some of the poses I’d done (like the ‘hopeful’ pose) because it wouldn’t balance on its heels with just the use of the magnets. If I wanted to replicate it properly I’d probably need to use a rig. Armatures seems easy enough to use at this point though, if not a tad fiddly if the joints were too loose or stiff; the ankle joints and wrists were usually floppy and limp so posing them was a bit of a pain. Also I still think they look super weird with just the neck and no head representation so I ended up using the neck stick as a way of improvising where the head would be so they’re not very anatomically correct in the pictures.

 This semester was super bumpy in work motivation. My depression acted up right before strikes (which sucked super bad because unless I have to be in I have no motivation to come into university and since lecturers weren’t in for like three weeks I just had no energy to do any work) and then Easter break followed right after. So for around 8 weeks I just did absolutely nothing which knocked me way back on the module schedule and because Script to Screen was so big and I had to prioritise it over my other modules which meant animation 102 and animation context had to be done very last minute.

Using the poses we originally drew up and translated onto armatures and Buckid, we had to pick opposing emotions (like happy, sad or angry, shy) to do a pose to pose animation. Because Maya is my mortal enemy, I decided to do it in stop motion (I’m still stupid slow in Toon Boom and was running out of time so stop motion was kind of my only option). I picked confident and timid to do. Had my friend Slime be my reference for it (they didn’t know what to do too well so when I animated it was more like taking snippets from the original video). One thing I discovered a lot with this particular animation is that armatures look very different in person compared to on camera. Particularly the breastplates. If the armatures torso is leaning forwards or backwards then the breastplate looks very odd, almost squashed rather than at an angle which means that it can be hard to interpret the angle that it’s actually positioned in. But in person it looks perfectly fine. I’m not sure if it’s the angle it’s positioned at on screen, or the lighting shining off the metal or something else. It would probably look better with a skin or model around it to give it more dimension and shape.

In sit to stand I encountered the same issue of the armature looking different on camera than in person. It was probably the angle I was working at when moving it – since I worked on it from the side rather than in front to avoid knocking the camera. The animation (well all of them) is very clunky and when it sits back down, because it leans forward and is also facing the camera, the armature ends up looking like a complicated clump of metal before it gets to the ground rather than actual limbs and parts. The spine is lost behind the breastplate and you can’t see the neck, the arms aren’t really identifiable nor are the hips. And the breastplate (again) looks very flat when it’s angled. Also, I tried following the reference video as much as possible but soon came to realise that it would be impossible to get the armature to cross its legs due to how they’re shaped and how the joints work. They’re also too short compared to the arms which means that any animating with the arms looks rather strange in comparison to the rest of the body, like when the hands are on the hips they look ridiculously long and stick out too far.

So, walk cycles are more difficult than I anticipated. Again, I tried following the reference video but apparently I don’t have a knack for timing. I was thinking of working it like a 2D animation (my first mistake) so that was more what each frame would look like rather than trying to make it fluid at a 25fps rate. The armature ended up slouching by the end due to me over doing it on the spine movement (you lower your head at certain points when walking) and I forgot to bring the head back up to its original position each time (instead it just ended up getting lower and lower). The animation is clunky and I’d have liked to redo it or maybe try it in Toon Boom but as previously mentioned I was on a rather tight schedule and did all of these animations overnight and the stop motion room is really effective in bringing out my stress what with the hot lights and confined space.

The sneak is possibly the animation I’m most proud of. Just because it fits to the original reference video the best and is actually fairly smooth. I didn’t have to move the arms at all, and only had to make the torso bob down slightly. I did encounter and issue with the legs again (it wasn’t as prominent during the walk cycle) as they aren’t very flexible and don’t allow for any movement above the pelvic plate. So moving a crouched character was a challenge as the legs could only go so high which resulted in shorter steps because the foot couldn’t really get off the ground and move forward very far before it was down again. I tried adding comedy of being caught in at the end to cut it off quicker because it would take very long to finish such a slow moving character all the way across the screen with the restriction posed. I personally think it worked quite well. A rig would have most likely been the best choice for this animation because it would allow me to put the armature on its toes and allow for more leg movement directly below the pelvis.

 To conclude, my time management definitely needs to improve and putting in a reasonable adjustment plan in place would be wise to counteract my depressive episodes and deadline issues. Script to Screen was far too big of a module to just be one semester long (in my opinion) and having all the modules on the same day meant my prioritising was based more on workload and motivation than anything else. I would also like to improve on my stop motion skills and become more acquainted with Toon Boom.