Elements Animation Development Process 6

Right, so let's get onto animating the girl on the swing and the entire process throughout the last week because a lot has happened. It began with me sketching design of the girl, inspired by the references I spoke of previously. See my design below...

Originally I intended to draw out my swing animation on layout paper. I felt like I didn't want to be solely reliant on computers because even though layout paper can be slightly rougher it also has a looser feel to it if you know what I mean. Anyway I tried layout paper, but there are certain advantages to computers and things you can achieve that are simply impossible with pencil and paper. For example, copy and paste. 

The copy and paste tool allows me to use certain parts of the girl's body over and over which keeps a consistency throughout my animation and it is also hugely time-saving, meaning I don't constantly have to redraw everything.

Anyway I scanned in the sketch onto my computer and traced the character with the pen tool on Photoshop. See below...

From then on I just used Photoshop to draw my frames, layers were far easier to see through than layout paper and if I ever made a mistake I could go back and edit it no problem.

The above screenshots are references for each frame of my animation. I didn't even think about roto-scoping them because firstly, to me, they take the animation out of the process. And also its just so much more dull to create. I couldn't just have the girl swing back and forth on the swing because that would look incredibly robotic. 

Plus a four year old does not just sit on a swing and swing perfectly. As you can see I had to observe the secondary movements of the girl in the footage carefully. She falls about on the swing because she can't sit still and she's not quite big enough to ride the swing, or strong enough to give the swing enough oomph to go very far. I copied these secondary actions and altered the girl's limbs to look like the girl in the footage. 

Its a fine balance, I wanted the girl's movements to look realistic, her physicality needs to be that of a real four year old girl for the viewers to see her as a four year old girl. But also Mike mentioned to me to keep in mind the technique of exaggeration. Not only do I need to animate her like a four year old girl, but I also need to animate her like a four year old animated girl. Very tricky stuff.