For the first animation I want to make, I chose to animate a character standing up from a chair and reacting to an off-screen character.
I chose this as a further progression from the animation I did last semester where the character flips a table. The action of standing up from the chair here was not bad but I didn’t think too much of it as my attention was focused on other actions in the animation.
Part of what my animations lacked in first semester was a sense they were a character living in that moment. As part of my reading into “Acting for Animators” by Ed Hooks, he says “Your character should play an action until something happens to make him play a different action.”
I have began to block out the basic keyframes for this animation. Its only a short scene to begin with but I want to focus more on the subtly of the character’s reactions to the scene he is in.
In this scene the main character is sitting in his chair, he is not pre-occupied with anything else so I feel any movement he does make should be in his head (as he only as his thoughts to keep him occupied at the moment) and his hands (fidgeting as he waits).
So far I only have the basics blocked out, its still a little fast so I’ll correct the pacing next. I also need to finish off the arm movements.