Making More Improvements

Doing some more fixing with the animation I did previously.

 Her walk looks a bit jerky here, and the turn is a bit too quick and rushed.

Here, I re-animated the whole walk cycle to it looks smoother. I also re-animated the turn-around part to make the action look more obvious and convincing. I added more frames for smoothness and better weight transfer. I hope this will convince the lecturer that I can animate but I just rush sometimes and don't do a really good job...

The shoulder pops in this scene and the movements do not flow really well.

Fixed the shoulder and drew more frames for better movement. I think I drew a lot of walk cycles, run cycles and turn-arounds for this animation.

Ok, the problem is very obvious with this one. I drew too many frames and now it looks like they're moving in slow motion.

So here I have drawn the walk cycles again to make them walk in normal speed. I also omitted Farahilde's hand gesture towards Klaus, as I felt it is unnecessary. 

Improving Animation

Now that I have animated everything and still have some time left, I have gone back to do some improvements and fixing in the previous shots. Here is an example.

OLD animation:

NEW animation:

I added a lot more frames and made sure the sense of weight is conveyed better... I think it was worth the time since it looks much better now.

Processes

Here are more WIP gifs. This is when Farahilde grabs Klaus' hand and he helps her up the pipe. The rough sketches are above.

Clean up and line work.

Coloured and completed with background.

Exit to Freedom

As our heroes advance towards the exit to freedom, I also shift closer to my release from animating...

Scenes to Fix

I am nearing the end of animating and since there is still some time left I need to go back and review every shot I have done and decide whether to fix it or not. There are certain shots where fixing is mandatory. Here is one example of a bad shot that I will need to fix later.

Sketched out shot with key frames.

As it is obvious here, I have added too many frames in-between the key frames and thus causing the characters look like they are walking in slow motion. The solution would be to delete the additional break-downs to speed up the animation. I laugh when I see this because it looks like the characters are trying to push through water or an invisible substance is pulling them back.

Almost...There...

Just a little further to go...Maybe a week or two? I still need to go back and fix some older animations.

Sketch

Line art

Finished shot

More GIFs

Rough sketch: Farahilde jumping down to help Klaus

Completed

Boosting Klaus up

Shock

Lined

Finished shot

Guard comes running after them

He shoots at Farahilde

Coloured shot

WIP: Half Way Point

I think I am finally at the half way of my animation. I don't mean to bombard this blog with all my animation WIP, but it's all I have so far. Also it is a way of documenting my progress, and will help me with my Exegesis after.

I changed the story a bit more. Here is a new animatic with a few completed shots of the motion comic.

A few points to support my decision of changing the story this way.

- It is more realistic for Farahilde to distrust Klaus at first. They are strangers to each other and therefore makes more sense for her to act cold towards him in the beginning.
-This then justifies her change of attitude towards him. After he helps her, she realizes that Klaus is not merely a burden for her.

The old story flips this around where she goes from trust to distrust, a bit harder to relate to and not as convincing emotionally.

The moral of the new story also makes perfect sense: help others when they are in need and they may repay you back. In terms of this story, if Farahilde had decided not to help Klaus out of his cell, she would not have made it out on her own.