Excitement and how to express it throughout for character?

Excitement is a stage of euphoria and physical activation, it makes us full of adrenaline and active. The most common synonyms are euphoria, enthusiasm, frenzy, ferment. Excitement is mental but it affects the whole body and it has strong physiological responses. It is one of the main things that engages our audience.
The first thing we need to understand when it comes to expressing excitement with our animation is what is the emotion provoked by. It can come from expectancy of an event, the love of doings something etc., but it can also be fueled by another emotion as anger.
How can you pose you character in order to show excitement?



When people are happy or excited of an upcoming event or so they usually start dancing or jumping, clap excessively, rock back and forth etc. Animators usually use personification to their characters so the audience can better engage with the film. That means that their animation is mostly inspired by the feelings and emotions of the people around them or even themselves. Some of the `symptoms` of excitement you can make use of include:

• bottom lip tucked under and bitten by the teeth
• quick short hops 
• energetic movement of the hands
• shivering body 
• hands and one leg lifted up
• eyes wide open

What is a good model?

Before starting with the modelling you should have a clear idea of what you are actually trying to achieve. Having some reference images helps with the creation of good proportions which is a very important factor. You should always aim to make your character distinctive. The character must me appealing, strong and interesting in order to catch the audiences eye. For instance, when devising The Simpsons, the creator knew that the bright yellow skin and the unusual design of the characters would grab the attention of the viewer.
The strong topology makes the work of the animator much unchallenging and pleasant. While creating the model it is a good habit to always check for errors like triangles or holes instead of fixing them after you finish. It is essential that you have good edge flow in certain areas of the mesh - usually around the eyes, the shoulders, knees etc. This aspect of modelling matters if you are planning to rig the model for animation because the poorly made model is hard to rig and skin, it also deforms badly when you are animating it.

Pose to Pose animation

 

I created this short pose to pose animation following a Linda,com tutorial which I found on Youtube   ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQAOPhQLV4 ). I find the tutorial helpful as it covers the basics of creating a pose to pose animation and this is actually all you need to know.
There is also another tutorial ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8quCbt4C-c ) I found which is really good when it comes to understanding the theory behind this method and the difference between pose to pose and straight ahead. Both methods have their benefits and it is good to know the difference and app;y the method that will work the best for your animation.

Google Calendar

Week 2 Storyboard Exercise

 Here are the screenshots from my storyboard. The character trait is `excited` and the action is `opening a very small gift`. Basically, The penguin is walking around minding his own business, then he notices the little red box on the table in a room. He looks around and when he decides it is safe and nobody is watching he decides to get closer and what is it all about. He notices a small present tag and gets all exited when he realizes the present is for him. The character turns his back on the camera, hiding from it, and starts unwrapping the box. He finds a shiny peddle inside. In the last shot he presents his peddle to the female penguin which symbolizes their love.
The story was influenced by the fact that when male penguins fall in love they search the whole beach in order to find the perfect pebble. When they finally find it they put it right in front the female penguin they like. If she accepts the pebble, they spend their whole life together.

What is a good storyboard?

A storyboard is one of those aspects of filmmaking which help you "see" the movie before you have created it. Storyboarding also helps the animator determine whether the shots are dynamic or not. The storyboarding process form widely known today was developed at Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s in order to help directors visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur.
DreamWorks advises film directors and cinematographers to avoid flat staging in their storyboards because the image contains three vanishing points. Thinking in 3-point perspective makes the storyboard appear more dynamic, adds more depth and volume. Drawing a grid also puts the character on an easily discernible plain which helps you gain more control over your character.
In order to add depth, texture and sense of location the use of foreground, mid-ground, background and far background is very helpful.
When dealing with multiple characters one easy way to organize them is labeling, because without some sort of order to how you stage your characters, cutting back and forth between them could be confusing to you, the editor and the audience.

Week 1 Squirrel Animation

This short animation shows a character getting through a obstacle. The main aim of the animation is to visualise what is going on in the characters mind, how he thinks and overcome the obstacle. The animation has some technical issues but it successfully shows the thinking process of the squirrel. In the beginning  of the animation the squirrel sees the nut and clearly shows his interest in it by stretching up and opening its mouth in excitement. After the bad camera movement we come to the scene where the character notices that there is an obstacle he needs to overcome. By looking round the squirrel is familiarizing with the situation and starts thinking of a way to solve the problem which lies between him and the nut. We realize the character has a solution when the explanation mark appears above his head. And finally, the character expresses his satisfaction with the great job he did by eating the treat with a smile.