More Classical Animation

So I just wanted to show you guys just how much drawing goes into animation.

This is a stack of the animation paper for all my 2D assignments.  Its about 3/4 of an inch.  Over 150 pages worth.  And this doesn't include the drawings that I didn't use in my animation but I still drew. I have a stack of about 30-40 more pages that I took out - for timing purposes or that had to be redrawn.

2D animation is filmed at 24 frames per second.  Luckily we don't have to draw 24 frames/drawings per second because most of the time you are shooting your drawings on "two's" - meaning you hold one drawing for two frames.  The reason is that the eye for the most part can comprehend movement even when things are held for 2 frames at a time.  You can do things every single frame but from what I understand it's not that common. Interestingly enough, anime is shot on three's (one drawing is held for 3 frames).

In our final class of 2D in term 1 we worked on a walk cycle. Here's mine.



My instructor picked mine to show the class because he thought I did a good job and had a good understanding on the principles of what makes a walk cycle. If you are interested this is a 16 frame walk cycle (8 drawings) that is looped. Walk cycles vary in frames depending on the animator's preferences (some do it in 12 frames for instance).  Also, something that is pretty interesting (that you may have noticed from my walk cycle) is that when you draw a walk cycle, you don't draw movement - the man is not moving from one side of the page to the other. Instead you draw him walking in place, loop it, and move the background behind him.

*P.S I just realized that I forgot to add my 2D animation of the flour sack in my previous post, so if you are interested you can go back to that post to see it.