Showing posts with label Exercises. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exercises. Show all posts

Exercise 3. Draw some sequences.

A sample sequence. 
Remember how things work when you sequence them?  You must remember, because you studied the [timeline / sequence] section already, didn't you?

A timeline differs from a sequence, because the duration of a timeline is the entire animated flipbook.

A sequence is a drawing of just one particular object, and how you want it to move or interact with other objects.

Concentrate most of your energy on composing sequences in anticipation of moments where objects interact.  Get good at determining when those events will happen in your timeline (see next exercise), and you will have some very amazing flippers in your back pocket.  And that's for real.

So go ahead, draw some sequences.  Listen to some songs while you do it.

Exercise 4: Write out a timeline.

Alright, so I know you've seen this image before, but this is what a timeline looks like.  I could give you timelines of all of my flipbooks in this series, in fact at some point I will probably have to draw that in order to make this site complete.  But in the meantime, the point is that I want you to draw your own timeline so that I can take a look at it and understand your flipbook and maybe even be impressed and inspired by yours.  Here is the technique.  Just figure out how many pages you have in the notebook.  Have faith that you are going to finish the entire notebook and it's going to work out, and you're not going to rip out any pages.  If you're working with the standard-issue Rhodia notepads, then just get down with the 80-page limit, like in this one.  

Take your objects and background themes in the last previous exercise, and determine how you want those things to interact.  The flipbook needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Keep in mind that it takes a little while for some of your sequences to transpire, and you should know how many pages each of those are.  This technique would later help you with film editing.  

Go on, try writing some timelines!  Go ahead!

Exercise 2: Compose a selection of background themes.

Not to hint at where this is going too much, but just figure that from this point, you're going to need to determine what kind of backgrounds you're going to want to have, so that your flipbook looks more complete.

Think about the setting of your environment.  Also, remember that in flipbooks, there is no such thing as "background."  Everything is an object on a different layer, and the layer that is the furthest back should be drawn last, unless it interacts with layers that are above it.  If that's the case, better shut your door and turn off your phone because those can be very difficult to compose.

Flipbook composition is like writing a symphony.  You want your tubas to do the same (or at least a similar thing) to what your clarinets are doing, while keeping their characteristics apart.  That's helpful, right?  I'm only trying to help.


Here's another example of something that you might consider to be analogous to a "background theme."  In the Flarfball cartoons, note that the trampoline and the grass stay essentially stationary throughout.  That doesn't look that bad, and because it's fairly incidental that it is a "fixed" object, that kind of makes philosophically the background.  In this case, you can draw it first because it's made even simpler.  It's technically in the same plane as all the other objects, unless you want one of your characters to go in front of it.

Remember that even a trampoline can become an animated object in a flipbook.  It remains stationary because you draw it the same on every page.  If you want it to get bigger, that could just mean that you are zooming in.  If it walks away, that's another issue.

Hills are background, ramps are background.  Whatever you want to consider your setting could be considered your background, and it's good to have a pallete of drawings that could be considered background objects (things that are technically inanimate, or incapable of moving without interaction from other animate objects).

Exercise 1: Compose a Selection of Objects.

This is an example of a selection of objects.  Note how there are many different ramps in the image you see above.  It's pretty cool, right?  Your selection could be way different.  If you like clothing, your objects sheet will be full of articles of clothing.  If you were drawing a car race, you would have several different cars to choose from.  Right?  


That's what we're going for here.  In fact, if you wanted to make an object with a ton of detail, then you could create something that looks like a sequence of an object.  Here we have the way that a dunkasaurus is sequenced into turning 180° and it also shows the Prismacolor #'s.  

Here is yet one last example of how a series of objects could be drawn to reinforce the notion that you can maneuver them now that you know how to draw them.  Just remember that each of your objects contain a number of lines, and that those lines consist of a certain amount of detail.  The more detailed each individual object is, the more work you're going to find yourself doing over the next 80 pages.  

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