Animation. Doing the Tough Stuff!

Drawing walking or The Walking Cycle

At the Ashcott Animation Club, I decided it would be fun to learn a little about the walk cycle. It's one of the key skills to learn in animation. People learn this at Big School, or even Big Big School - My lovely lot are only in year 5 and 6!

There are some fantastic resources here and here and I used this image, from angryanimator for the children to colour in. The idea was that they would start by colouring these frames, then if they wanted they could draw legs onto a simple body, and then develop from there. I think it was late in the term, and none of them wanted to take it further in this session, but I think they will be impressed with the animation they have produced using this template, and I will definitely try this again!

Here's the template they used:

It was the end of  long term, and they were very tired, AND poor Trystan had a broken arm :( Here's the drawings they produced. - I need to work on my photography skills though!

Amazing Animation

Thanks to all the wonderful children at the Ashcott Animation Club.

This is their first term, and we have really whizzed across with so many different types of animation. Remember,
1. Animation takes about 15 pictures per second!!!
2. Each of these was made in less than one hour, and each was a first attempt at each method.

Brilliant work, kids!

Guinnie - Lovely, deceptively simple fireworks, and then a missed Karate kick!

Ethan - Here's Ethan's first drawn gif, and some scary dinosaurs using pivot animation.

Jacqueline - More super fireworks, and this very inventive caterpillar (drawn with an impressive soundtrack hummed/acted out in the background!)

Trystan - Great comedy 'splat' and a simple, but really effective number sequence!

Maisy

Really quirky drawn animation, then a great use of Pivot letters...

Luke

I really love this drawn animation - it has such a great style; it looks like Luke has drawn it using coloured pens. Great. Fun pivot animation, too.

Ben

This may look simple, but Ben worked really hard to find a way to move the car. Well worth the effort!

Louis

Two very fun, and confidently drawn animations. Great work.

Zak

Another bold and bright drawn animation, and I must ask Zak what his link is with Scotland!

Ronnie

Ronnie really likes pivot, and these are both really colourful pieces!

And here are their first every stop motion animations - remember - one second takes about 15 pictures!

I think this is really super, Trystan! Well done.

Brilliant work, Zak

Maisy, Guinnie and Jacqueline worked really hard on this.

We watched this film, and it inspired the girls to make this

I hope to add the last few next week, and here are a few unnamed - I'll get these all arranged next week!

Animation Workshop Part 1

In our second session we learnt a little about animation - We made a simple flip book so that we understood that animations are made of losts of 'frames' or different pictures that flash quickly in the same place. There can be 15 or more frames in one second of animation - it's a slow process!

Then we used three programs to make animations:

http://www.abcya.com/animate_classic.htm - this is brilliant - up to 40 frames, you can see the previous frame (onion skin) and it saves as a .gif file

http://www.abcya.com/animate.htm - a newer version - up to 100 frames, and lots of pre-made images. 

Finally, some students used a free program called Real Word Painter, found here - it really is excellent - I even made a donation! The best thing is that you can create an animation frame by frame, but only need o save it once. It is quite technical, and the students have really found their way around it very well. 

And sometimes the hardest thing is to come up with an idea...great work!

This is me

Fantastic work from the Hambridge University students here.

The question ... Who are you?

Answered by the students in pictures and their own words.

The pupils took their own pictures, and recorded the answers to the questions, then edited the HTML code 'shell' to link their words and pictures together. It's tricky work; lots of words that the computer is very fussy about - it has to be done right!

The only changes I've made here were to be able to put the work online. Other than that, it's all their work!

At last I've done it!

Here's Leonie:
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/1/12816321/mephotos1.html

Here's Jess:
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/1/12816321/mephotos2.html

Emily:
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/1/12816321/mephotos3.html

Hey, Bradley,
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/1/12816321/mephotos4.html

Tyler:
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/1/12816321/mephotos5.html

Felix
Sorry, Felix - I'm just putting yours together!


Ben:
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/1/12816321/mephotos7.html


And last, but not least, Dan!
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/1/12816321/mephotos8.html 

pictures

3

4

5

6

7

8

candy

death dragon

do not enter

Emily

george

not the freja

Irish

tobster

kyle

barlow

demi

frog

smarties

cat

viking

moo

zoe