Dococom

One of the best things about After Effects is while you can create very complex animations, it is used for some of the most famous Hollywood character animations we know, you can also create very simple, useful and usable animations on your very first day.

Learning any new tool or technique, it is always helpful to establish the ‘fundamentals’, the basic tools that form the building blocks for this tool and in After Effects or any timeline based animation tool, the basics are stopwatches and layers.

What are ‘stopwatches’ ? Stopwatches are the icons, the point and click tool you use to identify a place on your timeline where a certain event or quality is set. When you ‘click’ a stop watch for a property, you are creating a keyframe on the timeline for that property. You are telling your animation when this event is going to happen. Perhaps the simplest example is position. You have an animated ball, a bouncing ball. At position and time 0, the beginning of your animation, the ball is on a ledge. It is nudged off. At time 1 second, your ball’s position is half way to the ground, at 2 seconds, it hits the ground, at 3 seconds it is back in the air from a bounce and so on.

Your ‘stopwatch’ is the tool you use to set these keyframes, to ‘lock in’ a new value for the attribute your are animating, in this case, the position of the ball. At each second or defining event above, you click your stopwatch next to your position attribute, and the position value is recorded for that time. When you play your animation back, you see the values you defined played out as your ball bounces to the positions you defined at the exact time you recorded.

Does this sound a little too simple ? It shouldn’t. Think how many news casts begin with an animated earth revolving, implicitly stating that they are sharing a view of the entire world with you in their broadcast. Think how many companies use their logo animation as their signature.

Simplicity and clever messaging is the key to effective animation and getting comfortable with the fundamentals is the way to get started.

There is nothing worse than boring film. As my favorite animation instructor (who was a creative director in the Disney Studio) had said, “You cannot save a film with special effects!” He and I had many discussions around the subject of the use of special effects within a film and the circumstances in which a special effect furthered or dragged the advancement of a storyline within a film.

The Role of an Animator: An animator can be many things as well as the writer, producer and director of a film. If an animator is working for a studio, the role can become more defined and limited. There are character animators, where the task is to design and animate one or more characters on a project. This also means that the look, the walk and the mannerisms of the character are in the hands of the animator. A key animator takes the character and basically defines the poses for the action of the character. The in-between artist or animator takes those poses and literally does the in-between drawings of the motion. If the production is CG based, then this is achieved using animation software.

The Role of a Special Effects Artist: A special effect artist creates the look or what I call the universe of the film. This includes things like lighting effects, water effects, reflections, flames, lightning, as well as the motion of smoke, clouds, grass, hair, fabric and clothing. It is very detailed and patience challenging work. You really have to understand photography and the behavior of light and materials. In the old days, special effects involved a lot of miniatures, fireworks and wires. With the advancement of CG and the extra special effect programming a lot of that wonderful art went away except in the tradition of films like “Caroline” and “Nightmare Before Christmas”.

It has to be a Blend: One of the biggest obstacles an animated film faces (as do fantasy, horror and sci-fi films) is the temptation to overuse special effects. Since a feature film usually is 90 to 120 minutes in length, for fun just sit with a stop watch and time the length of each special effect in the film as opposed to actual character interaction or dialogue. If you have a film sparse in script you will find extended chase scenes, multiple repeated views of explosions, extended panoramic views and so on. In my discussions with my mentor, who was very old school, the script was the foundation of the film. In this I agree that if you don’t have a script that has all the key elements of storytelling, you might as well wrap the whole thing in toilet paper and call it “art”. However that said, there are times where you have to show or dress your character in some special effects to communicate the abilities of that character and do advance the story. One of my favorite examples of animators and special effects artists working together well is “Spider Man”. After all what would “Spider Man” be without the web slinging and the gymnastics through the downtown skyline?

Using the Best of Both Worlds – Creative Decisions: Whenever you create an animated film or one heavily loaded with animated special effects, you should always ask yourself as to why you are using one technique as opposed to the other. It’s not just a question of budget. It’s not about eye popping experiences. It is the way you tell the story and how you get into the heads of your audience that makes it really great stuff. Make every frame count because every frame does count.

The Naruto manga series is the creation of Masashi Kishimoto, a former apprentice of Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragonball Z. Similar to Dragonball, Naruto is full of striking characters and thrilling fight scenes.

In 1999, Naruto made its debut in Shonen Jump, the most popular shonen manga magazine in Japan. Within no time, Naruto became the favorite amongst manga readers, and is today one of the most popular manga series worldwide. Fans are thrilled by the adventures of Naruto Uzumaki and the ninjas of Konoha village. Due to its worldwide popularity, Naruto has been translated into several languages such as Chinese, English, French, German and Korean. In North America, the Naruto series appears in the English language edition of Shonen Jump magazine, and is also currently a top rated series on Cartoon Network.

The Naruto storyline traces the adventures of a teen ninja-in-training: Naruto Uzumaki. Naruto was orphaned at birth, and loves to joke around and be the centre of attention. He gets poor grades at the ninja academy, and most of the adults in the village shun him.

But Naruto has a secret: his body is the living prison for the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon, which almost destroyed the Village Hidden in the Leaves fifteen years ago. The 39 – and counting – volume Naruto series is an epic journey which follows the growth and development of Naruto from a brat and misfit, into a powerful ninja capable of becoming the next Hokage or leader of the Konoha village.

The other key characters in Naruto are Sasuke and Sakura, who are also genin or junior ninja. Sasuke is talented but tormented, while Sakura is intelligent and spunky. This triad is mentored by Kakashi, a jonin or senior ninja, who is laid back and enjoys tacky ‘adult’ fiction, as well as amazing fighting techniques.

As the story progresses, many other ninjas make an entry from Konoha and other rival villages. Each of these comes with their own distinct personalities, battle techniques, rivalries, as well as loyalties. The trio of Naruto and his friends find themselves face to face with some fearsome opponents, in an ultimate test of battle skills. Some of their most challenging opponents include Orochimaru, the evil snake ninja, and Zabusa Momochi, a ruthless assassin for hire.

Naruto is published by Shonen Jump / VIZ Media in the US, and Shonen Jump / Shueisha is the series’ Japanese publisher. There are currently 39 volumes of Naruto and counting. The main genres of Naruto are Shonen (Boys’) Manga, action/ adventure, drama and martial arts action. The content rating of Naruto is Teens – Age 13+ for martial arts violence.

You may be frustrated and de-motivated because you have just initiated to study how to draw and you are discovering it to be tougher than you believed it was.

Or you may be endeavoring on new topic or a new procedure or a new drawing medium and your labour are not meeting your hopes. You might also sense that your drawing is out of date and you are not making much progress.

The first piece of suggestion I would offer you is to not be so firm on you! Even specialists get depressed occasionally! Each expertise you gain, like drawing or knitting or riding a bicycle, uses different muscle movements and thought processes. It needs time and preparation for your brain and your muscles to become familiar with you!

If you are in this state it makes sense to go through old drawings, or sections of drawings, that you have experienced to be successful and position these pictures in a place where you can notice them. Don’t try to draw something too difficult straight away; aim to find something somewhat simple and attractive and draw that.

Additionally, use a drawing medium that you are well-known with and as you get comfortable with the objects you are drawing and the medium you are using you can start to give yourself, more difficult things to draw. You might also want ask a friend whom you know will give you constructive advice,to look at your drawings and give you some ideas of how to improve.

Coping with unpleasant feedback on your drawings

First thing, try not to take it in person. Even if the person giving you feedback says something for example, “You are horrible at drawing,” you should decipher for yourself as, “Your drawing aptitudes necessitate more effort.” In a nutshell, any unconstructive feedback is not targeted to you, it is about a proficiency that you are learning and getting mastered. For learning, you have to give time and exert effort and sometimes a bit of negative feedback is part of the journey.

It is not easy to be objective about your own drawings and it is even more complex to see the defects in a drawing that you have been gazing at for hours. In these cases it is very helpful to get some ‘negative’ criticism. You can select to apply it as a learning event.

While someone speaks pessimistically about your drawing expertise ask them (as graciously as you can) to specifically point out areas of features of the drawing they are unhappy with and what they suggest you do to improve. You should also keep in mind to query them what they think is excellent about the drawing. Any good feedback should be taken personally!