Animation for Beginners Course

Assignment 3: Anticipation

This lesson is exclusive to members

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Course info

23 lessons / 4 hours

Overview

The foundation of learning animation is understanding the universal "12 Principles of Animation". In this course you will learn to apply these principles to a range of mediums, including drawing, stop motion, claymation and puppeteering in Adobe After Effects.

You do not need to be able to draw to complete this course! Each lesson is followed by a demonstration and assignment that you can follow Lucas along with by using free online tools and apps, as well as items you'll be able to find laying around your house.

In this course you will learn:
 • The History of the Animation Principles
 • The Science of Animation
 • Squash & Stretch
 • Slow In/Out
 • Anticipation
 • Overlapping Action
 • Secondary Action
 • Arcs
 • Pose to Pose/Straight Ahead
 • Timing
 • Staging
 • Exaggeration
 • Solid Drawing
 • Appeal

During the course our assignments will cover*:
 • Flipbooks
 • Thaumatropes
 • 2D digital animation
 • Animating in Procreate on the iPad
 • Animating in After Effects (project file provided)
 • Stop Motion Animation
 • Claymation
* Each assignment could be completed in any of these mediums so there's no need to have a fancy computer, expensive software, or an iPad.

Lucas will also share his insights working as a professional animator on big movies like Avengers, Ready Player One and how he uses the principles taught in this course every day in his work.

The concepts covered here are not only for beginners but for every animator to apply in their daily work and be a resource for any time you're stuck on how to add more appeal to your animations.

Join Lucas on an epic animation Journey!

Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

instructor

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Welcome to the lesson for the anticipation  or antic principle. So we are going to create an a stop motion animation  with scissors that incorporates all three  of the principles we've learned so far. So we're building on each one and we're adding  and creating a bit more complicated  of an animation each time. So I like stop motion for these tests  because we're not having to worry about being good at  drawing and that being the limiting factor  of us testing out these principles. So that's why I'm favoring stop motion for this one as well. And I am using scissors for this.

So, uh, we also need a stack of books for a tripod. If you don't have a tripod, I'm continuing to try  to show you that you don't need fancy  equipment to be able to do this stuff. I'm using a stack of books to be able  to shoot the camera down where we will be animating the  scissors and I'm gonna use the paper, uh,  the potato chip clip  to help attach the phone to the book  so I can extend the phone out over  the book a little ways without it tipping over. So once we have that set up, we can look  through the camera down here,  but we need to plan out what we're animating, especially  with stop motion animation. You need to plan it out because there's no undo button  with stop motion animation. You are moving physical objects in the real world  and there's no undo.

So we need to know what we're doing first. And my idea for this lesson is to animate the scissors,  like they are a fish in water and it is swimming away. So we want to anticipate the motion of it swimming away  by going backwards first. And we're gonna incorporate the other two principles by  easing in or slowing into the anticipation  and then slowing out a little bit faster than we slowed in. And also slowing in on the anticipation  of the scissors opening. We want to make sure we're slowing into that motion.

And then as we swim away, we want to go faster  on the slow out to the acceleration of its swimming. So we're going to anticipate the scissors back as they open  as well, and which is basically a squash position now. So we're incorporating the first principle  and then we're going to slow out, but much quicker. So that means fewer frames, fewer pictures, and stop motion. As this closes, it's going to accelerate forward. So we're going to ease outta that as well.

But it's going to be fairly quick. There's not gonna be a ton of frames there. So let's get started. So now that we have the Stop Motion Studio app open,  I'm going to press new movie  and I'm touching very lightly, uh,  even though this is set up decently,  I don't wanna knock anything over in the middle  of animating something. So, so I still wanna be very gentle here. And the other thing to keep in mind is I,  I don't wanna be in the shadow.

You can see right here my hand, um, is,  is creating a bit of a shadow even when it's off frame  of the phone camera. So when I take a picture,  I wanna make sure I'm consistent in where I am  when I take the picture so that there's not a lot  of flickering and shadows going on there. So I wanna be able to stage this up first. So I want to have enough room here that I can go backwards  before I go forwards. So I, I don't want it right in the dead center,  but I want it a little bit back so we can see  where we're headed here and that we have some room  to go backwards first. So I'm gonna position myself so  that I can get in a good position to start taking photos.

I'm gonna click the camera button here  and then I'm not gonna use the timer this time. Andm gonna make sure that onion skin is about halfway there. And so now we can take our first photograph. So we want the first position, the stationary position,  and I'm gonna take a couple photos here  because it takes a few frames for your eyes  to register something happening, especially at the beginning  or end of a cut. So now that we have a couple of images, let's start  with the anticipation, but we want to ease into it. So I'm going to just move the scissors back, just  the least amount that I possibly can move them  and take another photo.

Then I'm gonna move them about twice  that much again. And I'm, I'm looking at, we're basically  matching the blue on the black of, of the  inside of the handles there. So I kind of can take a mental note of  how far I moved that one. So I want to go further than that  and I wanna start opening up the, uh, scissors. So let's open the scissors a little bit  as we move this back. So I'm gonna go a little bit further  and then we can start easing into this  as the scissors open as well.

So the other thing we can start incorporating is rotation. So I'm intentionally choosing this object  because it's very slowly incorporating more things to move. When you're animating a character,  you're animating at least 12 things at once. All these different joints that make up a character. So with this, we have position where it is, we have rotation  of the whole thing, and it can open and close. So part of the antic could be a bit of rotation.

So it's ramping up like this, like a kind of a J shape  or like a Nike swoop. So we could also start to rotate it here  in this motion a little bit. So I'm gonna just barely do that. And you also have to start thinking, okay,  how much am I easing in on the translation? How much am I easing in on the rotations? Because those are two different things  and you gotta, you have to keep track of those.

So we've opened it a little bit. We have a further position  and we've, we've started to rotate it. So I'm gonna rotate it a little bit more,  but I'm gonna start easing into the,  the translation, the rotation is,  is just kind of getting started. So it's gonna finish after the translation stops  on, on the ease in. And I need to open the scissors a a lot more,  Not a lot more but more  'cause we're really getting into the middle  of this antic now. Okay,  now I'm going to start to slow down the rotation  and start to really bring out the scissors here.

Wanna make sure I'm tracking the right  scissor, I have the wrong blade. I was looking at the wrong blade here. Another good thing to keep in mind is  the, uh, blue dot. So we can actually go back here  and see where, where we're at right now so I can hit play. So it's a good start. That rotation is maybe a little bit much  and it's going down, but that's okay.

It's just something to keep in mind. And this doesn't have to be perfect. It's a learning process, you know. Um, don't get too precious with your animation  as you're animating otherwise, um,  you will stunt your progress  because you'll be too worried to do anything. Um, you know, it's not the end of the world. We're not doing brain surgery here.

Um, no one's gonna get hurt. Hopefully these are scissors. Be careful. But, um,  you know, ke keep it in perspective what we're doing here so  that you don't get too precious, um, with what you're doing  and too nervous to try something. 'cause then what's the point? So I'm rotate this a little more.

So I'm easing in on the rotation. I've almost stopped the translation backward  and I'm really favoring opening the scissors more. And it's just a lot of back  and forth looking at the onion skin. For me. I'm gonna start to move this just  very, very little now, once we get on the slow in  and slow out, it's just the smallest changes  is gonna make the biggest difference. Okay, so I'm, I'm really doing next  to nothing here  'cause I want to have a bit of a hold at the back  of the antic so that we can really appreciate, okay,  this fish is really, um, building up some energy  for this push off here.

So I'm actually gonna take two frames there,  and then I'm going to start the slow out of the,  the fins or the scissors coming down. So I wanna make sure the center's blue part is kind  of staying where it's supposed to be. Do a bit of an ease in here. I'm probably, I'm probably on only going to do  two frames here  and start the acceleration  right here and really  push it off  there. So now I'm, I'm really watching the blue.here  to see the remembering the distance I I did on the last one  and also rotating it in a more straight trajectory now. So now I'm going the distance of the handles.

So I know I need to at least do that one more time, probably  before it starts to slow down and it needs to swim again. But the original idea was to get it off screen  so I can maybe have another frame or two of acceleration  before I start decelerating it or slow out,  or excuse me, slow in. So now I'm gonna start to slow the scissors down  as it goes off frame,  because as we know, swing under water,  you can only, uh, one stroke only goes so far. Cool. So now we're totally off. I'm gonna do a couple more frames there so  that it has a nice ending.

And then let's play this back. Let's go back to the main frame here. So now we have an antic. We know something's about to happen. We, and we opened up for a squash kind of position. We eased into it,  and then we did a, a bit of a quicker ease out  or slow out so that, you know,  the antic is kind of the buildup of the energy  and the main motion is going  to be the release of that energy.

So it should be a bit quicker. So I could probably get away with maybe even deleting  one picture or two pictures here on the acceleration away. So let's take a look at maybe what I could get rid of. I almost think I could get rid of this one. I'm going to cut it  and see how that plays back  so that that has a much better feel to it. To me it's a bit snappier  and it creates more contrast between the anticipation  and the main motion.

So we just created a much more complicated stop motion  animation, rotating the object, moving the object,  and also doing a squash and stretch pose by opening  and closing the scissors. So this has been a super fun, um, lesson for me  because honestly, I start these  and I don't know what you're gonna get, you know, um,  it's not like I'm marking anything here  to know exactly where to put this thing. I I'm doing this with you and I hope you will as well. And I hope you share what you're creating with me. If you choose to do something else  besides a scissors, like a, a, some kind of a tool out, out  of a tool belt or a chest or a hammer  or who, who knows what, you could use anything. Um, I'd love to see what you make  and share with me in the course, uh, discussion  or the questions and answer area.

So thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next lesson.
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