Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Squishy, squashy, stretchy, and ... a course! What do you get?

Another week of AM under my belt and this week we focused on the squashing and stretching aspect of animation which really allows us as animators to exaggerate movement and also adding a physical volume and presence about a specific object. Great examples of squashing and stretching can be found in almost any cartoon such as Tom & Jerry and Loony Toons. This assignment involved a ball and a course of our choosing. Our goal is to maintain the feeling of a basketball/soccer ball by adding a slight amount of squashing and stretching to add a feeling of gravity and volume to the ball. 

Here is my first pass at my ball course:




For the most part I am pretty happy but there are a couple things that definitely need some adjustments. First, my squashing and stretching is a tad extreme for a physical basketball/soccer ball. Right now it is a bit too cartoony feeling. Secondly I need to fix the timing and slow the ball way down. Here are my next few iterations:










I soon find out I have to make the ball come to a stop at the end! Oops! Here are my final two iterations. The second one is the one I turned in:







After some critiquing from Josh Book I am turning in the below revision. What differences can you see?