One of the first exercises given on my character animation course at teesside was to do a ball bouncing across the screen. The aims of the exercise where to concider arcs and squah and stretch. Here is the result! Next I intend to add shadows to the ball to give the animation some depth.

In the style of Animation Mentor, I have brought the knowledge I have learned so far together to animate a hopping ball. (Thankyou to Aron Durkin for the model, rig and the suggestion of the exercise).

The aim of this exercise was to study the principle of overlapping action. The animation is my own, However thanks must be to Aron Durkin for the model and the rig. (See the links page for Aron's website).

Happysack 02 Entry: This is my entry for the second competition on the happysack.org website. The competition was "The Fall" and the objective given was to 'animate a character who jumps off a ledge thinking he/she/it can fly then falling to the ground'. It was to be a maximum of three seconds.

Obstacle Course Ball: this 'obstacle course' was modelled by my partner in crime, I then planned and created the animation. From looking at the model I then formed ideas on what the ball may do. I intended the ball to appear to the audience as having its own 'energy' and so I tried to make the ball move fast and happy as if it was a challenge for the ball to get itself over the other side.

Anxiety - happysack.org Micro Challenge: This is a turtle that is anxious about coming out of his shell, then overcomes this fear. I made it by drawing the frames and then scanning them and lining them up in Photoshop. The time span for this project was a week, and so I handed in a 'work in progress' version. I quite like how this was shaping up but the timings needed alot of work tho!

Bouncing ball: My first attempt at a ball - yippeee! To get an idea of weight, timing and squash and stretch, I made the 'famous' bouncing ball (early disney animators used to do this, see "The Illusion of life" - an amazing read), created by most beginner animators. I tried to make the animation like the ball had a life and energy of its own, and used exageration to show this.

Flour Sack Bounce: After lots of reading, drawing and learning about animation, I have now made my first animation - Woooooo! I started by sketching out the key poses, focussing on the principles and then drew the inbetweens. The idea of doing a flour sack came from the training that disney animators used to do, also it was a challenge to show a lively, bouncy run out of a character with no 'real' anatomy.