Interaction Animation

This week I learned so much. It was the final animation before the exam and we had 7 days to do this interaction scene. As the teacher we had Frederik Villumsen, who is a very inspiring. 

For the scene we were given two fairly difficult characters to animate and the task was to make them hug each other. The characters were the sultan from the movie Aladdin and Hogarth from Iron Giant. 

For this animation I really wanted to do my very best and to end up with a great believable scene.     

First, here's the scene I did:

I am very happy with what I ended up with, and I liked working with the characters (mostly the sultan)

When I started planning my scene I drew some thumbnails/sketches of important keys to tell the story. I found this stage a bit challenging, and I think it was because I wasn't sure how the hug should be. I wanted the scene to be very subtle and quiet. 

I tried writing and drawing during my planing stage, trying to get every thought out on paper and then choosing the poses I liked and from them. Next I moved it over to TV-Paint, trying to define my poses more for animation purpose. Also, trying to have strong storytelling keys, which clearly described the emotional stage of the scene. 

I had some trouble along the way, especially trying to get Hogarth's emotional stage clear. Like, I wanted him to be sad and crying, but it just wasn't getting there, and I got really frustrated about it. Talked a little with Frederik, who showed me more about the emotional arc and said that I had to: FEEL it. It helped a lot and I tried once again. In the end I feel I had a good working scene with some believable emotion. 

Also, during the weekend between the course I watched the two movies with the characters, and made some expression and hand studies. I stop framed when ever the character was in the emotion I wanted to work with in my scene. I feel it really helped me getting the character and how to use it for my benefit.