I love flip books!

[Gerry]

So I've been poring over The Animator's Survival Kit, and filled many sketchbook pages copying the various walk cycles and trying to absorb as much as possible. But last night I realized that just drawing a line of walk cycle poses was only half of it, so I cut up some scrap paper and started sketching the walk cycle poses into a flip book. I only did two last night but I LOVE THEM!

 

I think I have a new hobby.

[Rodney]

Flipbooks are of infinite interest to me too. I can't say I've created many myself though.

I always want to tear them apart and scan them into the computer and that is a chore and a half.

Using a video camera would work a lot better in that case.

 

The Whitman Flip-it Cartoons were early hints to me that animation was actually hand drawn and didn't just magically appear on the TV screen or in theaters. Read the story, flip the pictures... ah the adventures discovered in those little books.

 

Try adapting some of your characters to the lessons as you go Gerry.

 

There is no doubt in my mind that the practice alone is making you a better animator.

There is much to learn about animation.

 

 

I'm curious... when you are creating these flipbook drawings are you drawing straight ahead or drawing the extremes and then going back and filling in the inbetweens? Perhaps a little of both? Actually trying to put into practice Richard Williams approach in each lesson?

[Gerry]

Still baby steps Rodney, but the two I did last night were one of his wacky "broken leg" walks, and the second was a closeup of a walking foot. I did mostly straight-ahead, but with the foot I realized it would work better if I did the extremes then built to the inbetweens.

 

I actually downloaded the trial version of the DigiCel app that Jason Ryan does his demos in, but when I sat down at the computer I had an instant distaste of learning yet ANOTHER computer app when all i wanted to do was draw. that's when I got out the scrap paper and stapler.

 

But the great thing is that if you number the flip book pages first, you can still follow his demos by just flipping to the right "frame" and sketching, and flipping back and forth to keep the proportions right, or at least close. I think this will make a great learning process. It's ironic that I downloaded his demos for the four-legged walk but I was also struggling with a walk-cycle for the scene where the people are walking across the bridge in the distance. That shot will be a kind of limited cel animation where there are maybe four keyframes that cross-fade into each other. It's a simple thing but I found myself getting bogged down in even that simple of a walk cycle.

[Rodney]

Thanks for the additional information Gerry.

 

I keep thinking that someday my enjoyment of animation may fade but thankfully the opposite seems to be the case. Every day I discover something about animation that makes it even more interesting.

 

and the second was a closeup of a walking foot.

 

I think I may know the one you are talking about.

One of the things I found fascinating about animation history was just how much had already been worked out prior to Walt Disney's arrival on the scene. Of course we know the new heights Disney took animation to but even he learned how to animate from someone. Aren't we fortunate that others have passed on their knowledge of the art and shared their skills and experience?

 

When I saw the examples from E. G. Lutz book "Cartoon Animation" (a book that Walt Disney learned from back in the 1920s) I was really amazed. Some of those basic techniques are so applicable to hand drawn and computer animation today. In fact, we can still learn new things from those pioneering animators today.

 

I think flipbooks will have their day again. In some ways they did when Gif animations started to become popular on the internet. Suddenly everyone was animating some little thing for their webpage. It was fun and almost elegant in it's utter simplicity. Things have gotten a little more complicated with the Flash animations of today and I think we could use a little more of the old flipbook's sense of simplicity, wonder and discovery.

 

Wow, look at these drawings. They're really moving! How DO they do that?

Thats's the stuff of yet unwritten animation history.

[Gerry]

did two more last night, one of a walk cycle from the TASK book and one of a cartoony baby dinosaur walk from the Ryan tutorials. I *wish* I could say "Look at those drawings! They're really moving!" but mostly this is just getting my hand loose. the faster I flip them the better they look, but there's physical limits to smoothly flipping a little tiny stack of stapled together paper scraps.

 

I'm trying to think of a way to video them and post them here just for grins. If I can figure it out I'll post something!

[robcat2075]

Copying is a valid learning technique.

 

Bill "Tex" Henson said that whenever he had to learn to draw a new character the first thing he would do is put the model sheet on his light table and trace every line on it.

 

 

Do they still make index cards? A deck of those might make for easier flipping. Or a pad of post-its?

[Gerry]

On YouTube there are a bunch of crude flip book animations done with postits and they seem to work well for simple stuff. I also thought it would make sense to make them out of graph paper for better placement of body parts.

 

For the moment I'm using scrap paper just because I like to recycle, but it does make the whole exercise more difficult. I'll do one or two more with scrap paper but then I'll either take another route or start using the demo version of DigiCel.

[Rodney]

Something I didn't really understand until being shown by Don Bluth was the power of animating a sequence right on one piece of paper. At one end of the scale of things this turns into tiny thumbnails but at the other you get full sized drawings ready to transfer over to animation paper, scan into the computer... whatever.

 

The beauty of this method is that the eye itself can be trained to bridge the gap and act in the capacity of the flipbook.

As a comic book artist you are already familiar with the flow of imagery and the movement of characters from panel to panel.

I thought I already knew how useful thumbnailing could be but it wasn't until I saw Don rough out some of his animation on one piece of paper that it really sank in. At that point it wasn't just drawings moving. It wasn't just characters moving. Whoa. Look at those individual shapes moving!

 

Animation at it's most fundamental is about change.

Richard Williams has much to say about this in his book but a lot of it he doesn't say... he illustrates (look specifically at the drawings printed in red in the book and note the emphasis he places on change). At their core I'd say almost all of his techniques are designed to produce more change. He's often pushing it to the extreme for the lessons sake. More. More! MORE!

 

In this sense if there is enough change between the extremes, you can (almost) get away with just two drawings.

Two extremes should be able to at least tell the story even if the drawings where in silhouette. (He's swinging a bat. She's drinking out of a bottle. They are really mad at each other.)

 

The extremes are the essence if not our establishment of our timing, cadence, rythym, beat, etc; Bump. Bump. or perhaps Bump. Bump. Bumpity Bamp.

The images in between these extremes (the breakdowns and inbetweens) then can illustrate how that particular action is performed in space.

 

Sorry if I appear to be wandering too far afield of flipbooks but that's the beauty of flipbooks as well to me. It's also the failure of a few flipbooks I have due to a lack of visible change.

[Gerry]

Here's a super low-tech video of my efforts so far. The first three are copied from the Williams book, the last, the baby dino walk, I sketched while watching the Jason Ryan tutorial.

AllFlipbookshots_h264.mov

[NancyGormezano]

muy bueno! Love the look.

[robcat2075]

I like those. I like the repurposed paper too. It's like those "palimpsests" that they discover long lost Greek plays and unknown books of the Bible on.

 

 

If you want something that loops, try the Phenakistoscope format.

[Gerry]

Maybe I will. Maybe...I...WILL!

[Rodney]

Nicely done Gerry.

 

Too much fun.

[tbenefi33]

Just came across this one