Unit 1 was my first time seriously learning animation, and even though it was challenging, I learned so much!
Stop-Motion Animation
Since I watched The Story of Afanti as a kid, I’ve always been interested in stop-motion animation. So I chose the stop-motion animation pathway when I had the chance. This was a completely new experience for me, and there were two exercises that I really enjoyed and learned a lot from.
First Time Making a Puppet
We spent four weeks learning puppet animation, and two weeks were for making the puppet itself.
This was a big challenge for me because I had to build everything from the very beginning.
I had made puppets before, but I always bought a ready-made armature and just added details. This time, we even had to cut wooden pieces with a small saw to create the structure!
I made the armature in class and finished the sewing parts at home. But I totally messed up on my first try—I finished the outfit and then realized the puppet was too stiff to put it on!
In the end, I had to undo one side, dress the puppet, and sew it back up.
Even though it wasn’t easy, I feel really happy when I saw my character come to life as a real puppet.
Lip Sync Animation
For the lip sync exercise, I decided to make clay animation.
First, I recorded a reference video and sketched keyframes. This helped me understand which movements to do at what time and how big the mouth should open.
To make the shooting easier, I made the background separately, so I could combine everything later in post-production. I also made replacement parts for the character’s mouth, tail, and cheeks to switch expressions easily. I did a lot of research and ended up making 6 different mouth shapes for different sounds.
During shooting, I wanted my squirrel character to reach out from the screen and interact with a real human hand. So I filmed my own hand separately to combine it later. But in post-production, I found that the size didn’t match the animation properly, and adjusting it was really tricky. Also, because I made so many layers, the whole editing process became super complicated.
This experience taught me that when making stop-motion, I need to plan compositing before, or post-production will be a nightmare!
Life Drawing
Our weekly life drawing class was really helpful! I used to do quick sketches from photos, but now we have real models! That really improved my observation skills a lot. Also, Vanessa taught us a lot of useful techniques.
At first, I wasn’t used to her drawing style, but recently, I feel more comfortable with it. Surprisingly, I found out that I love drawing butts! (Not in a weird way ) The shape is actually quite simple—a few lines and some compressed curves can perfectly show the connection between the waist and legs. And in quick sketches, it’s super effective!
Besides drawing, Vanessa also taught us how to stay relaxed and confident. Her class made me realize that practice really does pay off, and it gave me more confidence to try new things.
Conclusion
Whether it was stop-motion animation or life drawing, everything in Unit 1 helped me understand animation better and made me more confident. I still have a lot to improve, but I can’t wait to keep learning and getting better!
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