Step 2 in my attempts at Dermot O’ Connor’s LinkedIn animation tutorial.
There are 32 frames in this 24 frames per second animation. I like the way the rabbit’s expression changes with just a few changes to the lines. The blue and green shapes in frames 1 and 4 are a feature called onion-skinning. Blue represents the previous frame – as if seen through tracing paper – and green the next frame. By drawing an ‘in-between’, halfway between the two, it should be possible to get a smooth movement. The difficulty is keeping details consistent.
O’Connor suggests starting off a simple animation with a beginning and an end quick sketch of the action and one at the halfway stage.
Once you’ve drawn those key frames you get an idea of where the action is going and you plot arcs, so that things move smoothly.
I plotted an arc for the rabbits right ear but thought that I wouldn’t need one for the left. As a result it flops about aimlessly!