Straight ahead & pose to pose

Straight ahead & pose to pose is one of the twelve basic principles of animation by Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas.

Even after more than 30 years, these principles are still the foundation for believable movement in animated movies. They apply to traditional, hand-drawn animation, as well as computer animation (where they built the base for a set of special, applied principles).

In order to internalize them, each participant of the Animalation project had to do a short animation treating one of these principles. There were no restrictions concerning animation technique, so I tried to take my chance in something I've never done before. I used digital hand-drawing and animated everything in Photoshop using onion skins.

This is my demonstration video for straight ahead action and pose to pose.

 

First animation steps

Following are the remaining exercises I did during the Animalation project, including a walk cycle, walk cycle with jump and a hand-drawn bouncing/deforming ball animation.