Exercise in frustration
Here [right] are a few of the drawings I labored over as part of the Breathless Eighties -- tiny illustrations of choreographed exercises.
Pat has been scanning all the originals and emailing them to me. By the time I drew these pretty "routines" (Tape #15) I was drawing from video tapes instead of snapshots. It took forever!
Fast forward.
The other day I got the bright idea to try an animation based on the little figures. Yesterday I got serious. My general purpose is to improve my animation skill and move with a beat.
Oy. Multiple incompetencies collide. The final result is, uh, animated all right, but it totally does not work as an exercise -- something wrong about the lunges which should be taps -- whatever -- Pat will die when she sees it. I hurried to get it done and my brain couldn't grasp what I'd done wrong. I'm posting it here today for the archives -- as my first, total body, rhythmic animation that lasts more than a couple seconds. (The Wright Brothers probably had planes that didn't quite fly either.)
This was done with what I'll call METHOD A -- a puppet consisting of separate body parts, "strung" together. Problem: you can't make the right foot stay in place when the left foot lunges left, so then you have to move the right foot back -- getting all the joints rotating semi-realistically. The technical issues overwhelmed my sensibilities.
I need to test METHOD B.
6.3.2008