reblogging this as I was reminded of making this post forever ago .

really looking at the last 2 rules and I feel like a lot of people in charge of some projects in the industry could be reminded of them @_@

Chuck Jone's rules for good animation

All living creatures, fictional or not, have anatomy. Equally true of an amoeba, an angle worm, a mastodon , and a Grinch.

If you want believability in your characters, you must have visual consistency. In animation, each character must move according to its own anatomical limitations: Daffy duck must move with Daffy Duck’s anatomy, Donald Duck with Donald Duck’s structure. The amoeba’s anatomy seems to have only one restriction - its bulk; like an inflated baloon, it can vary its shape, but it cannot change its volume. That is, if you want a believable amoeba

All animals - humanized animals or animalized animals - must appear to stand, walk , run or skip under the stablizing pressure of gravity in order to achieve believeability

There is no sympathy without believability, no real laughter without sympathy.

In the sympathetic recognition of any character there must be some evidence of one’s own self, one’s own weaknesses, one’s own mistakes, no matter how well self-concealed, buttoned down or pigeonholded.

The flimmaker as well as the viewer must be able to find the character within himself. We cannot fashion personalities from what we SUPPOSE another person to be.

If you start with character, you probably will end up with good drawings. If you start out with drawings you will almost certinly end up with limited characters, caught in the matrix of your limited drawing. Therefore…

It is not what or where a character is, nor is it the circumsances under which he finds himself that determine who he is. It is only how in a unique way he responds to that enviorment and those circumstances that identifies him as an individual. hopefully, an interesting character becomes interesting because of that uniqueness among his contemporaries.

For identity, you do not DRAW differently, you THINK differently. It is the WHO of the character , not the WHAT that counts. Walk- through circus clowns depend upon WHAT they look like for their brand of comedy. That is WHAT they are. Comedians depend upon HOW they move for comedy and pathos - their wonderful who-ness.

As the writer John Buchan said, you will never succeed in playing a part unless you convince yourself that you are it.

Animation means to invoke life, not to imitate it.

no great children’s book, film or fable was ever written for children. It was written for the witer, the artist , the flimmaker. Again, the mark of any ’ great work ’ for children, from one by Beatrix Potter to a book br Dr. Seuss , can be easily identified: if it can be read with pleasure by adults it is probably a very good, possibly a great, childrens book.

you cannot write DOWN to an audience or to your subject. you must write UP to them with the certainty that you cannot ever do justice to your subject, but must bend every creative nerve and muscle of your heart and brain to its full capacity in an attempt to do so.

The least you owe an audience is the best you can do

No art form can exist without restrictive disciplines. Most of the great paintings in history have been caught in the terrible discipline of the rectangle. The flimmaker finds himself trapped in the exact and severe disciplines of both the rectangle an time. Most cinema features are in a time warm of 90 to 120 minutes, most animated cartoon shorts in a confinement of 6 minutes.

You must not complain of your restrictions. If you cannot live with them, find a discipline you can live with.

——————-

Above is a section from Chuck Jone’s book Chuck Reducks. I’ve bolded some of my favorite and most inspirational rules. Forgive me some spelling errors. I was staring at the book while I was typing so I wasnt really watching the screen haha.

im so bummed i lost the higher res files so i just gotta give you bleck screencaps (and the screencaps of the low res version of my high res files cuz i cant even find the OG roughs haha) - BUT I do want to post them because it was so special to work with Jeff Bittle (our storyboard lead and supervisor) . It was fun to think of the memories that lil Johanna would have with her family - and as someone who was blessed to have a lot of crafts, baking, and outdoor adventures in her childhood, it was easy to come up with visuals.

He’s the type of guy to make himself laugh and go “Oh how I amuse myself.”

There are also these lines in the novel indicating that he has a little fishy tail and webbed hands, so I gave him a lil anglerfish tail :]

hes just a lil guy your honor. just an innocent fish'mn!

Losing my mind this Friday morning.

(That anon with that Timing and Spacing Question)

Yeaa.. the Referencing, specificlly about not getting everything right and "breaking it down, learning a few things at a time", really caught me by the ear... ahahaha..

Thank you soooo much for your time, help, vibess, the Resources, insights and all the input,,, !

It really means a lot, reading through everything until the end. The path feels clearer and less alone. It's nice to know I'm somewhat on track and not mindleslly shooting in the dark, THANKK YOUUU 🙏

* There's no need to ans this one ahahaha,,.. Sending all the good vibes~

<3 HAPPY TO HELP ! I struggled with it for awhile too. Art is tricky like that because its always learning new balances between understanding, experimentation, application and developing your own creative voice. But keep it up , I'm so happy you know you're not alone in the journey !

Hello..

Not sure if this is going to makes sense..... but

How does one approach studying Timing and Spacing in animation ?

Like, how would you go about taking notes/

Or observing and studying Spacing and Timing of an animated scene mindfully, so you could apply it to your own work.

Do people just watch an scene they like on something like youtube, and go frame by frame, noting down how many frames have past between each keyframe as well as the spacing by thumbnailing them down ?

I'm honestly kinda overwhelmed, and frustrated cause I have a hard time nailing down the kind of timing I want (specificlly getting that 'snap' kinda feel)...

I don't like how 'floaty' or 'smooth(?)' things tend to turn out when i try to animate ;-;

IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. My friend I give you big support vibes cuz I had such a hard time understanding timing and spacing. It comes easier for some but not others and thats ok. I had to learn how to be boring with it before I got comfortable enough to experiment and I can still easily get stuck in my box. I would say that reference is a HUGE PART of making animation work. Over time you can build up your mental library and you may not need as much and just go off of your own thought process but thats something you build up to. And most people when they start will find things either can be jittery or too even, and thats just part of training your eye! Snappy animation can be tough too ! but thats why learning from it is GREAT. Gosh theres so much you can learn from frame by framing things - especially classic hand drawn stuff. So i 100% would recommend finding some ref of the style you want to emulate and just try it out and 100% -figure out how many frames in between , seeing just how much they manipulate the pose, anything really! Its not about getting it all right, its just about breaking it down and learning a few things at a time and going 'OH maybe ill try that out next time' I think you going ' hey this feels too floaty and isint the vibe' is you exactly describing what the problem is. Your in-betweens are probably very evenly spaced out- but thats a really common problem when people first start. But the solution is just as you said - REF. And in animation that is more of a part of the job then anything honestly, same with storyboard. and learning a lot from eachother. I FEEL YOU THOUGH. I was there too, and it took me longer then others to be able to get what I want. But you're on the right track , just dive in to doing that good good frame by frame and then trying it out yourself ! here are some links that you may find useful as well ! https://gingercatsneeze.tumblr.com/post/145037677357/1-ah-fai-was-a-chief-animator-for

HOPE THAT HELPS ! <3

Do you think they will ever make another animated Hilda Project on the Future?

I have no idea ! I think exploration of the world would be fun overall. Maybe not with -hilda- in particular. I think its good just to let stories be. like for example, im so happy we got a season 3? but also ..The Mountain King was the perfect ending and kinda made everything from season 1 feel complete. season 3 was like..bonus lore season lol. so I think if they did decide to do something else I would love to see a different character or a different time. That'd be cool !

follow up to this . brynn cant complain cuz Panic ( @adoradoi ) is very sincere..and sweet and not trying to goof ( Pain @magalodan is not ) - and they literally just had a moment in the game before where he was like " I love you both for who you are " AND HE DOES. EVEN WHEN THEY DO SHIT LIKE THIS. he does love his lil tiefling brothers tho

The DND gang met Niall's sister, and it was very embarrassing when she outed the time where brynn dream booty called him The tiefling twins will never let him live it down ever. ( and in game immediately went to get him a collar that said 'puppy' on it so now he has that cursed item)

I post a lot of silly pirate AU doodles of these two- so I was pretty delighted that in game last night we actually ran into Niall again after about a year+ in game. (time passed by quiet a bit when we were in the faewilds, and Brynns tattoo he got from Niall last time they saw eachother is just freshly healed)  I’ve been waiting for so long for brynn to develop enough for one of @immortanjill ‘s oc flirts to actually have the *intended* result . She always makes the best NPCs in her DND games and they are wasted on this wooden block of a man.

I will cherish this moment because it will be the only time it happens before the world ends. Its fine tho, we did it. ACHIVEMENT UNLOCKED

we're in end game territory for the DND group and the party is having these moments that are really fluffy and cute but they are going to get someone murdered tragically the next day. We're all living for it really. Niall belongs 2 ( @immortanjill )

it only took 4 years of playing dnd , @mmothmanners ' flirty pirate man finally won over the stubborn druid. Well..he did a bit ago, but, it takes a bit for Brynn to catch up. the good ol , "i hate you > i was wrong about you> you're kinda cool > oh no", arc

The DND gang met Niall's sister, and it was very embarrassing when she outed the time where brynn dream booty called him The tiefling twins will never let him live it down ever. ( and in game immediately went to get him a collar that said 'puppy' on it so now he has that cursed item)

WOOOOOO HECK YEAH ! show supports <3

boop

happy april fools , here is a storyboard doodle of the pooka that @mmothmanners did