Animation 1

ANIMATION

One of the great things you can do when working with images is to create a sense of movement. This does not mean drawing the whole thing and then redrawing it all in a new position...and then again, etc. You only have to change the bits that are going to move, and you can make these changes quite simple. A 'man' whose eyes move looks alive...that is all it takes! There are a number of ways that you can make small changes to a character to give a sense of movement. Want to show frustration or impatience? Make your characters eye-balls roll up. Want to show anxiety or watchfulness? Make your characters eye-balls move from side to side. Need to suggest your character is running? Create a blur around their legs! Simple ideas often work the best.

Have a look at the animated gif below, as an example. This animated gif has 8 frames:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .gif Animation

Frame 1: 81 x 81 pixels, 4068 bytes, 88 colours

156

This is the original image:

81 x 81 pixels, 27308 bytes, 99 colours

To achieve Bill's new character you only need to re-draw the areas where change occurs and that reduces what you need to re-draw. In this case, the basic portrait stays pretty much the same throughout the animation, only new features and reshaping of the chin needed to be re-drawn to give a sense of change and movement.

To see a more complicated animation and view the composite frames, click here.