Due:Friday, December 19 @ 9 - 11:15 a.m. 

• Submit your animation in video & gif format to the Google classroom assignment. No late work accepted after this deadline.

For this assignment, you'll revisit your Walk Cycle to clean it up and add color; you'll also add follow-through and overlapping action, as described in Part 2 of the Walk Cycle assignment (also pasted below).

Animation cleanup is the process of finalizing the rough animation by clarifying and refining the rough. It is not just about tracing your rough animation, but also about improving it. 

1. Fix the rough - It is a good rule of thumb to avoid wasting time polishing what is foundationally weak. Invest in good foundational work (roughs) and you can be more confident on cleanup. Identify if there is enough information in the drawings to start cleanup, and go back into any areas that need more work before cleanup. Also think about what's working in the drawings you do like, and make sure to maintain/ increase that.  Importantly, if you didn't do it the first time, add anticipation & overshoot.

2. Analyze & Set Up: It is very important to identify and use a consistent style in your cleanup. Decide what kind of line you will use (sketchiness, stroke length, varied width), and identify brushes and brush settings. Set up your file, and practice your lines before you start. This question of line quality is very important.

3. Frame Order: Don't approach this linearly. Start with the spot key, then do the Keys, Breakdowns, and In-betweens.

General Tips:

• Spread the work out. You can only do 6-10 drawings per day.

• Assess frequently with constructive criticism, and course-correct as you go.

• Maintaining line weight and consistent volumes is a constant challenge. Keep this in mind in your critique and be honest with yourself.

Resources:

• Assignment slides

• Noble Frugal cleanup tips

• Marc Hendry, "The Unknown Art of Animation Cleanup"

Walk Cycle Part 2

In this stage you will add follow through & overlapping action, and do some "finishing" work on your walk cycle. Walk cycles look more believable with lots of overlapping movement.  Adding small amounts of animation to the rotation of the torso, the position of the head, the sway of the hands, etc. help sell the overall effect.

Follow through & overlapping action can give your character weight and personality. This principle reinforces the idea that an animated character exists in a world bound by physics principles.

The two terms are closely related:

• Follow through: Loosely connected parts of a body/object is always a few steps behind and will continue to move after the character has come to a complete stop.

• Overlapping action: Different parts of a body will move at different rates based on their location and mass.

Follow throughs and overlapping actions are usually added after the main body parts of character have been animated.