Animation Food For Thought - Video reference and Stick figures

I know that we may not always have time, especially if we're working on a TV series or short clips that require us to finish under an extremely tight deadline and sometimes we get lazy. We go, "ahh stuff it i can't be bothered shooting reference and/or thumbnailing." Truth is, without first planning your shot, or having no form of reference or research material, it's bound to look nothing like what you envisioned. There's that common saying: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail," and animation is no exception to that. You want to improve your quality of work, you've GOTTA shoot reference, do your research and draw Draw DRAW!

Some people say, "ahh but i'm not actually doing any work when i draw or shoot ref. I should just quickly do it and get it over and done with." Truth is many of us feel this way. One of my mentors used to tell my class: "Take it as part of your animation process. Do not seperate it. Planning -> Shooting reference -> Thumbnailing -> Blocking -> Blocking Plus -> Splinning -> Polishing. I don't view the first 3 steps as getting no animation done as it all contributes to the entire clip."

Which is easier? Getting nice poses on paper with a pencil or getting a nice pose on the computer with your rig? I think it's kinda obvious. In the time taken for you to pose out something that you may think didn't turn out so well, you probably would have drawn 30 variations of that 1 pose in paper.

What if you can't draw that well. Hey MANY of the good animators and not pro animators, myself included can't draw that well, but that's not stopping us. Use stick figures, get the shoulders and hips in there and start drawing those poses out. Push those poses on paper so that you know EXACTLY how it's gonna turn out on the computer. If you need a good example of how this works, look no further than Jason Ryan's amazing stick figures.

Video reference is also a good way to find out things about your animation action that you didn't know or are confused about. Never never copy or roto your video ref, unless your job IS to roto then...yeah. We're animators! we make things fun and spruce up the motion, add life, zest and character to the rig. Remember that video reference IS NOT what your clip is gonna end up looking like. It's to help you figure out how you should be going about tackling that particular motion, be it a jump, backflip or crawl etc.

Another good way is to bring your drawings into flash or something similar, so you get even your timing down pretty well there. Han Xiang uses this method and i think it's served him pretty well so far, but like i said, for all those who don't want to "waste" so much time on it, hey! drawing is fast so JUST DO IT!