If you want to learn how to animate characters,
stick around, and I'll show you how. I'm using a pixel art character made in Aseprite,
but these tips should apply to all mediums and animation software. So, this is Lumbah, a wood gathering dwarf,
he needs to chop this wood and take it back to his village, but currently he’s just
standing still. So, let's animate him. Step one: reference. You can usually find reference of the action
you're trying to animate online, but you can get bonus points if you film yourself acting
it out. This will help you understand vital information
like key poses and timing. Timing is one of the 12 principles of Animation;
some very simple guidelines I try and follow with everything I animate. If you don't know what the 12 principles of
animation are, make sure you let me know in the comments and subscribe. I'll make a video about it in the future. Step 2: break down the character into parts. Yes, tear the character limb from limb. Oh made me feel sick that, actually. separating the character into parts can help
you focus on one thing at a time and get more accurate animation. Step 3: the key poses. I learned from taking a reference video that
the key poses are in the anticipation and follow through. So I'm going to draw. Dwaw da dwarf. I'm gonna dwaw da dwarf. That’s hard to say. So I'm going to draw the dwarf in these poses,
making sure to exaggerate them to match the style that I'm going for. Quick tip: smear frames. I want to show the axe flying through the
air in between these two keyframes. But instead of placing the axe in every single
frame between, I like to use a single arced smear frame. This is where the axe is stretched from the
start to the end position and occurs as one big image like this. Smear frames are common in cartoons and often
look really silly on their own, but they're great for getting across quick motions. Step Four: timing. With only three frames we have a basic chopping
animation. But it still kind of looks off currently each
frame is on screen for the same amount of time, and timing is really important. I’ve just spat all over the mic there. Very nice. A slower buildup and follow through will give
the impression that there is some weight to the axe. Simply changing the duration of each frame
can help us make more believable motion. I drew in a couple more frames to the anticipation
and follow through to give it that slow in and out and that really gets the timing across
well. Remember that timing also
depends on the character. A large strong character might not have a
problem picking up an axe, but swinging it through the air might be a bit slower and
sluggish. Thinking about the context of your animation
will help make it more believable. Step 5: overlap or secondary animation. I've already done a little bit of this. If you look at the animation we can see the
hair and the beard moving somewhat independently from the rest of the body, but I like the
idea that the dwarfs facial features will squash and stretch as he’s flying about
chopping the axe, adding that in we now have a dynamic chopping animation. To recap this process, we filmed some reference
for action, acting it out to make sure we understood the key parts. We broke down the character into parts for
easier animation. We drew the character into the key poses,
exaggerating with the squash and stretch and using a smear frame for a quick chopping motion. We adjusted the timing of the action to make
it more believable. Changing the duration of the frames and adding
in extra frames for that slow in and out. Finally, we added some overlapping and secondary
actions. I applied that same process and made this
little idle animation too. Now he is no longer standing like a robot,
but he can't walk so he's never going to be able to take that wood back to his village. I the pixel necromancer, have the true power. 5000 likes it and I'll make him walk. It's now up to you to save Lumbah. [Creepy Laugh] B..B..B bonus round bonus round bonus round
bonus round. What's up, in the last pixel art video we
designed this frog character. If you don't know what I'm talking about,
then go and check out that video that will show you how I design characters in pixel
art. In that video I took you through the whole
process of designing the character, so I thought it would be nice now to take you through the
process of animating the character. Since this is an animation video so... We’re doing it live. Kind of, it's edited. It's going to be edited by me. Now Step one, I did say was the reference,
but [QUACK] that I know what I want it to do and it's is this. [Strange Noises] Which is exactly why acting it out is mega
important. So if you can act it out yourself, you'll
know exactly what you want the frog to do. Right so Step 2. I can’t remember what the steps were, gosh
I wrote the steps: breakdown the character into parts. This character is really good for practicing
animation because he’s really just a circle. You know, super basic, no complex parts. We don't have to break it up into different
limbs. Things like that. We can just imagine is a big blob of goo. Which he is big froggy, froggy goo boy. So let's animate him. I was going to do an Idle, but I think we'll
just do a simple hop, so if we're not taking any reference 'cause that's the reference
and I'm not breaking it down into body parts because he's so simple. Now it's time to put it into the key poses,
so let's do it. We're going to start off in this pose, but
the first key pose that I'm going to put him into is the anticipation frame. Swinging a bat is a good example. You're going to swing it, but you don't just
swing it from your, from the starting position, you would wind up and then swing the bat so
it's essentially the windup frame. So what I'm doing here when I'm trying to
put him in this anticipation frame, I'm going to squash him out. So imagine he's being pushed down and his
entire body is squashing and elongating outwards, down like that. And then he'll pop up and spring into the
air. They do say, try and keep the volume the same. If I was to make him that big, then it's kind
of unbelievable because he was only that big to start off with. Nice little trick you can do is just focus
on one side and then mirror it so you don't have to do more work. So we're getting the basics of the squash
in here, but the volume isn't looking quite right. It looks like it's actually expanding a bit,
so I'm just going to keep working on this until I get the squash right. This does take time, you know you won't get
a perfect first time. Animation is long, lengthy process, but it's
fun, so let's keep going. So that's a nice start for the anticipation
frame. That's just one frame. Could probably be improved, but we'll just
keep going. OK, I'll use that for the anticipation frame,
next frame that I need to do is he needs to be in the air. So ;ets add a new frame. I'm gonna take basic frog again. 'cause he's not going to be squashed while
he's in the air and let's just move him there. Let's say there. That's a basic hopping animation. It's not great. You know there is no real follow through there,
but it's the basics. We're getting there. So we got our first frame and squash down
into that. Which I want to be more stretched out, I think,
so I'm going to stretch this out if his volume is stretching long ways. It needs to also shrink inwards, otherwise
the volume of the character is going to be wrong. So let's just move him in. We could probably just move him in a couple
of times. Try and keep it exaggerated, his legs obviously
if he's hopping through the air, they're not going to be curled up anymore either, so keep
that in mind. We have a basic hop there, nothing too special. Let's slow that down so we can really see. What I notice here immediately when I'm looking
at this, it doesn't have a peak of the jump, so you'd imagine when he reaches the peak
of the jump that he'd actually slowed down as well, so he probably squashed up again
to normal size, and then come back down and then a little bit of a follow through. So let's keep working. Let's try just adding another frame here. Copy the basic proportion of the frog, but
move him up. So, so you see how he reaches the top of his jump, then he squashes back
into normal proportions. Let's play that at 1x speed. Is getting that that's looking a bit better
there where he slows down at the top of the peak goes back into normal proportions and
now we need him to come back down again. I think it would be nice to do a smear there. Let's try that. This frame needs to go in between these two
frames, but just putting it there probably won't look that good. Let's have a look. I mean it's alright. It's not bad, but I think it would be nicer
to have it smear as if there's some downwards motion in there. This is pretty easy, I can just move him up. Move him down. Spread him out. When you're doing a smear frame. I sort of imagine like spreading jam on bread
or something or toast. It goes from one end to the other. You spread it and it leaves that trail behind
it. And that's what you're trying to do with the
frog. So I want his entire eyes to sort of come
down. Just stretch it out and this might not work. This smear might not work for this motion. It might be too fast. It might look too quick, but a lot of animation
is just trying it out. And if nothing else comes of it, at least
we got to see this guy. I think that's the greatest frog I've ever
drawn. That's it. Friends. Pack it up. Let's have a look at this smear so far. There so you see how his eyes sort of stretched
down. I don't really like the smile of it. I think we could probably get away with hiding
this smile. OK, that's kind of good. Anticipation, flies into the air, reaches
his max, comes back down. And there he is. I can just see here. There are some parts which need fleshing out
a bit more with time and the top of his jump it goes back into his normal proportions,
but I actually want to squash him up again just to extend this even further to really
make it come across as if he's like floating into the air and we could just try starting
off with the squash down here. And let's put it in that place, but also move
it upwards. You see what I mean? Where he just sort of hangs in the air a little
bit more there. The timing is still a bit off. We still got some things to work on, so let's
keep going. OK, so what I want to do is actually change
this landing because it really feels off now that he just stops stiff and lands. So again, another squash frame might be nice
here. Could just replace this landing one with the
squash. That’s him sort of going right through the
bottom pose and then popping back into the standard pose. So let's see what that looks like. Pretty good, I kind of wanted to land first,
so let's just try adding. Let's try adding this frame in and add in
the proper proportion frog in before the squash. Timing is definitely very off, so I'm just
going to mess around with the timing of each frame here and see if I can make something
really nice. Make the timing work a little bit better without
adding anymore frames. So let's add frame properties. So every frame here is in 100 milliseconds
or 0.1 seconds. We can change the duration of things, so let's
give it a shot just to see what it would feel nicer as. So the squashing down I want that to be on
for let's say 200, so that's gonna elongate the squashing down. And that's already looking a bit better, but
this bit here at the top I want to do the same here, so let's make this 200. ‘Cause then it's really slowing down the
motion. That's very nice, much better. That's pretty good. I think we're getting there a nice little
hop animation I think it would be nice to add another frame in here where it goes back
to normal proportions. Before it squashes down, and that's gonna
elongate that top section bit as well. That's it, yeah, that's looking a lot better. Let's play that here so you guys can see. That's looking a lot better. He really hangs about at the top there, which
is why I prefer and that's looking pretty good. I'm going to just add in another frame here
in the anticipation, so we've got one squash down. Let's add even more of a squash down. You looking thick. That's pretty good. I kind of like it though. It's like Blem Blem Blem Blem. Feel free to do your own sound effects. For a basic animation of the frog. I think that's pretty good. Our little hopping frog. So just to break down what I did for this
so we have the squash down and then the flying pose and then he would just return straight
back to his normal pose. But then what we did is we wanted the top of the jump to be even longer, so we added
in some more frames at the top, which is this bit here and then this bit here way really
reaches the top of his jump and his backhand catches up with him and then he falls back
down again with the smear animation loop into his normal pose, squashes down for some follow
through. When he hits the ground he will follow through
and then will come back up into the normal position. Which is that. So there you go. Boing, boing, boing. It's not perfect, it could use a lot more
work with the timing and playing around with the volumes of the pixels, but it's good enough
for this demonstration. Hope you enjoyed it. And there it is. My process for animating characters. I hope you like it. Let me know what you think in the comments. Make sure you come and join the Discord channel. More and more people are joining, which is
super cool. Everyone can share the projects that they're
working on, give some feedback and help each other improve. As always, chopthat subscribe button. Chop. Get it because the wood and the dwarf and
the the animation is the.... And all of the links for the social media
will be in the description. So make sure that you come and say hello. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the
next video. Right now I gotta edit this...
