Advice for animators who don't want to record themselves: try putting a gaiter mask over your whole head and throwing a hoodie on. You'll still have enough vision left to face the camera and you can enjoy all the benefits of reference footage without the cringe of your own face. Works wonders.
this works for body mechanics exercises but i always think it's better to encourage animators who want to learn lip sync or facial animation to get used to looking at their own face. i think being able to study your own face is one of the best ways to learn, cringey as it may be sometimes haha. and hoodies can be fine but depending on what you're animating it may be more beneficial to wear something thinner so you can see the contours of the body. it's a case by case thing though of course
@@marselo1316 I searched up another clip of this character and the VA literally just said "ah." for when the character screamed like 😱 ruclips.net/video/UBYbXpQX5Vs/видео.htmlsi=UcYpuvD-ivjl9pbs
"Head Swaggle" is 100% something that I have seen people of Indian descent do naturally. It is a bit unusual seeing it on more western coded characters though.
It means something else in india, there it's used as an affirmative gesture, like nodding is in the west. In his animated examples it's always used in a context where the character is self-assured or confident, so not really the same. Maybe Milt Kahl saw indian people doing it and adopted it into his own thing, but I honestly doubt they're connected.
@@ZeeboonInc I don't know if it's just a Fijian-Indian thing, but I have seen more than one "auntie" and "uncle" (not actually related) perform a head swaggle when they're preening like smug pricks. No one in my immediate family does it, though.
All animation has it’s own charms!! Like, watching old Rankin Bass movies, I can see all the “mistakes” but I think that’s part of what makes it great.
@@Nixeen Personally I just felt the animation was stylised in an interesting way. It never felt like it inhibited what the movie was trying to get across
The best example i can think of acting in animation is the Genie from Aladdin, where they listen to one of Robin Williams' sketch comedy and imagine what his body language was like. I also love the video of animators they release on their twitter makes it's more real because the Movement of the character or action has to come from somewhere ❤
3:19 In defense of the Rapsittie Street Kids crew, they had actual professional animators, but they were forced by the producer to use a very rudimentary 3D software (3D Choreographer) that wasn't meant for TV production, which is why most of the film's animation consists of stock animations provided by the software. It's essentially the equivalent of forcing a Disney or WB animation crew to make an animated film using only GoAnimate.
I always catch myself making faces whenever I’m drawing faces, I guess I was subconsciously trying to get a feel for an expression to help me convey it in the drawing. I feel seen with this lol
Filming your own reference is VERY underrated especially in beginners, my professor had us taking an acting class so we could learn how people act in different emotional states and It helped me improve immensely!
There’s so much secondary acting that people do unconsciously, eye movements, leading actions, and being still and subtle all benefit hugely from it. In TV we rarely ever have the time to shoot good references, so you often do it only for your favourite or most complicated shot.
I think one of the best examples of animation = acting is a RUclips animator named James Lee. He doesn’t just use reference footage, his animation IS the reference footage. All of his poses were done by himself in real life, and edited in a way that feels realistic, yet cartoonish at the same time (i.e frame rate drops, exaggerated poses, stunning effects, etc.). It’s extremely unique.
One thing that blows me away is when animators are limited by their character and still manage to give them expressions. Carpet from Aladdin is a perfect example. No eyes, eyebrows, lips, not even a head. But we know what Carpet is thinking. And your little avatar - all you're technically doing is squashing and stretching the glasses shape and wiggling a moustache doodle. But it is so expressive! Even without your voice on top, I get a lot of nuances telling me how you feel about a scene being shown beside you. You're all so good!
I love seeing reference footage animators will record, it’s literally putting themselves in the character’s shoes to get tiny little details to shine through
i feel this is especially supported by the fact that in many animated works, different animators will work on specifically certain characters, rather than just each animator taking different scenes. Such as hobbie brown in spider verse. but this is also a thing in 2d animation such as with lion king they had specific animators for scar im pretty sure
That isn’t really true anymore. Yes, animators used to specialize in a character like how James Baxter did Rafiki but now they’re expected to be able to do all the characters that are in a cut
@@HiHi-oc3gh depends on the project. like how i mentioned hobbie brown in across the spider verse, and im just some other characters. Each project of course is gonna have a different method on how its produced, even within the same medium
I enjoy looking at videos that were used as references for scenes because how seeing the tone of a scene portrayed by actual people is interesting to me. But also seeing people doing funny cartoony actions tickles my brain.
The acting out a reference segment is such an eye opener. Now I have a completely new angle and appreciation on an episode 2 Pomni animator video. Also… 7:22 *BURY THE LIIIGHT DEEEEP WITHIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!*
From animating, to acting. Next step is cinematography. I still remember stories of old artists always observing and drawing people, places, etc to expand their skills. Nowadays artists just have to look at another screen portraying what they need for the moment. This is probably why old animation always seem to have this charm to them that most modern animation tend to miss out on.
One of the best compliments I received in my job as an animator was about my character acting. My animator director chose specific characters in a series for me to animate because of the way I make my character acting and said that whenever one of my shots appeared in the day review it's noticeble that it is mine. I've animated many characters types and personalities yes, but knowing that I have an acting style that is noticeble made me really happy !
So long story short, animation is a study of motion. This brings an opportunity to mention how fun it can be to stare at how people act on tv and watch bugs on your yard, or see documentaries about certain animals and machines. Keep Your Hands Off Eizoken! is a series that is all about animation and includes an episode with one of the characters in her younger years looking at every tiny thing she sees and putting drawing it out. This inspired her to be a great animator! I promise you all that if you love animation you’ll love this.⭐️
I'm not an animator, but a writer and I get up and act out motions sometimes before writing them. Certain little details that can be turned into words bring moments to life. It's not just a character eating a tin of beans, its a young man shoveling food as fast as he can so he doesn't have to taste it, but knowing he needs the calories for the dangerous job he's about to do.
6:12 I'm not a professional or anything but I feel like clothes and stuff are also a big part and like hair, because my charterers hair and clothes move differently, because for me they all act differently like my character named Kat (boring but whatever -_-) she is very colorful and such, so I make her hair like bouncy? And my charterer tamm is also colourful but she is pretty crazy, so her hair and such goes how hair and clothes usually would just a bit faster. It's fun to change up how their physics work because of their personalities. Idk i just thought of this randomly.
As an actor and an Animator, I gained so much knowledge and enrichment from the overlap. Things like applying emotional Beats and Architecture to my animation really adds to the look and feel. Also animation taught me the importance of the keyframes and readability in the motions. They go hand in hand and I'm so glad that this is being brought up. Applying my acting process to my animation and vice versa really adds so much life
it's such an important element, everything you add to a story has to imply there's a world beyond and whithin what you create. I've done set design on films and even the dumbest room with some chairs can be made better by spending a minute thinking "who was here last, what did they do, why are things here / not here and what marks would they leave / not leave" same way with animation, you are both telling the story, but also hooking the viewer into a larger / bigger inner world and I really love how you put it in this video!
big agree on acting it out being helpful even w/o recording it! it really does put you in the character's mindset. doing it slowly and repeatedly can also help with getting a feel for the body mechanics of certain movements - you start to notice the things you do subconsciously in whatever motion you're imitating it's not perfect since it doesn't let you see things from weird angles or look away from it super well, but acting in front of a mirror can also be a quick way to get a feel for some bits of acting, in my experience
very true! my professors always complained that the students sat down too long at our desks, and they insisted that as we animate, we should be getting up and acting out any of the movements we're stuck on. even without recording, just acting it out can help you nail the rhythm
Im an animation student and we literally just had a class where we saw people acting out scenes of the bad guys and spiderverse to get a feel as to how it works. This helps me even further. Thanks mr. Doodley man
During the ad segment, seeing you have Retrowave, Future Funk, and Vaporwave categories in the Spotify segment just earned you positive RUclipsr Reputation Points
I totally agree! I like to put it this way: the secret skill of a good actor is to become invisible, to ensure that the audience, even for a moment, only sees the performance, not the performer. Don’t let yourself get in the way, you know? When you’re acting, you’re someone else, not you, and it’s that someone else that you’re helping people understand.
It's funny but, before you even said that the opening animation was by James Baxter, I saw it and thought, "That's James Baxter." I can somehow recognise animators through their animation, and I sometimes can't even articulate how.
@@Sandwhaler Yes! He's the horse in Adventure Time because the series creator, Pendleton Ward, saw James Baxter guest lecture at the animation school that Ward was a student in. The Adventure Time episode was in honour of him.
3:06 In defense of Hoodwinked!'s 'wooden' animation, if I recall correctly that was actually in part a stylistic choice inspired by and meant to evoke the feeling of those super old stop-motion animations like the Rankin Bass Christmas specials.
one of my favorite things to look out for in animation is the little in-character movements characters do when not in focus or another character is talking. i love when i see those, especially on re-watch. even if its just a little face they make, it's so cool to me
YES!! THIS! ALL of this. Definitely one of the biggest things i care about while working on projects and something i am EXTREMELY passionate about. I love watching animation performances, analyzing them, and making my own. Great video! 💖
I've always used "performance" when talking about animated characterisation and voice acting. It's about how well they carry theselves while bringing the range of emotions required for the role. And I love little flourishes where the they're just showing off.
I have friends who tell me that they love to watch me when I am drawing because I will subconsciously make the faces that I want to see on my characters. And they think that is funny.
The amount of times I’ve stood up, started in a t pose and move in how my character moves really puts you in the mind of what you are creating and makes it so much easier to grasp, it’s amazing how simple it is but how much it can affect your decisions!
Seeing the title immediately makes me think of Eizouken, specifically Tsubame's arc. She's inspired to immediately try to recreate motions and details within human/(others) movements and later finds that doing it through the medium of animation gives her the most joy. Highly suggest Keep your hands of Eizouken for anyone who really liked this video!
I know something that I sometimes subconsciously do when I’m animating an expression, even if it’s just for a poster, is I will start to make that expression myself, almost as if feeling the expression on my own face will make it easier to apply to the character I also often do little motions with my arms if I’m playing a scene in my head while listening to music. I like to use music as a way to add characterization to my characters (for example, an eccentric and/or manipulative character singing Smile Like You Mean It) and doing the motion myself while listening, makes the motion easier to visualize. It’s not required, but it definitely feels like it helps
I can attest to something similar: my experience in understanding animation helped me in acting. I took a theatre class and my classmates always told me that I looked really animated and fit my character very well. They especially noted how I acted in-character, even when I wasn’t talking. That was just something I was used to because it’s an aspect of secondary action in animation
Fun fact... I "animated" pngs for clients and most of the time I will act out the movement myself to feel it, never to see it. Cause PNGs...already have a pose. I just need to feel the motion and then that becomes a puzzle on how to make the PNG move in that direction. What parts do I make it's own layers, what parts do I add with a brush (I cannot draw well so adding extra lines or extending the art naturally for something thats on screen for 3 seconds doesn't look yarring) And how fast everything moves... And basically what I do is animate a story board but more static. While not a "full on animator" myself. (I am dabbling in 3D but time is limited and I need to have a direction) I am more a video editor for clients. But I can say... seeing actual animators make all the movements is so cool!
While I don't animate (yet) I also use a lot of these things while drawing still images. I do musical theatre, and I find that I take influences from drawing in my acting, and vise versa! For example: while drawing, it's a good idea to cheat stuff to the camera so that your poses can be read clearly. And the same thing applies for theatre. When I'm onstange, I'm always thinking about how my acting (especially posing bc most of the audience can't see my face) will be read by the audience, and tweak my poses. Another example is: when you're onstage, even if you're not given anything to do, you always wanna know what your characters thinking and feeling and act accordingly. This philosophy also works when making background characters in a larger shot. It's so cool how intertwined these two parts of my life are, and I'm glad other people recognize it too!!
I'm glad you covered this topic in a video. Reference footage is IMMENSELY helpful when animating! If you think you know how a movement is supposed to look, you don't. Stuff you try to animate without acting out or referencing first can feel stiff and off. It's useful even for simple animations, and a lifesaver for more complex scenes.
This is a great video! II just graduated high school after taking 4+ years of Theatre, and I realized that If I want to pursue animation and powerful storytelling, I needed to learn how to truly play a character. This is an incredibly awesome video
One of my favourite examples of character references is from The Little Mermaid. The actress had incredible facial expressions, and that translated into making the character Ariel feel like she was really reacting to the things she was seeing. A good reference makes a huge difference!
I'm not an animator, but I enjoy writing little stories and scenes as a hobby. I've always found myself very regularly trying to mimick the motions that my characters are performing, trying to get a good feel for their posture, their expressions, or the weird hand motions of a wizard casting a spell. Doing a little bit of reference acting is always a solid thing for most creative mediums, even if it has varying levels of usefulness!
One of my favorite examples is Reptile in Mortal Kombat 1. Chris McClure did his lizard form and he does such a good job that it's easy to forget that there was a human doing all that stuff.
If you want a less mocapped video game example, DMC 5 animators have test footage which is just them playing with action figures and fake swords, it's great.
I always liked the anecdote of Disney animators making funny faces while drawing their characters. I do that too when I draw the facial expressions of characters, it seems important to get into the character to better portrait it.
Amazing video as always! Using reference for me often feels like a shortcut to getting a challenging scene or perspective to feel right. Gotta clarify though, in this case "shortcut" isn't a negative connotation but a very practical step in animation. I have so many photos in my phone of me just doing mouth shapes with my face to get expressions perfect.
Learning about this just makes me respect both actors & animators even more, putting so much effort into giving the characters life & personality than I ever thought they would. And as someone who might be an animator in the future, I'll take some notes from this. Thanks Doodley
As an amateur actor and animator, I think about this all the time. Makes me so happy to see other people talking about it and sharing with us how the pros do it. Keep up the good work, Doodley!!! You’re one of my favorite channels on RUclips.
im a videogame designer student and when my teachers told to "Act" and record what i wanted to animate i didnt, the result of what came out wasnt good until i give it a try... it changes things a LOT, even if u dont record yourself, just doing the movement gives you a way better idea on how to approach the animation
So I animated for my school game project and I agree with this sooo muchhhh. When it was 3 days before submission, I winged an animation so quickly it looked terrible. Plus with my friend's questionable voice acting for just that ONE line. But earlier in the project, I acted out all the actions, and even found a long pole in school to use as a spear. I learnt that a character in games is 1/3 visual design, 1/3 audio design, and 1/3 action.
This video gave me a whole new view on how they animated the amazing digital circus as each of the characters all have their own personality like in their walk cycles
The thing about the head-swaggle is that it's also surprisingly hard to animate, especially in traditional 2d. Unless the character faces the camera, it requires lot of knowledge of how the head turns and tilts in 3d. Not to mention that lot of the time they also turn their heads (just look at Tigger) adding a secondary motion to the already difficult movement.
My phone is packed with photo and video references of myself because i'm a comic artist and i find that using myself as a guide is more useful and quick than searching for specific images ahahha, that's why a lot of my characters share my facial expressions
I did a shot animation and at one point a character lowers down to sit next to someone and I dont know what the motion is called so I just stood up, repeated the movement until I had a idea of how to do it and was able to animate her slowly sitting down next to her friend. I love acting in animation, it's been the thing I watch and focus on to see how a character acts.
7:23 is what I always do when I can't just make an instant movement that looks natural I like slightly do the movement while thinking about how I want it to look and that gives me a good reference to animate it. Sometimes when it's still hard to visualize but is still slight I do the movement while animating
i eventually want to get into animating "evidence photo"--an episode of "the little trashmaid"--and i think this video may have told me it's a good idea to use or make video reference for ricky's freak out. especially since this video provided a few examples of "performance-less animation" like with hoodwinked. thanks for the video, doodley.
I dont know if this is legit (im to lazy to google it) but I've heard that certain anime studios, when they are drawing a sword fight or other things of that nature, have the animators animate with a stick or a plastic sword by the side, so that if they need a reference of the balance or whaight of a sword they can just get up from the chair, grab a sword an ''play'' with it for a while to get how the movement works
wonderful video! ive found myself thinking of this a bit ago but never really stoppping to pay attention to it in more than one scene very fun as always and i loved the little meta joke with us getting to see your own acting to help with animating doodley
At uni we had occasional acting classes in the first terms (y’know when there was more time and shorter animations to work on). Those were always so much fun, I miss them. :D
havent watched the video but just from the title I'm already saying "Yes! Yes yes yes!!" I was just watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes the other day and thinking exactly this. Serkis drives the performance from underneath, but the creative decisions and technique and effort that went into making such readable, interesting, and engrosing expression on ape faces is truly breathtaking. One of the ones that stood out to me especially the other day was Buck the gorilla reacting to Ceasar talking for the first time, what a choice!
hilariously the "good acting hides" thing is a reason why puppetry work is often not thought of as the people behind it, but rather the puppet's character itself- meaning it goes similarly unrecognized as animators being actors, if that makes sense or helps the point of the video at all
A few years ago, I watched an anime called "Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na!", which really got into this concept. An important moment in the plot is when one of the main character's parents (who were actors if I recall correctly) recognise her through the way the characters she animated move.
Alright, now I know I should record myself as reference if I need animation help. Really cool video on the whole 'behind the scenes' aspect of a lot of animated shows and movies.
I was literally watching some of your videos and got done watching the 200k thank you vid and was wondering when you’re gonna upload again. And here we are.
great video as always! i have a big heart for animation even though i'm not the most amazing artist. but these little things help animation become more and more approachable.
There's this Dutch channel about redubbing and Dutch actors that once visited the VA of Scar from the Lion King who told that sometimes he would get phone calls of people asking if they could do some voice acting for him. He said something along the lines of "Whenever this happens, I say "No, I don't want you to act a voice. I want you to act."
I’m honestly surprised you didn’t bring up the fact that even artists who do single frame works may still adopt a pose or expression of what they are drawing, often times unintentionally
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
Download Opera for free using opr.as/Opera-browser-doodley Thanks Opera for sponsoring this video!
e
POLAND MENTIONED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
E
THEY GOT YOU TOO? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0OOOOOOOOOOOO YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!!!!!!!
....Eughhhhh I dunno!
It may not be GX but it's probably still BS!
Good video tho!
Advice for animators who don't want to record themselves: try putting a gaiter mask over your whole head and throwing a hoodie on. You'll still have enough vision left to face the camera and you can enjoy all the benefits of reference footage without the cringe of your own face. Works wonders.
we're genuinely so back
the dysphoria hoodie is making a return
love your stuff sirloin! thanks for the tip!
what is a gaiter mask
Can confirm this 100% works, I have a mask in a box right next to my desk 😅
this works for body mechanics exercises but i always think it's better to encourage animators who want to learn lip sync or facial animation to get used to looking at their own face. i think being able to study your own face is one of the best ways to learn, cringey as it may be sometimes haha. and hoodies can be fine but depending on what you're animating it may be more beneficial to wear something thinner so you can see the contours of the body. it's a case by case thing though of course
That boss baby example is WILD. You got this hyper animated character just BEGGING for hammy delivery and then the VA's like "oh uh hey whats up"
“oh hey mark” type voice acting
@@marselo1316 I searched up another clip of this character and the VA literally just said "ah." for when the character screamed like 😱
ruclips.net/video/UBYbXpQX5Vs/видео.htmlsi=UcYpuvD-ivjl9pbs
That voice actor sounds so familiar but I don't remember where he's from
“im gonna have to, y’know, uh, stop you”
@@lylelylecrocodile2538 It's Jeff Goldblum apparently!
7:44 Head Swaggle is peak character animation
How is your comment so deep into the comment section?
It's got like 15 likes, how?
only one reply!? i'm fixing that....
Jayfoo?!
@@nasirka71 that do be me!
Be you Shere Khan or Dhalsim.
"Head Swaggle" is 100% something that I have seen people of Indian descent do naturally. It is a bit unusual seeing it on more western coded characters though.
It means something else in india, there it's used as an affirmative gesture, like nodding is in the west. In his animated examples it's always used in a context where the character is self-assured or confident, so not really the same.
Maybe Milt Kahl saw indian people doing it and adopted it into his own thing, but I honestly doubt they're connected.
@@ZeeboonInc I don't know if it's just a Fijian-Indian thing, but I have seen more than one "auntie" and "uncle" (not actually related) perform a head swaggle when they're preening like smug pricks. No one in my immediate family does it, though.
Actually, I take that back. My mum and sister do it ironically sometimes.
came into the comment section to say this. I've seen that "head swaggle" in Bollywood films
I was astounded by him bringing up Hoodwinked. It's stiff animations was part of its charm for me growing up
All animation has it’s own charms!! Like, watching old Rankin Bass movies, I can see all the “mistakes” but I think that’s part of what makes it great.
Hoodwinked is beautiful, even the second.
The animation may be objectively bad but it has charm. Even if they didn’t have the biggest budget the characters and joke’s definitely carried it
It didnt age well visually, but still a great movie.
@@Nixeen Personally I just felt the animation was stylised in an interesting way. It never felt like it inhibited what the movie was trying to get across
The best example i can think of acting in animation is the Genie from Aladdin, where they listen to one of Robin Williams' sketch comedy and imagine what his body language was like. I also love the video of animators they release on their twitter makes it's more real because the Movement of the character or action has to come from somewhere ❤
Robin himself wasn't sure if he wanted to play the Genie, until he saw an animation test from Eric Goldberg based on his comedy routines
3:19 In defense of the Rapsittie Street Kids crew, they had actual professional animators, but they were forced by the producer to use a very rudimentary 3D software (3D Choreographer) that wasn't meant for TV production, which is why most of the film's animation consists of stock animations provided by the software. It's essentially the equivalent of forcing a Disney or WB animation crew to make an animated film using only GoAnimate.
do we know why they forced this just curious
I always catch myself making faces whenever I’m drawing faces, I guess I was subconsciously trying to get a feel for an expression to help me convey it in the drawing. I feel seen with this lol
i do that too lol
Yo same, especially when drawing frowning faces
bro saame
everyone do
I’ve done that forever, exactly like that!!😊
Filming your own reference is VERY underrated especially in beginners, my professor had us taking an acting class so we could learn how people act in different emotional states and It helped me improve immensely!
There’s so much secondary acting that people do unconsciously, eye movements, leading actions, and being still and subtle all benefit hugely from it. In TV we rarely ever have the time to shoot good references, so you often do it only for your favourite or most complicated shot.
I think one of the best examples of animation = acting is a RUclips animator named James Lee. He doesn’t just use reference footage, his animation IS the reference footage. All of his poses were done by himself in real life, and edited in a way that feels realistic, yet cartoonish at the same time (i.e frame rate drops, exaggerated poses, stunning effects, etc.). It’s extremely unique.
Absolutely love his videos.
One thing that blows me away is when animators are limited by their character and still manage to give them expressions. Carpet from Aladdin is a perfect example. No eyes, eyebrows, lips, not even a head. But we know what Carpet is thinking. And your little avatar - all you're technically doing is squashing and stretching the glasses shape and wiggling a moustache doodle. But it is so expressive! Even without your voice on top, I get a lot of nuances telling me how you feel about a scene being shown beside you. You're all so good!
I love seeing reference footage animators will record, it’s literally putting themselves in the character’s shoes to get tiny little details to shine through
i feel this is especially supported by the fact that in many animated works, different animators will work on specifically certain characters, rather than just each animator taking different scenes. Such as hobbie brown in spider verse. but this is also a thing in 2d animation such as with lion king they had specific animators for scar im pretty sure
That isn’t really true anymore. Yes, animators used to specialize in a character like how James Baxter did Rafiki but now they’re expected to be able to do all the characters that are in a cut
@@HiHi-oc3gh depends on the project. like how i mentioned hobbie brown in across the spider verse, and im just some other characters. Each project of course is gonna have a different method on how its produced, even within the same medium
I enjoy looking at videos that were used as references for scenes because how seeing the tone of a scene portrayed by actual people is interesting to me. But also seeing people doing funny cartoony actions tickles my brain.
I’m gonna DOODLEEEEEEE
🤨
🤨
who else doodling rn
Relatable
🤨📸
The acting out a reference segment is such an eye opener. Now I have a completely new angle and appreciation on an episode 2 Pomni animator video.
Also…
7:22 *BURY THE LIIIGHT DEEEEP WITHIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!*
new favorite vid of yours
yayyyy noodle seal of approval!!!!
no way its the noodle guy
From animating, to acting. Next step is cinematography.
I still remember stories of old artists always observing and drawing people, places, etc to expand their skills. Nowadays artists just have to look at another screen portraying what they need for the moment.
This is probably why old animation always seem to have this charm to them that most modern animation tend to miss out on.
Drawing by observation isn’t something that only older artists did, practically every artist does it as it is super helpful and a great exercise
@@HiHi-oc3ghplus, even if you aren’t actively drawing what you see, artists tend to passively observe certain things, I know I do
One of the best compliments I received in my job as an animator was about my character acting. My animator director chose specific characters in a series for me to animate because of the way I make my character acting and said that whenever one of my shots appeared in the day review it's noticeble that it is mine.
I've animated many characters types and personalities yes, but knowing that I have an acting style that is noticeble made me really happy !
So long story short, animation is a study of motion.
This brings an opportunity to mention how fun it can be to stare at how people act on tv and watch bugs on your yard, or see documentaries about certain animals and machines.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizoken! is a series that is all about animation and includes an episode with one of the characters in her younger years looking at every tiny thing she sees and putting drawing it out. This inspired her to be a great animator!
I promise you all that if you love animation you’ll love this.⭐️
Eizouken!!! Eizouken is a _joy_ 😄😄😄
The video immediately caught my attention when he started talking about James Baxter, one of my favorite animators.
I'm not an animator, but a writer and I get up and act out motions sometimes before writing them. Certain little details that can be turned into words bring moments to life. It's not just a character eating a tin of beans, its a young man shoveling food as fast as he can so he doesn't have to taste it, but knowing he needs the calories for the dangerous job he's about to do.
6:12 I'm not a professional or anything but I feel like clothes and stuff are also a big part and like hair, because my charterers hair and clothes move differently, because for me they all act differently like my character named Kat (boring but whatever -_-) she is very colorful and such, so I make her hair like bouncy? And my charterer tamm is also colourful but she is pretty crazy, so her hair and such goes how hair and clothes usually would just a bit faster. It's fun to change up how their physics work because of their personalities. Idk i just thought of this randomly.
3:14 Wow that seems like an awesome movie I’ll have to check it out🔥🔥
As an actor and an Animator, I gained so much knowledge and enrichment from the overlap. Things like applying emotional Beats and Architecture to my animation really adds to the look and feel. Also animation taught me the importance of the keyframes and readability in the motions. They go hand in hand and I'm so glad that this is being brought up. Applying my acting process to my animation and vice versa really adds so much life
it's such an important element, everything you add to a story has to imply there's a world beyond and whithin what you create.
I've done set design on films and even the dumbest room with some chairs can be made better by spending a minute thinking "who was here last, what did they do, why are things here / not here and what marks would they leave / not leave"
same way with animation, you are both telling the story, but also hooking the viewer into a larger / bigger inner world and I really love how you put it in this video!
I saw a stop motion of someone slipping on ice. The skill it takes to make movement feel correct is difficult to know without trying it yourself.
4:57, Doodley face reveal?
big agree on acting it out being helpful even w/o recording it! it really does put you in the character's mindset. doing it slowly and repeatedly can also help with getting a feel for the body mechanics of certain movements - you start to notice the things you do subconsciously in whatever motion you're imitating
it's not perfect since it doesn't let you see things from weird angles or look away from it super well, but acting in front of a mirror can also be a quick way to get a feel for some bits of acting, in my experience
very true! my professors always complained that the students sat down too long at our desks, and they insisted that as we animate, we should be getting up and acting out any of the movements we're stuck on. even without recording, just acting it out can help you nail the rhythm
The beginning with Doodley talking about James is my cup of tea :))
Im an animation student and we literally just had a class where we saw people acting out scenes of the bad guys and spiderverse to get a feel as to how it works. This helps me even further. Thanks mr. Doodley man
During the ad segment, seeing you have Retrowave, Future Funk, and Vaporwave categories in the Spotify segment just earned you positive RUclipsr Reputation Points
I totally agree! I like to put it this way: the secret skill of a good actor is to become invisible, to ensure that the audience, even for a moment, only sees the performance, not the performer. Don’t let yourself get in the way, you know? When you’re acting, you’re someone else, not you, and it’s that someone else that you’re helping people understand.
7:00 I am so pleasantly surprised that the director boss ghost from Luigi’s Mansion 3 was animated from a human reference! I think it helped so much.
It's funny but, before you even said that the opening animation was by James Baxter, I saw it and thought, "That's James Baxter." I can somehow recognise animators through their animation, and I sometimes can't even articulate how.
James Baxter? The horse on a beach ball from Adventure Time?
@@Sandwhaler Yes! He's the horse in Adventure Time because the series creator, Pendleton Ward, saw James Baxter guest lecture at the animation school that Ward was a student in. The Adventure Time episode was in honour of him.
Yeah, James Is a real person, he animated His own character in the episode, the horse @@Sandwhaler
@@M-U-T-E-kx8wt Yup, knew that, just making a joke.
But it's cool that this fun tidbit, and the one from @Katy133, are here for others to see.
The boss baby example killed me LMFAOO
I uh guess I’m gonna have to uh, stop you🤷♂️🤷♂️
1:10 he could’ve picked any film, but deliberately chose Better Call Saul. What a gee.
3:06 In defense of Hoodwinked!'s 'wooden' animation, if I recall correctly that was actually in part a stylistic choice inspired by and meant to evoke the feeling of those super old stop-motion animations like the Rankin Bass Christmas specials.
one of my favorite things to look out for in animation is the little in-character movements characters do when not in focus or another character is talking. i love when i see those, especially on re-watch. even if its just a little face they make, it's so cool to me
YES!! THIS! ALL of this. Definitely one of the biggest things i care about while working on projects and something i am EXTREMELY passionate about. I love watching animation performances, analyzing them, and making my own. Great video! 💖
I've always used "performance" when talking about animated characterisation and voice acting. It's about how well they carry theselves while bringing the range of emotions required for the role. And I love little flourishes where the they're just showing off.
I have friends who tell me that they love to watch me when I am drawing because I will subconsciously make the faces that I want to see on my characters. And they think that is funny.
The amount of times I’ve stood up, started in a t pose and move in how my character moves really puts you in the mind of what you are creating and makes it so much easier to grasp, it’s amazing how simple it is but how much it can affect your decisions!
Seeing the title immediately makes me think of Eizouken, specifically Tsubame's arc. She's inspired to immediately try to recreate motions and details within human/(others) movements and later finds that doing it through the medium of animation gives her the most joy. Highly suggest Keep your hands of Eizouken for anyone who really liked this video!
The head bobble is actually very common in India! It’s an unconscious gesture that Desi’s use to communicate a lot of things!
I know something that I sometimes subconsciously do when I’m animating an expression, even if it’s just for a poster, is I will start to make that expression myself, almost as if feeling the expression on my own face will make it easier to apply to the character
I also often do little motions with my arms if I’m playing a scene in my head while listening to music. I like to use music as a way to add characterization to my characters (for example, an eccentric and/or manipulative character singing Smile Like You Mean It) and doing the motion myself while listening, makes the motion easier to visualize. It’s not required, but it definitely feels like it helps
I can attest to something similar: my experience in understanding animation helped me in acting. I took a theatre class and my classmates always told me that I looked really animated and fit my character very well. They especially noted how I acted in-character, even when I wasn’t talking. That was just something I was used to because it’s an aspect of secondary action in animation
I never really thought about it like this, but having acted in short films with my friends, this makes total sense. Great video man.
Acting out animation is one of my favorite parts of doing it
Fun fact... I "animated" pngs for clients and most of the time I will act out the movement myself to feel it, never to see it. Cause PNGs...already have a pose. I just need to feel the motion and then that becomes a puzzle on how to make the PNG move in that direction.
What parts do I make it's own layers, what parts do I add with a brush (I cannot draw well so adding extra lines or extending the art naturally for something thats on screen for 3 seconds doesn't look yarring) And how fast everything moves...
And basically what I do is animate a story board but more static. While not a "full on animator" myself. (I am dabbling in 3D but time is limited and I need to have a direction)
I am more a video editor for clients. But I can say... seeing actual animators make all the movements is so cool!
While I don't animate (yet) I also use a lot of these things while drawing still images. I do musical theatre, and I find that I take influences from drawing in my acting, and vise versa! For example: while drawing, it's a good idea to cheat stuff to the camera so that your poses can be read clearly. And the same thing applies for theatre. When I'm onstange, I'm always thinking about how my acting (especially posing bc most of the audience can't see my face) will be read by the audience, and tweak my poses. Another example is: when you're onstage, even if you're not given anything to do, you always wanna know what your characters thinking and feeling and act accordingly. This philosophy also works when making background characters in a larger shot.
It's so cool how intertwined these two parts of my life are, and I'm glad other people recognize it too!!
Great video! Thanks for pointing out the a lot of acting choices come from storyboards.
I'm glad you covered this topic in a video. Reference footage is IMMENSELY helpful when animating! If you think you know how a movement is supposed to look, you don't. Stuff you try to animate without acting out or referencing first can feel stiff and off. It's useful even for simple animations, and a lifesaver for more complex scenes.
This is a great video! II just graduated high school after taking 4+ years of Theatre, and I realized that If I want to pursue animation and powerful storytelling, I needed to learn how to truly play a character. This is an incredibly awesome video
As someone who adores animation and grew up doing theater as a hobby, this put my love for animation into words, thank you
One of my favourite examples of character references is from The Little Mermaid. The actress had incredible facial expressions, and that translated into making the character Ariel feel like she was really reacting to the things she was seeing. A good reference makes a huge difference!
Incredibly well put. I love your thought process when it comes to animation.
I'm not an animator, but I enjoy writing little stories and scenes as a hobby. I've always found myself very regularly trying to mimick the motions that my characters are performing, trying to get a good feel for their posture, their expressions, or the weird hand motions of a wizard casting a spell. Doing a little bit of reference acting is always a solid thing for most creative mediums, even if it has varying levels of usefulness!
One of my favorite examples is Reptile in Mortal Kombat 1. Chris McClure did his lizard form and he does such a good job that it's easy to forget that there was a human doing all that stuff.
If you want a less mocapped video game example, DMC 5 animators have test footage which is just them playing with action figures and fake swords, it's great.
I always liked the anecdote of Disney animators making funny faces while drawing their characters. I do that too when I draw the facial expressions of characters, it seems important to get into the character to better portrait it.
Amazing video as always! Using reference for me often feels like a shortcut to getting a challenging scene or perspective to feel right. Gotta clarify though, in this case "shortcut" isn't a negative connotation but a very practical step in animation. I have so many photos in my phone of me just doing mouth shapes with my face to get expressions perfect.
Learning about this just makes me respect both actors & animators even more, putting so much effort into giving the characters life & personality than I ever thought they would. And as someone who might be an animator in the future, I'll take some notes from this.
Thanks Doodley
As an amateur actor and animator, I think about this all the time. Makes me so happy to see other people talking about it and sharing with us how the pros do it. Keep up the good work, Doodley!!! You’re one of my favorite channels on RUclips.
im a videogame designer student and when my teachers told to "Act" and record what i wanted to animate i didnt, the result of what came out wasnt good until i give it a try... it changes things a LOT, even if u dont record yourself, just doing the movement gives you a way better idea on how to approach the animation
I always looove seeing the reference footage they've filmed for themselves. It's a great inspiration and I love comparing it with the final animation
So I animated for my school game project and I agree with this sooo muchhhh. When it was 3 days before submission, I winged an animation so quickly it looked terrible. Plus with my friend's questionable voice acting for just that ONE line.
But earlier in the project, I acted out all the actions, and even found a long pole in school to use as a spear. I learnt that a character in games is 1/3 visual design, 1/3 audio design, and 1/3 action.
This video gave me a whole new view on how they animated the amazing digital circus as each of the characters all have their own personality like in their walk cycles
I love watching the animators act out their work its so facinating.
Fantastic video
I heard of this in the animators survival book, pretty good!
The thing about the head-swaggle is that it's also surprisingly hard to animate, especially in traditional 2d. Unless the character faces the camera, it requires lot of knowledge of how the head turns and tilts in 3d. Not to mention that lot of the time they also turn their heads (just look at Tigger) adding a secondary motion to the already difficult movement.
Definitely gonna use this advice for my animations
Ooh a new doodley vid! Today is a great day.
My phone is packed with photo and video references of myself because i'm a comic artist and i find that using myself as a guide is more useful and quick than searching for specific images ahahha, that's why a lot of my characters share my facial expressions
Haven't even watched it, already know its going to be good
I did a shot animation and at one point a character lowers down to sit next to someone and I dont know what the motion is called so I just stood up, repeated the movement until I had a idea of how to do it and was able to animate her slowly sitting down next to her friend.
I love acting in animation, it's been the thing I watch and focus on to see how a character acts.
7:23 is what I always do when I can't just make an instant movement that looks natural
I like slightly do the movement while thinking about how I want it to look and that gives me a good reference to animate it. Sometimes when it's still hard to visualize but is still slight I do the movement while animating
7:19 Very generous of Doodley to show us reference footage for his phenomenal character animation on the right.
I’m so glad you brought up Arcane as an example! You should do it again if you ever cover adult animation or the upcoming era of “prestige animation”.
i eventually want to get into animating "evidence photo"--an episode of "the little trashmaid"--and i think this video may have told me it's a good idea to use or make video reference for ricky's freak out. especially since this video provided a few examples of "performance-less animation" like with hoodwinked.
thanks for the video, doodley.
Great Video as always. Ive never thought about seeing it all as a performance. Brings another viewing angle to Animation
shoutout to KevinTemmerTunes for recording himself as reference to animate some of Pomni's excellent expressions
I dont know if this is legit (im to lazy to google it) but I've heard that certain anime studios, when they are drawing a sword fight or other things of that nature, have the animators animate with a stick or a plastic sword by the side, so that if they need a reference of the balance or whaight of a sword they can just get up from the chair, grab a sword an ''play'' with it for a while to get how the movement works
wonderful video! ive found myself thinking of this a bit ago but never really stoppping to pay attention to it in more than one scene
very fun as always and i loved the little meta joke with us getting to see your own acting to help with animating doodley
At uni we had occasional acting classes in the first terms (y’know when there was more time and shorter animations to work on). Those were always so much fun, I miss them. :D
havent watched the video but just from the title I'm already saying "Yes! Yes yes yes!!"
I was just watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes the other day and thinking exactly this. Serkis drives the performance from underneath, but the creative decisions and technique and effort that went into making such readable, interesting, and engrosing expression on ape faces is truly breathtaking.
One of the ones that stood out to me especially the other day was Buck the gorilla reacting to Ceasar talking for the first time, what a choice!
hilariously the "good acting hides" thing is a reason why puppetry work is often not thought of as the people behind it, but rather the puppet's character itself- meaning it goes similarly unrecognized as animators being actors, if that makes sense or helps the point of the video at all
A few years ago, I watched an anime called "Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na!", which really got into this concept. An important moment in the plot is when one of the main character's parents (who were actors if I recall correctly) recognise her through the way the characters she animated move.
THANK YOU! Ive been doing this with my drawings and writing, and i thought im crazy!
Alright, now I know I should record myself as reference if I need animation help. Really cool video on the whole 'behind the scenes' aspect of a lot of animated shows and movies.
I was literally watching some of your videos and got done watching the 200k thank you vid and was wondering when you’re gonna upload again. And here we are.
I always love watching, and learning from these videos, Keep it up 👍.
great video as always! i have a big heart for animation even though i'm not the most amazing artist. but these little things help animation become more and more approachable.
There's this Dutch channel about redubbing and Dutch actors that once visited the VA of Scar from the Lion King who told that sometimes he would get phone calls of people asking if they could do some voice acting for him.
He said something along the lines of "Whenever this happens, I say "No, I don't want you to act a voice. I want you to act."
one of my FAVORITE examples of this is from the movie rango!
I’m honestly surprised you didn’t bring up the fact that even artists who do single frame works may still adopt a pose or expression of what they are drawing, often times unintentionally
This is exactly why I subscribe to this channel. Not just for tips and guides, but analysis and exploration.
this needs to be one of the fundamentals of animation
i absolutely agree
was thinking about dis the other day
Hey doodley I like your content and inspired me to start making my own content
Such a fantastic video, dude! I always get excited and warm hearted when i watch the vídeos of your channel!