Toon Animation

Toon Animation

The rig was created by Arman Musovic:

http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/hare-rig-free-maya-rig-cartoon-character-rig/

Today I have started another animation with the intention of exploring toon animation as a style while still creating character performances.

Below are my thumbnails sketches of what I wanted to achieve. I just drew some of the key poses I was after to give me a rough guide.

 This is what I created so far below. I was really trying to push the poses coming down into the scene. I could still push things further when he is sliding along the floor. His ears also need to be worked into at the end. They should flop over but that is something I missed on Friday. His bum also could do with a lot more exaggeration as he slides. I don't think this looks too bad as a short action but I found myself doing what I have done in most of my animations where I start out with really exaggerated poses but end up toning them down to make them fit better together.

Lastly, I struggled with keeping the rig under my control, because I was stretching his legs way beyond his central control, it just would behave sometimes the way I was hoping. The control of the toon rigs will come with experience I'm sure though.

Summary:

This animation has not been entirely unsuccessful, at one point it looked like it was getting away from me but I managed to keep things together. I did find myself going backwards in terms of keyframing though, I ended up putting a lot of keyframes down to control the rig. This is something I managed to avoid with the walk cycle the other week.

Not sure if toon specifically is for me...I'll keep searching.