My Animaton Workflow

This is the animation workflow I generally use to create my animations.

These methods were taught to me by my mentors

IDEAS,REFENCES & PLANNING

IDEAS & THUMBNAILS

I start by writing out my ideas with some very basic descriptions and actions to try to flesh out my ideas. Once Ive come up with three strong ideas, I then thumbnail out the ideas to give myself an idea of the camera positions and character beats.Once that Is done I start to do the most Important part of the process. FILMING REFERENCE!

I will typically spend a few hours filming each Idea to make sure I have the performance as close to my idea as possible. Once that is done I then start scrubbing through each recording to find the best parts in my performance and cut them together to make a collage of the best performance possible.

REFERENCE

PLANNING

Now that I have my references put together I will start to scrub through my performance to find the key moments and beats of my acting.

After I found my keys and written down my acting notes (what the character is thinking, why they are doing their actions and what motivates them to do that action)

I then look at the spacing and timing to see how the body is moving and how I can push the spacing and timing later while also keeping note of any small details

ANIMATING

Blocking

Now that Ive done all my planning and prep I can get into the fun part and start Blocking. I will straight head block out my animation from frame 1 all the way to the last frame by hand keying a pose every 4 frames.

For example: I will pose out my first key at frame 1 and then put my next key at frame 5 and then my next at frame 9 and so on till Ive made it to the last frame so that there is a key every 4 frames.

Blocking straight ahead on 4s gives me the ability to make my characters feel organic and spontaneous while also being able to finish at a reasonable time

This way of blocking is typically how Dreamworks animators will block out their shots