Animation Tips & Tricks, Volume I - Animation Mentor

THUMBNAILSWelcome back!This month we’re going to talk about thumbnails (and as promised, I’ll be more brief!). So, what are thumbnails? Well, animatorsoften use the fingernails on their thumbs to animate with. If you use your thumbnails to click your mouse buttons instead of yourforefingers, you get a much better result.Wow, was that the all-time worst animation joke in the history of animation jokes? I think it must be, though I’d also hazard a guessthat the “history of animation jokes” is probably pretty short.Okay, so - for real now - what the heck are thumbnails?Basically, “thumbnail” is a term used to describe a small “thumbnail-sized” drawing that describes a pose, an action, or an idea.The first rule of thumbnails is, don’t talk about thumbnails.Jeeeez. I just did it again. Second worst animation joke in the history of animation jokes. Sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise.Okay, the first rule of thumbnails is: LET THEM BE ROUGH.They are SUPPOSED to look rough. They are not meant to be pretty pictures. Don’t spend (waste!) a lot of time making each thumbnaillook like a piece of art. Don’t waste time shading it in, drawing all the little details, etc. They’re meant to be fast and sloppy. The entirepoint of doing thumbnails is that it saves you time.How does it save you time? Well, if you do thumbnails as part of your planning process, then you can work through all of your ideasBEFORE sitting down in front of the computer, and it’s inarguably much faster to doodle a little stick-man doing a pose than it is topose him out in the computer.We use thumbnails to work through our ideas. To get past our first ideas (remember - your first idea is always the worst and mostclichéd idea. The first idea you think of is probably the first and most obvious idea that the audience will think of too!), and get onto the ideas that count. The later ideas will be the good ones. They’ll be the most inventive ideas, and the most original. But to reachthose ideas, you’ll first have to work through the clichéd ideas, right? Thumbnails are, without a doubt, the fastest way to do that.The quickest road to a great idea, then, is through thumbnails!When you get a new scene, sit down and start doodling. Maybe it’s just poses. Maybe it’s working out full actions. Either way,you’re quickly discovering what will work and what won’t, and it’s all on paper. Quick and dirty - that’s the way to do it. Use a stickman,even. Many of the best animators do their thumbnails with what is essentially a stick-man. As long as you can see where thecharacter’s hips are, the angle of the hips, the angle of the shoulders, angle of the head, and the position of the limbs - that’s ALL youneed to know at this point, and you shouldn’t be worrying about any other details yet, generally speaking.5Copyright 2008 by AnimationMentor.com. All rights reserved. This ebook may not be reprinted or distributed in electronic, print, web, or other format withoutexpress written permission.