I was actually inspired by a fellow Steemian who gave me the idea of what to post next(well, not directly). Her name is @jillustrations and she does some amazing work as a animator, illustrator and professional star chaser. Best thing is she works for MPC, Montreal!!! That's like my dream!
That aside, I posted about the 3 Essentials to live with before you start animating, a lot on planning your animations yesterday, and upon figuring out what else to share with you guys about the world of animation, I came across this comment on my post.
Thank you @jillustrations, 'Thumbnailing' it is!
Thumbnailing your animations
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What are Thumbnail drawings?
Thumbnail drawings are basically the early sketches of an idea, scene, storyboard. These thumbnail drawings are always gestural drawings where it is rough sketches with minimal details. The idea is to have the drawings layout a pose or an action.
Two Rules to Thumbnail Drawing
Rough/Gestural ONLY
Thumbnail Drawings are supposed to look ROUGH. They are not meant to be as clean or coloured like storyboarding. They are supposed to be fast, sloppy and brainstorm-ish. When I said 'brainstorm-ish' I mean like how you throw all your ideas on the whiteboard.The same thing goes to thumbnail drawings. You throw all your ideas, poses and actions onto the sketchpad disregarding the details and pretty fine lines.
Thumbnail drawings are meant to be fast! Even before you decide to sit down in front of your computer to start manual keyframing those characters, you should take a few hours or even a day planning the scenes/poses through thumbnailing. It is a vital part of the planning process, it is to help get your first-hand ideas out there. Which is probably the most obvious ideas around that even the audiences will think of them too.
The later ideas will be the good ones, they'll be the most inventive, and most original ideas
Animation Mentor
It is indeed very true that we have to work through all the common ideas to create new ones, something that no one has ever seen coming. The fastest way to lay it all out there, is through Thumbnailing
Use Thumbnails to Get Feedbacks
The faster you throw your ideas out there, the faster you'll get your feedback from the animation director. Do not spend the next 4-5 days beautifying your shots and drawing when you may just hear the director telling you to start over because it is not working. To avoid all the heartbreaks and sorrows burning the midnight oil, the way to go about it is through Thumbnailing. Maybe it is just rough poses or ideas, you will quickly discover alongside the feedback whether it is working or not. You shouldn't be worrying about any other details yet beside the angles and position of the hips, shoulders and head. Yea, and it takes probably a few hours to complete the thumbnails rather that days.
Before you start doing this to your colleagues too
Trust me, it will save you a great deal of frustration and a less bumpy ride bringing the scenes to life. Thumbnails just helps you nail the foundation of a scene. You can plan your dynamic poses using the line of action. You can also write down your timing for different key poses be it snappy or sluggish. Working this way will definitely help you communicate more effectively with your director and the results would be much more satisfying.
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Line of Action on Poses
Examples of Thumbnails
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I think you get the gist of how important Thumbnails are in the planning process. It will help smoothen out your animation processes. I usually spend 30% planning in the animation pipeline and this has helped me to finish my scenes faster and with less tinkering on the animation. I spend the time looking for good references, observing, and thumbnailing my poses.
I hope this has helped you in any way for the betterment of your animation or whatever art projects you're working on.
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Daaaawwwwwwwww!!!~~~♡ ♡ ♡
Thank youuu~~~
You're so sweet haha Well I hope I'll give you many more ideas in the future! hehe
Great post on thumbnails! thumbnails are the best :D
....
....
That dog walk cycle though.... it's... it's... just..... O_O"
It's like a road accident. I can't stop staring at it.
LOL, road accident and now it's limping. Thanks for giving your tips and views on thumbnailing to some of the comments :O Professional wise words from you!
indeed it is XD hahaha someone save it from it's misery >__>
Aww thank you. Well, I'm glad you didn't find it intrusive or know -it-all of me... I just.. find it very difficult to resist answering questions when it comes to topics I'm passionate about, especially if there's a chance of getting people to start drawing/animating/become interested! :D ♡ ♡ ♡
No worries, fire away that intrusiveness :D Hahaha, I understand that passion, so go for it! I'm happy that the curators are learning this piece of advice from you as well.
Thumbnailing, that is a very interesting phrase. Maybe I should introduce that to my students. All that I ever told them to do (and still doing it) was 'Sketch it out, everyone! Just rough sketches and then try to bring it to life.' Hahaha! :)
Hehe, glad you picked up something. This is a very effective way for planning and storyboarding. :) Try it, it works.
I think they're called thumbnails because you usually do a lot of them on one page and they can get quite small. Maybe not quite as small as an actual nail on your thumb hahaha but if I had to guess where the term comes from, that'd be it. XD
Interesting!!!
Great advices! I can see that you are very good in animation;))))
Thank you :)
Wahhhh super impressive animation skills lol lotsa hard work and passion into it too @zord189
Thank you thank you!
Great great great great as always! Loved the post and the examples you gave, it surely helps lots of people who are starting with animation. :)
hehe Thanks! Hope u took back some useful tips.
Great post, man!
yeah, it's about doing your rough layout and stuff. Sometimes people just want to jump in to the "cool" and "Sexy" bits of animation but end up wasting so much time when they could have just spent a few hours on thumbnails.
Not like SOME company where they ask everyone to just do first. Then all the fixes and changes come in in the midst of animation.
Who? Hahahaha
WORD man. WORD.
as a student animator myself I find this info very useful... Hope I can apply it
Hehe, u must learn! This is very important for international studios
hmmm yes, it depends on the production though. sometimes there's no time to show your thumbnails to the director. but it's very useful to sketch a few out fr yourself to clarify and solidify your idea before you start actually animating.
But if you get very fast at it, you can indeed show it to your lead, supervisor or even the anim director, if he has time. Especially in TV animation it's all about trying to make your workflow as effective as possible so you save as much time as possible. XD
@ellyn-suraya, the yoda of MPC, Montreal has spoken. ;) Better listen to her tips. :D
hahahahaha omg stop it. *blushes furiously *
Great thumbnail work. I wish I had the patience to go thru all of the steps. I use to draw as a kid, but I lost touch with it. Maybe I will get back to doodling again one day, and I'll have to come back to your blog for some tips. Thank you for sharing
Thank you :)
Very welcome.
the cool thing about thumbnails though is that it doesn't matter if they're "crappy drawings".
Thumbnails are like thinking out loud, but with your pen. Especially if you do it for a personal project, noone needs to understand what the f*ck is going on in your thumbnails, the main thing is that YOU get it. it's a way to solidify and hone down your ideas. And if it's a crooked unrecognisable stick figure with a wonky head, it doesn't matter at all, because you know what it's meant to represent and when you look at it a few hours down the line, you'll still know what it represents. Visual reminders are very powerful.
long story short: just thumbnail away! no drawing skills needed! ;D
Agree, just sketch and get messy!
I like it.
nice info bro...thumbs up.. ;)
Terima Kasih :)
Wow, most impressive mate, it's more manual than I originally thought. I'd definitely read more about animation pipeline and challenges :)
Thank you! It is a tedious job but it's really rewarding :)
@zord nice work, I found this really helpful.
Thank you :D
Thank you for sharing his post, I like your post. Regards Photography
You doing great work. Love it. Thanks for sharing.
This is pretty cool. I will try to make one :)
thanks
Yesterday I had a conversation exactly about this subject,
It's amazing to see such abilities, well done @zord189
Thank you brother :)
Great post, i learnt so much from this...
I really like your art my friend, if you pleasure give me some tips for my painting in my blog, thank you.
thanks
Just joined Steemit Bloggers thanks to you :D Looks fun!
And beautiful post, I definitely agree with thumbnailing. Should do it more and not be lazy xD
Good to have you with us. #steemitbloggers
Love it so far ^-^
really like your works!
Thank you!
lots of useful information to work with..thanks zord!!
Welcome @rambai :)
I think i'll use this method for when it's time to storyboard for my animation.It would be a lot quicker than sketching everything without having a proper idea of what I want.
The whole point of thumbnailing is to NOT sketch out proper ideas but just ideas, poses that you may or may not use. To see what works and what doesn't.
Well, all the animations start like that.
Idea is what drives the rest of the process.
You have the most interesting posts, my talented friend!
Cool post dude. Looking forward to more animation stuff from you :D