This term, the animation technique that I chose to have a full length experience in is stop-motion. There was definitely not a single ounce of doubt that I went through when I was asked to make a decision, a few months back. There's only 9 of us that chose this particular technique, out of the very many students in our year. I guess that's what makes us the very 'weird but special' breed of students.

To ease us back into using the puppets to animate, we were given the task of anticipation, action & follow through just as we were given in our first term (e.g., kick/punch). However, this time, we were told to shoot on ones. Shooting on ones took some time to get used to, since every tiny movement contributed to a smooth transitioning animation.

What made me excited was that we were given an induction to using better puppets a.k.a. second year puppets, which meant that we didn't have any excuses to produce a very robotic animation like we used to make, back in first term.

I chose to do the punch as it seemed like an overlooked action when it comes to animating. Having to test out how a punch was supposed to look like, I was back in my little corner in the stop-motion area throwing air punches upwards, sideways, front punch, uppercuts, etc. Animators do weird live-action tests sometimes...


This is my first try:

I was still trying to get used to the idea of taking it on ones. It still went really quickly and halfway through the shot, I really didn't like how it went but I had to finish it up before trying it out again.

This is my second try:

This second trial... the motion of the punch went too slow that it seemed like a tap on the second puppet's nose. Then it sped up really quickly at the end that made me sit in silence for a good minute, rethinking my life choices.

This is my final try:

I took this last attempt the day after the previous two shots and to be fair, it still went by really quick, but I liked how it flowed evenly. Even the punch felt like a punch! Can we also please talk about how nice the lighting was for this sequence? Bless the existence of white surfaces as a reflector.  Well, that's it for the punch sequences! I'm still trying to get a hang of shooting on ones– hopefully I'll get better at it soon. Have a nice day!