This weeks #TopTip comes from Animator David McEvoy for animators:

Reference material is incredibly important!

I recently attended a talk by Jason ryan, supervising animator on Shrek, Megamind and Kung Fu Panda amongst others, and he explained how the animators at that level act out every shot, edit together their best takes and follow that reference religiously until they have the basis of a working shot (keys, in-betweens and breakdowns).

If it is something you can't do yourself, scour the internet. There is a video out there of everything.

It is only then that they go back into the shot and start pushing the poses, looking for a nicer silhouette, line of action etc. and changing the timing between poses to “cartoonify” the action, often speeding up the action itself while slowing down or holding on the anticipation and reaction.

The result is that you get incredibly convincing performances with anatomically correct movement underlying your performance. I have started using this technique myself now and the results are clear to see.