This week we focused on anticipation and how it helps build force and energy before an action takes place. We learned that all movement is driven by forces, and anticipation is essential for making animation feel strong and believable.
I applied these ideas in a ball and tail exercise, using overlapping action, follow-through, and secondary motion. Building on the bouncing ball from the first week, I aimed to create smooth, lifelike movement by making the tail follow the ball naturally rather than moving at the same time. This exercise helped reinforce how timing and anticipation add clarity and realism to even simple animations. As reference apart form the planning I used lots of squirrel videos I found online.
Here is my first attempt :
After that George’s feedback showed me what i needed to fix, such as tail follow up as mine wasn’t as natural as I wanted it to be and also the main body’s (the ball) position and trajectory
Here is the final result:
This week, we continued polishing the same animation, but the focus was on adding more life and personality. We were asked to animate one of the juice boxes and give it a sense of awareness and emotion.
My idea was for one box to “come alive” — looking around in disbelief, realizing that it is alive, feeling excited, and testing how it can move. After that, it would notice the other box lying still and go over to it, wanting to share the excitement, only to realize that the other box is not alive. The ending idea was for it to give up and lie down next to it. Unfortunately, due to time limitations, I was only able to complete the first part of this idea.
Even so, this process helped me focus more on storytelling through movement. I paid closer attention to timing, pauses, and subtle motion to communicate emotion, rather than relying on complex actions. It made me realize how small movements can already suggest thought, curiosity, and feeling.
Final Juice Box animation: