In Unit 1, I primarily used the animation software TVPaint to practice various small animations. These exercises enhanced my technical skills while revealing areas that needed improvement.

Bouncing Character
The first exercise involved animating a bouncing character. Initially, I added as many frames as possible, thinking it would make the animation smoother. However, the character appeared to be floating rather than bouncing. This taught me that mastering timing and spacing, as well as other animation principles, is more important than simply increasing the frame count.

Character Lift
For the character lift exercise, I referred to a performance video from a peer. While having a visual reference was easier than relying on imagination, I found myself merely copying keyframes mechanically, without adding creativity or considering the principles of motion. As a result, the animation felt rigid and lacked liveliness.

This exercise also highlighted my weakness in drawing human characters, since I had mostly drawn simple monster characters before. It underscored the importance of weekly life drawing classes, which offer opportunities to observe and learn human anatomy and gestures.

Mood Change Walk
The Mood Change Walk exercise exposed my limitations in storytelling. I aimed to make the animation interesting and surprising, but I struggled to come up with new ideas when brainstorming alone. This experience showed me that discussing with peers and tutors can broaden my creative horizons and help me explore more possibilities. Diverse perspectives are essential for creating engaging stories.

Quadruped Walk
In the quadruped walk exercise, I realized that despite having four cats at home, I had never closely observed their walking patterns. Even after the class and the tutor’s explanation, I still had to watch YouTube videos of cats walking to learn. This experience emphasized the importance of observing everyday details to create realistic animations.

Silent Film and Lip Sync
These exercises highlighted the importance of recording my own performance videos. By acting out the scenes myself, I was able to capture the specific emotions I wanted to convey through the characters. I realized that different people express emotions uniquely, and capturing these nuances is essential for creating dynamic characters.

Unlike the character lift exercise, I was able to apply more creative ideas and animation principles here, which allowed me to create more dynamic scenes. I learned that character movements must be exaggerated, expressions need to be diverse, and there needs to be a delay between the movements of different body parts. Although more time-consuming and challenging, this approach made the characters more lifelike.

Conclusion
Although my work is not perfect, I am happy to see a little progress with each revision, even if it’s just a small step. These exercises taught me that animation requires continuous learning, keen observation, and persistent practice, as these are the foundations of creating compelling animations. I will keep refining my skills and pushing myself to create better animations in the future.