January has been a thoroughly eventful, stressful, yet fairly productive month, which, for personal reasons, I’m sad to see come to an end. Here are some recent short animation exercises done in that month.
The first was an exercise in mood change acting; a character encounters a wind-up toy mouse and reacts to it’s presence. My chubbier version of Tack, who is more playful kitten than cobbler, wakes up, inspects the toy with curiosity, then looks bewildered at the camera as it leaves. One touch I am pleased with is the way the flaps of his trademark hat behave like ears; flapping lazily before he wakes and lifting as he hears the mouse scuttle into frame.
Not so much as part of an assigned exercise as something of a ‘vent’ animation. I’ve been experiencing another depressive, almost manic episode in the previous week and felt that animating some of those feelings through my favourite little cobbler might help. I aim to polish this later, extending some shots and held poses, as well as later colouring it with cels and paint. I like to imagine that this may have been Tack’s reaction to Dick Williams’ shocking death last year.