Due the recent COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been trying to adjust and adapt my work schedule in order to keep track of all my assignments with little to no success. Lately I’ve been preoccupied with other tasks and haven’t be able to find the time or energy to work on In-Depth other than looking at useful resources online. Over the past few weeks I have been studying resources specifically tailored to flip book animation and not animation as a general category. I mainly looked at videos because I prefer having a visual aid, and the commentary specifically in Youtube videos provide room for explanation and reasoning behind certain techniques and steps. I thought that many of the tips were very helpful and made a lot of sense to me. Such as numbering pages and creating key poses as reference. I think the one that I will use most will probably be taking videos of myself performing actions in order to make my animations seem more realistic.

1. How to make a flip book
2. How to make a flip book – using reference and weight
3. Flip book examples
4. Flip book examples – Andymation

I really enjoy the videos on flip book animation created by Andymation because his animations are always filled to the brim with personality and humour. I hope to emulate this quality in the works that I create in the future. I believe the concept that I’ll struggle most with is weight and proportions, as I’ve never been to great at maintaining any of them. Since I currently don’t possess a flip book kit, I’ll most likely improvise a flip book kit using elastics paper strips and a screen.

1. What kinds of learning opportunities does the mentor provide to expose you to new learning?

As Simon has a lot of experience in the field of animation, he’s been great help in finding great books and videos on animation principles and concepts. Simon understands the process of being a beginner in animation, and he’s been able to guide us through the process by equipping us with as many concepts and techniques he can in order to aid our learning. As well, he’s been able to share some of his experiences with Ben and I, and has helped me learn more about the industry of animation.

2. What kinds of learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning?

At the moment, not many learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning, since I have been keeping in contact as much with my mentor, but I’ll be updating him soon on my progress through email. From then on, I’ll try getting into contact with ben and arrange a video call meeting with Simon.

3. What kinds of opportunities exist that might accelerate learning?

I firmly believe that the only way to accelerate learning is through practice, which I have not gotten enough of over the past few weeks. I think that the best way to learn is to use studies in practice by implementing the techniques and concepts that I’ve learned so far. Practicing as much as I can allows me to look back and reflect on my previous and current work to see areas that I’ve improved on and areas that I still need to work on.

4. When you get together what do you talk about?

When we meet with Simon, we usually review previously learned concepts and move on to learn something new. Our meetings have mainly served as a time for us to ask questions and clarify details about the concepts of animation that we learn or have learned. Simon provides me with ways that I can improve my technique, as well, he suggests studies for me to practice next. When we met in person, Simon was able to pull out books from his collection to show us. We would also spend some of our time getting to know each other better and ask about each others’ days.

5. What is going particularly well in your mentoring relationship right now?

Something that has been going particularly well is that Simon has been a very constant figure to refer and ask questions to. Simon has been providing many helpful online resources as well as being very supportive during these times of social distancing.

6. What are you learning about one another?

Through this mentorship experience, I’ve learned a lot about Simon’s mentorship background and his experiences within the animation industry. As well, I’ve had the chance to briefly meet his wife and son. I hope that I’ll be able to learn more about his experiences through our future interactions.

More to come – Brian Cheng.