To rough or not to rough

[eezacque]

I'm a little puzzled by the question of how rough to animate, in which pass. Again and again I'm fighting the urge to clean things up too early, and to waste a lot of time erasing/trashing drawings due to basic timing problems. For now, I stick to a really rough first pass, consisting of very simple skeletal gestures, working out volumes and details in a second pass.

It is a bit frustrating to see others create gorgeous roughs in what looks like their first pass, and while I understand they operate at a very high level, I wonder if my approach is okay, for now.

Today, I noticed some controverse between Shamus Culhane, who suggests to work frantically and very rough at first, and to spend a lot of time making sense of it later, and Richard Williams, who disagrees, and claims that almost nobody works like this, because the time saved in the rough stage will need to be compensated for in later passes.

What are your thoughts on this? Do we have examples of the various passes as used by others?

[andrew sharp]

I am in the same boat. It is a tough question but some thing Don said in one of the online courses really stuck with me try to match your inbetweens to your keys eg if the keys are drawn rough inbetween rough.If the keys are clean inbetween clean. I did a test of Milts printed it off and inbetweened it clean I want to try this out with one of Glen Keanes scenes to see if I have a preference or what the strenghts and weeknesses are for me. I am not the tidiest person so I think alittle on the rough side is good fit for me.I am still trying to figure it out as well:D

[Adam R Davis]

I suppose it would depend on how you're most comfortable doing inbetweens. Or if someone else is doing them, how they work best. Fun thing about any kind of art is there seems to be as many ways to tackle a problem as there are artists.

[OwenWelsh]

I work very clean because I have to do my own in-betweens. If I was able to have someone else do my in-betweens I'm sure I would work much rougher.

[Rodney]

What are your thoughts on this?


My primary thought concerns planning (and/or conversely failure to plan).
It would see that very few people are good at executing the vision that they come up with in their head and even if they are fairly good at it they can and do make mistakes in interpreting that plan.

There seems to be two approaches to planning in animation. Note that here I assume that an xsheet or some other method of recording the timing is already part of the plan. There are two primary methods of visual planning: Thumbnails and Full sized Roughs.

Most traditional animators who have gone on the record about such things prefer to thumbnail while a few prefer to work full size as they test out their plan.

In the case of thumbnailing the process of visualization is accomplished quickly because there is less drawing to make at that scale. Ideas can be tested quickly and changes just as quickly made.

When drawing with full size roughs the animator should be ready to toss out drawings quickly that don't work in the animation. Time spent noodling away at the details during the rough stage is time never regained.

Both methods have their strengths and weaknesses but the basic simularity is this: Work quickly and don't get too attached to a particular idea while working out the unknown and esoteric parts of the plan. If something isn't working move on to something that will work with the plan.

Do we have examples of the various passes as used by others?

The prime examplar of someone working with full sized roughs is someone like Eric Goldberg. There are several examples on Youtube where he demonstrates full sized method of roughing out animation. He actually apologizes in his book that he doesn't thumbnail and always works full size. As others have stated it saves 'redrawing' time.

Most animator do both thumbnailing and roughs depending on what on the paper is staring back at them that needs further planning. Glen Keane for instance works extremely rough (like a child wielding a crayon) as he moves back and forth from drawing/frame/page to drawing/frame/page. But he is also know to work through ideas in small little drawings anywhere and everywhere on the page.

I do not know of anyone that strictly thumbnails but does not in some way or another rough out their animation. For the purpose of this discussion but contrary to common sense I am not considering Cleanup artists as animators. But it seems to me that any Cleanup artists who finds themselves struggling would thumbnail and rough out a few ideas in order to make a determination of where to lay the lines down on the page.

There are several websites that regularly post rough drawings:

Andreas Deja's blog
Living Lines Library
etc.

Bottom line: It may seem obvioius but when someone is working really really rough it is usually an indicator that they are roughing out their (unclear) ideas. When the drawings are more refined it could be that they believe they already have a clear idea of where they want their lines.

The question I would ask you in return is in regard to the confidence you have in laying down your lines. On average do when you are drawing do you feel comfortable and confident with the placement of your lines?

[Rodney]

I work very clean because I have to do my own in-betweens. If I was able to have someone else do my in-betweens I'm sure I would work much rougher.

Owen,
There is a part of me that wonders why this couldn't be the exact opposite.
By this I mean to say that if you give a really rough drawing to an inbetweener they are less likely to know where to place the lines. Similarly, because you know what you are drawing having really rough extremes isn't as much of a problem because it's you who will be interpreting the lines. If working extremely rough, a clean up artist (whether yourself or someone else with a sturdy hand at drawing lines and an eye for your level of quality) would then be able to finalize/perfect those lines.

I know you work very quickly already so I'm just imagining how fast you might be roughing out drawings as you raced through hundreds of feet of animation in record time!

[eezacque]

There are several websites that regularly post rough drawings:

Andreas Deja's blog
Living Lines Library
etc.


Great stuff, indeed. However, I would like to learn a bit more about the process used. How do the thumbnails, if any, underlying these, look like? And, for the somewhat cleaner roughs, I wonder if there was a rougher rough.


The question I would ask you in return is in regard to the confidence you have in laying down your lines. On average do when you are drawing do you feel comfortable and confident with the placement of your lines?

When I'm searching for what works and what not, I'm searching with my pencil, and when I have a clear picture in my mind, that shows on paper.

[GdeSouza]

One must always rough it out first. I know it is a cliche by now but the rough drawing is like frame and girders of the final building.
That said, what is rough is relative to each individuals degree of roughness based on experience and/or preference and/or requirements for the scene. Some initial roughs are looser; some are tighter. Some artists' roughs are stcik figures and they let the clean-up artist do the detail work. Maybe doing a quick fast short action winds up being a straight ahead flurry. Maybe doing a more poignant scene where expression is important requires more detail...but they are all rough approaches. Some animators are strict about their drawings and the detail must be adhered to; some don't mind if the assistant goes to town and they leave some interpretation.
Now sometimes when we see an old pro, especially to a beginner, we think that he/she is working in clean-up...but a guy like Chuck Jones who'd been animating for 75 years has all that structure hard-wired in his head; he may lightly do structure or just make circles microns above the paper and then lay down that line to describe the form...but it's still a rough drawing but cleaner that what many could do rough. This skill probably takes experience and time.
I'm a little wary when I hear someone can go directly to clean-up especially if we are talking old-school hollywood style animation. I have heard of it but never seen it. Robert Mckimson was said to be able to work in clean-up.
But for even the most experienced it is like a house with all the exterior but no support; drawings would be wobbling from one to another. And considering (as we in real life are not made up of outlines) that the line is a graphic symbol describing the form....one needs the form laid-out before the lay down that line.

[GdeSouza]

Oh....I see you are studying at Max The Mutt. I hear that is a good school. Take life drawing every chance you get. There is a reason to those gestures translate to animation. As Nicolaides said you are drawing what the model (character) is doing (its essence), not what it looks like (detail, that comes later).

[eezacque]

I would like to thank everybody here for their input, it really helps me to get a firm grasp of the whole process. BTW, could anyone point me to some examples of Glen Keane's extreme roughs? The fragments I've seen so far look pretty clean in my book...

[andrew sharp]

Here are some pencil tests from Tarzan not all are by Glen Keane but a good variety of people.Some real rough Keane animation around 4:30 mark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdwByOaft3o&feature=related

[DNethery]

Here's another example of how an animator works very loose and rough in his first pass , then ties-down the drawings once the timing is working:

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[DNethery]

Go to Pablo Navarro's blog to see a series of Rough Animation WIP tests with his tie-down rough tests on an animated sequence of a boar-creature combined with live-action for the short film "Venus and the Sun" -

http://pablonavarro.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/venus-the-sun-rough-animation/

Here are the finished rough scenes (on the blog link you'll see his very first rough pass for each of these scenes) -


.mp4 file of this animation - click HERE (http://videos.videopress.com/r0er79ld/venus_boar_tdw_wip_std.mp4) .
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Pablo Navarro animated this paperlessly with WACOM CINTIQ 21x tablet in TVPaint Animation 9.5 (http://paperless-animation.blogspot.com).

[Rodney]

I apologize for not returning to this topic sooner... I wanted to!

You said:
BTW, could anyone point me to some examples of Glen Keane's extreme roughs? The fragments I've seen so far look pretty clean in my book...

I haven't seen much from Glen that I'd call clean. He isn't known for that but rather for his powerfully dark lines and sketches full of energy and emotion.

There are a lot of rough examples of Glen Keane's roughs online. You don't have to look far to find them. In the early stages (or if he's making suggestions for others to follow) he can really simplify his roughs to where they which only show the very basic gesture/idea that is trying to be conveyed:

Exhibit A (Rough) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GC6VLN8wfhU/ToJjrjTcPpI/AAAAAAAAWZg/Xe5_lXlZRxU/s1600/treasure_planet_character_design_25.jpg)

Exhibit B (Rough) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YdjvDcIuYmc/ToJjr9mkn5I/AAAAAAAAWZo/hzJLkhGg3Zs/s1600/treasure_planet_character_design_26.jpg)

Exhibit C (Rough) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-YOK6-hJ5kY/TN_0-GjJdTI/AAAAAAAAHFA/9CFaQUUw5no/s1600/Glen_silver_rough1.jpg)

This is in contrast to his regular roughs:

Exhibit D (More detailed Roughs) (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-YOK6-hJ5kY/TN_09wNcp0I/AAAAAAAAHE4/n4reB0sBBrU/s1600/GlenKeane_Silver.jpg)

I'm sure you've visited this site... but if not it's a treasure trove of Glen's drawings that show his work from finely polished to teeny tiny thumbnails:

The Art of Glen Keane (http://theartofglenkeane.blogspot.com/)

That sequence with Scar that David posted is an excellent example of working rough to begin with and then refining thereafter. That how great ideas get translated into great animation.

[DNethery]

Here's another good example of working rough , then refining the roughs before passing it off to an assistant for final clean-up . It's a scene that Ken Duncan animated of Jane from "Tarzan" , showing his first pass rough , compared to his tie-down rough.

Here are Quicktime movies which can be stepped through frame-by-frame:

Ken Duncan First Pass Rough - Click HERE (http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Moderncartoons/Disney/Janeroughclipsml.mov)

Ken Duncan Tie-Down pass - Click HERE (http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Moderncartoons/Disney/Janecleanclipsml.mov)


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[DNethery]

Also see this pencil test work-reel by Andrew Chesworth for his "Palm Springs Film Festival" piece .

There are a variety of rough, very rough, cleaned-up scenes in this reel so you can get a good feel for how Andrew Chesworth works in his initial rough stage and then in his tie-down stage.

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/26190720" webkitallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" width="600"></iframe>



Here's the finished piece:

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/12700414" webkitallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" width="600"></iframe>

[OwenWelsh]

Here's another good example of working rough , then refining the roughs before passing it off to an assistant for final clean-up . It's a scene that Ken Duncan animated of Jane from "Tarzan" , showing his first pass rough , compared to his tie-down rough.

Here are Quicktime movies which can be stepped through frame-by-frame:

Ken Duncan First Pass Rough - Click HERE (http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Moderncartoons/Disney/Janeroughclipsml.mov)

Ken Duncan Tie-Down pass - Click HERE (http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Moderncartoons/Disney/Janecleanclipsml.mov)


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Why does the paper shift around on this test? Is that to account for some sort of pan move? It just seems odd.

[DNethery]

Why does the paper shift around on this test? Is that to account for some sort of pan move? It just seems odd.

Yes , the paper is moving from one center peg to the next as she moves across the 16 field . In the final scene there will be a pan move following her.