Week 1 - Due Monday 29th July 2002 (This week everyone is doing the same thing)

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Animation is the process of bringing something to life – making it come alive and move.  It’s a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of hard work.  The good news is that you don’t have to be a genius or a great artist to do it.  Seeing your characters move is one of the greatest creative thrills you can experience.

Part of the animation process is telling a story.  Comic strip artists and story writers use many of the same techniques to tell their stories.  For this week’s homework you’ll need to find a couple of comic strips and compare them to something we all know well, a narrative.

First of all, see if you can find what these terms mean when we talk like animators:

layout –

key poses –

inbetweens –

walk cycle –

lip sync –

cel –

zip pan –

pixilation –

clean up –

anthropomorphic character –

Next, collect two comic strips from the newspaper or the internet (check below for some ideas).

• Who are the characters?
• What happens in the comic?
• Where is it set?
• List the main events?
• Give it a rating out of 10 and say why.
• Draw one of the characters in two different poses.

Finally, time to put your thinking caps on:

“T.V. cartoons are better than newspapers.”

Do you agree or disagree?  Why?  Write your opinion of this statement.

Some online comics:

Calvin & Hobbes

Garfield

Zits