Stimulated Work Experience with Weronika Zgoralska

During the stimulated work experience, I was paired with Weronika Zgoralska, as well as Anyan Cai. Shortly after, we had a successful online meeting where we discussed Weronika’s project and what each of us would like to work on. I decided to go with animation as I’d like to develop more in that. So, my given role was an animator. 

While waiting for the main character’s design from Anyan, Weronika gave me a scene of a squirrel appearing in frame. I had a try at animating that and learned a few new things. I learned about the anatomy of a squirrel and the way they land on their feet. I also noticed how fast their movement is. I received helpful feedback about the feet and timing, then I corrected them accordingly. 

After receiving the main character’s design, I started working on a rough animation shot that had the character go through emotions of surprise and disappointment. Using the mirror and acting, I was able to see how these emotions transition in and out of the character’s face. 

My progress for this shot was first, I received the keyframes from Weronika in order to know exactly what she would like the character to do. Then, I acted out the character’s performance to understand how the emotions are animated. After that, I took it slowly, easing out the keyframes with breakdowns and then in-betweens. I wanted to make the animation as smooth as possible however there wasn’t enough time. It is rough but I think it translates the emotion enough for the shot.

What I mostly found challenging is animating the character design. It was in a style that I have never drawn before. I struggled to keep the character on model and tried not to ruin the design. However, I found that having the character sheet as a reference at all times helps to not go off model. Also, I dealt with a lot of self-doubt and the thought of me unable to animate this. But during times like that, I found throwing myself and getting to work as soon as possible helps with the overthinking. 

What I could have improved on is the easing in and out of movements by adding more in-betweens for the character shot. For the squirrel shot, I think the movement of the tail could have been better in terms of its follow through, some parts of the squirrel look stiff as well. 

Communication and support from Weronika were the most successful factors in this collaboration. I appreciate her professionalism in this as well as her immediate support. I thoroughly enjoyed working with her and would love to try it out again. 

I’m very glad I had the opportunity to choose animation as my role. I always want to develop my skills and break the fear I have towards this labor intensive job. Working in this forgiving experience has been useful to me massively. 

From this collaboration, I learned how beneficial and entertaining it is to work with other people in the industry. I always thought of animation as something personal, but after this experience, my perspective changed, and would very much like to collaborate with people again.