betty & sparklepuss project

I met with Andi today to talk about my honours project. She's really happy with the idea of using Betty and Sparklepuss in an animated short. Except she said I have to go and flesh out the characters of Betty and Sparklepuss, and work on designing the garden in which the story will take place. I drew some concept art, which people think is funny:



My research on the physics of animation is going fine. I found a couple of neat sites - Alejandro Garcia's Animation Physics and also this one. Also I got my copies of Thomas & Johnston's The Illusion of Life, Whitaker & Halas' Timing for Animation and a couple of others from Amazon. I think they are going to be very useful.

I watched some Wile E. Coyote vs. Road Runner films again. Andi suggested examining the physics in them as part of my essay, since they are perfect examples of both principles of animation, and how the laws of physics can be violated for comic effect. I think the animators who made these films must have had an intuitive understanding of physical laws and properties and how to apply them (and also when not to apply them).