First of all; for the first animation (the usual bouncing rubber ball) I used "The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams to get me started! I made the ball more flexible/squishy than it would be in real life, as this would help me with the idea of movement and bouncing and I could animate the "squashing" and “stretching”. Again I was following the very useful "Survival Kit" for this one, as it was my first proper hand-drawn animation!
However, for the second ball (a ball of my choice) I choose a golf ball. The reasons for this choice:
-I actually have a golf ball that I could observe and play about with, which helped a lot when animating it.
-Unlike the "squishy" rubber ball, a golf ball is rigid and wouldn't squish at all.
-The golf ball is slightly heavier, and the material makes it very bouncy, creating faster movement. When I observed the golf ball it bounced in very sharp, quick arcs that also diminished quickly. The golf ball too has a sort of 'unique rhythm' to the bounces I thought, as the arcs get smaller, which I tried to re-create in the animation.
I feel this is my strongest animation. The golf ball was not too hard to animate I think, and it was very helpful having done the generic bouncing ball already and now having the actual object to observe for this one.
For the third animation, again a ball of my choice, I went for a balled up pair of socks. The reasons:
-This was something I could actually observe easily and experiment with.
-Although it is not too different in weight too the others (just slightly lighter) the material is very different. The cloth is not at all bouncy, but very soft and squashy. It would move in a very different way to the other two balls.
I found this ball the most difficult to animate and get right! As when I would drop the ball of socks, it would move in a different way each time. The soft, cloth material and the asymmetrical, non-spherical shape made it very unpredictable! The animation I have made was the sort of movement I noticed the most when I dropped the socks – bouncing very slightly or ‘flipping’ over, then rolling/rocking a bit.
This is probably my weakest animation and would maybe take a few more attempts to get the movement right. I think it is possibly too squashy, and I had a problem with size – the ball tended to get smaller and smaller as the animation progressed! But I think due to the difficulty I found in animating this, it was worthwhile and good practice.
Below are some notes I made while watching the movement of the balled up socks, this was before I starting doing any animating;
Here is my initial idea for the movement:
I added colour to the final video, and made the socks striped, which I think helped make the form and movement a bit more convincing:
