Challenge 1: Illustration of good and bad animation

1. The good Animation Clip of ” Monsters University”

“Monsters University”, opening June 21, takes its familiar lead characters — the short, green, one-eyed Mike and his tall, furry sidekick, Sully, back to school. Several new colorful characters attend the college.

One of the most appealing is Art, a purple longhaired hippie- esque monster majoring in new-age philosophy. With his wide, rainbow-shaped stance, he’s the kind of student who keeps a dream journal and is excited to “laugh with you and cry with you.” From his shape to his no-worries personality, to the way he moves (and scares), Art proved to be a design challenge, but this film shapes this character amazingly successful.

In one scene, he wraps himself in a circle and rolls like a tire. In another, he stretches himself out into a long line so he can roll under a bed.

In the video, Art is heavy on fur, especially at the feet, with small mangled speckles of different colors in that fur. Even though it is a weird-look purple monster with a giant and sausages-like mouth, but we don’t feel threatening but approachable, appealing, and amusing through its dancer-like performance, spreading his legs wide and putting his arms between his legs. Just as what we feel about “Art”, which is mysterious and weird to some extent but we still feel it is appealing and charming.

To sum up, a good animation definitely has amazingly well-designed and vivid characters.

2. The bad animation Clip of ” Steamed Hams”

This is one of the creepiest and crappiest animations I have ever seen. Ignoring its uncomfortable background soundtrack, there are still many disadvantages that we can dig into by using the 12 principles of animation I have learned so far.

1.Character Design(concerning “Appeal“)

The design of the characters is awful. In short, it is rather hard to recognize different characters through their outfit or appearance because they almost look like the same one with a yellow face and grey hair also big frightening eyeballs which gives me goosebumps. We can not feel the personality and quality of different characters.

2. Movement （concerning ” Timing” & “Squash and Stretch” & “Overlap and Follow through“& “Straight ahead action and pose to pose“& “Secondary action” & “Arc ” & “Anticipation“)

The movement of the characters is way too appalling. If we can open its graphic editor, it might doesn’t have ups and downs. Furthermore, it can not control timing properly, sometimes way too quick and sometimes rather slow, just feel like nothing is in the right place. Animators don’t give them normal human-like walks or arc, even poor than robots that can stretch their legs and arms, plus, rotating their arms or legs and twisting necks in a terribly abnormal way makes me feel unpleasant. Even though some say these movements of this animation show the unique style, As far as I am concerned, this animation can not count on basic and normal animation.

3. Facial Expressions (concerning”Exaggeration“)

Without any Exaggeration, these characters are awfully lifeless that we can not see any emotion, mood, and feelings through their expressions. Are they happy? sad? mad? or something like that. It is not enough for us to relate or understand any roles just through their opened mouth.

In conclusion, this animation gives us an alert that we should deeply understand the spirit of the 12 principles of animation and try to bring life to characters.