Moving on from the original ball test, I went back to the very first frame and added the tail so that I could focus on the movement of the tail to the ball and it’s reactions to the surrounding.
This has to be the most enjoyable part for me when I was animating this simple test. I love creating a very believable character from simple movements, like the tail and having to focus on that detail to how the tail would move to create a feeling, weight or characteristic. Simply by adding the tail, it brought a whole other level to the animation and gave the ball some life.
I tried to play with the movement of the tail compared to the ball, which is much more simple, and thought about how it would react to the certain situations. I found it quite hard to work out how to make a ball with a tail seem shocked or scared so I did do a lot of jumping and sitting up. I had also actually taken some reference from the movement of animals like a fox and squirrel, which I got from looking through carious animation books.
The animation overall seemed fairly fast, but in the end it seemed as though it fit the character of the ball better being at this tempo. There are still frames I would like to add but overall I think it turned out quite well. With this animation in particular I also thought it would be best to work at 24 frames per second which I have now gotten use too with the tests I have been doing, which I have actually been moving to and from paper to Flash.
Cluk Animations 