Drawing from Reference

Part of the animation process is planning. While I'm stretched for time I still need to find time to plan out the basic animation before laying down keyframes. Without planning the animation can quickly become unnatural and you can spend a lot of time tweaking it before you realise you need to just start fresh.

The planning process usually consists of looking at live footage and drawing out the main poses and taking note of times between them. This creates a base to begin animating from.

It's not simply a matter of copying from real life, but referencing it and then building on it to achieve the desired look and feel for the character. Below are some examples of the planning process.