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basakward — Bear and Hare test rough keys
Published: 2013-11-14 02:59:37 +0000 UTC; Views: 14206; Favourites: 508; Downloads: 0
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Now that the John Lewis Christmas ad is out, I can share this! Before I got the job, it was a little uncertain whether they were going to use me or not, and I have NEVER animated anything to this level of realism, so I definitely felt out of my element. So I took Aaron Blaise's awesome Bear and Hare designs and did my own test in hopes to "cram" for the final. From what I heard, they showed it to Aaron, and it sounded like they were looking for something a little more subtle. So oddly enough, he saw my "God forgot about me" piece and that is what sold him. Either way, I got the job and the rest is history! It was an awesome experience working with Aaron, Dominic, and Premise Entertainment, and I am incredibly happy about how the final product turned out and the reaction to it.Related content
Comments: 143
I saw the ad an thought it was very cute, but then I saw the "making of" and I was blown away!
Amazing job!
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Thanks! Yeah, when they told me how they planned on doing this, I was actually a little skeptical, but these guys knew their stuff and it turned out great!
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Okay. I'm not a good artist. Just a hobbyist with typical bad anatomy. But I wanted to learn a bit about animating. I decided I want to make fan art of the Game of Thrones tv show set to the music "Power and Control" by Marina and the diamonds using flash and/or After Effects and using simple chibi characters. I figure that having a project and figuring out how to make it work will help me learn a bit of animation, albeit very slowly. I also figure it'll take my mind of my mother, who is currently dying a very painful death. She could die tomorrow, or months later. Her six (two doctors quit because she is a difficult patient to deal with and doesn't want anyone to touch her as it hurts too much) doctors have given us no time frame. I usually take solace in books- I've read a minimum of one novel (give or take. Some books were too long to finish in one day. As I found out after trying to read "The Mists of Avalon" and passing out after two days of no sleep, thereby loosing my place) everyday for ten/nine years. Except when I heard about how sick my mom was I stopped reading cold turkey and haven't been able to bring myself to finish a story since.
ANYWAYS. I was looking at this and I was wondering why you were starting off using rough sketches? It always seemed to me that animating was so time consuming that you want to start using the clean pictures from the get go. After watching this and thinking about it though, other professional animators always seem to have a mixture of sketches and clean cut pictures in their "how this was made" documentaries.
Can you explain to me why it's so important to animate using sketches and take the extra time to do that? Common sense says that it would be because you want to make sure everything looks right and that there are no glaring errors- but animating takes so long, I can't see why it would be worth it to take the time to do this.
Congratulations on the job. Hopefully you don't ignore me. I haven't started on my project yet- I just got back from California (where my mom is) yesterday.
Hopefully you see this. Also, do you have a post with resources on animating that you found helpful on it that you can direct me to?
Thanks for (possibly) reading this.
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The reason I (and I believe most other animators) do a rough "scribble" pass is to test the motion before the animator dives into the finished drawing. A detailed finished drawing is great, but if it moves wrong, it can ruin the scene. So it's more efficient in animation to "test" the motion with quick, rough drawings, and if the motion needs fixing you can catch it before you've dedicated too much work into the final drawing.
Another reason is because rough gesture drawings lend themselves to looser, more organic movement. Squash and stretch, overlap and followthrough, and exaggeration is easier with loose, rough drawings. If you are too focused on drawing detailed finished linework, you run the risk of "stiffening" your animation.
The one reference I always suggest is Richard Williams's "Animator's Survival Kit". It was my first animation book and I feel it really pushed me in the right direction when I first started truly animating.
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Thank you for the recommendation 
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I don't really know flash myself. I always rely on YouTube tutorials. Haha!
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O-O you use flash though, right? Wow x-x any good ones in particular that helped you? o.o >.<; sorry if I'm being annoying.
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No. I don't know flash. I want to eventually.
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Wow. This is gorgeous. That ad was incredible! It was really refreshing to see such beautiful animation!
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Thanks! We all worked hard on it, and Aaron Blaise was such a master! It was great working with him!
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Amazing animation loved the Tv Ad so much! really inspired me to carry on with animating well done
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Awesome! Can't have a better compliment than that! Honestly, it seemed to me that it put a little energy into everyone at Premise Studio as well. We don't get a lot of full 2D animation opportunities, but when we do, it's AWESOME at Premise.
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Can only imagine what this will look like with the inbetweens and key frame fix. Loving this!
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Thanks! I was thinking about taking this all the way. Perhaps someday.
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Hello, I love the emotion you caught. LOVE IT!!!!
I have a question, however, What programs are you using for this?
I need some input as I'm a broke animation student.
Any info would be appreciated, thank you!
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Thanks! I used a software called Plastic Animation Paper. It's free if you have a PC. I think there's a Mac version, but I can't vouch for it.
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Thanks a bunch.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work.
Remember; exaggerate our animations!!!
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Thank you! I have a while to get my work up to Aaron Blaise's level. Haha!
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Ha, of course! But you're well on your way, it's inspiring!
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Aww such cute, lively animation!
I just saw the making of this ad in class. The process was fascinating and the result was lovely!
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Thanks! When they told me how they planned on doing this, I was really surprised. I was swearing up and down that they would cut half of the bg characters that they wanted in there, but sure enough they pulled it off!
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Yeah, I loved seeing all the other animals around the tree all the details were incredible
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Wow, you worked on that ad? It's incredibly amazing! 
And this one is cool too.
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Yep! I animated some of the background animals. The one scene that was completely my animation is the two birds hanging the ornament.
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Grizzly bears must be a lot of fun to animate, all that swaying muscle and fur.
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Aaron Blaise was the grand master of animating that bear. Watching his pencil tests was just awesome.
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Lovely and just ever so cute ^w^ my favorite is the bear
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Thanks! It was fun animating the two different body types.
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Must've been hard though, animals are hard to animate after all ^^ But hey it was awesome that you had fun with it
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This is great. What program did you use to put this together?
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I animated them in Plastic Animation Paper, and I looped and darkened the lines in Adobe After Effects.
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HAH! I thought that commercial had some of your flavor and art style in it! Great work and have great pride in your abilities; this rocks! Especially love the style you gave to the bears face and body structure.
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Thanks! I animated them based off of Aaron Blaise's designs, so I can't take full credit for that. Although I'm sure there are parts in there that Aaron would suggest I fix. Haha!
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Cool! I saw an article on Cartoonbrew about this commercial and loved it! Thanks for posting!
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Yeah! I was really happy to see the ad on Cartoon Brew. It really took off!
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Indeed.
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this is super adorable, love the lil air kick the hare does
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Thanks! My sister had a rabbit, and it would do that sometimes, so I had to add it in there. Haha!
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my chinchilla does the same, he jumps up in the air around on all four or bounces off the walls whenever he gets excited
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Absolutely incredible!
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Thanks! I animated some of the background animals.
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The whole thing was amazing...great to see that you had a hand in it!
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