Roller

Roller 1 

Roller 2

How Does Animation Work?

Thaumatrope

I created a thaumatrope of a stick man walking. One side is of the stick man's legs together and the opposite side is one leg being forward. Once this has been spun fast it gives you the illusion of the stick man walking. 

The thaumatrope was very easy to make as it only involved cutting out two different images of a stick man, a small piece of card and two rubber bands. However, I only had one rubber band therefore I had to cut it in half. I had no issues with using half of a rubber band for each side.

The downside to creating a thaumatrope is that the stick man would not be able to be placed into different settings and locations, i.e. the stick man walking into another area. My thaumatrope can be considered an animation as once it is spun fast, it gives viewers the illusion of the stick man walking. 

Roller

Rollers are very easy to make, you need an A4 piece of paper, fold the paper in half and then fold it onto another quarter. With the two pages attached together, you have to draw two different images of the same thing; for example, a monkey. Draw the same monkey on both pages yet draw the monkey doing something different to the first page. 

For my first roller, the first image shows a stick man with his legs crouched and his eyes closed shut. On the second image, it's of the stick man just above the ground with a smile on his face. After rolling the paper quickly it looks as though the man is jumping up and down. 

My second roller was of a happy monkey on the first page, with him sitting on the ground with his legs crossed with his elbow leaning on his leg looking towards you, and the second page being the same monkey in the same position yet he is looking sad and looking in another direction. The difference between both of these images are more meaningful and self-explanatory facial expressions and body language. 

Both of the rollers are animation as one moment you see a particular movement and facial expressions in the first image and then in the second image and then in the second image it shows completely different facial expressions and movements. 

The limitations of rollers could be that there are only two pages, therefore you must choose people, images or objects that would work best on two images.

Mainly different facial expressions and movements (i.e. happy, sad, jumping, dancing and sitting) would work best on rollers due to them being easy to switch to. You would not be able to portray 

What is Animation?

What is Animation?

Animation is the sequence of images being put together in order to create an illusion of moving characters and objects. 

Different types of animation: 

Drawn Animation

Drawn animation is where each frame is drawn by hand; the sequence is then put together after all of the drawings are shown in order. An example of a hand drawn animation could be Tom and Jerry. Before computer generated images were introduced, a five-minute Tom and Jerry cartoon would have taken 7,200 hand drawn and painted frames.

Stop Motion/Model Animation

This is where objects and/or puppets and clay models are captured at one frame at a time. Stop motion animation is similar to hand drawn animation, however it is used with objects as opposed to drawings. All the frames will then be put together and played back to create the illusion of the characters and objects moving on their own. An example of a stop motion animation could be Pingu, which is based on a clay penguin and lives with his family. The pieces of clay are then moved slightly per frame and then played back to create an illusion of him moving. 

Computer Generated Animation

Computer generated animation refers to the movement of images created by a computer. An example of a computer generated animation could be A Bug's Life which is based on bugs that are created through computer generated imagery. 

Thaumatrope