Planning an Animation Test for my Practical

With MAF quickly approaching, I thought it would be best for me to at least start my practical so I would have something to show potential practitioners and professionals. The test I was certain on doing was looking into the effect that reference material can have on performance, so I started with this one.

In order for my testing to be fair and consistent, I first needed to decide on what action/movement I was going to animate, and the shot framing that I would use. I quickly made a list of any simple actions that came to mind and thumb-nailed potential shots. I also started sketching out potential character designs, but in the end I decided that I would leave the face blank and include no features at all. This would leave the character genderless and allow me to focus purely on animating the movement, which is really the aim of this testing.

Brainstorming

I decided I'd like to go for drinking from a mug, so I filmed myself a couple of times in the desired angle and chose the take that I was happy with, so that the animated movement would be consistent through-out, allowing for a fair test.

Reference Material

Now I have all I need to start testing, but I am going to have to start by working with no reference material, as working in a different order just wouldn't make sense.