COMPOSITION 101: Balance

     "OMG danny, Where the hell have you been?" 

      -Don't worry I'm back. I just had to give 110 percent to this class I'm teaching and had to put the blog on the back burner.  But that sissy era of non-multitasking is done, time to get this blog back up and running (but odd fact of the day: This last month I had the most views I have ever had and I didn't even post anything!!!.. what does it mean) 



BALANCE 101

      One of the first things I learned about art was by accident. I was in 6th grade, drawing my awkwardness away, when I noticed that some arrangements of things I drew worked better than others. I didn't know how but they just did.. The drawings were pleasing to look at! Looking back I can now say I was noticing good composition and balance skills in the making :) But some people don't have that epiphany, so I thought I'd do a little post about: BALANCE

Definition: (here's a definition I found online, lets take a look)

(noun) - As a basic principle of art (specifically of design), balance refers to the ways in which the elements (lines, shapes, colors, textures, etc.) of a piece are arranged. Balance is one of those useful terms to know, if one is to employ Art Speak. (If you want to sound artsy, learn how and when to use balance. Do not go into an art school saying: This Lendo fool decided to drink more to be balance and not feel it.)

Balance can be symmetrical ("formal"), where elements are given equal "weight" from an imaginary line in the middle of a piece. For the most basic example of symmetry, think of your eyes in relation to either side of your nose.

SYMMETRY

Balance doesn't necessarily mean symmetry, though. Asymmetrical ("informal") balance occurs when elements are placed unevenly in a piece, but work together to produce harmony overall.

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Confused? Symmetry is balance, but symmetry doesn't happen in nature so its not as appealing than Asymmetry. Even with a seemingly unbalanced image, one still has to be able to visually balance an image using elements of design. A few are elements of design commonly used when balancing an image. 

1. shapes and their proportions 
2. Your frame: what you crop and choose to show
3. negative space
4. contrast in value
5. breaking these rules: creates tension and unease.

Rule of thirds is the easiest way to help balance your image, putting your image smack dab in the middle is technically a balanced image but that doesn't mean it is interesting. When you come up with creative ways to balance your image: such as rule of thirds, it adds interest to your image. Below is an example. 

As long as there's no context, The image on the Right has a balance that is more interesting than the image on the left.

Rule of threes: Odd number of subjects in your image will always be more interesting than an even number. Even number of objects suggests symmetry. When there is an odd number of objects the eye will assign arrangements for the subjects. 

Balancing an image with space, usually this technique is another way of using the rule of thirds. Another way of thinking about the rule of thirds is that you are balancing the image, not with objects but with space, If you put the object on one side of the paper and if there is enough space on the other side, then your picture will be balanced. You can also create space with simplifying the image

More examples     
       A quick search of the interweb and I found these images.  They demonstrate balance in a very simple way: Here are two squares on a white plane. a smaller square that has more contrast can balance more space than a small dull square. The less contrast a square has the larger the square has to be.  The same applies for a square of color. 

....A complicated shape has the same effect as well as texture. 

     So it's a simple context but it can be difficult to master. When you are unsure if your image is balanced, you have to go with the aesthetics of the image (Aesthetics is a fancy word that basically can mean: what your gut really thinks about the image) If it feels wrong, then your image is probably unbalanced. If you are still unsure ask somebody! Receiving feedback is the best way to check if your work is communicating your idea. 

WILDCARDS!!  Test yourself.. are these images balanced??

Hope you enjoyed the post! If you are interested in the online classes I teach please feel free to email me about them. I also will post when my next class starts, so check back in once in a while :)

-Danny Gonzales

Animating 101.5: 'Balance and Weight'

       A teacher or Mentor would give you the following video and say study this... what they need to say... HOW TO STUDY THIS..





FIRST: A Rant On 'The Responsibility of the Animator.."
  
       I see a lot of green animators having a hard time animating balance and weight, but here we see ROBOTS are great, mastering it, with 1,2,4 legs.. I bet they can also do it with 8. Very sad when a robot can learn to walk before you can learn to animate a very convincing gait. If a robot can do it, so can you! but do not take for granted the work you have to do. If you think your job should be easier, bc you think all you have to do is drawing, while that robot calculates all day since morning, then it is not alarming, that you darling, are have such a hard fucking time day in and day out with that mouse in your hand the pencil in your mouth, animating. :)

Just because you made a life choice, to do your part and make some art, it does not excuse you to be ignorant. So here is my rant about give learning a chance and learn that the world has more to it than what you take in from first glance. Your job as an artist is to observe the world around you carefully, just looking doesn't count, and memorizing patterns is such a wasteful account, you need to learn the fundamentals to understand reality. WHY and HOW should be the basis of your new philosophy.

Your an artist but more than that you are a human being.
-'but danny I do art bc math and school were just not my thing"

Then you should not be doing art, bc in school 'Learning' was the trick. And learning in ART, is just as hard! ..if talent was not given to you as a natural gift. It is hypocritical to say you are going to learn art and animation inside and out, but when told to deal with the Math of a walk cycle, with it's frames per seconds and spacing, you start to groan and shout.

imagine how much potentially better work can be with a little more understanding and knowledge.

The End...

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Now: A Non-Rhyming Rant On "Weight, Balance, and Forces":
  
     There is no weight, there is no balance, those are descriptions. It is GRAVITY. You are not "selling" the weight.. Nor are you making the balance "work"... What you are trying to do is convince me that gravity EXIST and is acting upon your character or what ever you might be animating. So when a teacher says, "it needs weight.." it should be translated to, 'Your gravity is not convincing.' 


      Look at the video around ( 0:18 seconds) here is a one legged robot doing a nice job keeping it's balance. It lands it's leg exactly where it needs to be to counter the gravity that is always pulling down on it. Here are WRONG drawings of a robot trying to keep it's balance...

     This is wrong because the robot would still fall over.. the placement of the 'foot peg' DOES counter the gravity but not the Momentum the robot has moving towards the Left... so not only does the foot need to be under the robot, but it also needs to be opposite of the direction that the momentum is going. This will counter act it and result in the robot coming to a stop...
Here is how it should be..

      This is much more physically correct, and thus believable.

      It's all about knowing what forces are acting upon the thing you are animating. That is it. All 4 basic forces work either as a push or a pull. Electro Magnetism, Gravity and the Strong and Weak nuclear forces all either push or pull. This is 7th grade physics. Every day, all day these forces act as either a PUSH OR PULL, (note to get diagonals and arcs, multiple forces have to be in play..more on that later) there are no flying or side-ways actions, gravity doesn't say 'im tired, im not gnna work today'. Even when your character or object is doing nothing, gravity is still happening...


      -So direction of force is a key concept to move any object... You can push in the opposite direction of where you want to go (hmm this sounds familiar.. what is is called.. can this be ANTICIPATION????) So if you are going to the LEFT and down.. you want to push to the RIGHT and UP.
     NOTE: ever see something over animated? most likely they are using too big an anticipation (force) than the action needs in real life.


      Gravity, is a PULL. The more you pull at something the faster it will go as long as there is nothing pushing or pulling in the opposite direction...
     THIS TIES IN WITH SPACING: when something falls it gradually will pick up speed... (the spacing of your frames will get bigger and bigger)
     Gravity pulls on everything equally. unless there is another force at work. So the spacing of a bowling ball falling and a ping pong ball falling ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. a body falling from the sky, a dinosaur foot landing in a walk cycle.. the SPACING WILL BE THE SAME period. (Galileo 101 people.. jeez..).

The only difference is the bounce UP.

    -The ping pong ball, having more elasticity, can Push against the floor resulting in high bounce. (you see this as squash and stretch)and all the bounces after that work the same.. THE BALL NEVER BOUNCES GREATER OR BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL HEIGHT. Each bounce being smaller than the last because the energy is being lost as movement and heat while the pull of gravity never lets up.. resulting in smaller bounces..)

    -The bowling ball on the other hand cannot squash and stretch as much and there for the Push off the floor is not as strong. BUT like a smart logic seeking student you are, you ask, 'Where did the energy go?" It transferred as heat and vibrations. The ground where the bowling ball hit immediately after the bounce is slightly warmer than the surrounding surface.
      If you do not believe me or SCIENCE in general.. Fine, You can test this out your self by bouncing a basketball over the same spot of an extendent amount of time.. you will then feel the heat on the bottom of the ball and on the floor.


     The sooner you learn to see these forces as clear as you see how fast food is made from the shittiest quality food EVER... then you it'll be very very easy to tell if something animated is not 'feeling' right.   :)


An Example of pushing:
    -when you stand you are pushing. your foot is not resting in it's natural shape. It is pushing against the floor. 

    -A very nerdy way of thinking of animating is that animating is The Controlling and Manipulation of Directional Energy.  ..add some knowledge of texture, principles and timing to this along with a concept and acting choices and.. HEY, you might be making ACTUAL art!..

shocking..

     -Remember that things need directional forces to move. and in order to CHANGE direction: one force must be greater than the other.. The greater the inequality the faster it can change direction.
     Visualize: A five year old trying to tackle you... you won't budge more than 2 inches. Now imagine a whale tackling you..   ..Exactly :)

    Thought Exercise: In any action it can be very helpful to break down what forces are happening. For example: Raising your arm to point to the TV screen..

     Is this a push or a pull? WHAT is pushing or pulling? It will be the shoulder muscles and some triceps (lets just say elbow) But more shoulder than elbow. The shoulder will LEAD the movement and everything will follow. this is how you would show that the elbow is pulling

     The pull of the shoulder is a force, but do not forget there are other forces at work here. Gravity will be fighting against this movement of the shoulder. the easiest path of compromise between these two forces is this ARC..

     This looks natural and effortless.Any other arc would be wrong, unless it's done on purpose. You would need a stronger pull from the shoulder (bigger anticipation) then you can get a showy showman gesture like this,

       So This is it for my rant. I hope this gave you insight on a new way to think about animation and the world around us. To show weight is to show gravity. It's not magic, gravity is not the weight of god's expectations on you, haha, it's good old fashion space time distortion and it's effect on you. Think that's just some fancy explanation scientist just made up? no way, gravity affects lots of things. Even time: farther away you are from a gravitational mass, the faster time seems to pass. So this means the clock in a satellite ticks faster than the one of your wrist. GPS satellites are well aware of this and have compensated for the different time speeds. Did you learn something new? Good, I hoped you liked it. Now go get lost in wikipedia.. all human knowledge at your fingertips.

-Daniel Gonzales

Looking back- Composition

       From now until January, I will continuously post old drawings and sketches and say a word or two about it. no long rants like in the past. Right now I'm all about catching up with family and taking it easy and so should you be doing the same. Am I being hypocritical? Yes, because I never stop drawing and working. This one I did when I was around 16. I used pen and mostly pencil. As I was getting portfolio reviews while applying to colleges, this one was pointed out often for it's composition.

Composition-
      It's very important because it is an aesthetic element that appears in just about any expressive medium. There are a lot of 'rules' to composition such as rule of space, focus point, rule of thirds but always remember

      that these rules will not save your composition if all you do is just apply them to your art work. If you are trying to achieve a specific emotion or meaning with your work then HOW you use these rules becomes just as important as these rules themselves.

      You have to recognize when you might have to break a rule or follow it strictly. In the drawing above, it would of not of done me any good to make an unbalanced composition. If I was going for something different then maybe an unbalanced composition might of suited the drawing better..
      In drawing, composition means controlling your viewers eye. what will they look at first, what do you not want the viewer to focus as much on. In music composition is different and applies more to the piece in a linnet (time) fashion. And In animation, composition can be visual but also linear in time. but it would be called rhythm and texture. Either way you say it you are still composing the movements on the screen: When do they move fast? When do they contrast? Are they communicating the feeling you intend? etc.

So enjoy your holidays and I will post another drawing in the next two days, most likely a sketch.