The animator's survival kit

Drawing in time

Time to draw

It's all in the timing and the spacing

Lesson 1

Advancing backwards to 1940 : History of the chart and inbetween ; Extremes and breakdowns ; Keys ; Three ways to animate ; Testing, testing, testing ; The X-sheet ; Came the dawn ; The best numbering system ; The great ones and twos battles ; The top and bottom pegs battle

More on spacing : Classic inbetween mistakes ; Watch your arcs ; Getting more movement within the mass ; The elongated inbetween ; The major beginner's mistake ; The 'ruff' approach ; How much do we leave to the assistant? ; Take the long short cut

Walks : Getting the weight ; Set the tempo ; The passing position or breakdown ; Two ways to plan a walk ; The double bounce ; Loosening it up ; Digging deeper into walks ; There's nothing like trying it ; The heel ; Foot action ; Normal walk space ; Weight shift ; The belt line ; Arm movements ; Counteraction ; The recipe ; Sneaks ; The tip toe sneak

Runs, jumps and skips : The 4 drawing formula run ; The 3 drawing run ; The 2 drawing run ; The recipe ; Run, jump, skip and leap ; Skips ; Jumps ; Weight on a jump

Flexibility : The breakdown ; Simple overlap ; Overlapping action ; Simple counteraction ; Breaking joints to give flexibility ; Flexibility in the face ; Overlapping action in the face ; Instant read: profiles for readability

Weight : Pressure and weight ; How much effort do we have to expend? ; Dancing ; Rules of thumb on synchronising action

Anticipation : Surprise anticipations ; Invisible anticipations

Takes and accents : A hard accent bounces back ; a soft accent continues

Timing, staggers, wave and whip : Stagger timings ; The side to side vibration formula ; Whip action ; Wave action

Dialogue : Phrasing ; Picture and sound sync ; Accents ; Attitude ; The secret

Acting : Change of expression ; Look for the contrast ; An acting point ; Body language ; Symmetry or 'twinning' ; Steal it! ; Eyes

Animal action : Live action reference ; Basic animal walk pattern

Directing : The brief ; The leica reel ; Separate the characters ; Best foot forward ; Casting animators ; Making changes ; 'Say! Say!' ; Voice recording ; Hook ups ; Research ; Editing ; Believe in your material

Review : The procedure ; The ingredients

The enlarged edition : 'Lesson one' on flexibility ; Delaying parts and progressing the action ; Put it where you can see it ; A Hollywood hop ; Contrast and change ; Phrasing dialogue ; Using live action for reference ; Animal flexibility ; Action on a running dog ; How does a horse really walk? ; Horse trotting ; Horse galloping ; Birds ; A challenging assignment in 'realism' and weight ; The moving hold ; The great 'realism' debate ; The solution ; Yes, but ... ; Conclusion so far ; My conclusion ; Life drawing for animation.