Icon Mini-Turtorial: Transform

Someone once asked how I make these little guys, and for the most part, I make every one from scratch and do not copy/paste parts of them. This keeps them from getting stale and forces me to re-make every part based ont he character and not generic bodytypes.

I decided to show the process of animating a transformation. Hopefully people can learn and apply this to animating THIER OWN ORIGINAL WORK. Remember, just because I use a specific style doesn't mean the tips don't work in any style. My goal is to help fellow artists develop their own trade, not simply do the work of drawing/animating my art for me.


Here was a step by step I did of G1 Springer.

1st Frame: First thing you do is make your character. Panel 1, is springer, TADA!!!

6th Frame: Next you mae the ALT MODE icon. It should not be based off your original in any way. It should share style, but drawn from scratch. Animations look horrible when you simply cut/paste parts from the robot mode. MOST TIMES this is not needed. In this example I have made both alt modes for Springer, which ARE similar, but this may not always be the case.

2nd and 5th Frames: This is the trick, Simply modify the first and last frames a little bit. What is the first thing that happens when a robot transforms? The hands sink, the head pulls in, the chest rises. What does a vehicle look like before transforming, very vehicular, except it begins to pull apart. As you can see the frames are VERY SIMILAR to the frame next to them. This is the goal, it is a simple illusion to show movement.

3rd and 4th Frames: Sometimes you can even make this one frame, this frame should take the most distinguished parts between the two other icons. The distinguished parts I chose where the shoulders and the chest. This brings the animation together. You can then fudge the rest as your animation will trick the eye if done smoothly.

Finally, dump it in an animator. If you see things that look wrong, go back to your frames.

1. If you don't change an angle or size of something, MOVE IT. If pixels remain unchanged, it looks WRONG. As you can see, Springer's Chest is very static, but because it lowers 1-2 pixels a frame, the eye doesn't catch it.

2. Giving the modes something to do makes the animation seem quicker and the static modes look better. The dustclouds are pretty much crap, but gives the impression of movement. It gives the viewer time to focus on the static mode then POOF animation!




So you can see the process I go through to make these guys