Practice based research

This reflection mainly analyzes my Lip-sync and Mood Change Walk projects, focusing on how secondary elements, such as hair and arms utilize principles including follow- through/overlapping, arcs, and exaggeration.

In the early stage of the Lip-sync project, I studied the physics of hair movement, specifically referencing Ariel in The Little Mermaid. I recognized that as a secondary attachment, hair would inevitably follow through and slowly fall back after body action (especially when turning or raising the head). Although such movements are slight in reality, to help the audience clearly perceive the force of character’s performance, I added three additional keyframes of hair after body stopped and made them move along an arc to them a flowing feel, strengthening the character’s body language.

Similarly, in the Mood Change Walk project, I analyzed the physical laws of body tension through reference videos and applied the Exaggeration principle to improve expressiveness of the action, making the character look more elastic and livelier. The Onion Skinning clearly illustrates the Follow Through of the arms; When the character’s main body stands upright and stops moving, arms do not instantly stop due to inertia and gravity. Instead, they keep swinging and moving slowly, tracing a distinct S-shaped arc from the lowest to the highest point.

In addition, based on what I learned in Perspective Induction course, which suggests that curves provide stronger visual guidance than straight lines in composition. Therefore, I designed a curved staircase to lead the audience to look toward the character in the background of Lip-sync project, Besides, I increased color contrast by making the background darker and the character brighter. This reduces visual distractions in background, making the lip-sync and body action remained firmly in focus. Finally, this helped me successfully achieve a new level of clarity and professional growth which was missing in my previous works.