I cannot help but think of the title of a recent movie, “Hustle and Flow,” as I write this blog entry. Simply because I am hustling to get it done, and the subject matter is flow. Flow – what does that mean? Flow is something that's found in graphic design, it's the way elements are arranged by the designer to purposefully lead the viewers eyes through a piece. That, however, is not the flow that I'm talking about. What I mean, in terms of animation, is the way an object moves. Pick up a piece of spaghetti that's soft from boiling and hold one end in your fingers, then gently move it back and forth. See the wiggle?That's flow. It's the sinusoidal movement of an object from an anchored source to a non-anchored end. Things like seaweed, flags, snakes, fish, string and the like move in this manner – it's also the type of animation we're attempting in class this week. In the old days of animation the term, “rubber hose” was coined to describe it. Olive Oyl's (from the Fleischer Studios “Popeye”)arms are a classic example of this. All in all, it seems simple enough, but the simplest things to describe of the most difficult to execute. I'll be posting my example in a couple of days, so stay tuned.
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