Tie-down (Part 2)-

My tie-down process proceed as follow-

First is to spotting extremes from the initial roughs by breaking scene into phrases of movement; they can be divided at start and stop from one unfolding arc into another.

For example, this hippo scene is divided into 3 phrases- anticipation, jump and recovery. (Selected extremes are marked by orange circle).

Extremes are selected for 2 reasons- enough to describe arcs of action and poses that anchor delayed parts within movement. (At minimal, there would be 3 extremes to describe an arc and addressing delayed parts.)

To stay organic, amount of extremes is determined by certain comfortable distance between poses; (for a fast action like this hippo jump, there will be more extremes at the middle fast phrase than in the slower start and slower to stop.)

The more organic a movement, the more extremes is required to reflect greater control of subtleties; the fewer extremes, the more mechanical it might appears.

Adding to extremes are timing charts that reflect spacing established in 1st pass, filling in rough inbetweens only as needed. I often ended up breaking scene to one’s and two’s for fast action and leaving scene at mixture of two’s, four’s, six’s or eight’s for slower movements, but enough to read intended velocity and delayed parts.

Finally, timing might get a readjustment once more in its tie-down look if necessary to stay in line with original intent.

In defining extremes, I look to strengthen consistency of mass, bringing character to model, feel of distortion at exaggerated points, clarity of arc, spacing and adding finer detail to secondary follow-through.