Anna Sonkina's Blog

In the second part, I would want to cover the body part of the article. It was particularly interesting for me to see that the hips counter the movement of the wings, while the head counters the movement of the hips, so overall the body is a very dynamic part of the cycle. If I were to animate the flkight cycle wthout the guidance, I would've assumed that the hips are supposed to be dragging and overalpping teh body motion, funnily enpouhg, that's a common mistake.

The article then delves into the specifics of lines and shapes, and then explains the specifics of the headlock. The headlock would, I think be a powerful tool to achieve the bird-like character animation, which in turn will also make the animation more interesting to watch. It was a great inspiration to see how far I can push the lines of the body with the head stabilised, which gives some space for interesting lines.

Finally, the article goes through the speed difference depending on the type of action. Take off or landing, and while I have only a brief second of the bird taking off in the film, it was very useful to go through these specifics and keep this in mind for future animations.

After going through Brendan Body's documentation on birds' flight, I definitely felt much less lost. I got a clear picture of the workflow and my approach to the cycle in general. It was very useful to understand the basic mechanics and the anatomy of the bird's flight, as well as some small details and features which will be relevant to the specific type of birds. I reckon it would be rather somniferous to go throuhg what I've found particularly intersting and helpful in the article, I'd want to point out a few points which I think were rather important for my animation cycle in particular.

What I found th emost interesting is how seemingly right flight cycle can start looking mor enad mor ewrong if you keep rewatching it. Mainly because the bird's flight cycle, despite looking quite straight forward to animate, is in reality uch more than just up and down of the Humerus bone. There's the explanation for the circle-like motion of the wings whihc lies in its aerodynamics.

Also, it is important to keep in mind the shapes and the lines of action for the wings. It seems to be logical for the wing to go front on the up motion and back on the down on, like in swimming. However, birds do not swim, and this is one of the reasons behind the difficulty of the bird flight animation. It is not something we can replicate and feel. So what is left to do is to understand it via the aerodynamics sie of it nad create the mtoion based on that. As we can see, the Toucan flight in the very begginning of the article looks off as the wings are going forward on the up motion adn to the back on the down motion, and in fact, it should be completely the opposite.

He also outlines the importance of timing. Whilst it mgiht feel rihgt to do the up-motion longer thatn the down one, it is also the opposite (or for some birds) equal, given the physics behind flight. He analyses how the area that the wing covers is much bigger on the down action, hence slower, and when the wings go up, they almost slice the air and therefore move quicker.

After a couple of years working in the industry I’ve found it quite difficult to work independently, not even talking about managing the whole project. I’ve got used to having someone whether it’s client side or a supervisor who would green light the work and send it over to comp, or elsewhere, basically someone who would “call it done”

At the moment o have finished three components of the film. Three shots that turned into two, and a flight cycle and I now find it rather difficult to put a full stop on these stages and proceed to the next stops. It just seems that there’s always smth to improve. While I understand that this is a common thing to experience in the creative area, I’m at the point now where I try to move on. Perhaps by starting some rough blockout for the next shots or going through the storyboard again and again. 

Working with this rig required some amount of compromises. Birds are known to be amongst the most difficult creatures to rig, so finding a good rig is quite a challenge. And of course the challenge of finding a rigger and testing a rig constantly was much less appealing than a challenge of finding the ways to work around with the ready-to-animate rig and get the best out of it. 

The first thing that was quite noticeable when I just started working on animation is the “folded” wings position. Perhaps caused by the wings geometry proportion or the way it was rigged. It seemed like the feathers were intersecting and going in different directions as soon as I folded them. However, the solution was to play on the color of the wings and make sure that the poses are readable via the silhouette and the colour shapes rather than relying solely on the details of the poses. Motion Blur was also a helpful tool in dealing with the gaps between the feathers. 

Another challenge was connected with the wing feathers’ bend. In order to exaggerate the wings up and down motion I was trying to add the overlap on the feathers. However, rotating the ends of the feathers was only breaking them, and I ended up experimenting with the translation axis. This would be more relevant for the hovering part in cycle and something I will experiment with  later. 

The reason why I've decided to try another method of working with the cycles lies partially in the way I worked with the previous shot. This one included running cycle, pushing the plane, hopping and eventually taking off. The initial plan was to bake the run cycle, then add a hop on top of it and switch into a take-off animation.

The running animation was quite straightforward to do. The only difference was that I stabilised the body much more as small birds are very light, and there's some extent of amortisation happening on every step. Then I also stabilised the head, but added the overlap on the tail and the wings. And once I was happy with the running cycle, I added the z translation on the main control and adjusted the stride length, so its feet don't slide when moving in space.

However, once I've put the cycle in the shot, I've realised how rushed the cycle was and caught myself in this weird place where I should've decided whether I get back to the running cycle and polish it up, or I work it up within the shot itself. For this shot, I've decided to stick with the in-shot polishing as this shot was set and fixed, but this was a useful experience for some of the further shots, which had a flight cycle in them. For those shots, I knew that I couldn't afford rushing it and then fixing the flight animation every time, so it should be initially clean and polished. In the video below, it can be clearly seen how many changes have happened from the moment I considered the run cycle good enough for the shot to what it actually looked like in the shot after numerous fixes and adjustments.

Before starting to work on the flight cycle, I made sure I went through the documentation on the bird flight animation by Brendan Body that I mentioned in my pre-production. Instead of choosing a more intuitive approach, I wanted to have a structured and anatomy-based workflow for this cycle. I wanted to create a flight cycle which would be easy to speed up, slow down, tweak and adjust and for this, my cycle should've been simply clean.

This doucmentation is a very detailed explanation of the bird anatomy behind the flight mechanics and it does not only suggests how to animate the bird flight correctly, but also explains why this is the correct way from both the aerodynamics and the bird anatomy point of view.

It includes a lot of useful information for a great range of birds, and I'll aim to go through the parts that I've found particularly helpful for my project in the next blog posts, but if I had to summarise the impression I had after going through the whole document is that: it is really easy to get the flight anim wrong. One of the most interesting examples of this is the owl animation from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and the analysis of how a seemingly nice animation is, in fact, having a lot of issues.

I couldn't find any Red-Whiskered bulbul running references, so I've decided to go with a mix of other small bird references, combine them and create the run that would suit this bird the most. In other words, I'm going to try to catch what makes their run so birdlike and will implement that in my animation.

For this, I've used three birds: Scaled quail, American Robin and Wagtails . All of them have different proportions; however, it was a significantly helpful reference point which I can look at and understand what kind of body mechanics I will aim to go for, given the red-whiskered Bulbul proportions and size. For instance, the American Robin is very similar in size to the Bulbul, and while being insignificantly heavier, it would still be a great reference for the Bulbul's run. Wagtail would be a good source of inspiration for the long-term part. I've noticed that wagtails are usually running a bit further and longer, while American Robins run reminds some sort of dashing, which would indeed be perfect for the run intro in shot 002.

Scaled Quail is a rather interesting source of inspiration. I guess what I'm hoping to find in the referenced of this bird is its crest dynamics while running. Scaled Wuails also have an interesting vertical structure of their bodies, which is something that is also noticeable in the red-whiskered bulbul. However, while I find it interesting, I don't think I'd want to go for a typical to Scaled Quails more vertical run.

REFERENCES:

Ornithology Insights (2024) American Robins Running In The Sunny Grass. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6eiMkW3WfI [Accessed: 6th June 2026]

Ralph Hancock (2019) Pied Wagtail running and calling. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J309zhTKYUU [Accessed: 6th June 2026]

When I was working on the first two shots, I realised they would work better as a single merged shot. The composition at the end of the first shot and the beginning of the second seemed to make for a nice seamless transition between them and a smoother transition into shot 003.

The idea of the second shot was to emphasise the similarities between the paper plane and the Red-Whiskered Bulbul by aligning them and merging them into one creature. The main challenge with these two shots was the transition between the surprised jump and the moment the bird is behind the plane. While showing this shot to the fellow animators, I've heard that it seemed a bit unnatural to see the bird running like this. I believe that the reason for such an impression was how unfamiliar the running of the bird (or at least of this specific bird) looks to the viewer. We're used to seeing the bird taking off, flying, hopping, but running is something that the audience tend to associate with the different kind of birds such as sandpipers, lesser roadrunners, kildeers, cassowaries or the obvious emus and ostriches. All these, despite being different in size and proportions, can be grouped based on one very defined anatomical feature: long legs.

Given that our bird is a red-whiskered bulbul who can most of the times be noticed on the branches of the trees, making his running look natural was, indeed, one sort of a challenge.

REFERENCES:

Cassowary: The Majestic Bird of the Rainforest (2026) Available from: https://visitdaintree.com.au/daintree-rainforest-animals/cassowary/

Creating the planning folder helped me a lot with finalising the project planning stage and gaining a clear understanding of the schedule for the FMP, but most importantly, of its components. LOM was significantly useful for identifying the information I have to present in the contents of the Final Major Project and its format. In a way, this part of the assignment made me summarise the art direction of the project, my expectations from it and how I expect this project to benefit not only my personal learning process, but also my career goals. I have also added my Final Presentation and the promotional video to the project schedule, as it would be equally important to have a dedicated amount of time to work on those.

In my planning folder, I've emphasised the importance of this blog in the production of the FMP. I believe that it would be extremely useful to not only reflect on the theory and the methodology of the project, but also use it as a place for brainstorming and structuring the thoughts behind the creative decision-making process. One of the main intents of blogging would also be to keep track of the progress made and its accordance with the schedule.

Finally, as it was the case with the semesters A and B, I'd reflect on the latest tendencies and relevant examples from industry, share the inspirations and references and demonstrate how they affected my work.

FLAPS ' pre-production has laid a solid runway for the film to take off. There's a strong foundation of inspiration to carry the project forward, a clear art direction to follow and simply an idea to deliver. While everything is set up and ready for production, I still want the project to remain flexible. I expect there will be changes along the way, as well as adjustments and challenges. Nevertheless, I hope the result stays close to the original vision established during pre-production.

Ultimately, I want this film to evoke positive emotions and perhaps a warm sense of nostalgia. It is not intended to carry any grand message; rather, it aims to offer a moment of fun and comfort. I'll conclude with a shot that is about 85% complete as a small sneak peek of what's to come. This shot was created a while ago, and it was this piece that inspired me to create a short film. It has revealed some of the challenges we may face and has not only become the starting point of this idea, but also helped shape our workflow for the production ahead.

As someone who has primarily worked in a realistic style, I felt the need to spend more time observing and practicing  in order to understand the techniques behind a stylised workflow and to develop a stronger sense of what makes stylised pieces stylised. As mentioned in some of the earlier posts, I explored a wide range of stylised animation pieces, however, I wanted to also try and replicate this side of production within 2D context.

 I have always been impressed by how appealing and dynamic characters can appear when animated by 3D animators who began their journey in 2D. There is clearly a strong connection between drawing an appealing pose and achieving the same result in 3D. Ultimately, all 3D work is viewed on a 3D screen, so it is important to consider how it reads in a flat format.

The artwork of Greg Baldwin has been a major source of inspiration for me and I wanted to try and create Bulbul in the similar style. What stood out to me was the dynamism of his line work and the way he exaggerates shapes while maintaining a strong sense of appeal.

Artworks by Greg Baldwin

His work almost feels like an invitation to break the frames of realism and create. I particularly admired how energetic his pieces are, as well as the clarity and strength of the poses. In my own work, I feel I may have remained slightly too restrained, but I did enjoy experimenting with bolder line work. Moving forward, I would also like to push exaggeration further and achieve a stronger sense of movement and action within my pieces. 

Artwork by Author

REFERENCES

Baldwin, G. (2025) Always Remember to Stretch! Available from: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwxQ-TjQeU/ [Accessed: 10th March 2026]

In order to better understand stylised shapes and poses I've done an exercise in which I studied realistic references and then translated them into stylised characters. For this, I chose painterly shading as I felt it would best convey the softness and fluffiness of bulbuls. Following advice from a fellow animator, I explored the idea that stylisation can be achieved by taking a pose from a reference and pushing it by around 20%. I edcided to first experiment with this approach through drawing.

One of the most challenging aspects of this process was adjusting the poses so they appear stylised rather than distorted. I also spent time figuring out how to move away from realism in the eyes and facial proportions as each adjustment intially resulted in a slightly uncanny look. Through this experimentation, I developed a small set of checks to help achieve a stylised feel.

Artwork by Author

As I’ve mentioned before I’m planning to use a great variety of red-whiskered Bulbul chirping sounds in the short as it will not only add the expressiveness to its character, but also in a way convey the atmosphere of bird sounds on this Espanola Way. I wanted to make a film which would feel nostalgic and I think that surrounding sounds are as essential as the visual side of it. 

The wind sounds would also be an important part of the narration. Not only would they add up to the general feel of the scenery, but also reinforce the presence of the wind, and support the dynamics of the characters.

As a soundtrack I think I’d want to go for smth in the style of the short films that inspired FLAPS, maybe with a shade of Spanish music. Perhaps, the jazzy and peaceful music in the beginning will eventually turn into a Flamenco which would accompany this sort of sky dance. Indeed I might add a slight hint for a flamenco move during the race part, as the dress of the flamenco dancers often resemble wings. This way, there would not only be an intrigue of the race, but also a set up choreography.  

REFERENCES

Some time ago I came across an interview with Disney animators who worked on Zootropolis. They’ve shared how they went to Safari and explored the different types of animal locomotion, their characters and habits which they can then translate into biped animal motion in such a way so they preserve the animality of the characters and avoid looking like humans in the animal costumes. And while I didn’t have a task of translating animal behaviour into a biped form, I thought it would be nevertheless useful to look into Red-Whiskered Bulbul character traits and bring some of them into the animation. Some can make the animation look more interesting whilst others can simply help up with the birdy-ness of the motion.  

Red-Whiskered Bulbuls have a very distinctive appearance. It is difficult to confuse them with any other species. Having a bright red spot right under the eye and a crest, they have a rather appealing and unusual silhouette. Elegant on the outside, Bulbuls are often characterized as explicitly charismatic, curious and energetic.  It is for a reason that in many cultures these birds are associated with happiness and vitality, while in some parts of Asia Bulbuls are considered to be the harbingers of good fortune. It is due to his appearance and character that Red-Whiskered Bulbul is favored in many different forms of art as the combination of its character and artistic appearance. 

In FLAPS I’ll aim to convey their curiosity via constant head tilts and add up some sounds as they’re famous for their high-pitched pips and long buzzy notes. 

REFERENCES: ImRootvik (2022) Red Whiskered Bulbul. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MjmKRT8AKyE [Accessed: 13th April 2026]

During the whole pre-production process, I was exploring not only  the works of other artists, but also observing and looking for some real-life references. I wanted to capture as many similar locations and lighting scenes as possible in order to then recreate the same atmosphere as there was during that time. Luckily there were a lot of sunny days in the past month and all I had to do was to get out and collect the refs. I was looking at pretty much everything: the shadows their length, the light direction, its reflection, the shades of green during different times of the day and simply at the sky, however all these were in one way or another resembling the atmosphere me and Diana (the Environment and Lighting Freelance artist) wanted to see in our film. 

During the pre-production stage, I was also trying to understand the motives behind this film apart from simple creative drive and I came to realisation, that this film might be a way to convey the feeling of Sonder. Sonder is a sudden realization that people around you are also having their own complex and vibrant life and are the main character in their own stories. In my experience it was always fascinating to think that there’s always some story happening somewhere at the present moment. However, while I reckon that Sonder is more connected with humans, I would want to go for a broader form of it and show that even animals or birds can have their own plots unfolding at any moment. 

I think it is important that we slow down sometimes and try to notice things which might not be so obvious to see yet are  interesting to observe in their own way. In fact, it’s usually the small things which are interesting to find and watch, and this is the great thing about behvaiour interpretation. Despite all the species on this planet talking different languages, there’s a way of interpretation which makes every story understandable to anyone. 

Initially it was planned to bring the whole story into a European setting. Somewhere in France or Italy on the empty morning street with cafés and restaurants quite before the busy day. I reckon that this kind of location in the chosen lighting felt particularly nostalgic to me. However, after researching the red-whiskered Bulbul habitat geography, I thought that perhaps European landscape wouldn’t make sense as Bulbuls can be found mainly in Tropical Asia, Australia or in some of the States like Florida or Hawaii. 

Given this, I’ve decided to go for Miami’s European areas. This way the logic behind Bulbul’s appearance won’t be broken, but the European look of the environment would be kept. The story will be unfolding in the Miami’s historic Spanish village, on the Espanola Way. The place looks amazingly similar to the classic Spanish street. 

Festive lights on Espanola Way. Available from: https://www.miamiandbeaches.com/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/inside-miamis-historic-spanish-village [Accessed: 4th March 2026]