My First Animation Attempt: The Bouncing Ball Challenge




After setting up Clip Studio Paint, I wanted to try my first real animation. I chose the bouncing ball exercise because it’s a classic way to learn timing, spacing, and squash and stretch. It looks simple—but I quickly found out there’s a lot more to it than just drawing circles!

I started by creating a 24-frame animation at 12 FPS. That gave me two seconds to work with, which I thought would be enough for a single bounce. I drew each frame inside an animation folder and used onion skin to guide the movement from one position to the next.

At first, I just copied and pasted the ball down the screen in a straight line. But when I played it back, it didn’t look natural at all. That’s when I realized I needed to pay attention to timing and spacing.

To fix it, I redrew the frames with closer spacing near the top and wider spacing near the middle. This created a sense of acceleration as the ball fell and deceleration as it rose again. I also added squash at the point of impact and a little stretch just before it hit the ground.

Adding squash and stretch made a big difference! The ball looked more elastic and alive, even though it was just a simple shape. I used the transform tool in Clip Studio Paint to slightly stretch or squash the ball while keeping its volume consistent.

One thing that confused me was the timing of the bounce back up. I kept forgetting to add a slight pause at the top of the arc before the ball dropped again. Without it, the motion looked too rushed and unrealistic. I eventually added an extra frame at the top, and it made the movement feel more natural.

Another small mistake I made was not keeping the ball’s shadow in sync with the motion. I added a little grey oval at the bottom to show the shadow, and when it grew smaller or moved inconsistently, it broke the illusion. I had to go back and match the shadow’s position and size carefully.

Once I was happy with the animation, I exported it as a GIF using File > Export Animation > Animated GIF. Watching it loop smoothly made me feel really proud—it wasn’t perfect, but I had created motion from still images.


What I have learned:

I learned how to get started on animation even if it's just simple as a bouncing ball. I learned all the basics such as frame rates, animation timelines, and the key principals when it comes to animating. I aim to get better with time and practice.

How this learning outcome will help to my final project?

Doing the bouncing ball animation really helped me build a strong foundation for my final project. Even though it was a simple exercise, it taught me making movements feel natural and realistic. I was able to apply these skills later when animating my characters, especially in creating smooth motion and showing weight and emotion. It gave me more confidence to move on to more complex animations in my animation film.

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