Day 8 is "favorite animated character." I could rattle off my top 20 list easily, but in terms of which character had the most profound influence on me as a budding animator, I'd have to go with Timon.
When The Lion King came out, I was 13 years old and I'd already known for about 10 of them that I wanted to be an animator. Something about Timon's squashy/stretchy body and face really appealed to me, and when I got my hands on the VHS, I popped it into my parents' VCR and frame-by-framed every scene he was in, trying to master his hand poses, facial expressions, line of action, and attitude in my trusty sketchbook.
Looking back on it now, Timon was probably one of the easier characters to draw. Maybe I should have challenged myself more. I tried drawing Simba and Rafiki a few times, but kept coming back to Timon. Of course had I kept up my drawing, maybe I would have gotten good enough to draw any character I wanted! Sadly I'm still not at that level of skill necessary to keep characters on model, do turnarounds, come up with appealing poses, draw from imagination, etc. etc.
When I took an class at the Animation Guild in Burbank, I realized just how much I have to learn if I ever want to become a decent 2D animator. I struggled with every class assignment and was never satisfied with any of my pieces. What would my 13-year-old self say to me if she saw where I was today?
This evening, I popped in The Lion King and sketched out frames from a Timon scene in my sketchbook, just like old times. It's never too late to get back into it!
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