The Javelin

Crunchtime

Hey everyone!



I'm putting together a new piece that's a little more technical than what i'm used to animating. My goal is to create something realistic while emoting strong feelings of velocity and weight. This will be used in a folio that I will pitch to the likes of Luma Pictures and Method studios (Melbourne).

I'll update this post as I go so you can see the development of the idea. Hopefully that keeps me extra motivated! 

As always if you have any feedback I would very much like to hear from you. 


Here's a first pass at blocking.
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/b227baeef0b1/#366847

Before I started animating I watched a couple of hours of javelin throwing reference and tried to get my head around the physics of it. It's fascinating and very entertaining. If any of you are into the sport I would love to hear your take on this. My understanding is as follows:

• The athlete builds speed and on approaching the release turns their chest 90 degree to the throw's vector.
• The athletes hips must accommodate the twist in the chest so they turn out and the run becomes a sideways skip. The front leg is never fully extended instead kept slightly coiled like a spring.  
• The javelin is held facing forward in the back hand, the other arm works to both counter it's weight and stabilize the athlete's skip.
• just before the throw the skip's stride becomes longer and more floaty like a gazelle.     
• Finally the front leg is fully extended and planted firmly. 
• The forward momentum of the athlete's body is met with the resistance in the planted foot and sends the force up into the throwing arm. During this action the chest twists as secondary action. Secondary to this twist the throwing arm acts as a whip.
• The athlete fully surrenders to launching themselves forward and after releasing the javelin let's their body go flying forward. 
• The athlete braces for impact and lands in a heap

Here are some reference videos that I have been referring to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY4IcyhZrmo

https://vimeo.com/groups/aniref/videos/27392211

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS2QJtM1cRE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMSaD07o4vE     (The throw at 1:34 is my main ref)

Thanks for reading. I'm really enjoying this shot and I hope to share more with you.

  

AGoodFella

Cool. Left some notes.

MereZy

Have a look at this one. Should be time-stamped at around 0:45.

https://youtu.be/XnHf9ZFrXy8?t=45s

AGoodFella

Notice in the ref you just linked, the dude is looking up at the javelin before he even fully lands on the ground. In yours, he never looks up, it makes him feel weak. Your throw pose also doesn't help, it it was stronger, the fall over would make a little more sense.

It's what's what I was eluding to when I wrote "and then looks up quickly to see where the javelin is".

EDIT: I just noticed the ref linked above is from someone else. The point still stands, though.

Crunchtime

Hey,

Thanks for your notes AGoodFella you raise some good points. I really need to sell the fall better. I animating as if it was just some guy bracing for impact but in the context of competitive sport obviously the athlete is going to be desperate to watch the impact. 

I was a little lazy and didn't include the javelin on the first pass so I didn't have to muck with constraints. I'm fixing that now, hopefully the weight of the javelin will help me smooth out the run up.