I have always felt like a shark that needs to keep moving forward or it will die. This seems to lead me to a natural tendency for me to,occasionally default /deviate to straight ahead animation. It’s probably adhd related. It’s used in stop motion and paint/pastel William Kentridge style hand drawn which I need to explore more .
I’m very aware that although straight ahead in 2D animation can be done and can be both spontaneous and have a natural flow ( or useful for water) it is best achieved ( or some would argue) only achieved by expert draftmen , which I am not. Also that animation is so time consuming it could lead to a massive amount of corrections \ time lost/ going animation awol.
I’m slowly starting to get better at storyboarding shots, and exploring gestures and then following key frames, like in the lift and walk cycle exercises. I’m slowly starting to appreciate the planning and keys needed to keep the animation focused and how really good poses can help communicate the gestures of the keys and that’s how a lot of the industry functions!
. However I feel like I can use straight ahead as shorthand speed sketch to occasionally test out an idea /pose angle quickly so I can get a feel as I’m learning as how something may work or what angle I might choose to rotate the character from. It’s almost like I need to get it out my system and since I think through drawing half the time my ideas sometimes run away I feel it could possibly work for tiny test runs and if not stop motion where it belongs!