Let's~ Go~ Fly A Kite~

Another thing I've had absolutely no experience animating before is a flying kite, so once again, plenty of research was in order. I wanted to keep my kite design as simple as possible to avoid over-complicating the animation, so I settled for searching for the basic diamond shape kite, as well as any references I could find of kids frolicking and generally having fun flying them.







Looking at these images made me realise that I couldn't really get away with animating a kite without a tail as the tail affects how well it flies, so I need to ensure I include one even though it'll mean more work...





The above images are screenshots from the commercial Good As Gold by Ian Emes (follow the hyperlink to watch). I took special note of this as it's one of the rare pieces of footage with a kite which is actually shot from the angle I need; that being from above with the kite filling the screen before the child appears underneath. It only happens vey briefly at the end of the advert, but I still found it to be a useful reference.













These videos are my personal primary sources of kite flying footage, again taken during my weekend trip home to Lancashire. Unfortunately I had to choose the one weekend with barely any wind, so trying to get the kite to stay in the air long enough for me to film it was tricky to say the least... But I think I managed to scrape just enough decent footage to make the endeavour worthwhile. If nothing else I think it helped to try flying a kite myself again, as I have't attempted to since I was a little kid and had long since forgotten how it feels.