Study Task 3 - Puppet Master

This is the quick design that I came up with for this study task. My idea is to make him dance a little bit and scratch his head in order for me to understand how to use the puppet tool in after effects.

Here I coloured the image using Photoshop and saved it as a png file. I then opened it in after effects and used the puppet pin tool to animated.

I added a banging tune and a sick background. You're welcome.

Study Task 5 - Strike a pose

I decided to use the emotions sadness, shame, confusion, tiredness and pain because I felt as though I could convey those emotions easily. I am fully aware of how ridiculous I look.

Pain

Sadness

Shame

Tiredness

I feel like overall this was a fun study task to do as I hadn't really used maya properly before. It was fun to use moom and I will hopefully use the skills I learned in this study task and apply them in future projects. I would like to get to know and experiment with maya further in my own time. I think I achieved the emotions pretty well, obviously not amazing, but for my first time using moom in this way I feel like I have learned a lot.

Study Task 4 DUIK

This is my finished response to this studio task. I decided to use the town hall as the background because any other image I tried to put into after effects just did not work for me. I feel like this task helped me improve my after effects skills because I had never really used it before but now I feel comfortable in using the puppet tool as well as adding sound to an animation in after effects. DUIK was quite easy to use once I got the hang of it and set up the bones and the key frames. I think I could have created a better animation in itself that was coherent and actually made sense. But as per, I decided to mash together things that have no relation.

Potential and limitations - 5 - Aesthetic

The overall Aesthetic that I attempted to achieve in my response to the studio brief is that of a traditional, sketchy aesthetic with the juxtaposition of water colour and abstract backgrounds. The limitation with this sort of aesthetic is that it's hard to get right in the sense that I've never really used practical mediums for backgrounds in animations before. I also feel like the limitation of the aesthetic that I'm aiming for is that there is a lot of animations already out there that have that sketchy sort of style that I enjoy. Animators such as Bill Plympton have the aesthetic that I enjoy completely achieved. I also feel limited in the sense that I'm not 100% comfortable with drawing digitally, and also that I don't have my own aesthetic yet. I like drawing in whatever style I feel and I also like pushing myself to achieve different aesthetics using different mediums.

Process and Limitations - 4 - Technique

I decided to use various techniques throughout my module response. I always have enjoyed using different media when creating things, whether it be character designs or concept art. I find that it's easier for me personally to get my visuals down on paper. Because I only started using a tablet for the first time about a year ago, I'm still not using to drawing digitally, however I decided to animation digitally in order to force myself to get used to drawing digitally. Animating digitally often causes me to lose interest and inspiration because I feel like because it's on a screen which makes it not feel right for me. It's strange that I feel this way. But I think it's because I feel quite limited with the technique of animating digitally.

Potential and Limitations - 3 - Process

The process that I chose was hand - drawn animation with water colour backgrounds. I feel as though using the traditional hand - drawn technique using photoshop does have it's limitations. It's obviously time consuming and repetitive so it's quite easy to lose interest easily. however, with software such as After Effects, the process can be made less time consuming by using software such as this to add camera zooms and certain effects. When animating using paper, colours can often lose vividness and lines can become faded from scanning them in which can be quite time consuming to alter as well. Hand - drawn animation is traditional and can be quite nostalgic which is why I feel some animaton studios such as Cartoon Saloon are what I strive to achieve aesthetically. Their animated features have amazing colours that is often achieved by using practical mediums like water colour. However, it can be quite limiting in the sense that the colours can often fade when translating them into digital.

Potential and Limitations - 2 - Sustainability

I chose to do my animation using traditional hand-drawn animation using photoshop. I also planned on using key frames in my animating process in order to keep continuity in the movements. I feel as though the limitations of this process is that the animation industry itself is quite 3D driven which is great because I can appreciate 3D animation and feel as though I am okay at using maya. I do want to explore 3D animation further in my own time, however I want to focus on developing my hand drawn skills. Hand drawn animation is slowly dying out in the sense that a lot of animated feature films use 3D software, which is a great process. However, there are still a few animation studios which use traditional themes and techniques in the animation industry which is what I hope to achieve when I eventually leave the course.

Potential and Limitations - 1 - Backgrounds

The medium I chose was to use water colour backgrounds as well as hand-drawn, digital animation. I feel as though the potential of using water colour backgrounds is that the textures are aesthetically pleasing, as well as being visually different to what I have created in the past. Of course I'm aware of other animations that use water colours for background and stuff, but I feel as though because this is my first time using water colour backgrounds in a narrative sense, it's quite different and new to me. I personally don't feel that limited when using practical materials as it's what I'm mostly comfortable in. I tend to hand draw a lot of things and then draw over them digitally, so I'm quite comfortable with this process. However, I do feel like my limitation with this medium is that I'm never 100% sure how well the colours will translate into digital, as scanners and computer screens can change certain hues, however I would prefer to take the risk in order to achieve my vision.

Applied Animation - Study Task1 - For arguments sake

I was tasked with the challenge of creating a powerpoint presentation on why brexit is terrible, even though I'm extremely politically unaware. My research consisted of facebook articles as well as an awful lot of rants from fellow peers and house mates. 

I tried to add a little bit of humour to my presentation, but as per usual, I missed the mark on more than one occasion due to me stuttering and mumbling.

I feel as though overall, my presentation skills are getting better. I made my notes and revised them but also used the presentation to prompt thoughts that I hadn't written down. I think my confidence is building, and I just need to work on slowing down when talking in front of large groups of people/

Applied Animation - Week 11-12

These 2 weeks I have focused on animating. Because of health issues, it has been difficult for me. It has been difficult to communicate with my group as I haven't been in.

There was a crit where we received feedback for our animation so far. I was unable to attend. Some of the gags that we had in it didn't make much sense to people apparantly.

Tess took my concept design and created an amazing painting of Keith to use on the posters in our animation. I feel as though my part of the animation doesn't include a lot of movement, and because we aren't fully finishing our animation, I feel  as though I have been quite lazy with the colouring as well as cleaning up my part. I decided to stick to my character designs and use The Ultimate pastel brush. I do plan on re-designing these scenes as I'm not happy with the colour's of the interviewee as well as Keith's movement. 

Because the compositing and sound was being done by Jay and Tess because I'm not very experienced with that sort of stuff, I was given the job of re-doing the DVD cover.

This was the draft that I was given. 

This is something that I feel captures Keith's personality perfectly. I added a frame around the painting of Keith and also added some funny quotes on the back to set the tone of the Animation. I do hope that over summer we complete this animation for it to be submitted to festivals. I've enjoyed this project a lot and feel as though I have learnt an awful lot.

Applied animation week 10

Tess and Jay decided to record the voice of Keith. Max did a really good job at vocalising Keith's attitude and his pronunciation  was exactly how we imagined.

We also developed our final animatic. We took into account the feedback given at the group crit last week, and I feel as though we have successfully translated our script into a visual animitaic.



Our next step is to start animating our scenes. Because my scenes are quite short, and because I put a lot of movement into my animatic, that I know where to go from here.

Applied Animation - Week 9

Because we wanted to take inspiration from the "Eleanor Rigby" part in The Yellow Submarine, we decided to combine the original images taken by jay, and the mono-prints created by me and Tess.

This is a video of all the final backgrounds. I feel like my groups contributions to the backgrounds have been successful. 

Here, I started on creating a turn around for Keith so my group can roughly understand Keith's amazing physique. I started to create a full turn around, however, I messed up with the file and somehow managed to corrupt it in the process. Because we want to take inspiration from the animation "Mr Madila", the rough shape of Keith should be kept, but significant features are crucial, such as his eye brows, hair and calves. His suit and body shape and size is left to interpretation. WeWant to use the same brushes and roughly the same colours so my next step is to create a style guide.

Applied Animation - week 7

We all decided to help finalise the script because it seemed it was taking a long time. We took a lot out, and also colour coded it so we knew who's scenes where who's.

This is the interview scene of my animatic. There's no sound yet because I'm not too good at adding sound to animations so Tess and Jay are going to add sound to it in the final animatic. 

This is our first animatic with sound. The animatic is a lot longer than we anticipated, however we do plan on working out the timing of the animation as it's clearly off. The comedic timing of the jokes will hopefully translate better once we have finished animating as it's clear that the timing of the jokes are a lot longer than they should be. This should also shorten our animation as well.

Crit session.

As a group we put together our presentation. We included the journey of our project, including my developing character designs.

During our crit session, we presented our animatic. It didn't make much sense because the narrator and Keith's dialogue are crucial to the documentary and because they didn't sound right, it sort of messed up the atmosphere that we were trying to convey. We also went through out script and received a lot of feedback because it didn't make much sense. We think this was because we were trying to include too many gags into such a small amount of time. 

Overall this week has been productive and helpful. Our next stage is to re-record the sounds. We wanted to get either Matt Berry or Adam Buxton to voice Lorde Keith, however there's no way that we can get in touch with them on such a short notice.

Applied Animation - Week 6

At the moment, Tess is working on the script further with both mine and Jay's input from time to time. I created my storyboards for the transition shot of Keith putting up posters around the town, as well as his first interview scene.

When I presented the storyboard to jay and Tess, I told them about how I didn't think the shot really worked and how it didn't seem like a documentary thing to happen. So we decided to keep it more simple and have it more discreet. I decided to take away the shop keeper, and just have it as a simple transition shot where Keith would just put the poster up and pout.

Because I was going off the script that wasn't finalised, this scene seemed a bit confusing. The shots were too much, and the actions that was wanted of Keith seemed too much also. We decided to simplify the scene by taking away a lot of the glancing shots to level out the comedic timing.

In this scene, Keith is supposed to be interviewing a stranger who then goes off on a rant. The rant would then be edited to make it sound like the stranger is saying nice things to Keith instead. There is supposed to be an old lady in the background who, because the scene is clearly edited, would move around. We decided to take away the second green screen gag because again, it seemed too much.

Applied Animation - Week 5

This week, Tess is working on the script and creating the first draft and Jay is working on backgrounds. As for me I am finalising Keith's character design.

Here, I wanted to try and get his proportions right. He's quite a small man with a large round belly, so trying to get his head and body proportions right was quite difficult.

here, I created a sketch of what I think he would look like if he would run. I quite like the idea of his limbs becoming really floppy to add to his ridiculousness. However I feel as though that would affect the tone of the scene where he is running away from the shop keeper. We are still unsure whether we are using this shot so I feel like I should develop the run cycle more.

Here is a piece of concept art I quickly sketched. The idea is to have Keith be really detailed and staring blankly at his face in the reflection of a shop window. The "Open" sign would be replaced with the title "Gentlemen of the road".

Here I developed the action shot of the walk further. I made his legs a more solid shape, as well as changing his expression so he looked flustered and focused on running away from the angry shop keeper.

Here is another piece of concept art. I took inspiration from the famous piece "Venus" to add comedic effect to the already ridiculous character. I wanted him to appear godlike, in order to highlight how entitled he thinks he is. I feel like I captured Keiths personality really well in this sketch. I want to develop it further by painting it in acrylics.

Overall I feel like this week has been successful, and I feel as though I am reaching the end of the character design process.

Applied Animation - Week 8

I suggested to both Jay and Tess that it could be cool to have mono printed backgrounds to create texture to our animation. We originally set out to create an animation that consistent of various mediums and that combined hand-drawn animation with digitally drawn animation. However, due to time restraints and budget, we decided to just have the backgrounds in a practical medium. I showed Tess a small Monoprint that I created to show the group what the backgrounds could be. Me and Tess then set out to create monoprints.

Here I created a mono print of the park scene. I decided to leave out a lot of the buildings in the distance as well as the cars so we could animate over the top. However, I decided to create another one because I thought the bench could be white with a green outline because later we would merge certain parts of the original images with the mono printed images.

This is my re-done park scene.

I decided to create a brick wall type mono print for my poster scene. 

Me and Tess decided that the bricks in the bottom right corner looked the best.

Whenever we created a mono-print, we would then rub a blank piece of paper over the top to create an inverted image. 

Overall, I'm really happy with how these mon-prints turned out. I scanned in all the mono-prints me and Tess created and then we started to play around with them in photoshop. I tried to merge the original images with the mono-printed versions, however, I couldn't quite hack it so I handed the job over to Tess which she was more than happy to do because her backgrounds were turning out to be amazing.