Some Digital Experimentation

I had a quick attempt at drawing the main character on Photoshop just to get an idea of how it would look, its not amazing as I didn't use a Wacom tablet or go over and refine the edges because it was just a way to get a rough idea of how it would look. I decided I really like the way he looks, HOWEVER I have decided to paint the backgrounds by hand to show some variety and I will find it easier to create the look I want! 

Interim Critique Presentation

After presenting our research and ideas so far, we were able to give and receive feedback positive and constructive feedback to help us all develop and move forward and this really helped me a lot! Especially since I now know where everybody else is at too!

Things that we discussed:

I received some really positive feedback on my storyline and character designs which was great to hear especially since I've stepped out of my comfort zone. I was told that the storyline was easy to flow which was good because I didn't want it too be overly complicated especially since we have been retracted to only 20 seconds.

We discussed the possible formats I could use and as a group it seemed apparent that I am very comfortable with drawing onto paper and it is probably best if I do something that is more new to me. I like the idea of creating this animation on Photoshop using a Wacom Tablet because I feel like I need to get myself used to drawing on them and not always directly onto paper. Another thing I would think about is doing some digital experimentation with colour in order to see how it looks and have a play around, because I'm not very experienced with creating my animations all digitally (So this should be a great challenge for me)

Audio?

I had at first decided to create a whistling tune to play over the top because I thought it would be quite quirky and would fit the mood of the story. However after our discussions today I am now leaning more towards having no music and only having certain sound effects such as, the crackling of the fire,  the sound of the Dragon's anticipation as he breathes in deeply and then blows on the fire and other sounds coming from the characters to suggest certain reactions. However I may still have a whistling tune in in the background too, I will decide on that once I have heard it with just the sound effects first.

Further Action?

After todays Discussion I have decided that my next priority needs to be, to do some digital experimentation on Photoshop and start thinking about how to create these different sound effects!

Story boarding!

After producing my story board I decided that this was the background environment I wanted to use. Also the colouring works well for me too, but now I needed to thick abut creating an animatic for this story board to make sure it fits into 20 seconds!

Mis En Scene!

From the very beginning I knew that this animation would be situated outside, most likely in the woods. I was already pretty set on this idea but I thought it would be best to have a play about with a few other possible ideas first!

I also wanted to think about where the main character would be situated with in the frame. Each of these different ideas however would all be set at dusk, so not completely pitch black but not exactly bright and sunny! So I knew the colouring of the background would be mainly blues and blacks with a fair amount of shadowing. I really like the first idea I came up with, because out of the three, it will make the character look the most cut off from everyday, busy life. However I wanted to get a rough story board drawn out first just to make sure. 

Decisions Decisions..

I knew that I wanted this Dragon's colouring to be quite unique, because there are already a lot of other well known dragon characters out there and I wanted to avoid this one being mistaken for one of those. I was aware that this design does look a lot like the video game character, Spyro so I needed to go for a different colour scheme entirely.

I did some colour swatches to look at potential ideas, I immediately scrapped the yellow/purple swatch because that was too similar to that of Spyro. I don't want it looking like I've just gone and copied another design! I was torn between having blue skin and an orange belly, or green skin and a pink belly. In the end I decided to lean more towards the green and pink because I knew the background would be mainly blue and quite dark so I would need a good contrast!

Further Development of the Dragon ya'll

I then went on to drawing my final ideas from a range of angles to give myself a better idea of how it would look, especially since it will be seen from a few different angles and heights during the animation.

I did quite a lot of altering of some of the features such as the horns, wings and scales. I wanted the wings to be small enough to look slightly out of proportion because I think this makes him (assuming its a he) look younger and not very intimidating. However I did add a cheeky ear ring in one of the ears, because I still wanted to give it a slight subtle edge. I liked the idea of having this dragon look like its still only young because to be honest I wanted to create something that will make people go "awhhhh" for a change! Now to think about colour. 

Mother of Dragons, yes thats me.

I will not lie, I have rarely been a bit drawer of dragons and knew that I needed to do some experimental drawing first just to get into the swing of drawing these winged.. scaled.. fire breathing..things!

After playing around a bit with different ideas I started thinking about developing a final character further whilst considering things like size and colour. 

Developing this little guy!

I began by just doodling some ideas in my notebook as to what I would like him to look like, and just went from there!
He started off by looking a bit like Humpty Dumpty so I knew I would need to add a hair and colour which would make him look more distinctive, but I loved the facial features, I think they make him look really fed up which is what I wanted.

I continued by playing around with the possible hair styles he could have, keeping in mind that drawing hair on men is not my best strength! This did crack up a few giggles when other people were flicking through my sketchbook, but that was a change from the usual "What on earth goes on in your head?!"

After deciding on the hair I wanted to crack on with experimentation with colour so I used watercolour because this is the fastest medium for me. In the end I went for the blue hair because lets face it, its cooler.

MOOD BOARD TIME.

To keep it short and sweet, my basic storyline of "Toasted" is: We have a very cute little, miserable looking chap who is clearly getting rather impatient because his pathetic excuse of a campfire will not cook his marshmallow. CRISIS. He is then suddenly greeted by a random dragon who just so happens to be flying near by and senses he needs some help. The dragon lands, blows some fire and makes the campfire much bigger, to the mans delight. He thinks he can get away with just eating the marshmallow and carrying on with his life, BUT NO the dragon wants payment. (Don't let your mind wonder its all very cute) So they continue to bake marshmallows together, as friends, how nice!

I created a mood board on Photoshop to bring together my visual ideas. I did a lot of research of other existing dragon characters to look at the different appearances they have (I wanted this little guy to be cute) Also, I did some research on Pictoplasma for some inspiration towards the design of the man. These characters in my opinion are really appealing because of the use of colour and the fact that they aren't over complicated. I often create characters with long, extended limbs and other features which make them rather spooky so I deliberately chose to step away from my norm. Another thing i have incorporated above is an image of the character from a 1961 animation called "Surogat"I chose this because I like the fact that this character is quite abstract but simple at the same time! 

The Classical Elements

For this 20 second animation I decided pretty quickly on the fact that I wanted to focus on fire. This s because it was the element that was sparking off the most ideas for me (no pun intended!) I began by producing some mind maps to hall me settle on one specific idea and develop that further.

This first one above was my way of getting all my possible ideas out in front of me to help me narrow down, because that is something which I really struggle with. I tend to get idea overloads and then my brain overheats and stops working!

I EVENTUALLY settled on my final idea. I wanted to go down a different route to what i normally go down, I often create characters and worlds which are quite creepy and not to everybody's liking. So I thought I would have a go at creating a story that is, well, pleasant! 

Animatics

Sadly I had to cut out a couple of frames in order to make it fit to the time scale, but in some ways I think it makes it flow better! And now it fits, woop! This was a really useful, quick way of figuring out if anything needed cutting or extending. 

Final Evaluation

I have found this module really enjoyable because I have gained experience with several different animation processes. I think one of the most successful areas for me was creating Flip Books, because even though it is seen as such a simple technique, it really wasn't at first for me so I wanted to keep experimenting and playing around with it. Another area in which I think I did well considering it was my first time was using Pose to Pose animation. Creating the swinging pendulum was a task which enabled me to understand how the process works so I then felt like I could move on and get more creative, which is when I created my "BatCat" I found the Storyboarding process to be really interesting because became familiar with different things to take into consideration such as the "Rule of three", different shot angles and the "12 Principles of Animation" This was all vital because I now try and consider all of these things when creating a Storyboard which will then go on to become an animation.

There are some areas which I do think I could improve in during the future. For example, my Pixilation animation could have been better in my opinion. I think the reason for this is, certain shots were not properly in focus which I didn't notice until I uploaded all frames onto the computer. This is something I will need to try and look out for earlier in the future in order to stop it looking inconsistent. There were some areas which I found myself getting slightly frustrated with, such as the Photoshop and Photography induction, because I was quite inexperienced with these and I'm the type of person who doesn't like not understanding things. However after a while all was good! I have really enjoyed becoming familiar with new software because I know that this is something I will need to use frequently during this course and once I understand how to use somethings its pretty hard to get me off it! 

I have also come across a lot of other work during this module which I have found really intriguing to look at. It has been interesting to look at what other animators have produced and the processes they have used. Even looking at the work of those on the course with me has been really useful because we have been able to share ideas and gain feedback, which has influenced me further. For example whilst we were shooting my Pixilation, some ideas I had were changed slightly because we decided as a group that something else may look better. After this module I feel that one of the areas I would like to develop in further is frame by frame animation, because I like being able to go back and see the frame before hand so I can see if I am on track. Overall I have loved this module because it has introduced me to all these different areas of animation which I didn't know a lot about, and allowed me to experiment and see what might work for me the best over these next three years. 

Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a 2001 animated fantasy film directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film is about a young girl, Chihiro trying to work to free herself and her parents from the spirit world. This is one of my favourite Studio Ghibli films because it is so weird but wonderful at the same time. To be honest the I believer the target audience for this film is very broad. It can be appreciated by children, teen and adults who love the story and by those who also have a love for anime, especially since Studio Ghibli is so well known! Some of the character designs in this are very spooky and could possibly frighten some people but that is what makes this film so distinctive. One of the best scenes of this film is shown in the image on the left, where Chihiro is flying on the back of Haku and the wind is blowing in her face. Every time I watch it I love seeing how the overlapping actions of her hair and Haku's fur are blowing about in the wind.

Frame by Frame - research

Here I have done some research on different results of frame by frame animation, it was actually really helpful to watch somebody else carrying out the process especially since I was still a bit unsure about what order to do everything in. The difference between this and Pose to Pose animation is that there is no filing in the gaps, the sequence will run from begging to end with no "key frames"

The World of Stain Boy!

The world of Stain Boy is a Flash animation series which began in 2000, being created by Director Tim Burton and animated by flinch Studio. Each short episode consists of Stain Boy being set on a new mission by his Captain. The animation itself is quite simple but thats what I like about it. The possible audience for this could be children, but also adults. Even though the main character Stain boy doesn't say much, he still seems to be quite appealing which i  think it due to his large eyes and small frame. Its quite easy to feel sorry for him! Even though some could argue this animation of this is quite plain, I think its quite distinctive because of this. The purpose of this is most likely some easy entertainment because each episode starts off and ends the same way, so the viewers know what they are getting! i think its interesting to see some of the work from Tim Burton that isn't one of his typical Stop Motion films, because it is quite easy to make the mistake of associating an artist with a specific style.

Morph!

 Morph is a Plasticine Stop Motion Comedy character created by Aardman Animation Studios, making his first appearance in 1977 through out a range of different shows during 1 minuet "shorts"
Morph was later joined by Chas, who was much less well behaved!
Morphs ability to change shape made him a very adaptable young character, for example he could turn into a sphere in order to roll around.  He was known for living in a wooden microscope box on an artist's desk, and Morph and Chas were known for their love of eating cake! I think Morph is seen as a very quirky loveable character who can be very helpful when he wants to be. When Chas and Morph are together I think it does show some conflicting of personalities but this is an important part of the relationship between these two characters. I would say Morph has a lot of appropriate audiences, for example I know he is loved by children because I LOVED watching him when I was younger. However I know he is just as much appreciated by older generations especially since he began showing himself so many years ago. He is a very appealing character because he isn't overly complicated, and his big googly eyes seem to do the trick!

Adventure time!

Adventure time is a digitally animated American cartoon for Cartoon Network which was created in 2010 by Pendleton Ward. The audience is clearly children but there is some humour in there which can be more adult so it is popular amongst adults and teens too. I like this show because every character design is so unique and different from one another, also each episode is approximately 11 minuets which I think is in some ways better then half an hour or 20 minuets, especially when it comes to the younger members of the audience, because there is less chance of their attention being lost. One of the main things that I think is very appealing about this show is the use of bright colours, not just in the characters themselves but also for the backgrounds. The purpose behind this seems to be light hearted entertainment for a mixture of ages, and I also think it has the effect of taking those older members of the audience back to their childhood.

South Park

South Park is an American animated sitcom which debuted in 1997. It was created for mature audiences. It was created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central Television Network. I think it purpose is to make people laugh in a different way, because usually people who aren't familiar with it might assume it is for a young audience until they hear the dialog ...

South Park was originally animated using cut out bits of paper for it Pilot episode, and once it was picked up and continued it was digital animation from then on! I think its quite contradictory to watch because it doesn't really follow a lot of the 12 principles of animation. For example the Arcs of the characters aren't very realistic. Normally character appeal would be brought about through the character's personality or image but some could argue that there are certain characters in this that have neither. This is where the comedy element plays a huge part because that is what makes the characters and show appealing as a whole.

Family Guy!

Family Guy is an American, digitally animated, adult sitcom created by Seth McFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company in 1999. In all honesty the animation in this could be seen as quite lazy because the characters are usually only seen side on and all in a similar position. However I think the main purpose behind this show is the comedy element behind it. Its audience is mainly teens and adults since the humour in it is very adult.

During the show it is clear to see that a lot of thought has gone into the overall environment and not just the characters. Which is apparent in these image on the left, the environment is very family orientated. I wouldn't say that any of the characters can be defined by their body language or posture because they all move around in a similar way, I would say the only thing that distinguishes them is appearance, voice and personality. Another possible purpose however could be to make the parents look in some cases, less capable than the children.

POKEMON (seriously gotta catch 'em all)

I have looked at Pokemon because it is a show I have been obsessed with since I can remember! It was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996 and was published by Nintendo. It originally began as being hand drawn but in the more modern episodes there is more digital work incorporated into it.

The purpose I think it to bring to life the original video game even further and open the doors a bit more for the possible audience. For example, those who now watch the show but don't play the game, may become encouraged to try it out and vice versa.  Even though it uses the typical Anime style, it is a very distinctive show due to the story line. After years of watching this I can say that it does take into consideration the 12 Principles of Animation. For example when a character is showing a particular emotion their eyes or mouths often become larger to the point where they are quite unrecognisable. Also the staging is often changed to draw the viewer's attention to something in particular, for example the way the characters are positioned in the image on the bottom left. As usual the characters who need to be the main focus of attention are brought to the front. I think the audience for Pokemon is very broad, it is suitable for children, teens and adults. Its one of those things that a lot of people don't grow out of!

Eternal Love - Final Animation

After I has scanned in each frame I Put them all into After Effects because I found it ran smoother than Photoshop. I didn't add any colour to it because I actually quite liked how simple it looked, also because its such a quick animation I didn't want there to be too much to see in that short space of time because I wanted the story to come across in those few seconds. I really enjoyed creating this one because I love doing things by hand so it was great to be able to decide for myself what technique I wanted to use. If I had longer to spend on this animation I would love to have made it longer and more detailed, but I had to try not to make it too complicated from the start, since we were restricted to 5-10 seconds. 

Photography Induction

 SnapSnapSnap..

Before this induction I hadn't had much experience with using different cameras, and to be honest I didn't realise how much there was to it! After going over all basics and how to change all of the settings and what each setting does my head was ringing a little, so when we were sent off to create some examples of us experimenting I just improvised! We also did some work with the lighting to see how it might affect the picture. We had the task of focusing on an object and playing around with the audacity, shutter speed and some other settings too (I would be lying if I said  
could remember them all) But I just had a play about to see what different types of photographs I could produce. I chose to use a candle because, I am a candle addict and thought it would be interesting to play about with the lighting see how it would change the look of the flame.  

Now this is an..interesting one

Luis Cook - "The Pearce Sisters"

Story by: Mick Jackson

Adapted by: Luis Cook

Animators: Adam Cookes / Nigel Davies / Eve coy / Theresa Whatley / Emma Greenwood / Les Orton / Marten Jonmark / Dan Lane

This animation from Aardman Studios is very different to the usual works we see produced by them. Luis Cook wanted to go down a different route and stay away from the usual Stop-Motion and Claymation techniques. The process behind this animation was seen as quite experimental, the characters were created digitally with out their main features, and then every frame was printed off and worked into by hand and then scanned back in. The purpose behind this animation was to create something a bit more out of the box and unique. It has a mix of comedy and some parts which are quite gruesome, the audience is very broad because of this. It could be watched by people of all ages but would be appreciated in different ways. The use of "Staging" really works too, for example certain shot angles draw the audiences attention to certain things such as the close up of the hands at the start which allows the audience to see straight away how discussing they look, immediately giving an impression of the character. 

Animation Research - Pixar

Disney, Pixar - "La Luna"

Written and Directed by: Enrico Casarosa

Produced by: Kevin Reher

Music by: Michael Giacchino

This short animation was released with the theatrical release of Disney Pixar's "Brave" Like the other short films produced by Pixar, its purpose is clearly to show a short bit of entertainment, usually before the main film is to begin. This is a great idea because I think it broadens people's understanding of what these companies are capable of producing. There have been a mixture of processes used, Enrico Casarosa claimed: "Computers have a way of making things look perfect ad we wanted to make it look different" There has been a mixture of some computer generated work with as much non digital techniques as possible, so a lot of water-colour and pastel have been used for textures. There has been a range of camera angles used, for example the boat is seen from high above the water looking directly down, which gives the idea of how small the boat is and how big the overall environment is. The sound affects used when the starts are being brushed around, are really affective too because it sounds believable. This is a very comical, heart warming animation with fits eel with the audience that would be going to see the main theatrical film release. 

Animation Research - Moving on

Aardman - "Moving On"

Director: Ainslie Henderson 

Animators: Ainslie Henderson and Micheal Hughes

This Stop Motion Animation from Aardman for this music video is very distinctive due to the fact that it hasn't resorted to the typical Claymation animation they are well known for producing. Its purpose is clearly to show a representation of the song in a unique way. There is a lot of variation when it comes to camera shots, for example there is a lot of close ups and shots from above, I think this variation is very affective. The use of the 12 principles has clearly been taken into account, for example when one of the characters are dancing around, the hair continues to fly about and move with and after the character has stopped moving which makes it look more believable. The main audience for this would be those who are listening to the song and have an interest in seeing the video too so I think its good that it is such a unique and creative animation. 

Animation Research - "Yorkshire Tea"

This one is very different to any other animation I have looked at and the reason for this is it has a totally different purpose. This TV advertisement for Yorkshire Tea has the purpose of basically, making people want a cuppa so they then go and buy some of this tea. (Worked for me) The audience to me would be mainly adults but I think its generally very broad because through out the advert we see a range of different environments and activities as well as people of a range of ages. The process to me looks as though it may have been drawn and then edited further digitally, I like the softness of the colours because it creates a calm mood which I think will then reflect on the product that it trying to be sold. The use of "Ease in and out" in this works really well because at some moment it moves very quickly from place to place then at other moments it slows down. Sort of makes who ever is watching it feel like they are flying through the animation themselves. 

Animation Resreach. Erick Oh, "HEART"

Erick Oh -  "HEART"

This short CGI animation was created by Erick Oh, a Korean Filmmaker and Painter. The fact that the character designs and environment are simple makes it distinctive. The use of 12 principles for example the use of "Follow through" when the charter stops moving the heart on his head still wobbles about and the use of squash and stretch when the heart is dropped makes it all look more believable. Something I noticed was the use of "Arcs" These characters move about like humans, with the same body language and same ways of expression. However they do come to move around in a more menacing way, which I think adds to the creepiness of this animation. There are so many possible meanings behind this but one I thought of most was how we climb up the ladder of society to get to where we want to be. This idea came to ma when all the characters were fighting to get to the top to grab the heart. The heart could be a representation of anything such as wealth, happiness, money, love. The target audience for this is clearly not for children. I'd say more for adults and those who have an interest in work like this which is quite metaphorical. 

FRAMES EVERYWHERE!

After getting storyboarding out the way I had the sudden realisation of "oh my god I have nearly 120 frames to draw" so I got stuck in..

Despite the fact I was sleeping in a mass of paper, I really enjoyed the whole process because I love drawing. Using Pose - Pose animation is a technique I can imagine I will get used to very quickly. I wasn't sure at this point exactly how I was going to edit this on Photoshop so for the frames I only used black pen and a small amount of pencil to show lighting. 

"Eternal Love" Idea and storyboard

This study task was to create a 5-10 second animation based on one of a selection of themes. I chose love because I wanted to base this short animation on some character designing that I did a while ago.  So below we she two zombies, they are currently nameless, but all I know for sure is that the girly zombie has issues and is rather unhealthily obsessed with this guy zombie..
This is just a rough painting I did ages ago but it was going to need to be my starting point!

Its not the most amazing thing you will ever lay your eyes on, but hey.     

 I started off by doing some storyboarding to get an idea of the environment I wanted this story to be based. Being restricted to 5-10 seconds and 12 frames a second meant I had to figure out the limit of frames I could use. Meaning maths. It was hard not to go off on a tangent with the story so I tried to keep it simple.

I have tried to incorporate a range of camera angles and pay attention to some of the surroundings too. It needs to be obvious that these characters are in a field. I aim to make it comical but sightly disturbing at the same time! I will most likely use onion skinning on paper and then scan each frame into Photoshop to then put together.

End Result of my Pixilation!

"To Win Your Heart"

So here is my first Pixilation animation, its not exactly amazing, but you have to start somewhere right? I went about this by taking pictures through out as everything was being acted out. I did have to play the girlfriend that gets killed off which was quite a laugh! I used the college environs to create it because I needed the tall staircase and long hallways. Im pleased with how it has turned out however some parts of it aren't fully focused hence me still being a bit iffy with the camera.  Making sure the camera settings are always appropriate for where I am stood and the lighting is something I will need to think about more next time. But here you go! I hope you enjoy the love, death and the removal of internal organs :)

Flash Induction (saviour of the universe)

I haven't ever used Flash before and haven't planned on using it much necessarily but its good to get the hang of it I suppose! I just played around with the basics making shapes move, was pretty therapeutic. I did this by creating the shape and then drawing out the direction in which I wanted the shape to move.

Flip Book Research

GANGNAM STYLE FLIPBOOK (yes its real)

Okay I know we are all probably sick of hearing this song, but thats not the reason I put it on here. This Flip book version of the music video is SPOT ON (well there are many Flip Books involved but thats not the point) First of all, the use of spacing and camera angles work really well, its not all on one level all the time which makes it more interesting to watch as a piece of animation. The fact that not too much colour has been used actually draws more attention to how the people are moving and dancing around which is what makes it so amazing. Around 2:35 there is some really good attention to detail when it comes to the Follow Through and Overlapping Action where the woman's hair is obviously being blown around in the breeze, it looks really believable. I know this would have taken absolutely ages to complete but its worth it! 

"To Win Your Heart" - my own Pixilation.

Now it was my turn to create my first Pixilation animation, what a mixture of excitement, stress and mix of idea overloads this would come to be! I began by storyboarding my idea to get an idea of the environment and how many people I would be needing!

My title of my animation is "To Win Your Heart" and yes I mean it literally. I chose to do all the shooting for this whilst in college because it was the perfect environment for what I wanted (People being thrown down stairs and being stalked in the corridors etc, very cheery) For this animation I needed two girls and one boy, however I could only grab myself one girl at the time, so I did have to "star in my own movie" for a short time..

We had to either base our storyline on, "Predator and Prey" "Host and Parasite" or "Parent and Child" Obviously me wanting to take any opportunity to create a story which included death and distraction, I of course chose Predator and Prey. The story outline is, we have amy who is obsessed with James, but thats all Ill give you right now..

Fantastic Mr Fox - Storyboard research

Christian De Vita - Fantastic Mr Fox

When doing some research on storyboard artists I came across the storyboards for Fantastic Mr Fox by Christian De Vita. I think this is really impressive because when its observed its easy to understand whats going on. Aspects like facial expressions and body language really help tell the story. I think that it looks believable because of the different frame shots which give the sequence more variety. I think this is definitely a good example of storyboarding because clearly the same amount of attention to detail has been put into the environment as well as the characters. It fulfils its purpose which is to show the key parts of the story enabling somebody else to take it from them and create an animation from it. There has obviously been a lot of thought out into camera angles and lighting. 

Pose to Pose animation - Research

Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie" 1928

Directed by: Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks

Animation by: Ub Iwerks, Wilfred Jackson and (inbetweener) Les Clark 

I found this short clip from Steamboat Willie and thought it was a really interesting to look at. It is a Pose to Pose animation which is known for being the first cartoon with synchronised sound and the first pubic appearance of Mikey Mouse. I think the way that Mikey is bobbing about as he is whistling, by wiggling his hips and tapping his feet make it really quirky. I take a lot of inspiration from this animation because even though it could be seen and quite simple nowadays, it broke past all the boundaries when it was made and to be honest I still love it. I think this is a really successful animation, because not only is it really well created but the use of sound is brilliant. I love the exaggeration used when the pipes are pumping out steam, it sort makes it look like they are dancing. 

Final Storyboard!

I created a proper version of my completed storyboard using a mixture of pen and pencil. I did alter some parts of the story, for example instead of the spider sitting on the floor next to little miss muffet I decided it would be better if it were to come down on its web and sit on her shoulder. I did this because I thought that if it were to be animated it would look better and possibly be funnier that way. Once this was finished it was really good to be able to see the sequence of the story clearly, to the point where it could be animated. 

When drawing it was important to put thought into the use of arrows to show what direction the character is moving in. I also thought about the use of shading to create shadows and to indicate where the light would be coming from. 

In some frames I used words to indicate sounds as well as lines to show sudden movement and expression which would be needed if it were to be animated. I really loved creating these storyboards because to be honest I think when it comes to watching films, its pretty easy to sometimes forget about all of the planning that begins on paper to start with! 

Pose to Pose animations

This week we focused on creating two short "Pose to Pose" animations, one of which just a simple pendulum consisting of about 24 frames. The other was left to our imaginations and had no limit so this was..interesting.  

The way I went about this was to draw each frame separately on tracing paper, which was helpful because it enabled me to see the previous frame underneath so I'd know if I was going all over the place like a mad woman. This technique can be referred to as "Onion Skinning" This first task didn't take too long and it was good to get the hang of creating a simple animation in this way because I want to create more complex animations in this way.

Swinging Pendulum

I am happy with the result in this first attempt. I made sure to use fewer and more spaced out frames as the pendulum dropped to the centre, to make it look as though it is getting faster at this point. To be honest it made me appreciate the fact that just a few seconds of one animation can sometimes take days to create.

Attempt Numero Dos! 

This time I wanted to throw a character in there instead of an object. I knew it would be short and sweet but I have used one of my random character designs that I have had in mind for a while, because at some point in the next three years I want to develop it further. So this is my experiment in a way.

BATCAT

This one consists of 33 frames, in which I am introducing my "Batcat" I would have shown him actually taking flight but time was taking over. I wanted to show the little details like the blinking and the head tilt, because I think the simple cat like body language is important with this character. After scanning each frame into Photoshop I played around with the levels and contrast and had a bit of a "happy accident" However I liked the changing in lighting because its quite gothic and in my opinion suits this first attempt really well! 

I WANT TO MAKE MORE!