Final Change in Character Design

After the Crit it was brought to my attention that I needed to make some further tweaks to my character in order for it to fit in better with the style of the animation. The main alteration I have made is that I have made my character's body much shorter, because I think the aspect of it's design that was making it not very compatible was the length of the body.

Another reason I think it was a good idea to shrink her down is because it has allowed her to look more cartoon like, which will be much easier to model in Maya. 

I have decided to go with the grey colour scheme because I feel it will fit best, considering the colour scheme for Ollie's robot is centered around white and black. I am glad I went with the advice of altering this character further because it will save me time during the modelling stage, because she is no longer unnecessarily complex, and will hopefully also be easier to animate!

Interim Crit Feedback

After the Interim Critique this week, Ollie and I have been given a lot of helpful advice from other students in the class as well as tutors. There are a list of points I have made note of, in order to help improve the potential of our final animation, and there are some more things I am going to work on in Post Production in terms of my character.

Notes taken from the crit:

1. Try not to fit too many different camera angles into this one short animation as it may make it look rushed and jumpy.
2. The Mermaid character could still do with altering slightly as it still clashes with the design of the Robot.
3. Don't have the ocean too complex, as this is an unrealistic goal and will take too much attention away from the animation and design of the main characters.

How will these points be addressed?

1. We will continue to create our animation, and play around with the camera angles afterwards, because our minds might change during the production.
2. I will alter the design of my Mermaid further by making her much shorter. At the moment I think the main thing that is making her not fit in is the fact that she has ended up looking too realistic and long.
3. We have decided that Ollie will be focusing on the ocean and I more on the sun and sky. We need to do some experimenting together with different techniques in 2D and 3D to see what looks good and what takes an acceptable amount of time. 

Sound Design

For the audio of this animation, Ollie and I like the idea of having no dialog, but the two characters will still be giving off sound as a way of communication and showing emotions. This will hopefully also add the the comedy element! Another thing we need to think about is incorporating sounds of water, such as waves and splashing.

How will we do this?

At this point in the production, it seems the most likely path we will be using is a range of sound effects for the robot, which is something Ollie is looking into himself.
For the Mermaid, I will either get somebody else to create the vocal sounds in the sound booth, or if I am feeling up to it, I may do it myself!
For the surrounding sounds of the ocean, a lot of that we can create on our own, for example shaking a bottle of water or dropping something into water to create the illusion of a big splash. However, we may decide to have the sounds of waves in the background, so depending how realistic we want it to sound, we could once again get the help of others to create these sounds in the studio. If not, we will most likely use actual recordings of the sea to have in the background.

Inspiration for Sound Design!

This is an animation which was created by another student on my course last year. The reason why I have put it on here is because, I remember that her sound design for this short animation was very similar to the kind of thing Ollie and I want to achieve. There is no dialog, but plenty of sounds coming from the characters, which makes it really funny to watch. Also, there are a lot os splashing sounds which were created in the studio, and we hope to have some sounds which are quite similar. 

Colour Palettes

One of the most important things to think about when it comes to making our characters compatible, is the colour schemes. After discussions with Ollie, it was decided that he wanted to go down the route of quite metallic, pale like colours for his robot, so I knew straight away that my character needed to work well with this.

 Having the character so blue, may not work as well as i'd like, especially with the majority of the surrounding environment being blue. However, I thought it was a good idea to get a perspective of what it could potentially look like.

Again, a shade of green this vibrant, may not go too well if the colouring so far the robot are much paler, because we want them to be compatible and to look like they are from the same story. However, there is the possibility of having a similar shade, but making it more faded on the whole so it is less intense. 

The colourings above were actully brought about by accident. I accdenlty made the skin tone much more green tinted than I intended to, however I actually really like this one because it is quite murky but not too intense. 

One of the obvious ones I needed to try out was a pale grey to dark grey, because originally this was going to be a similar colour scheme for the robot. Although we don't want them exactly the same, I thought it was necessary to see what it could potentially look like.

What now?

In order to decide on the final colour scheme for this character, I will need to sit down with my pier and observe his colour testings in order to see what will work well together and what wont. I will also be addressing this during the Interim Critique to get some ideas and feedback off others. 

Simplifying My Character

After realising that I needed to make my character much simpler, I got straight to it. One of the things I needed to think about was also making her look more compatible with Ollie's robot. So to begin with a played around with making her facial features much similar to his.

Ollie recommended I looked at the character design for the Video Game, "Splatoon" because similarly to his character, the characters in this have shapes around their eyes which join together above the nose. I thought this might give our two characters a bit more unity.

However, after some sketching, I realised how it was a tricky aspect to add to this character because it didn't have the desired look, especially because she will first be seen coming out of the water; it will just look like goggles, which is not what I want!

I did however, continue to play about with the shape of the eyes, and came to the conclusion that if they were more rounded instead of angled, it could help this character fit into the story a bit better, because there would be more of a similarity.


I decided that the overall shape of the mermaid needed simplifying, especially the tail. I don't think there is much point putting tons of time and effort into the detail of something that isn't going to be seen! I have taken away all ridges on the ears and fins and smoothed everything down, as well as the hands which are now basic flippers.


Why?
 The reason all of this simplification was necessary, is because originally both characters looked as though they were from completely different stories. Also, I was being a tad over ambitious with the amount of modelling I was setting myself to do in Maya, considering I am not yet super fast at it!

Environment Design - Sky

Ollie and I have decided that he will focus on thinking about ways in which the ocean can be animated, and I will look more into possible ways to create the sky. Even at this early stage, we know we don't want to be making things too complicated or time consuming, so I have not only thought about ways to create the sky in Maya, but I have also thought about the possibility of using after effects. The Software we use will depends on weather or not we decide to go with a 2D or 3D sky. (This is something we will need to talk about during the interim critique, in order to get feedback and ideas off others.)

This is one of the most useful tutorials I came across when carrying out some research on what would be the best direction to go in. This basic sun and sky set up could potentially be really effective because it doesn't look too over the top, and different aspects such as the red - blue ratio, sun size and intensity can all be altered to gain the desired ambiance.

Pros and Cons 

There are obviously good and bad things about everything no matter how good it might look. Although theoretically this effect may save some time during the animation process and it could potentially look effective, there is the issue of rendering time. We would need to make sure we stay on top of things during our production so we have enough time for everything to render. There would also be the possibility of needing to use more than one machine for the rendering process, as this may split the work load.

The possibility of using other software

After further discussions with my pier, and considering the fact that we are already incorporating some small 2D animation for the robot's thoughts, I have put some thought into the possibility of creating 2D sky and clouds in After Effects. There is the possibility of this having a slightly a slightly better aesthetic for this particular animation, and it could be quite refreshing to spend some time working outside of Maya. 

Pros and Cons

There is the obvious factor that if we were to go down this route, it will look a lot more stylised and less realistic than the previous idea, so it just depends what we decide will work best. This may also take less time to render and could save us some time, and having it slightly more stylised may look better and more individual. (Again, this is something we want to get advice on, from tutors and other piers during our crit)

Character Design and Storyboard Feedback

Once Ollie and I had gotten to the stage of having our basic storyboard together we got some much needed feedback from our tutor. Overall our story was quite well put together however there were a few things that needed more consideration! 

1. Clarity of the story

It became apparent that some aspects of our story didn't make a great deal of sense to the viewer, for example, the reasoning as to why the robot gets to angry so early on with the mermaid. This made sense to Ollie and I, but after discussing it with our tutor we realised we needed to think a bit mores bout the fact that the audience know a lot less than us, so it needs to make sense. 

How did we fix this?

We did some playing around with the storyline, so as a result, the mermaid asks the robot to get into the water three times and then on the final time, it results in him getting angry. However our ending is still the same, it was just this section in the middle that needed altering!

2. Character Designs

One of the obvious issues was the fact that our two characters looked like they were from two different worlds, even though this is literally supposed to be the case, they looked as though they were from two separate stories, so there needed to be some character alterations on my part. 

How did I fix this?

I reconsidered the design of my mermaid, and made her on the whole, much simpler. Aspects such as the ears, tail and hands have al been simplified, for example instead of a hand, there is now a flipper, and the ears are much rounder and less spiky. This not only help it fit into the story better, but since I am not hugely experienced in Maya, I feel I am saving myself a lot of unnecessary stress. 

(We also need to decide on necessary colour palettes for each charter, because we don't want them to be completely different)

3. Method for Creating The Ocean

We have still yet to decide on the method of animation for our ocean, because there are lots of aspects to consider such as the time it will take, how much we want it to interact with the characters, weather we want it 2D or 3D and the rendering time! So we still need to carry out more research and carry out some experiments. 

Concept Drawing

I have produced a mixture of concept ideas for my character, because I felt the need to do lots of sketches in order to get an idea of what would work best for the persona of my Character. From quite an early stage, I knew what style of hair the character would have, but thats it, so I have played around with potential ears, facial features, body shapes and tails.

After sketching out some potential ear designs with annotation, I decided that some of them may have been a bit too complex because I am not hugely experienced in Maya, and I think it is important to be realistic with myself when it comes to time management. After showing my designs to Ollie and asking for feedback and ideas, we both came to the decision that the first design I have sketched out will be the most appropriate to use because it is less complex, but still fits really well with the over all design of the character. 

I knew that the face shape of this mermaid will be quite petite and heart shaped, and since their is no dialog, we knew that a lot of the emotion and communication would need to be portrayed in the face. The eyes are exaggerated because it gives her an element of attractiveness, but if the eyes are slightly pointed at the corners it will add further femininity and mystery to her character, which is what we want to go for. I know I want the nose to be quite flat, because after some of the research I have carried out, I have some to the conclusion that it will make her look quite "cute" and it will also bring the emphasis to her eyes. 

I had another possible idea of having fins down the back of the head in a mohawk alignment, however after discussing this will my pier and sketching out new ideas, I decided that it looked slightly too threatening for the story. We decided that the tentacle style hair was more appropriate. 

Whilst producing these concept drawings above, I have been thinking about the following:

• What body shape will be most appropriate? (elongated or shorter and fuller)

I have decided that I like the idea of quite a slender body, but not overly skinny, I want her movement through the water to look quite effortless.  I don't want the body shape to be overly skinny or sexual, but more muscular than anything. I will incorporate breasts into the anatomy but they wont be overly big, just enough for it to be clear that she is female.

• What shape will the tail's fin be, and how big? 

I like the idea of having quite an elongated tail with a large fin at the end. Out of the drawings I have produced, I particularly like the design where the tail is long and slender and the fin on the end is very big and quite triangular, but with a slight inwards curve at the corners to add more geometry. I would really like to add some extra fins to the side and back of the tail, to give it a slight edge.  (However I think it would be more appropriate for these fins to be more curved than spiked, because I don't want her to look too threatening)

• Will the whole body we one colour, or should there be a gradual change?

The body as a whole will be relatively simple, because I need to be realistic with myself and I want it to be animated effectively. At this point I imagine there will be one main base colour for the body, however the tail will fade downwards to a new colour as it reaches the fin.
(colour is something I will experiment more with once a final design is settled on.)

Character Design and Short Story Presentation

We have been lucky enough to have a woman named Sara, who has a lot of experience in the area of character design and short story development working in the animation department. The presentation she gave us on this topic was really interesting and I learnt a great deal from it, because as somebody who is very interested in Pre-Production, there was a lot that I didn't realise about the process of Character Designing!

What new information this taught me:
Characters often centre around one or more of three shapes, either a square, triangle or circle. (Each shape gives off a different vibe, eg: a more triangular character would look more threatening where as a more square shaped character could potentially be more knowledgeable, strong and less of a threat and a more circular character is usually a much more likeable character and usually more friendly)

For a character to become well known, all aspects such as their colours, silhouette and body Language all determine how memorable they will be. 



Does the Character have an icon? (eg: Superman's wisp of hair, or Mickey Mouse's ears)

Line of Action - it is important to imagine an invisible line of movement going through the character's body.

Asymmetry - Is the Character identical on either side? Also, when designing a character, think about the body language and poses that are relevant, not just always stood face forward. (sometimes simplicity can help make a character more well known.)

Things to think about when creating a short story:

• Who is the main character?
• What is their "Urgent Goal" (needs to be established quickly)
• Who is the "flawed character?"
• There needs to be some form of conclusion (was the urgent goal reached or not?)

I found all of this really interesting and helpful, and will definitely be thinking back to this a lot during my story and character development!

More Storyline Development

After thinking a lot about the characters specifically, Ollie and I realised that we really needed to sit together and decide a FINAL storyline, because at this point is was all a bit wishy washy!

We decided that our story would centre around the robot, who is stranded on a raft which is sinking and during his desperate panics to throw everything overboard, he is greeted by a mermaid. Since she is obviously curious abut what is the problem, he gestures to the island in the distance. This mermaid gestures for him to get in the water and swim (which would then lead to at least two, very simple small 2D animated thought bubbles highlighting the robot's fears of water and fish. )

He then gestures to the mermaid to leave, leading to her becoming aggravated. Caught up in her frustration she tips the raft up. The story would then cut to underwater, where we see the robot panicking and thrashing around but then suddenly realises he isn't sinking and that he isn't falling to bits. The mermaid would then scoop him up and swim him to the shore. 

Change in Direction

After speaking to Sara, a new tutor who works a lot in the area of Stop Motion and Character Design, together the three of us decided on some alterations to make to the story, because speaking to her made us realised that we were being a bit too over ambitious for the time limit we have been given! 

What we discussed:

• Adding more comedy to the story
• Condensing it down
• The possibility of the sinking process being a lot like the Titanic
• Having it end at an earlier stage in the story
• The mermaid tipping the raft up by simply flicking it
• Ironically having it end badly for the mermaid and not the robot. 

This exchanging of ideas was really helpful, because it allowed Ollie and I to understand how the story could be improved, especially when thinking back to the Sara's presentation on creating Short Stories. 

Our final story idea: 

The Robot appears to be stuck on the raft which is clearly sinking and tipping up. The Mermaid appears from distance and observes the situation. She gets close and gestures for him to get in. As the raft is tipping and the Robot is on the edge she urges him to jump in. His inability to do so frustrates the mermaid, leading to her simply just flicking the raft which leads to the whole thing tipping up. It cuts to an underwater perspective, of the robot panicking and wavinghis arms about but he then realises that he is fine. However, the camera pans out and we see that the robots entry into the water has caused the mermaid to get electrified, so we see her there getting continuously shocked (in a very comical way of course) which could then lead to the robot looking very guilty and awkward. 

So the ending is completely different to what we originally planned, however we think this will work better because it could potentially be very funny, and it is ironic. The mermaid character is going to be portrayed as quite mysterious and sassy, so it will be very interesting for the tables to turn so quickly. 

Building a Skeleton

Once the UV mapping was complete, it was time to construct the skeleton. This process was much less stressful than I thought it was going to be. One thing to remember when building each part of the skeleton was to use the orthographic views, not the perspective because otherwise it would have been harder to get the joints to line up with the geometry.

I used the "Joint Tool" to click the area where each joint would go, this was a really good tool to use because it automatically connected each joint together. The most important thing was remembering to name each joint individually to avoid complication later on.  

Once each part was built it was just a matter of joining all of it together. There was an automatic hierarchy of the joints, the first joint formed would automatically become the "Parent" because the movement of this joint would lead to the manipulation of the rest of them in that alignment. To move a joint individually, "D" would need to be held down. 

What have I learnt from this?

This process has enabled me to understand the process of building a basic skeleton, in preparation for rigging. It is now much easier for me to remember what specific buttons to hold when I want to carry out specific actions, such as snapping verts together, moving one selected joint, or joining two already placed together. 

Ideas for Hair

Since the decision has been made to go more in the direction of tentacles than hair, Ollie suggested a really good example of a character to refer to!

Liara from Mass Effect 

The design of the tentacles on this character's head is the kind of thing I want to achieve. It still looks quite hair like, which keeps it relatively feminine. Another reason why I think this is a good example to get inspiration from is the fact that it is clearly created using 3D Software, so it enables me to see something similar to what my design could potentially look like when modelled.


Im unsure as to weather I will have the tentacles a similar length. I think it will be sensible to keep it
relatively short, because I am not overly experienced with modelling
in Maya and if I was to make it too long, that would be something else I need to animated along with the tail, and I think that will add on more time to the animation process.

UV Mapping

Once the modelling was complete, it was time to get it UV mapped and ready to texturise. This process consisted of UV Mapping the whole model as one to begin with, which opened it up in another window at the side. Each separate body part was then cut so they could all be pulled away from one another.

I then cut around the edges of each body part, as well as the fingers and down the back, so that they could be unfolded. Once this process was complete, I needed to do some moving around of the verts on some areas. The purple indicated that each component was the right way around, and some areas around the edges were red which indicated they needed flipping. This took a bit of time, but would save me trouble in the long run! This has got me to the point where the surfaces were all ready to texturise.  

Studio Brief 1 - Modelling!

For this first study task, we have been given the challenge of building the character previously used from scratch. Thankfully we have been provided with tutorial videos on how to do each part of the body, which makes thing so much easier!


One thing I didn't realise was the importance of reference imagery when modelling in Maya. Once these two images were imported it was much easier to see where to line up the edges and vertices.

I began by extruding the pelvis of the character from a cube, then continued up to the shoulders and torso. Each section of the body was extruded outwards one out of the other.

How did I find it?

The whole process was actually really interesting and being able to do it at my own pace made the learning side easier for me.

As I got futher though the modelling, it became more and more second nature to me. I found myself using specific tools and commands without having to remember what they were for.

What have I learnt?

Through out this, I have become familiar with different tools, modes and terminology in Maya. For example, I understand what it measn to be in Object, Face, Vertex and Edge mode.

I now have the knowledge of how it works when extruding a shape outwards, when it comes to knowing which areas to manipulate and what mode to be in for that specific action.

Before this, I had no idea what a vertex was, however I now know that it is the corner point at which two edges meet, and these points can be moved around.

 What did I find difficult?

One of the things I struggled with the most was keeping track of which vert went where, when referring to the imagery. I often found myself moving and edge or vert from the back instead of the front, or vice versa.

My way of making sure I was constantly on track was so regularly switch between the views. Perspective view allowed me to turn the model around in all directions, so it was easy to see if I had made any mistakes, which I often had, however I now know that when I do this again, I will not only do it better but also faster!


I was really pleased with my final model, the only issue at the end was the mouth, I realised I must have made an extra extrusion because there were two extra faces inside the mouth, which was easily reversible.

The World of 3D

One of the obvious aspects of 3D modelling and animtion, is that in some ways it pulls us into a whole other world, because it looks (in some cases) flawless. Even just the environments looks amazing. 3D software has the ability to make a place or a character look completely life like, which leaves the audience feeling as though they have stepped into a new world.

It has now come so far that we are able to watch in 3D, so we can watch as if we are physically there. This is something that goes hand in hand with insanely detailed scenery, because it allows the audience to forget that they are watching the film through a screen.

HOWEVER 

It is the opinion of some animators, artists and just people in general, that 2D animation holds an aesthetic that the 3D world will never have. There will always be that love for traditional pen to paper (which 3D animation itself  stems from - concept art in the early stages is what leeds to the creation of these 3D worlds) so it could be argued that 3D software is just a "tool" whereas traditional hand drawn animation could be seen as more of a skill, but is often taken for granted in the modern world. Also lets not forget, 3D animation, although it has the potential to look amazing, costs a great deal more, takes longer and gaining enough knowledge of the software to produce something that impressive, takes years.

Realism in 3D modelling

There are lots of examples of animated films and games which, where 3D modelling is used to create realism, such as Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest, Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers and Return of the King, Avatar and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

It doesn't take a genius to see how amazing these results are, one thing to note is that none of these examples above are fully human. There are a lot of other examples of human realism in a range of video games.

The use of motion capture is becoming more and more frequent when it comes to the animation in video games. Even though it looks fantastic, it could be argued that one of the points of animation and game playing is to "escape" reality. In the examples above and so many others, endless hours, effort and money has gone into producing something that looks almost like live action. One of the problems with this is that it is mimicking reality and for some people this may seem pointless. There are some examples where it is obvious to tell which actors have been used in the process of motion capture. Don't get me wrong, the quality of this animation is staggering, but some might say it is almost pointless. It could be argued that the use of live action would take less time, less money, and would look just as impressive, if not, more so.  

Disney Pixar's Toy Story

After the success of Pixar's 1988 computer animated short, "Tin Toy" which was Directed by John Lasseter,they were approached by Disney and together they produced 1995's Toy Story. 

"Tin Toy" - 1988

It is clear when watching this short animation, how far 3D animation has developed, even between the time of this and the making of the first Toy Story. The baby shows a really interesting example of the "Uncanny Valley." The way it moves is slightly robotic, and the face looks incomplete and quite wrinkly. This was a huge success at it's time, but it does show how much the potential of 3D animation has developed!

"Toy Story" - 1995

In this clip from the first "Toy Story" movie in 1995, we can see how much progression has been made in the years between the production of Tin Toy and this. The movement of the toys and humans is so much more realistic. Watching this now, it is obvious it isn't a recent animation because even more development has occurred in the last 20 years when it comes to the potential of 3D modelling and animation. 

"Toy Story 3" - 2010

Here in the most recent Toy Story movie, we can see the quality and consistency of the animation as a whole has improved dramatically. Especially when it comes to the look and movement of the human characters. The faces look smooth and believable as animated characters (it's obvious by the exaggerated features that the aim wasn't to achieve complete realism.)

If we compare this animation to "Tin Toy" back in 1988, the development is drastic. The baby's face in that animation looked robotic and unrealistic and it's movements looked simulated. If the quality of 3D modelling and animation can grow this much in just under 30 years, where will we be in another 30?

It's safe to say that the potential of 3D animation and modelling knows no bounds, because it is always improving. 

The Uncanny Valley

Whilst 3D Animation is becoming more and more advanced, and thanks to movies such as Toy Story,  Avatar, Lord of The Rings and more, we can see how extensive its capabilities are. However, it is easy to forget that a to of these successful examples of 3D animation don't necessarily focus on realism as such.

One of the biggest problems with 3D animation is that, achieving an exact replica of a human being, is probably one of the most complex and time consuming things an animator can do. There have been cases where 3D animated human like characters lack certain qualities and don't quite hit the point of realism and instead can sometimes result in looking rather odd or scary. This lovely dip is known as "The Uncanny Valley"

This graph clearly shown the development of a character. It begins well, but there comes a point where it goes from looking like a good generation of a human being, as we can see the "human likeness" and "familiarity" plummet off the graph, which clearly suggest something is not right. 

 The Polar Express, which was released in 2004 and Directed by Robert Zemeckis is a really well known example of "The Uncanny Valley." The characters in this film, often look as though their emotion is forced and they look very dead behind the eyes. It is easy to tell that the aim of this method of animating was to create realistic, human like characters, but instead they have resulted in looking slightly creepy.

In my opinion, there hasn't been enough attention paid to the detail and animation of the eyes, I think the characters in this look completely out of it and to be honest they make me feel slightly uneasy!

In this clip above, you can tell straight away that the animation is very unrealistic. When the characters speak, the emotion and movement in the face doesn't really come through. The body language as a whole is very rigid. As an animator I can't believe I'm saying this, but I believe it would have been much better as live action!

Body Language - Research

As an animator, one of the things that I feel like I need to spend time thinking about is is the use of body language and what it can suggest, especially for this module, because Ollie and I don't plan on using any dialog.

This short video which I came across on Youtube, covers some of the very basic yet very unnoticeable aspects of body language which can tell a somebody a hell of a lot about what somebody is thinking or feeling. It talks about the slight difference between a "forced" and "genuine" smile, and to be honest I had never really thought about these kinds of slight changes and how much of a difference they can make, up until now.

Disney Pixar: "For The Birds"

Directed by: Ralph Eggleston

This animated short from Disney Pixar, is a really good example to use in my research because it incorporates a huge amount of non-verbal communication. All of the birds in this show an array of different emotions through out, which are shown through aspects such as audio; they make lots of squeaky noises (which are adorable, even when they are angry.) As well as a lot of movement in the mouths, and the positioning of the eyes and eyelids make it obvious if a bird is for example, angry or surprised. I love this animation because it shows a really good example of effective body language for the use of non-verbal communication. 

More About Tails..

Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Directed by: Rob Marshall 

Since I wanted to gather a lot of research to help me animate my tail as well as possible, I decided that looking into some live action would be just as necessary. In this scene from "Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" we meet the beautiful, yet slightly terrifying mermaids. I have watched this scene several times because I have been paying attention to how the tails move and from which point on the body. In this scene, the whole of the mermaids' body flow with the motion of the tail, however most of the emphasis is from where the knee caps would be and downwards. There is a lot of follow trough action in the end of the tail and the fin, which is something I'll need to incorporate when it comes to animating. 

"High Tides"

"High Tides"

Kristin Kemper 

I came across this adorable animation whilst looking for some more footage to refer to when animating my mermaid tail. Since I have never animated something like this, I have been trying to analyse how different animators go about it. In this case, the animation of the merman's tail is a lot more fluid than the animation in "The Chubby Mermaid." The whole anatomy of the boy, from top to bottom moves together. When he swims, I have noticed that the movements he goes through when swimming, are very flexible and a lot more lightweight. 

I will definitely take this on board when animating my own, I really like the idea of the tail and body looking as though they are one being and not separate. This merman (merboy?) is a very timid yet curious character, which we can tell purely from the body language and facial expressions. This is similar to what I want to achieve, so I imagine I will come back and watch this again for future reference because Kristin Kemper has done a really great job!

The Chubby Mermaid

The Chubby Mermaid

By Emezie Okorafor

There are a lot of reasons as to why I am blogging about this animation, so I'll get straight to it!

Character Design - There are two mermaid characters in this animation, who differ in the way they have been designed, which is good because I want to gain inspiration and ideas from as many areas as possible. One mermaid is the "chubby" mermaid which I actually love because I think typically mermaids are designed to be very slender. (When designing my character I will be playing around with the body shape to see what works best for that particular role) 

 The use of colour also defines each character really well, one mermaid has much softer colourings than the other.

Animation - I have been paying a lot of attention to the way in which the tails are animated when the characters are swimming. In this case, the emphasis of movement is placed on the end of the tail, the upper body stays quite rigid, which works because it fits with the style. After looking at another bunch of examples of the movement of tails, I will need to have a play around in MAYA to see which one is the most appropriate for the style of the animation.

Audio - The audio used in this, such as the sound of water splashing, waves and other sounds effects for added comedy have given me some reassurance that the kind of audio direction Ollie and I want to go in, could really work. (also the fact that there is no dialog proves that it doesn't matter if other the audio is chosen well)

Environment - I know this is a 2D animation, so I can only go so far when using as inspiration, however the setting of it is very similar to the one we want to go with, so it has made me think more about the possible colour schemes of the background, and making sure it doesn't clash with the characters. 

       

"Chibi" style

As part of my pre-production, I have carried out some research on the "Chibi" style of character design, which is mostly used in the style of Manga. Chibi is a Japanese slang word which can be used for terms such as "small child" and "short person." When characters are drawn in this style they possess qualities that make them look cute and baby like.

I have looked into this style as part of my research not because I want to use this style, but because I think it is a good example of how features, especially facial features can be used to convey emotion, especially without any sound or dialog, as well as giving them more character appeal.


Chibi style is also used a lot to turn well known characters into child versions of themselves. This is typically done by enlarging the head and shrinking down the body, which is clearly not realistic however it does work!

 Similarly to these types of characters, I want my design to be attractive, but in some ways more adorable than anything. When animating, I will be considering all the ways I can show emotion through body language and through facial expressions. In some of the examples I have shown, it is clear how some quite simple changes to the eyes and mouth can make a huge difference.



As you can see, happiness, anger, contentment and worry are all emotions which can be seen through these designs, mainly due to the positioning of the facial features and body language.

Fantasia - Centaurettes

 The Centaurettes from Disney's Fantasia, are a really good and of my favourite examples of how a character's colourings and particular assets make them stand out individually. Each of the Centaurettes all have a different colour scheme and style, so they all look very different even though their actual designs don't differ hugely.

 I remember when I was younger, I struggled to pick a favourite
because I thought all of them were so unique. (another thing I love about their design is that they don't possess the typical modern day  image of having a tiny waist and big boobs)

When designing my character, one of the things I really need to think about is the colour scheme. I already know that I would like her to be quite pale, like these centaurettes.

Another aspect of these creatures is their very large eyes, which allow them to look more feminine, as well as the very red lips. Their faces are almost heart shaped which gives them a slightly useful look. This is the kind of thing I will need to think about too.

Things to think about

At this point in the production of this animation, we have our idea of the storyline we want to go with, however this is most likely to change slightly. We have currently got to a point where we know enough to pursue with the character development. 

Currently, we are working with the idea that, the robot is stranded on the raft. The reasoning as to why he is there is unknown. He will most likely be quite a timid yet stubborn character, since he doesn't want to get in the water or be near the mermaid. Ollie and I have been discussing the idea of having the majority of this animation centred around the disagreement going on between these two characters, because not only will it be comical, but it will be an opportunity for us to delve into the depths of emotion and body language, as well as some comical audio to be incorporated. 

What I expect at this point:

Characters - It has been decided that Ollie will focus on the robot character and I the mermaid. This works well for us as we both have a particular urge to design and animate each of these characters. (We will however, be continuously working together and analysing each others findings and designs, to make sure they will work well with one another!) 

ROBOT - May not be identified as a certain gender but we imagine it will look more like a male than a female. Quite cute, and maybe a little clueless. 

MERMAID -  A female, very attractive but not in an overly sexual way. I want to place a lot of emphasis on her facial features, especially since this will be the most visible through out. 

Environment/ Background - Set on the ocean so we will see the expected blue sea, sky and possibly more additions such as clouds and birds. However depending on the specifics of the plot we may incorporate some underwater shots, so there may be some silhouettes of fish and other underwater life, but this all depends on our timing and planning. We want the surroundings to look gentle and aquatic. 

Audio - Right now we don't plan on having music playing through out, we want to focus more on the sounds coming from the environment such as splashes of water, possibly sounds of gentle waves and under water sounds. We don't intend of having dialog between the two, but rather a lot of sounds which will get the point across of how they are feeling. 

Titles - Our titles and credits either need to show at the same time as the animation starts and ends, or can be placed on either end separately to the one minuet time limit. Currently we are keen on having them play at the same time as the animation. 

Mood board Research

Before beginning any of my own designs for my mermaid, I wanted to bring together some different examples of other mermaid character designs - some well known, some not so much.    

                   

1.  

Obviously I couldn't go through this stage and not mention Disney’s Little Mermaid. The reason I think this is an important example to think about is because each mermaid and merman in this film looks very individual due to their colourings and specific features. This was one of the things I found the most intriguing when I was younger, that each character had a different coloured tail and a different hairstyle, and how each one can give off a different vibe simply because of these specifics. Similarly to the mermaids in Disney’s Peter Pan, the mermaid tails are designed in a way that look quite dress like and floaty. 

This is the same case for the pretty fish in Walt Disney’s Fantasia. Her tail is long and almost like silk, which is her main feature for gaining appeal, along with her facial features. 

2.

 Even though I don't want this character to be threatening or creepy (which is an odd yet refreshing change for me) I have also looked into some other examples such as Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. I really love the designs for these mermaids because even though they don’t look particularly friendly, there are certain features that I feel I can take into consideration when designing my own. I like the fact that the tail and the upper body are all one, instead of it being a different colour or being separated by a fin around the waist. It is also really helpful to see it as a 3D design.

I know I need to think about the body shape and proportions of my character, hence why I have also been looking at silhouettes, because the shape of the tail and upper body will determine its animating.