Further character design and colour testing

 
From my initial sketches I created a character using all the traits I thought worked best.  The top left image was the final outcome from that. I did a turn around of the character, which is standard practice for character design. This means when it comes to animating the character I don't have to spend time coming up how the character will look from a certain viewpoint. I also added a few basic emotions that I'd be using in the animation as this will help speed up the process when it comes to actually animating the character.
After designing the character I thought about how I wanted to colour him. Originally the colour scheme was going to be a standard vivid cartoon colour scheme, I tested a range of different colours and settled finally on the top right image.
During the weekend I attended thought bubble comic convention where I got to read and see a huge range of illustrative styles. A few artists used only black white and one other colour, I thought this could look really interesting for an animation so I went back to colour design and started testing again.
I first started with testing different shades of washed out versions of the primary colours, I then decided I would use green.I followed this by testing lots of different shades to find which would be the best one both for this character and all the other designs that would be featured in this animation.
I took the colours I'd created and asked a variety of people which they thought worked the best a large amount agreed that the third from the left worked thi

Story development

Once I'd finished mind mapping different ideas for the project I took one idea forward and developed it further. The original idea I had was quite elaborate and there was a lot going on within it. After getting some feedback on the project it was made clear to me that with the given time frame of the animation it needed to be simplified. Using this I reworked the initial treatment to make it fit better.

Secondary character design

After designing the main character I went on to design the secondary character. I first designed a dog, which I looked at many cartoon dogs and real ones for references. Learning how a dog sits and moves required a lot of references. I tried many different styles/dog types before I settled on the on which I felt fit this animation the best. I then applied the colour scheme of the animation my final dog design.

I then went on to design the mud monster, the character is in a smaller portion of the animation but is very important so it needed to be well designed. I didn't use as many references for this design in the past I had drawn many similar things and since its not a real life creature there were less rules I needed to conform to make it believable. Once I was happy with a design I went on to colour it. Since earth was the key theme of the animation I decided to make the mud monster the only thing that would deviated from the colour scheme. I tested a few different muddy shades, I wanted the colour to both fit the style of the whole piece but also makes sure it is obviously mud.

creating an animatic

Before this project I had never created an animatic before but I found it incredibly useful. It is hard to tell how the animation is actually going to look from the story board but the animatic gave me a much better overview. I put all my story boards into photoshop and gave them the initial timing I thought they should have. It all looked pretty good but there were a few scenes that didn't last quite long enough so I had to extended them and reduces other to make it work. This found that this is definitely a worth while process to do for a project.

Story boarding

I first started with an extremely rough story board. This was mainly to figure out what type of shots I wanted for each frame and working out rough timings/transition for the animation. This took a very long time for me as I'm still pretty slow at thinking in terms of shots and how everything should flow.

Once I'd finished the rough The rest was a lot easier. I did the second story board after I had done some character design so I had a better idea how it would all look stylistically.  

Elements idea generation

I started this project with a mind map including all of the four elements. I tried to branch key words of things that related to each of the four elements and elaborate ideas from those. This was quite a slow process and having 4element gave a large amount of options. Once I started getting good themes around each word I started to merge different ones together and which created small vague stories around them.
After trying to expand various different ideas I was happy with two around water and earth. I developed more detailed treatments for these two ideas and then compared them. I compared both how interesting the story was but also which could be most effectivly told using the time frame I was given and the skills that I currently posses. In the end I chose the idea around earth and went on to expand it.

starting character design

Normally when I draw characters I like to use lots of lines and small details. This can seriously lengthen out the animation process so today I tried to simplify the characters I draw whilst still keeping my own style. I used old/new cartoon network boy characters (and a few others) as reference. I think they are excellent to use as references as they are all fairly simplistic but all keep visually interesting styles. I also feel that after growing up with all of these cartoons my drawing has been greatly influenced by them over time so using them as references should help guide my style.

I thought the eyes and face circled in red were great they are similar to the style of drawing I like to do but more simplified. The green circle was a great example of a really abstract looking hand that works really well. The general composition inside the blue circle I thought was great all the lines are a similar curvature so everything fits together really nicely.

This is a page from my sketchbook of me trying out different faces for the main character of my element animation. I tried a variety of nose, eye mouth and head types to see what I thought suited the character for this short the best. Once I started seeing all the different parts I like I started to compile them into one face (bottom right).

Animation survival kit

The animation survival kit is an excellent resource for pose to pose animation as it maps out loads of different motions for different character types. Some motions are very complicated and can look completely wrong if you get a slight detail wrong. The visual representations in the book also show which animation principles should be present for different movements such as squash/stretch and arcs.

(It even includes instructions on how to properly use a peg board)

Lord of the rings

Lord of the rings is an extremely immersive film series. The books created an amazing world which as part of the fantasy genre must try and pull its audience into. The film trilogy could not achieve this with out CGI animation of vistas, creature and buildings. I feel that the use of CGI in these films was very successful and helped them fulfil there purpose of what felt like an almost believable fantasy universe. I feel the example below of the "Ents" (walking trees) is a great example of the CGI in action.

crazy flipbook

I found it hard to find good practitioners who work with flip books but this was a really interesting example as it looked like a proper frame animation. This animation almost looks like it has been put together like a hand drawn frame animation as its so smooth. I thought it was a great example because it uses most of the 12 principles of animations within it as it has such a wide range of different shots and movements. This makes it a really interesting piece to watch

Jan Kounen: Gisele Kerosen

This is a classic pixilation short we were shown in class. I thought it was a brilliant use of pixilation it takes full advantage of this animation technique to produce some amazing effects. I think this is one of the key aspects of using pixilation is exploiting what would normally be a limitation when making a conventional film. The characters are extremely exaggerated which I think is important because a lot of subtleties (especially in facial expressions) can be lost whilst creating a pixilation.

Pixilation: Stanley Pickle

This was a brilliant pixilation I came across by Vicky Mather. As film quality goes this is amazing, there are many parts of the film were you cannot tell whether its a pixilation because it runs so smoothly only the fact that something crazy is happening are you reminded its been done frame by frame. It uses pixilation really well to create certain effects and also adds a certain creepiness to the characters through there slightly robotic movements that make them fall near the bottom of the uncanny valley

Robot Chicken

 Robot Chicken is a stop motion sketch show produced by adult swim. It is aimed at adults as most of the show is definitely not suitable for children. similar to a town called panic robot chicken animates action figure like characters to create the programme. I think this is a really effective way to communicate the style of satirical comedy they do and far more effective that a 2 dimensional show which would come under a similar category (such as family guy).

Apply:final animation

After a lot of work in a short space of time I finished my animation. I first put all the images together in after effects which allowed me to put the background images together with the individual frames.

I then put the after effects mov. in premiere to edit the film. This allowed me to get all the timings of the animation correct as some frames needed to held to make the animation make more sense.

Overall I am happy with my final animation however I feel next time I would definitely do some processes differently. Next time I think I would do the frames digitally rather than hand drawing them for this style of animation as I think the quality of them would look better after painting them in photoshop. Since I'm still new to most of the processes everything took a very long time mainly because I was trying to figure out how to make motions or software work. 

Rocket Dog!!

Rocket Dog is a short produced by federator studios and created by Mel Roach. Its a short one off animation thats supposed to be light hearted comedy. It doesn't have the highest production value but I think is very effective. The concept behind the animation is simple but very entertaining. I feel this animation is aimed at teenagers and young adults. It caters to that audience really well because. Stylistically it reminded me a lot of the of the old 90's cartoon network TV shows (such as Ed, Edd and Eddy) which I think would people my age would enjoy the sense of nostalgia as most of us grew up with those cartoons. I thought this animation fulfilled its purpose well as it was set out to be silly entertainment and it certainly delivered that.

Apply: Frame colouring

This evening I experimented with different techniques to colour in my background frames on photoshop. I'm not very experienced with photoshop so most of the what I tried was trial and error mixed with things we were shown during our photoshop tutorials. I wanted to try and create a bit more depth to my animation through my backgrounds which i realised did not work by using block colours on the work. I am fairly happy with the way the backgrounds came out after painting them on photoshop since this was my first try at it. Digital painting is something I definitely want to explore further. Next time I might try doing the line work in Adobe: Illustrator as i think I would be able to get a more professional look using vector based software.

Apply: Drawing frames

 Whilst drawing the frames there are many things to think about mainly to do with motion and timing. A key point of a pose to pose animation is the fact that each movement is planned out before animating rather than straight ahead where you just do it. I tried to do some more complex motions for this animation compared to what I have done so far on this project, this proved a significant and time consuming challenge. For some of the motions (such as the end run cycle) I used the "animation survival kit" book which is an excellent resource as it has a huge range of basic-complex motions for different character types. I also used (after some helpful advice from Matt) reference video to try and plan motions from particular camera perspectives. One I found particularly difficult was a character waking away from the camera when the camera is behind the character. The reference video helped a lot as I could plan the motion frame by frame from the video. I also use templates (right picture) whilst animating. I'm not sure if this is professional practice but it means I have a rough outline to give my guidelines for each drawing this means the volume of the character always stays the same,

Miyazaki: Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke is in my opinion Hayao Miyazaki's best film purely for the level of depth that the film provides. The film is aimed mainly at a teenage audience but can definitely be viewed by a wider audience. This film is a lot darker than his previous films making it less suitable for younger children but in my opinion makes it a better film. The film is an adventure fantasy so its main aim is to tell a story in an elaborate fictional world. It fulfils its purpose really well it is a very entertaining film full of interesting characters and creatures. It does however go above and beyond by having strong social commentary within it. At this point in Miyazaki's career he'd started to become angrier toward issues around environmental impact cause by industrialism. This film had very strong tones relating to these feelings that I felt were told in a visually stunning way.

David O'Reilly: The External World

This is most definitely one of the oddest animations I've seen. I really enjoyed this short mainly because of the style, I hadn't seen anything like it before. I feel the main purpose of this animation is experimentation. It is entertaining to watch and is pretty humorous however there is little story involved. I feel the main reason people would watch this animation is purely for this unique style. If its purpose was to experiment with a style I feel its very successful because there are no animation that I know of that look like "the external world". I do feel the story is less successful and people who are less interested in animation would not like this short as much as I did.

Apply animation: planning

I started the brief by brain storming some different ideas I had relating to the seven key words we were given. I then expanded some of the ideas I like more or combined some to try and refine some ideas.

After generating a range of ideas I chose one of them I thought would be effective for this project and story boarded it did gauge an idea of how it would look. After spending a bit of time thinking about the shots for this animation I felt that it wouldn't create the best animation. I wanted an idea that played around with some more interesting backgrounds. 

This lead to me story boarding a different idea which I thought would work better for the time frame and the animation skills that I currently posses.  I also wanted to do animation where I would have more opportunities to apply the more of the 12 principles.

Creature comforts

Before Nick Park created Wallace and Gromit he made creature comforts a short running TV show on ITV. This TV show was aimed at the "family" audience so it can be enjoyed by all ages. The main concept of the show is brilliant. Different groups of people were interviewed before they made the shown being asked rather mundane questions about day to day life. Nick park then paired the accents/tones of the people with similar animals. He does this perfectly which really exaggerates the interviewees mannerisms which ends up being extremely hilarious. I think this animation is very successful in fulfilling its purpose, it is definitely a great source of entertainment for all ages.

Avatar:the last airbender

Avatar is one of my favourite TV shows, both for style reasons and because of its story. The show is aimed at children and absolute fulfils this purpose. From the start the main character is introduced as this fun loveable boy who is also rather badass. There is a great mix throughout the show of light hearted comedy and amazingly tense action scenes that will keep children entertained. I feel the TV show goes above and beyond catering for an audience it is much more than a children's TV show as they have added enough depth too all the characters and story to captivate much older audiences.

(but not this! because this is awful. seriously its really really terrible. Do not watch it.)

BoJack

Bojack horseman is a new TV show that aired on Netflix. Its a comedy aimed at adults definitely not for children. I loved the concept of mashing up humans with animals similar to nick parks "creature comforts" it paired some peoples personality types with a corresponding animal. The show was very satirical . This first opened the flood gates for many great puns which is always good but also I thought added an interesting dimension to the show which made you think about why each character was the animal they were. I really enjoyed the animation style of this show, I thought its really effective as it suited the story/feel of the show.

Johnny Bravo

Johnny Bravo is one of the classic 90's cartoon network TV programmes. The show was aimed at children and teenagers. This style of cartoon is very different to what you generally get on TV aimed at the same age range. I personally felt this programme was very effective, as a child I really enjoyed it and I found it very amusing. The narrative of the cartoon is different to a lot of cartoons on TV currently. The is very little plot to this TV show which I liked as a child, but current cartoons generally have much stronger story lines. For this reason I feel the current generation of children may not enjoy this cartoon as much as I did.

illustrator and the pen tool

Today I touched Adobe illustrator for the very first time. We mainly focused on the pen tool for the start of the exercise. This tool was completely different to what I had used previously and will take a while to get used to however it did create nice lines and curves. I found it was very easy to miss or do a wrong step whilst using the line tool as different keys/actions change how the tool works in subtle ways.

In the second half of the tutorial we used the classic ghibli character totoro. We had to trace half the jpeg image using the pen tool, then mirror the image. Then using the pen tool again to all the smaller details. For easy movement and reference we grouped certain sets of line such as the eye circles. we then just added simple colour using the fill function. I found this task relatively straight forward, was a good way to put together all the skills we learnt in the morning.

A town called panic.

A town called panic or "Panique au village" is a french stop motion animation that uses figurines. A town called panic is supposed to be light but also very odd humour aimed at a teenage or young adult audience. At first I was skeptical about the style of this animation but after watching it I thought it was very funny and extremely effective. Its very simplistic both visually and audibly however is a very effective animation. The figurines can't move much more than how they came out of the packet but the animators manage to make them move about in a very believable way that personifies  a child's imagination when they are given toys. I think the animation is very effective as I found it very funny and interesting to watch.

ASDF

ASDF is a very basic flash animation created by Thomas Ridgewell also know as "tomska" on YouTube. I wanted to talk about ASDF because even though its so simplistic its incredibly effective and extremely humerus. I think ASDF is mainly aimed at teenagers especially because its published on youtube. The animation is predominantly stick figures with a few added details and the occasional background, each short is only around 1.5-2 minuets long and made up of sketches which are each a few seconds long. The main concept behind ASDF is "being random", it is so effective because the viewer doesn't expect any of the thing that happen so the only way the body can react in time is through laughter. For that reason I think this animation is very effective as every time I watch this I'm always in hysterics.

Music Video: flying lotus

Flying lotus is an amazing musician from L.A who's music spans across many different genres. His music is not simple to pin down to a basic message and a lot of his music is instrumental. This allows for more creative freedom when creating a music video but also provides more of a challenge to make sure the video brings the emotions/tone and messages behind a song.

This is a music video for a song called zodiac shit. The actual animation follows all the animals in the Chinese zodiac calendar and uses the music to creating a flowing metamorphosis between the different animals. The video I feel captures the essence of the song very well and as a good music video should enhances the music visually rather than distracting the viewer. A lot of this animation feel like it was done using straight ahead animation rather than pose to pose as it has a great sense of flow that matches the music.

Hand Drawn animation

This week I carried on from the pose to pose animation task. used the same hand drawn technique just using pencil and a light box. Since this was a pose to pose animation planning was crucial. I spent quite a bit of time planning the positions for each frame to get the right timing this made animating a lot quicker and easier. I found using a light box very helpful for this brief, it allowed me to see at least three previous frames so I could see how my animation was panning out. I feel I didn't get the motion on the cats head quite right I think it slows down a bit much at the top of its ark. I will bare this in mind next time I animate a similar ark. I really enjoyed animating by hand I felt it was extremely satisfying. I also thought it was much easier to spend a long period of time animating by hand rather than in front of a screen both for my eyes and for my general concentration. This is definitely a technique I want to pursue further.