1/12/17

This week was making the final finishing touches to my modules.

For DGA 210 it was a matter of finishing off the final shots for Shelterbox. I had trouble with my longest assigned shot because it involved Shelterbox running in and out of the shot and our paralax wasn't long enough to make it look convincing. To save some time for editing, I had him bounce out of the shot instead, which looked a lot better than the run out I had attempted without a moving background, but it still felt silly. If I am given a similar task in the future I will make sure to come to the background artist immediately if I feel that a paralax needs to be made longer. At the same time I will also implement changes discussed in feedback sessions a lot sooner to avoid problems like these in the future. I also put together my showreels for Shelterbox and Heroes Wanted.

For DGA 220 I worked on my first paragraph about the history of open source. There wasn't a lot of information on where it all started, unfortunately, but it seemed widely embraced that it started around the 1960s when computers started to become more commonplace among scientists. I also incorporated the history of one of my case study programs, Blender, to show how open source had shaped its production.

For DGA 230 I finally finished my proof-of-concept shot. It took me a long time but I learned a lot about different source alphas in TV Paint, something I didn't have much experience with before now, and I managed to incorporate that into my shot with the white line art inside the green clouds. I feel accomplished at the consistency of the shot because it is something that I struggle with in a lot of my animation tests and I feel that it came out pretty well. I'm pleased with how my shot turned out. Before exporting I also improved my background for the proof of concept after some constructive criticism from Imogen over how I was crosshatching the environment.

24/11/17

For DGA 210 I finished off two of my shots this week, the first being the family glancing between each other, and the second being the simple end shot of the Shelterbox logo. The shots were fairly easy to do so it gave me more time to focus on continuing shot 3, the longest shot I was assigned. This one has been a challenge to complete since the decision was made to have Shelterbox run back out of the shot again at the end, so I need to re-animate the entire run cycle.

For DGA 220 I finalised my essay outline. I decided to focus on the advantages of open source software, as it is what I believe in, and I found many benefits that outweigh the risks. However, I did first and foremost explain the functions of various open source software, how they impact on the animation industry and what the purpose of them are. All I need to do now is the write up.

For DGA 230 I finished a piece of concept art for Alienation. My goal was to capture the intense and gloomy atmosphere and tone of the film, so I made use of shadows and framing to create the right mood. I was proud of how the piece came out, but I experimented with both textured brushes and flats. In the end the flats were more true to the chosen artist style.

17/11/17

For DGA 210 I listened through the new narration that had been recorded by a friend of Rebecca's. The 1940's style narrator works amazingly well for the humorous atmosphere we were trying to create for our advert so I feel that this is a success and we've decided to use this recording in our final edit. We've also settled on using the soundtrack for The Incredibles as our scratch track since we don't have time this late into the module to record an original score. On my own I've also been assigned two more shots and have been making the finishing touches to shot 3.

For DGA 220 I have spent this week researching my topic. I've also used this week recording with Katy for our presentation on open source software. We finished our scripts and set aside a time for recording, and it took a few hours but we've officially recorded all of the audio we need for our presentation. We decided that Katy is going to edit the audio together and I'm going to create the presentation and export it.

For DGA 230 I'm behind with concept work so I've spent this week designing a background for my proof of concept, finishing off the character turnarounds for the mom and dad, and also doing rough sketches for a concept piece. This week I also keyframed my proof of concept shot. I've decided that I'm going to animate the pivotal moment where the mother falls to her knees to rescue a picture from a photo frame, and the alien is going to leave her, representing the moment where the children (and also the audience) realise that she isn't possessed by an alien, but is actually just feeling lonely and struggling to adjust to her old life. I think the visual symbolism will look really good animated in our chosen artist's style, and also it is the most emotionally impacting moment of the film and I wanted to demonstrate how the minimalistic style will still be able to portray that sadness.

10/11/17

For DGA 210 this week I worked more on shot 3 and also checked up on everyone in our group to see how shots were progressing. As director me and Gabby have made it our responsibilities to regularly check in with the rest of the group so that we can give constructive criticism where it's required. This way we can also catch errors early on and correct them to avoid more problems further down the line. I feel that being given this role has helped me improve on my time management and leadership skills, and has given me more confidence to speak up to others when I feel there can be improvements made.

For DGA 220 I continued to do research and worked on finishing my scripted sections for the presentation. Me and Katy assigned each other different sections to cover and we shared our research in order to fill our sections with information. I think that it went pretty well and I'm almost done writing mine up, ready for recording next week.

For DGA 230 this week I drew up some character concepts for the mom character. These included some poses and character expressions, although it's limited due to the simple designs of character faces, in keeping in line with our chosen artist. Not as much focus was put into pre-production this week as I was prioritising other modules this week.

3/11/17

In DGA 210 this week things have been very busy since I have been in betweening a key shot for Heroes Wanted. In the end I was unable to complete the shot by the deadline because I made a mistake when reading the timing charts which I wasn't sure how to fix. I feel bad for letting the team down but the animatic was still approved and the film wasn't cut so I still have an opportunity to fix the shot later on.

For DGA 220 I did some more research and decided which animation programs I was going to primarily focus on for my essay. I also teamed up with Katy for the presentation, and we've decided to make our focus on open source and how it impacts not only the animation industry but the global programming community online too. I think this will be a really interesting topic to cover because the idea of sharing and growing together as a community intrigues me and I want to see how it will impact the future of the industry.

For DGA 230 this week I created a character turnaround for the dad in Alienation. I feel that he turned out better than the mom turnaround and that his body looks more dynamic.

27/10/17

20/10/17

13/10/17

For DGA 210 we had our first production feedback session. We were asked to look more into whether the cat was a necessary addition to the advert, which I agreed with, and afterwards our group held another meeting where we discussed how our idea was kind of flat. We created the idea of Shelterbox as a character being a new box, and having a narrator instructing him on what to do. It has somehow turned into a spy thriller.

For DGA 220 we had a lecture introducing us to the history of computers, which was also fascinating. We were also introduced to the idea of coding and how necessary it is for everyday life. I've learned some python coding in the past for coding basic visual novel games, but I do want to learn some more of the basics to make my experiences using computers easier.

For DGA 230 I received feedback on my artwork. Later on in the week we had a pre-production seminar and a guest seminar with James Henry, where we generated story ideas. I had more inspiration for the first idea I generated in a group. The story was about a sheep who became mutated into a sheep-man in a radioactive explosion, and how he still wanted to marry his sheep lover despite being ostracised by their herd.

Inktober 2017 - Week 1

This year I decided to take part in Inktober to improve my traditional drawing skills, as these days I mostly create art using my Wacom tablet. I decided to do something fun so that I would stick to drawing every day, and ended up re-designing an old original character for the Pokemon franchise and drawing her on her adventures. Since she is an old character of mine from my early teenage years it was fun bringing her back, and I want to use this as an exercise to practice drawing environments and creatures since I mostly draw humans.

1: Skye arrives in the Hoenn region!

2: Skye meets her starter pokemon, Venus!

3: Skye meets a new travelling partner from the Johto region, Menta!

4: Training for the first gym battle!

5: Skye meets her hero at Poke-Con!

6: Skye earns her first gym badge!

7: Skye and Menta become culinary masters! (Or, Menta becomes the 'Brock' of the group.)

6/10/17

This week we were introduced to our new modules.

For DGA 210 we had our client briefing. A volunteer from Shelterbox gave a presentation talking about the organisation, what it does, and what they were looking for in an advert. We then got into groups and started assigning roles. Gabby was made producer in our group and I stepped in for role of director. We created a group chat to keep people organised and arrange meeting times. When we met up our goal was to come up with an initial idea to give at the feedback meeting, and we struggled to find an idea that all of us liked. In the end our initial idea was a personified shelterbox talking to a stray cat while in a truck going towards a disaster zone, with the box telling the cat all about what the organisation does. I'm not sure how happy I am with the idea, although I like the idea of making Shelterbox into a character that kids can relate to.

For DGA 220 we were given a brief introduction to animation technologies and watched an example video about a piece of software developed for Dreamworks. It was fascinating and I was intrigued as to how other pieces of animation technology worked as a result of what I found out. I began thinking about the kind of technology I want to research, and while I know I want to look into some kind of 2D digital software, I'm not sure what just yet.

For DGA 230 I was assigned the artist Ben Nicholson to study in order to replicate his artwork. I found this challenging because his art focuses heavily on traditional painting and an abstract style, things that I struggle with. However, I do think it is something that I should try and gain more experience with and that it will benefit me as it will force me to adapt to art styles, a useful skill for animation.

29/09/17

This week we were set the task of The Rush Job.

We were given a fake client, Benjamin Cook, and the brief was to create a Christmas-themed advert. Since Benjamin Cook was an antiques and furniture company, we decided setting the advert in someone's home would be a good idea. We had a robin fall down a chimney and a young boy treat it and send it back out, to where Santa Claus is waiting on the roof. I liked our advert as it had a very sentimental feeling to it.

The animators in the group divided up shots between us. I was given a shot of the boy holding the bird, and then one of Santa Claus on the roof chuckling. I think my frames came out pretty well but I was a bit disappointed that most of the workload fell onto the animation students when it was supposed to be a collaboration between the whole of SOFT.

Here is our finished advert:

Digital Speed Paint - 3 Colour Challenge

I decided to promote my artwork by doing art challenges on YouTube, so I did the 3 colour challenge, where you use a random colour generator to select 3 colours that you can solely use to paint with. I ended up with two nice teal colours and a deep purple, so I mixed them to create more colours to work with and designed a cabbage patch fairy. I had a lot of fun and it was interesting working on a new project. Setting up my YouTube account and learning how to record and edit a painting video was a lot of fun and I feel like I've learned a lot from it. I hope to work on these more over summer.

Final Animation - Playground Project

I finally completed my playground animation after a lot of long stressful nights and an abundance of changes from my original animatic. It was a very interesting experience and I feel that I've learned a lot of new things through this process. I found it was a lot easier to visualise my end product by colouring a scene as soon as I completed it, rather than animating the whole thing first. Being able to see how it would look finished was motivating.

I tried to incorporate different movements, such as running, punching and swinging, things that I hadn't practiced animating before. I feel that I pulled it off well but with more time I could have given the movements more realism.

Experimental Project

I completed my experimental project and although it greatly differed from what I originally meant to do, I'm satisfied with the result. My original intention was to show a progression of my artwork, from my earliest drawings as a baby to my current art style, since it's my strong belief that you can tell a lot about an artist from the way that they create their art, and the styles they choose. However, due to time management and tests turning out badly, I was unable to create a film that satisfied me. Therefore, I went for something a little different and experimented with a video editing software I hadn't used before. It was fun incorporating myself into the film, and experimenting with typography, masking layers and flashing imagery, as well as different video effects and transitions.

2D Design For Animation - Parallax Shot

I finally completed my animation background and created a parallax shot. It took me a while to understand how to create the shot but I'm very happy with the result. Although I feel that with some more time I could have added some animation to the figure and also created the illusion of moving water or reflections, I'm still for the most part happy with how my work turned out, as I don't have much experience with drawing and painting environments and backgrounds. It was a lot of fun and has inspired me to practice drawing more background art over summer to improve.
I based the shot off of a photograph of Lake Luzern I took in Switzerland in 2016. I found it while looking through old files and thought the framing and angle of the shot was interesting, and also wanted to experiment with using a mainly blue-green colour palette, as normally I paint in warmer tones. A cooler environment was a lot of fun to paint, and I felt as though the cool temperature came across in the colours and lighting I used.

Playground Animatic

My animatic for my playground project took longer to put together than I expected, because it was my second attempt. It was my decision to change the structure of the scene entirely. The final product looks a lot different because I fixed up the timing and removed several shots.

Experimental Animation Concept Artwork

For the experimental film, the aim is to tell something about yourself. So I decided the best approach would be to show the development of my artwork through the years. If you think about it, unless you google a famous animator, all you can really guess about their personality is by looking at the way they animate, the way they draw and the way their characters interact. I would like to leave some things to the imagination after all!

For this task, I enlisted the help of my parents to dig up any old drawings they had hidden away from me in the past (since a few years ago I was hellbent on destroying any 'bad' artwork from my past that I could find). Then the key would be to draw them. I relied on workbooks from my nursery years, notebooks where I had drawn hideous comics, and finally some embarrassing digital fan art I have created in the past five or six years, in order to tell my story.

Playground Scene Concept Art

This week we were given the brief for our motion studies project, an 8-second sequence wherein we have to animate children playing on playground equipment. This entailed creating character designs, designing an easy art style to animate quickly with, and drawing up a sequence of thumbnails and a layout of the environment.

I wanted each character to be colourful and unique, so I worked hard to create individual colour palettes for each character. When I had drawn all of them, I did a line up of both the boys and the girls. This was fun as I don't normally draw children, and it was interesting creating different personalities for them that showed through their outfits, hairstyles and attitudes.

Next came the layout design. I practiced drawing playground equipment using reference I found online, before creating a simple playground scene. I didn't want the viewer to be distracted by the background since the movement of the characters is the focus of the piece, so I made the background very simple, surrounded by cloud-like bushes to allude to the playground being in some kind of clearing.

Finally, the thumbnails. Originally I had been confused by the brief and mistakenly believed that the animation would be a minute long, so I began developing a narrative. However, this had to be simplified in order to fit into an 8-second slot, so the original story (a shy boy coming to the park and the other children dragging him onto different equipment to try it out) was cut short. Instead, I focused on a bully character fighting this boy instead, and the other kids leaving their games to attempt to pull the two boys apart. While I was told this would be a complex piece of animation to produce, I am willing to try it and prove that I understand the way the body moves well enough to construct a convincing fight scene. It will also be a chance to try something new as it is something I haven't tried to do before.

3D Environment

I completed my 3D environment. I had trouble with modelling initially and it took me a while to understand UV mapping, but once I had practiced, I was successful in creating an environment. I ran into trouble with UV mapping when I used a texture that wasn't compatible with Renderman to texture with, but fortunately once I had already mapped I didn't need to redo anything, other than changing the texture to a Pixar surface texture. I didn't paint any of the textures myself but I did manipulate a lot of them in Adobe Photoshop in order for their hue, saturation, brightness and contrast to be compatible with the rest of the background. I feel that this turned out pretty well considering that 3D is a weak point of mine.

Joyride Concept Artwork - 1

Another side project set in the same universe as my witch university is Joyride, a one-shot comic I'm developing featuring Veronika, a joyriding witch who traverses the badlands on her trusty broomstick, and Romy, a shy solitary witch who just wants to get by safely in an otherwise unsafe town.

Veronika is your typical bad girl, who fell in with the 'bad' crowd in her adolescence and chose to embrace the bad reputation her poverty gave her, pretending she doesn't care to hide just how much she does. She's a flirty type who loves to tease squares. She also loves the open sky, and flying is her one true passion.

Romy is a quiet, polite girl. As a solitary witch, she learned magic from connecting with her past life rather than from studying, and for that reason she has no friends. She lives with an older sister in the badlands, and is an easy target due to how weak and defenceless she appears. However, she has powerful magic that sometimes bursts out uncontrollably. She is also terrified of flying, which is all the more reason for Veronika to take her for a spin.

Two girls riding the same broom isn't exactly an easy thing to draw, so it took me a few times to practice. Somewhere in the process, I created a more unique shape for the end of Veronika's broom.

Here is a possible front cover for Joyride. Veronika and Romy are in mid flight, with Romy staring down at the world below in a combination of fear and fascination, while Veronika is secretly pleased to be giving her new companion a good show. I didn't include patterns on their clothing as I am unsure whether or not the brushes I downloaded originally are free for commercial use, as I plan to upload this to Tapastic once I've completed it.

I like the flat, bubbly style so far, and don't feel it needs to have a great amount of shading as the look I'm going for is a simple, fun comic with a youthful feeling to it.

Interior Background

One of the extra tasks for the 2D environment was to paint an interior background, featuring a source of natural light and a source of artificial light. For this I painted a simple bedroom scene, with a window for my natural light source and a lamp for my artificial light source. I tried using a complimentary colour scheme, and used cool yellow and blue tones for the natural light and a warm golden tone for the artificial light to contrast the two.

Exploring Shape Theory

I looked at shape theory when designing my characters. The idea is that most characters can be broken down into simple shapes, and these shapes generally have meaning, or language, to them. Circular features represent friendliness, square and rectangular shapes represent stability and reliability, and angular and triangular shapes represent energy, or villainy. Using this breakdown, I analysed my characters.

It works out well, because both Natalya and Lor are supposed to be friendly but energetic characters, with Lor mainly comic relief while Natalya as a main character has some strength and reliability, hence the rectangular chest area. On the other hand, Leonie and Catrin are a lot more reliable, as mentor-like friends of Natalya who she seeks advice from and looks up to, so they have a lot more rectangular shapes to them. Catrin, having a bit more of a playful and approachable exterior, also has more round shapes prevalent in her design.

Character Designing

Here are a few pieces for one of my personal projects, a webcomic about a magical all-girls university for witches. I am still in the designing and pre-production stage, and have been drawing up character designs. Only the main character Natalya is currently finished, however my other characters have at least one outfit drawn up to represent them. Natalya's love interest, the bossy and aloof Elin, is still in the stages of designing as I am finding new ways to design her overall figure shape. I've been using shape theory to construct my characters.

I have looked into character designing using shape theory - for instance, round shapes indicate friendliness while triangular shapes represent an energetic nature. This is perfect for my fun-loving, athletic green girl, Lor. I've also worked hard to make all of their silhouettes identifiable to further give them diversity. My goal was to create a colourful, interesting cast and I feel that while they are interesting to look at, they don't necessarily represent witches as much as they do teenage/young adult girls. It is my goal next to tweak their designs to give them more of a witchy, magical look, since right now they don't fit in with the genre I'm going for, even if the key was to give it a modern, university twist.

'Inception's' Japanese Predecessor: A Review of Paprika

Paprika.

I went into this film knowing next to nothing about it. All I knew was that it was a Japanese 'anime' film animated by Madhouse, so already I was hyped to see what it was about— both from the point of view of an anime fan and now as an animation student. The film is such a surreal experience; immediately I got the vibe of a Hollywood blockbuster like Inception. Ironically, one of the film's protagonists, Kotokawa, is a film buff in denial and a lot of his dreams project typical tropes from various film genres such as action and suspense. Paprika has no shame in going over the top with its repetitive dramatic close ups, eerie imagery, or confusing, reality-bending visual effects. While it is a masterpiece of a film, at points I wondered if it should be considered as much of a film as it is a cinematic experience— something so abstract and confusing to the viewer that it hardly follows the plot of a film at all, yet it still manages to keep its form together admirably by presenting a typical beginning, dilemma, climax and end formula seen in any blockbuster.

The plot revolves around a team of scientists and psychologists wishing to use mind control devices in order to enter the dreams of patients and aid them in psychotherapy using reality-bending methods. Their good intentions are quickly sabotaged when three devices go missing, believed to have been stolen by the friend of the leading scientist, Tobita. At the same time, people are injuring themselves in dreamlike trances, the scientists are following rabbit trails, and a homicide detective, Kotokawa, experiences intense dreams where he watches a murder victim die in front of him, but, how does the mysterious Paprika fit into all of this?

While a lot of the plot doesn't make sense until one watches it several times over— and, arguably, the film doesn't need to be understood as much as it simply needs to be seen and interpreted in the way beyond the intentions of the creators— what really stands out to me is the heart of the film. Because the plot is so surreal and non-conforming to typical cinema, the film feels a lot more like a character-driven one, and this can only be a good thing because the characters are all so diverse it made my animation buff heart fill with joy! Every character, while maintaining the mature, sophisticated art style Madhouse does so well, is recognisably different in appearance and attitude, and they don't need rainbow eyes and hair to be picked out from the crowd. From the serious and down-to-earth Atsuko, the chubby and idealistic Tobita, the lonely washed-out Kotokawa to the bubbly and spirited Paprika herself, the designs are creative, fun and stylish, adding another layer to their interesting group dynamics. Their personalities also add a sense of realism to the film, with Kotokawa's regrets at not pursuing the film career his friend wanted to embark on with him, and Tobita wishing to remain blind to the fact that his inventions, created with pure intentions, are being used to corrupt the public. Their human reactions to these kind of situations creates another unpolished, yet genuine, facet to their characters, and it makes for excellent storytelling (especially since it explored the psyche of just about every central character in the film). We were able to look into the mindsets of mourners, narcissists and lonely introverts, and see how the dream world crumbled when it couldn't cope with these conflicting characteristics.

The artwork for this film was phenomenal; the backgrounds are beautifully painted, creating a rustic, ordinary setting to contrast against the bizarre imagery conjured in the dreams. It perfectly captures the quiet, ordinary characteristics of everyday life which creates a surreal sensation when a towering toy parade is cruising through the streets. From bleak city streets to abandoned amusement parks, the background artwork of Paprika is beautifully crafted and wonderfully compliments the mature tone of the film.

Paprika has received multiple awards over the years, and after watching it, it's easy to see why. The tones are dark, yet the character designs are playful, and the animation is fluid and dynamic. The voice acting is decent, and the artwork is beautifully atmospheric. While the ending leaves a lot of questions unanswered and the motives of the villains are questionable, the foundations of the film itself more than make up for this and makes the film Paprika well worth watching.

Rating: 5/5