Presentation// Sun Creature Studios

Today I gave a presentation on the Danish animation studio 'Sun Creature'. The studio developed from student films three animators produced in their university years back in 2008 and I came across the studios work by its sudden online popularity sponsored by their kickstarted campaign to fund more of their projects. Now Kenneth Ladenjare, Mikkel Mainz and Bo Julh lead sun creature as the three directors of the 'The Reward: Tales Of Alethrion'(The studios most popular and rewarding piece of animation). Since being introduced to the studio I've admired them greatly, not only because of their talents but their approach to animation; wanting nothing more than to continue creating (and to pay a few bills along the way). The studio only consists of 10 members, from concept artists to animators and musicians however they have posted on social media about interns working within their studio.

Sun creature seems to approach the production of their animations (partially the 'reward' series) with a heavy traditional arts influence, such as sketches, watercolour concepts and line tests. I'm leaning towards becoming some sort of character designer/concept artist/storyboard artist as a future and something I want to focus on so this studios seemingly constant output of sketches, character animation and development on their blogs really gives me faith about introducing myself into the industry as a professional. Although I'd love to work for Sun creature, I understand it's rather unrealistic - I would much rather work in a similar manner to how this studio seems to. I want to create, but not only to pay the bills but to have experiment with storytelling. My dream for the future isn't to fall into the seemingly typical role of an animator that animates only for adverts and such - but to be able to work on projects that challenge the creativity within the animation field as well as within it's industry.

Visual Response// SWOT Analysis Illustration

Personal SWOT Analysis

'SWOT' stands for Strengths - Weaknessess - Opportnities - Threats.
Swot is used as a business tool for Art schools as a development tool and for career planning. This tool is generally used to help reflect on personal abilities regarding your own career or specialism.

Examples:

Strengths; Personal skills, Interpersonal skills, Technical skills, Artist skills and Time management. Weakness; Technical short comings, Personal issues that affect your work, Communication, Inter-personal such as teams or networks, Self management, Research and Financial constraints. Opportunities; Competitions, Learnings, Experience, Work, Association, Network, Forums, Shows & Festivals, Competitors. Threats; Competitors, Software barriers, Knowledge barriers, Fashion and trends, Change, Unappreciated weakness.

Below is a written copy of the personal SWOT analysis I completed:

Personal - (Strengths) Friendly and opinionated  (Weaknesses) Easily distracted 

Interpersonal - (Strengths) Social media (Weaknesses) Not very confident in public

Technical - (Strengths) Photoshop (Weaknesses) Computer technology

Artistic - (Strengths)  Character design, story boarding  (Weaknesses) Lack of Experimentation  

I also received some feed back from my peers about my SWOT, 

Personal - Friendly and easily approachable. Procrastination and distracted easily. 

Interpersonal- Very good social network presence. Lack of confidence and intimidated easily.

Technical- Good at digital cartoons. Struggle to grasp technology.

Artistic- Very good at character design and quirky style. Style isn't very versatile.  

  

We've been given a brief to relief over the sheet we filled in about our various qualities in a visual format, I've decided to produce some sort of cartoon for this featuring myself.. Similar to this small illustration I found in my sketchbook (below). 

Who Am I NOW?

• Identify 5 things you have learned so far on the programme 
• Using digital editing software like After Effects to assemble frames into an animation.
• What 'fps' stands for (frames per second) and how it effects the smoothness of the animation.
• Storyboarding, regarding how to effectively use the composition of a camera shot to portray a certain theme/emotion.
• The animation process, from rough draft to concept to production and finally completion. I've learnt how to manage my time within a project and which segments need more attention then others. 
• Life drawing and how important it is to maintain a precise within drawing constantly as a animator. I've noticed an improvement in my work since the beginning of first year, which I'm very pleased with because of maintaining a daily sketchbook.

•  Identify 5 skills that you think are your strengths
• Use of colour, I'm very interested in colour theory and feel like I understand the basics
• Ink/pen illustrations
• Idea generation 
• Anatomical drawings
• Character design

• Identify 5 things that you want to improve
• Presentation skills/Public speaking
• Maya 3D animation
• My understanding of anatomical movement
• Script writing skills
• I want to begin to use a wider range of materials more confidently in my work

• Identify 5 practitioners that demonstrate your interest in animation
• Rebecca Sugar, Creator, Writer and storyboard artist on Steven universe
• Natasha Allegri, Creator and Storyboard artist on Bee and Puppycat
• Chris sanders, Storyboard artist and pinup artist
• Joe Ranft, Character designer and storyboard artist
• Sun creature studios, France

• Identify 5 Websites/online resources that demonstrate your areas of interest within the creative industries
• Tumblr
• Cartoonbrew
• Instergram
• Twitter
• Loopdeloop

BAF/// 365 days

I remember seeing his animation at the bradford animation festival and finding it really cool. I really loved the concept of animating one second every day for a year and how each second is completely different to it's siblings. I also loved how emotion managed to carry though from the animator into his work.

This animation was from the studio of The Brothers McLeod, 'GREG' animated it by himself. He even managed to feature David tenant saying 'plebiscite' and recording his own sounds. He also moves between styles, like rotascoping and his more cartoony funky visual aesthetic. I find the colours he uses very appealing and despite having a huge variations in shades each animation manages to fit into the next perfectly. Sound also plays a big part in this animation, the sound design is very simplistic but makes good use of it being so. 

Presentation // What I did this year

I wrote notes for once to help with the 'presentation panic '

I'm normally incredibly nervous about giving presentations, but today I wasn't so much. I think (to be honest) it was  more to do with the fact that everyone I was standing in front of and speaking to I knew very well; I consider all of them friends of mine after all. I spoke about how I used to study fine art and why it used to frustrate me - because my 'children' couldn't move by themselves, they couldn't live off of paper but doing animate I could do this. I also spoke about how frustrated I was with Macs at the start of the year but how I've embraced how they can help me and my work. Over all I think I gave a very good confident presentation. 

To improve for next time I should remember my glasses and to breath. 

Reflection Over The Project

For this project I was asked to produce a 10 - 30 second animation that reflected my understanding/improvement as an animator over the past year studying on the course. This animation is going to be the only piece of my work documented at the end of year show, so ideally I wanted this animation to represent who I was as not only an animator but a student at Leeds College Of Art.


I felt from the very start, that I wanted this animation to not be 'too serious' - regarding how serious and disturbing my last project was for COP, where my short animation focused on the sexualisation of school girls. I want this animation to be fun, because I feel as a student that in the future I want to develop comedy within my animations rather then a darker theme; but that's not to say I'd ever abandon anything 'too serious' in future projects. After being inspired by harry partridge work on youtube (a short animation about how he became an animator and possibilities of animation) I began drafting up a few rough ideas, one was 'the day in the life of an animator' but I scrapped that one and decided in the end to go for 'the animation process'.

 The rough idea was that I was going to create an animation that documents the routine I've been doing for each project to finish an animation, using a 'cartoon' version of myself to help show this. Starting with the storyboards and animatic I outlined the sequences I wanted to show, such as concept and coloring; all together I had around 10 of them but slimmed it down to 7 because of a time limit of 30seconds. I also wanted to record a short song to go along side the animation, much like Harry Partidge had featured in his animation - a short song about animation or something like that. But again, because of time limit I scrapped the idea in the last week of production, because I hadn't even started thinking about lyrics. Instead I replaced the audio idea with an upbeat silly song featured in GTA 5 that I've been playing a lot recently.

I began work on the project, originally by hand but once being told we were running low on paper - I abandoned hand drawn and instead began animating 'by hand' on Photoshop. I didn't have much experience animating on Photoshop, I had experimented with it a few times but rarely with the 'timeline' feature. After a few false starts I began work using this feature and onion skinning (an option that replicates hand drawn animation by allowing each frame to be slightly transparent, there for making it easier to animation from frame to frame) I used different layers set to the timeline to add color and 'blush'. I also began to manipulate the functions in After Effects to save time, such as the key frames I could assassin images and their position/scale in the animation - achieving very simple and time saving movements where at first I would spend hours maintaining form I could now move simply in a few seconds. Saving me A LOT of time over all...

Stitching the segments together in After Effects was easy, considering I'd been using the software since the beginning of the year I've really gotten used to its functions and the routine of editing and rendering an animation using it. After adding music - I uploaded it online.

Looking back over the project, I'm really proud of what I managed to accomplish and animate. I was very disapointed when I was told we'd ran out of paper and I would of loved animating all of this by hand, but I suppose that just how things go when youv'e got limited resources. Despite the animation itself not being very mature, I sort of like that. At the end of the day I understand I am training to be a professional, I understand I need to take things seriously in order to pay the bills - But as a student here, I've had so much fun. I don't think I've ever had as much fun working as I have on this course and over this past year and I felt like I wanted - NEEDED - to have that fun and laughter within my work.  I'm very proud of my animation, (despite depicting myself as a muscular man at the very end of the animation).

Reflection over your work

Reflecting over your own work is very important to a 'creative' and can be argued is the most effective way of improving your work. I've never really reflected on my work before coming to university because I've always painted/drawn how I felt when responding to a project. Not necessarily how to improve my own work....

We had a lecture on how to do this and the positive effect it can have on our work.  I printed this image off and pinned it above my desk at my flat to remind myself to always reflect on my work. It can also be used to evaluate other peoples work.

T-WEI drawing into figures

Drawing characters is always fun, but I've always wanted to recreate my characters as 3D sculptures.

T-WEI is an artist who draws very cubic illustrations of animals. Above is one of their simplistic but very very wrinkly illustrations - which was later used to develop a line of figures/sculptures to sell of the original illustration. Casting them by hand themselves in ceramic in a limited number. I love how the artist adapted their original drawing into a finished product to sell, but still managing to create them by hand by themselves in a studio.     

I'd love to do something like this in the future, perhaps I'll even do so over Summer...

WEARETADO//Stop motion figures

Model Making

Stopmotion in their basement

'WEARETADO' are a small group or possibly trio that work on stopmotion films within their own basement.  From character design, to modeling, story boarding and of course stop motion the team do everything as commission work. Their latest project was a commission for the company 'hello kitty' for a musician short film. The whole set is so adorable and is perfect for what the company stands for.   The models themselves are so adorable, hand modeled in wood and hand painted by artists.

I'd really move to carve models in the future, rather then making then making them out of foam. Despite foam being so 'realistic' to animate with stop motion purely because of the amount of positions you can place form I really love the look of 'figure' models made of wood... I'd love to do something like this in the future.

Disseminate

For my presentation I choice to talk about one of my favorite shows 'Bee and Puppycat'. I began watching the show as I heard a storyboard artist that worked on Adventure time had begun working on her own show online. I fell inlove with the show from the pilot I watched on 'Cartoon hangovers' you tube channel.

I will have to make notes about the work behind bringing the show to life, including how the show got funding from its own fans and the development Natasha had on her project. Also I want to help myself be less stressed by adding a few images to help me think when I'm talking more clearly and a youtube video to really give my audience a taste of the show.

Animated Self// Final Animation

Above is a video of my animation for personal professional practice. Hooray!!!

I'm happy with how it turned out, only having to adapt the original animatic slightly because of timing issues. I misjudged the time needed for each 'segment' of the animation; I feel the 'slight' changes I made between the original animatic and the final version really improved the over all flow of the animation. I'm also proud that I managed to complete the animation for it's deadline, considering I was animating in a way I had never done before on Photoshop and After Effects.

Rather then animating on separate 'frames' made digitally I animated in a timeline format on photoshop, using a separate layer for color, for blush and 'outline'. I also manipulated the things I could do on After Effect - such as using keyframes to move a static image of an arm rather then trying to animate in perfect form for at least 24 frames with the things that 'really needed' movement too.

As for the music, I was originally going to record my classmates singing a song about animation but ran out of time. So about to send it to my dad to show him, I added on music I found on my USB... and found it fitted perfectly.  So decided to keep it.

Thomas was alone. - Videogame reveiw

Thomas was alone is an indie game released on PC steam originally, then was developed onto other systems such a the PS3.

 Thomas was alone is about an AI, represented within the form of simplistic colored shapes that carry very in depth character development and personality traits. It's a completely adorable game, every 'shape' is given it's own name, it's own personality and yet it's represented in such a simplistic way. It's a basic   platform game with levels, however character interact by helping each other reach the end of the platform. Some characters have special abilities, much like their personalities.

For example a certain character feels like a 'super hero' because she can float in water, in which no other character can.  The game itself is very symbolic in aesthetics, the way it deals with depression anxiety and mental health. This game is beautiful in the way it tells the story in it's most simplistic form - simple shapes and colors.

Outlast

Outlast is a 2013 horror game, involving the function for the player to play the game from view point of a camcorder. The games story and environment is extremely dark, forcing the player to use the camcorder function constantly for it's 'night vision' mode. The game limits the batteries within the game in which the player needs to activate night vision mode. This function makes the game incredibly creepy and scary, even without the characters within the game being present in gameplay.

I've been playing the game with my friend James, taking it in turns to combat the fear. Playing the game you also come across documents and information that helps the player understand details about the game that aren't obviously defined visually - such as character back stories - So playing the game in a pair really helped us understand every detail of the game. We also played the DLC (downloadable content) additional game play which is from the view point of another playable character experiencing the same time period as the first playable character. The additional story I found far more enjoyable then the original game, because I was already aware of the plot but I had yet to understand WHY the events that occurred within the game happened in the first place.

The original game has the player interact with an 'abandoned' asylum as a directive - who receives a report of horrible things accruing within the asylum. However, the 'second' game  involves the person who sends the original report.

I really enjoyed playing this game, not only for the creepy factor but because I love the characters involved. Despite them being violent aggressive murderers (mostly) each character has a detailed backstory and 'reason' behind them being inside the asylum. Ellie Gluekin is the 'main' character and my 'personal favorite' within the game, a character that is abused by the asylum to an even more 'evil' character. His backstory involves sexual abuse as a child, which leads to his quarantine within the asylum after the rape and violent murder of several women. Despite his already violent nature he's turned far more sinister by exsperiments within the asylum to the point he chases the player obsessed with turning him into a woman and marrying 'her'.

I really really LOVE this game and will continue to play it over and over again until the end.

Rebecca Murphy

Rebecca Murphy is an artist I've recently found on tumblr. Her visual aesthetic is very defined, with the female form and the emotion she portrays. Her work is often very 'cartoony' yet she adds so much detail to her work. I love her work involving muscle structure and bone structure. Especially the two images above... The colors she uses are very limited, yet the range she manages to active is verging on beautiful.  

Free!

Free! is a Japanese animated series about swimming, yes that's right - an animated show where all the characters do is swim. Well, it's not JUST swimming. Despite the fact the plot revolves around swimming contests the side stories, back stories and even character developments/relations are really entertaining - even if it seems to always be resolved or caused by swimming.

The animation is beautiful, the characters seem so natural in their environments be it in or out of a swimming pool and the whole 'world' created within the animation comes across as a very real setting - rather then a clearly fictional one.

Rotascoping was used in development of the series, as it's clear to tell with certain segments of animation where muscles tense or characters swim. But the rest of the animation is done so fluidly it blurs very well with the rotascoped animation.

Contest Entry - Collaboration with Oscar

A few months back me and another class mate (Oscar) entered a contest to design packaging for a company. The theme the company wanted for their packaging was space, mathematical, patterns, geological and symbols; so there was  a possibility to create some really funky stuff. We've talked about a possible collaboration together ever since properly meeting each other, so this contest was just the right excuse to blend our work together.

Here are the three images we entered in a GIF format...

My part of the collaboration were the ladies, I also helped with the coloring. The line work itself is all drawn by hand, then edited and merged together in photoshop. We also colored it on photoshop, half with just using the paintbrush tool and half with the select and expand tool (if you expand the selected area, you don't get that horrible pixel line around the edge it's hidden beneath the edge of the lines you've selected)   Even thought we didn't win, I really enjoyed working with someone else on a piece of work - I hope there are a lot more chances to do so in the future.

Animated Self// Animation 'look' and inspiration

For this animation I drew 'naturally' as in I drew like I would in my own sketchbook - when drawing a pointless doodle - despite this being an important end of year show animation, I really wanted to animate like that. The way I draw has changed lightly over the last year, partly because of the shows I've been watching and the styles that have inspired me.

Steven Universe has sort of 'adapted' the way I draw cartoons. Danny Hynes and Colin Howard are both character designers on the show, who developed the 'look' of the show with Rebecca Suger herself (the creator).  Their visual athletic together is very similar, perhaps because they both work very closely within the studio on other projects and on Steven Universe. I tried to replicate the 'shadow' effect they give in the style reference for Steven Universe. Where 'shadow' on a character carry's a thicker outline to the animation itself. I tried to replicate this method to my own animation for this project, instead of using a circle brush I edited the brush to be thicker when drawing a certain edge.

Colin Howard

Danny Hynes

Jaltoid (an 'animating couple') and Harry partridge are both youtube channels online. Both channels I found piratically inspiration for the core of this projects animation. Jaltoid animate together shorts about their day to day lives and funny jokey videos, already earning themselves over 500000 subscribers on youtube. Both of them have a 'combined style' in which they draw their characters and themselves. Harry partridge is an animator who works on his own projects in his spare time - he uploaded one that really inspired me to create the animation I did...

Animated on flash, above is a short animation revolving about the possibilities of animation and how Harry himself ended up becoming an animator in the first place. The video itself is very funny and always earns a few chuckles from me. Originally I wanted to record a song similar to this to go along side my animation, but ran out of time...

Animated Self// Slimming down animation length

After reaching 23 seconds I realized I wouldn't be able to keep it under 30 seconds - not if I wanted to include a title slide and not if I wanted to cover EVERY stage of creating an animation.

So after having a brief conversation with my tutor, I managed to slice off at least 5 seconds which doesn't seem long but it is when you add it onto what I'm aiming for 34 seconds - it would have been near 40 seconds. What I did was, cut 1 second off every segment and then squish 3 segments into one. The 3 segments were coloring, editing and rendering - so I squished it into one segment - Computer work.

I'm aiming to now animate a short ending 'bit' that has my name within it as credit.

Animated Self// Animation Process

For the past two weeks, I've been focusing all of my attention on animating the 30 seconds.

I've never really 'animated on Photoshop' before, but after a friend of mine taught me how to I've animated the whole 30 seconds using the timetable, onion skinning and layer function in After Effects.

I found it a little too complected at first, having to have different layers for blush, color, out line and such. But after the first day of animating I got the hang of naming all my layers, organizing them more efficiently and could animate a lot LOT faster after that; all it took really was just time to get used to the routine of animating like this.

I was animating at 24 frames per second. Which is something I've never done before, doing so I misjudged how much time I'd have to work on the project. So I began to use layers to my advantage a lot more. For instance, I wouldn't 'animate' an arm frame per frame but rather rotate and position an arm with key frames on After Effects. This saved me a lot of time on most of the sequences I animated (all together I think there were 8 sequences/shots).

Frame from final animation

Originally I was going to shade and highlight every frame with different layers, but I decided to only add some color to really bring the animation to life - so I gave the 'animated me' blush.

Frame from final animation

I'll be honest, I wanted this animation to be silly. I wanted it to be fun and playfully - because I feel that's the sort of person I am as an animator, sure I've animated very serious topics in COP but I wanted to do something playful for this - for something that represents who I am as an animator.

Why am I becoming obsessed with Steven Universe? You should be too!

Rebecca Sugar worked as a song writer, storyboard artist and some time to time script writer on the animated show Adventure time. After leaving her position within the studio working on Adventure time she remained within Cartoon Network - However began working on her own show, Steven Universe.  Steven Universe is an up and coming new show on it's second series, which focuses on day to day problems and situations of a young boy that just so happens to only be half human.

I know I know a 'monster' boy trying to live an average life but struggling because he's a monster is a HUGE and common occurring theme to so many show - to the point in fact it's a huge cliche. But this show really does the basic story line right.   Steven's mothe
r (a sort of goddess alien warrior that protected planet earth) died in childbirth, despite his father still being in his life Steven is raised also by his mothers friends ho sort of over see his development with the 'alien' part of him. The story progresses along side Steven, we as the audience receive information about characters and the storyline as Steven does; Which helps the audience relate and identify with the character. I really love how the show, despite being very sifi is very human. The show focuses on relationships rather then the fact Steven isn't human.

The style of the show is based loosely off of the pilot episode of the show which Rebecca designed herself - however after speaking with a color designer and a few art directors she refined the shows look into a more playful and softer looking show.The backgrounds especially are so lovely, I'm a huge fan of pastel shades as it is but I've fallen in love with the whole atmosphere of the show.

I've really become obsessed with this show - to the point the highlight of my week is watching a new episode or reading an interview with Rebecca. I can't wait for the series to continue further~

Watching this show has also inspired me to start experimenting with a new way of drawing, a new way of adding color and even

I had a presentation on how to do a presentation.

Anything reassembling a presentations I find incredibly stressful, purely because I struggle converting what I want to say into what I am saying and having so much attention directed at me is terrifying to me even when ordering at Subway.              Today our teacher gave a presentation on what not to do in a presentation...

1. Don't risk tiny text - bigger is always better. But NOT alot of text. If you have a lot of text print it and hand it out to your audience.
2. Assume your audience knows nothing about the subject you're speaking about (or very little).
3. Know your subject but keep it simple and understandable. 
4. Avoid clipart.
5. Avoid bullet points.
6. If you made a mistake, correct yourself and move on. Don't ruin the whole presentation.
7. Don't ramble, slow yourself down and take a breath now and then.

I used to be terrified of giving presentations , but recently I gave one at my old college -I felt so confident, because what I was talking about (animation) no one else really knew about. Perhaps I'm getting more confident talking in general, or perhaps it was getting there early and preparing myself that helped me give the presentation. 

Waking Sleeping Beauty

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a film documenting Disney studios during it's fall and dramatic burst into a profitable business after Walt's death; from the animators points of view. (1984 to 1994) released in 2009.

This documentary was so lovely to watch, seeing how human the animators are and were - seeing how friendly they are and what a strong bond they have after spending 20 hour days together 7 days a week - Considering we were all just getting to know each other, seeing professionals being as silly as us in their own studios was very inspirational. Before I saw the documentary I felt sort of, lost in the world as an animator, I didn't know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. But After seeing the film I was really passionate (and still am) about working my way into a studio in the future.

Don Hahn narrates the documentary, known for this production work on the Lion King, beauty and the beast and most recently maleficent - both early works documented within the documentary. It was wonderful seeing all the well known artists slightly younger but still the same characters, just with a little bit more hair. John lasseter also makes a short appearance, where it's casually mentioned he was attempting to develop a 3D studio within Disney within the documentary timeline.

I found this documentary very VERY enjoyable, especially the part the studio mentioned they nick named the lion king 'African Bambi'.

Copyright

Copy right is protecting the owners right when owning a piece of work - including their right over others copying their material or property. ''Copyright gives the owner, creator or author, publisher the right to control the way that their material can be used.''

Material that can be copyrighted includes film, games, animation, music, computer apps and drawings. ANYTHING can be copyrighted, from phrases to works of literature ANYTHING can be protected with copy right. Online copyright within the UK content is protected within copyright still, however the 'rules' to copy right seem to be rather blurred when it comes to US law - within the UK copyright is automatic. However copyright is only 'active' from 70 years past the death of the owner of the copy right.

As an animation student I can use media such as music or film as references or material within my work as I can claim it as 'a non profitable education piece'.

Apparently I'm talking/'teaching' animation and student life for a day or something at my old schools...

Ever since I moved to university my old teacher from Harrogate College has wanted me to revisit my old classroom and sort of 'show off' the work I've been doing; Apparently this is going to happen, in the next 2 week in fact. She said it would be nice to show the current students studying fine art what it's like going to study at university and what sort of areas you can go into, considering a year ago I was fine art and now I'm an animation student. I don't think many students want to go into university and think they can make it as a creative purely by getting a job and having talent when in fact I strongly believe university life is beneficial to a carer in the creative arts - purely because having your work noticed and show cased is far more effective then waiting for someone to offer you a job maybe out of the blue. That sort of show casing and notification is basically what university is, at least for animation students... (in my opinion)

THINGS I AM NOT ALLOWED TO FORGOT TO BRING  

• Sketchbook and concept work (Because concept work including script writing and sketchbooks is important yo)
• Test animations and experimental work
• Final animations 
• Bloopers (including sound recordings bloopers)

I know most of the students at Harrogate college, at least the second years... So i shouldn't be too nervous on the day. 

The other day I was in town with an old friend of mine, who happens to be the son of my old art teacher from highschool. She's also friends with my mother, who works at the same school so I was aware she was eager to get me in to 'teach' the students about the sort of stuff I do and create. I was offered a free lift home so I took it, and ended up agreeing to come into my old highschool to spend a day with the current year 9 students on animation. She also wanted me to talk about why it's important to keep a sketchbook with you all the time because I'm always drawing... 

I'm looking forward to doing both talks/teachings but I'm super nervous about it all! 

Comic Project// Lovely Faces - Character Development

First concept

Starting around December time I've been drafting up character ideas for a comic I've wanted to develop for awhile now... 

Not going into too much detail, this character is a young girl who lives on the streets in a futuristic setting. 

She doesn't have a name but a few of my friends and I have nicknamed her 'Roller Skates Girl'.

Originally I sketched her out at a child about 14-15 years old, but I hadn't really settled on the age of this character so I began drawing her in different ages, all roughly fitting to a 'young woman'. 

A friend of mine who I'd sort of loosely explained what I wanted the story of the comic to be, said he thought 'Roller Skates Girl' would be a more interesting character if she was younger, which was something I wasn't sure about doing... But settled quite quickly on the idea of her being just a kid.

 SO I started drawing up concept pieces on this character interacting with another main character, He's in his early 20s but I'm still tossing the idea around in my head for this 'Roller Skates Girl' to develop and grow along side this other main character; Developing from a child into a young woman as the story unfolds... Even thought I'll admit I DON'T HAVE A STORY YET.

But I really want to base this comic on the life of 'the homeless'. A few of my friends in real life have lived homeless for a couple of nights or even a few weeks, seeing them like that and seeing people living homeless in Leeds I'd like to focus on that side of society that is often over looked by most...       I also thought it would be interesting to set the story in a sort of si-fi futuristic city, like in Astro boy or even films like Guardians Of The Galaxy, but, less alien-y.

I'm not really putting this project ahead of uni work, but really just keeping the idea 'fresh' in my head from working on it from time to time.

BAF/// Balloon

Baloon is an animated music video Directed by Oshima Tomoko. This animation was part of the 'Girls On The Run' Screening at Bradford Animation Festival. It really stood out for me, unlike the other animations featured where symbolism is important to the whole storytelling element this music video rather documents the life of a young woman and her time. We're introduced to a girl who is implied to be very sociable, she meets a boy who we assume she begins dating and she begins to have fun, however as time goes on she begins to take pills, look more and more sickly and even begins to appear with self harm marks and bruises across her legs.  In the end she turns her back on socializing as shown by her burning her password card for social media and runs away. She turns her back on her boyfriend, which is implied by her attempting to ring her and her not answering the phone and in fact dropping it completely. I feel like this animation is representing the distancing between a young girl and her social life with others, wanting to run away and to escape in a sense from everyone. Of course this is a music video but I don't know the lyrics and can only assume they are similar to my understanding of the animation itself. 

The animation style is rather naive and simplistic, clear it is the artists own 'unique' style or maybe rather a style that has been adopted to give across a sense of naivety to the animation. Perhaps this naive art style has been adopted to the music video to identity with the main character being so naive herself. 

BAF/// Agitated Screams Of Maggots

This animation was screened as part of the 'girls on the run' event at Bradfort Animation Festival...

THIS ANIMATION IS EXTREMELY INTENSE AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND TURNING YOUR VOLUME DOWN AND PREPARING BOTH YOUR BODY AND MIND BEFORE VIEWING. 

Alright then, well now the warnings out of the way this animation is directed by Keita Kurosaka and produced in 2016. This animation features extreme gore and sexual themes both directed towards and involving a young girl. The audio for the film is what sounds to me like Japanese heavy metal, from the very start the music is very intense and loud.. which only foreshadows what sort of route the animation is going to take. A strange sex obsessed little pest is discovered by a young girl, who cuts the pest in half... then the two half begin humping and the young girl steps on them both. Only for the two halfs to reform as one. Later on, when the young girl is having dinner with her mother the pest appears in the mothers bowl forces himself inside her mouth and then irrupts from between her mothers legs. The now man sized pest looms over the young girl and begins to assault her, she runs into a face that begins to forcefully kiss her, which is then revealed as protruding from the pests pelvis and is in fact his penis. He laughs and smiles as his penis wraps around the young girl and continues to forcefully kiss her as she is entangled.. but the young girl bits it off and the man begins to scream in pain. The man is then put into a machine that the young girl uses to rip him in half, revealing a womans face made of his flesh inside; the young girl watches and glares as the back of the womans face is the man's and she crushes them both.... 

The visual animation is incredibly intense and shocking, It's clear to say this is about sexual abuse against children but I'll be honest I do not understand most of this. But non the less, I found it a very interesting watch. The animation looks to be to be animated by hand.

Here is a centered version http://fantoche.ch/en/film/agitated-screams-maggots 

BAF/// YA-NE-SEN a Go Go

One of the animations screened in the 'girls on the run' event at Bradford Animation Festival... 

The animation is more of a music video then anything, where a woman dances in the streets of old Toyko. Directed/Animated/Danced by Shishi Yamazaki and produced in 2012 and animated with watercolours and coloured pencils I can only assume this is rotoscoped (where footage is referenced/traced over). 

You can watch the video here: http://fantoche.ch/en/film/ya-ne-sen-go-go

I enjoyed this animation alot, being a huge fan of 'hand drawn' animation I love how in some parts of the animation the texture of pencil is so visible and how the paint is blotchy in some areas. The animation is rather simplistic and hardly features any bold outlines rather blocks of colour to identify objects. Shishi Yamazaki is documenting herself in this animation both with the animation itself and the playful attitude she is shown in when eating and dancing around the streets of old Tokyo.

The show case was screening 'animation by women' or pieces to show how women are represented within animation... Perhaps Yamazaki is showing her carefree nature towards what she eats and how she acts in public, rather then being concerned about her weight and how others perceive her. 

Bradford Animation Festival

Animation Students

I attended the Bradford animation festival (BAF) from the 17th to the 20th of November. Heading off on the train from Leeds to Bradford with my fellow animation students, to the media museum; was quite existed to go not only because of the animation festival  but because I used to visit the museum religiously when I was younger.

His lordship PeterLord

I really enjoyed my time at the festival!  Mark Shapiro the head of the marketing team behind Laika introduced a screen of their new movie 'The Boxtrolls' and hosted a panel of behind the scenes of the movies development and production. I also attended a panel hosted by Peter Lord, one of the men who opened Aardman animation studios and the creator of morph. He made it clear he disliked the new lego movie or CGI in general. He also made it clear to us as animation students that we should focus on one part of animation father then the full development of an animated feature. I also attended other talks like a gaming one about a video game 'watchdogs' and a historical one on women within animation. I also sat down to a talk about 'strange hill high' which was a show on CBBC that uses puppets and CGI, I really liked the concept behind the art direction of the show but the man giving the talk was far too excited when it came to talking about puppets... 

We walked around Bradford a few times, the first time we had a drink in a pub and a strange very drunk man came over talking about visiting the Queen and dancing with her... the second time we played it safe and went to Nandos for chicken. Bradford was fun. 

Hyde Park Picture House - The Tale Of Princess Kaguya

Hyde Park Picture house was opened in 1914, a cinema best known for screening 'art films' and world cinema films. I've visited before as part of leeds film week where they screened a few 'anime' movies like redline. But this time I visited with a small group of my friends to see 'The Tale Of Princess Kaguya' and that involved walking in the middle of Hyde Park at night which, lets be honest isn't the 'safest' place to go walking in Leeds. However with 10mintues to go we finally found the picture house. Settling down in a long line of animation students and one fine artist and film rolled... and within an hour the whole lot of us were reduced to tears. As the screen faded, the whole picture house was in silence... before one of my friends whimpered out a heart broken '' noooooooooo! ''

The tale of princess kaguya by studio ghibli, directed by Isao Takahata is a wonderful folk tale piece of artwork. Drawn entirely by hand and running a year late on production it was well worth the wait. Based on the Japanese folk tale 'the tales of the bamboo cutter' the studio didn't hesitate to rip out our hearts after first allowing us to fall in love with this innocent girl character of Kaguya. The story follows a middle age couple who stumble across a 'princess' they believe is a spirit out in the bamboo woods, the small family begin life naïve to the fact she is a spirit. By the end of the movie her adopted mother and father are clinging to her, apologising and pleading for her to stay.. only for her to go and forgot all memories of her time with them forever. And then the film ends.

A truly heart breaking movie that I adore, I love the fact it's all drawn by hand not only that but the 'storybook' feel the animation gives to the folk tale story. It only made the whole experience better that we saw the film in a wonderful building like the picture house... even if it meant walking all the way home in the freezing cold with the flu. WELL worth it!

Thought Bubble2014

I really should of blogged about this ages ago...



Queuing with the lads 

I've attended Leeds comic convention 'Thought Bubble' every year since I started getting interested in comic books. So last year, it was much easier to get to the convention considering I could walk there in 20mintues... If I didn't first have to pick up my friends around the city and lead them there. And then we queued... and queued... and then we got our wrist bands! ...And QUEUED AGAIN.

Wasn't too bad. Stood in a line for a good 2 hours with two cool southerner and my sleepy boyfriend. So I had a lot of fun messing around and stood in the cold.

The convention had changed a lot compared to the past few years, so much more space and a whole other section for comic book artists and signings. I forced myself not to snap up a copy of every comic book I saw there, but I've learnt from previous conventions.. that I don't have unlimited space.. and I also need to pay rent. But that didn't stop my boyfriend buying nearly everything in sight...Which is great because, ya'know, 'what's mine is yours' and all that... right?

I also attended a panel, I've never lined up to see someone famous talk at a small crowd before.. but this was so worth it. One of my idols, the lady herself  Natasha allegri!!! Along with her production team that works on Bee and Puppycat. I really enjoyed the panel, not only because we saw a previous of the animation of the latest episode but their such lovely people! Not intimidating but just talented lovely people! Well... when it came to saying attempting to say hello to the goddess. I casually walked past her signing table, to sneak a peek at what she was drawing, she looked up and smiled; however I was too shy to smile or even wave back, so I grinned and hid behind my scarf and fled. Smooth. I regretted being so shy around my idol...

But thankfully my boyfriend had dumped into one of artists on the bee and puppycat panel, the art director. And managed to get a little doodle from her addressed to the both of us!

best thing ever.

 

 

I can't wait to attend thought bubble again THIS year! :D

What's wrong with 'HOME'?

I rarely go to see movies in the cinema, but recently I've been making an effort to 'support' movies...

I saw 'HOME' on mothers day, at the time it was newly released and I hadn't heard much about the movie besides the trailer... which, I'll be honest looked very silly and a little irritating plot wise. So I sat down in the cinema expecting a slap-stick sort of film.

HOWEVER, instantly we're introduced to this alien character which sole relatable aspect is that he finds it hard to make friends... he and the other aliens I feel are designed in such an obvious cartoony manner to 'make up' for the lack of reliability between the character and the audience and the characters to each other. Their visual character design also plays as comical relief but I have to admit I do like how the aliens colours change when their emotions do, for example when the aliens lie they turn yellow. Considering these alien characters are childish in parts being able to visual see their emotions with not only their expression but their whole appearance makes up heavily for the lack of 'emotion' in the aliens speech.

The second main character is a young daughter, who is looking for her missing mother named Tip. This character has been idolised by critics instantly because she is a black young female leading character and hits the nail right on the head for 'feminist representation'. However this characters only 'additional' reasoning for action besides finding her mother is a cat named pig, who is also comic relief in times of 'boredom'. Tip is far more relatable to the alien she befriends on her journey to find her mother, because she's a child. But that's just it, she's a child... paired with another childish character despite the fact Tip is very independent only makes for badly paced storytelling. 

Half way into the movie I felt like the movie began to improve, as the aliens enemies appear it gives a sense of danger and urgency not only this but both leading characters are forced to develop. It took an hour to badly introduce the universe, childish characters and their goals but within the last 30minutes was honestly like watching a different movie. But over all I was disappointed, purely because characters were still being introduced at the end of the movie and plot points randomly thrown in a few minutes before they were relevant. And that is why I found it hard to really enjoy with this movie... sorry, DreamWorks.

Thunderbirds ReBoot 2015

I'm currently sat at home, watching this reboot of the old series. I'm not sure if this is a stand alone movie just to reboot the franchise to encorage toy sales to children or is the start of a new series for the thunderbirds.

The orginal series was animated by something called 'Supermarionation' which is not to be confused with the supermario game series by Nintendo (the artical informed me). This animation technique involved marionettes that were surspented and puppertied by animations using wire frames. The facial movements, such as mouth movement were controlled with magnetic that reacted to electric inpulses. Scale miniture figures were also used to shoot dramatic action scenes involving vercules. This 2015 short film is animated  with CGI-Animation (and part live action). I'm sat here next to my grandad who seems to be involved in the story, however he commented saying he was put off by the 'dead eyes' of the characters which I can only assume have been designed in this sort of 'doll' way to resemble their orginial puppet designs.

...So it's finished now and even if I was barely able to consintrate on it because my mother wanted to show me a video of a transgender woman beating up two men who were threating her because of 'cross dressing' I managed to make up my minds on this new reboot style. I was over all impressed with it, despite the fact most will instantly hate the reboot because puppets aren't involved, the storyline was quite good and entertaining; nothing like what I predicted would be a show dumbed down for young children only to sell toys.  I remember Thunderbirds being on when I was very young, back then I remember being afraid of the puppets because of how creepy they were but them being puppets entertained me better then any storyline. I was impressed by the enviroment around the story, the animated underwater scenes and outerspace pertically. But over all, this isn't something I'd rush out to buy a DVD of ,but in no way do I feel this is a heartless reboot that is only recking the orginial thunderbirds. It's clear the studio working on this project but alot of care into this project, but I think most can't let go of the orginial 'face' of thunderbirds which was 'Supermarionation'.

Also apparently this isn't just one movie, but one of three episodes that make up the first season of the new reboot series '' Thunderbirds are GO!''

Animated self// Storyboard/animatic

Stages of 'animating' 

1. Concept/WRITING
2. Storyboarding
3. Animatic
4. pencil animation
5. scanning
6. colouring/COMPUTER
7. after effects
8. rendering
9. finished

Here is the basic very quick very simple first draft of what i want the animation to look like and play out… Both storyboards and an animatic that runs for 30seconds.

animatic

Animated Self// Rough Idea

Today my class was briefed on our last project...
to create a 15 - 30 second second animation the is 1920x1080, Full HD in H264 .mov format. This animation should reflect ourselves - either our own work and it's improvement over the last year or our own approach to being a creative. 

• I'd quite like to animate something that reflects the exhaustion I feel when working on a project but at the same time the overwhelming pride i feel when i complete something.  
• I'd undecided on using traditional hand drawn animation or computer hand drawn, I do love the effect colouring by hand gives but then again with my last animation I loved how crisp and HD it looked. 

Looking over my sketchbooks I do tent to doodle myself and my friends A LOT. So my idea for this animation is to animate myself travelling down the 'animation' time line. So I'd animate myself in different scenario such as storyboarding, scanning, colouring, rendering - and getting more and more exhausted looking until the end where I am proud of what I have accomplished.