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'.