Finished!

Here's my piece.

I'm happy with it. I feel the colour palette works the way I wanted it to. I presented all of my work to the class and received positive feedback. Someone even mentioned that they liked how well the crispness of the character worked against the neutral backgrounds. I was really happy to hear this as it's what I was aiming for - as mentioned in my earlier posts.

First Half Down...

I've completed the first section today.

I also altered some movement at the beginning where the hand jerked slightly - my tutor spotted it. I smoothed this out. 

It actually took a lot longer than I expected because I stupidly made the mistake of somehow erasing everything else except the hand on those frames. In order to fix this I imported the video I'd already rendered so that I could simply draw over those frames that I'd lost. I'm glad I was able to think of this solution.

I have also figured out how to add a page to my blog, ready for my report.

I haven't forgotten about the written part of this module and so I've made the section. I just can't wait to finish the animation and not to have to worry about it any more.

I've started animating the second half of the animation.

I've made the rough animation for her bent over at the drawer searching for her odd sock. I've decided that she'll throw out a bra, a pair of pants and a white sock that flies past the camera. I'm really happy with it so far.

Here's the second background:

I have been delayed today, due to ridiculous issues with my graphics tablet - not drawing properly in Photoshop and losing pressure sensitivity.

Progress

Yesterday and today I've been animating away.

So far I've got 3 completed seconds and another 4 seconds drawn out roughly which need polishing with clean outlines and colour.

It's looking like my animation might be 13-15 seconds, rather than 10. That's if I want to include the big sigh - but it might look fine without it.
The hand-in can be 10-20 seconds so as long as it's at least 10, I'm okay.

First Background Finished

So my first background is done.

Hopefully it transmits my idea of clean, neutral, fresh and simple.

I'm quite happy with it and I'm hopeful that my character will look good in this environment. Unfortunately it can't be as detailed as my original designs (primarily, the shading) due to time restrictions. However hopefully it will work and the character won't be too jarring against the background.

After thought: I may have to add handles to the end drawers.

Another couple of Perspectives

Here are just another couple of concept drawings on the bedroom.

I think I've chosen the colour scheme with beige and brown as that's more in-keeping with my overall idea. I also think introducing a purple might attract too much focus and I don't want the backgrounds to be noticed in that way. They're just an indication of what room she's in.

The Snippet of Story to Animate

I've been thinking about which but of my story I want to animate.

Since I only have a couple of weeks to animate - alongside my other modules of course - I'm wanting to make a piece that isn't over-ambitious but something that has some interesting movement, if only subtle, that works well as a stand-alone piece.

I think I would like to animate Page 2 shots 6-7 to make up roughly 10 seconds (probably a little longer). 

I think this part will work nicely because it introduces the odd sock straight away and I'll be able to use my splash of colour to acknowledge its importance. It will also make sense and the viewer should have a reasonable understanding of what it's about. And I'm really excited about little smooth bits of animation; particularly secondary movement of the sock and bits of clothing she will throw/pull out of the drawer.

The 'Look'

I've been thinking about contextual research for my work.

I'm struggling to find animations that are similar in style to what I have in my head.

Because my story and setting is relatively traditional, in my mind I have a traditionally animated appearance but it's simplified.

Pieces that come to mind are Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella, because they feel the most traditional to me. Belle in particular comes to mind when I think of a well-known character that has a similar appearance to my female character.

I also feel that these images are good examples for my style in terms of their use of colour and focus of detail. The characters are much crisper than the backgrounds and they stand out. Obviously I won't be able to achieve how flawless both the characters and their backgrounds look here, however I hope to portray a likeness of contrast in the imagery I'll create.

I also found a piece online called Marin by Leo de Wijs.

This also shows a contrast in colour; not only through the character being more distinctive than the environment but also in the object (like my sock).

The simplicity of shape in this is also more preferable for me.

When I think of the animation I want to create, I have in mind a good, subtle movement with some exaggerations. I think of Iron Giant and how seamless it is.

After speaking with a couple of people they've also mentioned examples following the style I'm looking for.
Snow White in the enchanted forest is a great example of the more distinctive character against muted backgrounds.

And also the Twinings advert; the beautiful imagery is quite highly detailed but again it follws the style of traditional animation with the contrasting focus/ use of colour.

Animatic

So I had fun recording my own sounds for this.

Most of them are my own, a couple are from freesound.org. I must remember to increase my input levels because I have a habit of being too cautious and quiet and then I have to increase the audio gain which means I get lots of noise in the background of the clips.

Oh well, lesson learned. I don't think it turned out too badly.

Storyboard

I've been working on it for a while but I've finally finished my storyboard.

My next step is to put it into an animatic.

Concept Drawings of Environment

Here are a couple of colour variations on a bedroom sketch I made.

I want the colour scheme to be neutral and fairly unsaturated in order to pinpoint colour in the odd sock and the character herself.


These colour schemes that I've used for the wardrobe are my favourite I think. I'm unsure which to go with. The wardrobe on the left may need to be even lighter in colour.
I've used a few images as reference from the internet and my own wardrobe to design the bedroom I want for my animation.

Storyboards and Animatics

Yesterday we practised making animatics. 

It was interesting to learn some more advanced steps we can take. Even though it only involves simple movement of an image or change of scale, it can really make to whole thing much more dynamic.
This will be interesting to play around with; to make an animatic in a similar way to what development is like for big productions.

At the moment I'm focusing on my storyboard. Currently I've made one page (6 images) which I'll continue. Then I can start trying out an animatic with the images I've made.

Character Design

I've spent quite a while drawing her at different angles.

I'm pretty pleased with it. I wanted her lower body to be a little wider than average; large thighs and bum. I've realised afterwards that her body shape sort of reminds me of Courtney - the sister in Paranorman. Only less extreme.

How I want her head to look

Here I was just experimenting with different expressions. 

My thoughts were:
confusion at having lost the sock, frustration at the inability of finding the sock and utter delight for if she ever found it again.
From the eyes of my previous image I chose the center face but brought the lids down and toned down the cartoon-y exaggeration of the eyelashes.

Some Initial Designs

Here I'm having a play with shape and trying out different things for the main character of my story.

Collage Character

I've made my main character from bits and pieces!

She is looking mildly exasperated from realising she has lost a sock.

Illustrative Development

Today the class had a skype conversation with Kim from Mew Lab.

It was another interesting conversation about how she develops artistically for her animations. It's great to hear another perspective; I like how honest she was that she draws inspiration for other animator's works. I feel I can relate to that as when I'm thinking of a particular idea, a specific style - I would have seen before - tends to pop into my head, to visualise it.

I've looked through her 'making of blogs' on The Water Bearer and The Key and I find it amazing how she gets communities and particularly children involved in these projects.
I wish I'd been involved in animating at that age! They are so lucky.

The progression is brilliantly thorough, particularly in character design. This is something I want to gain more confidence in.

In class we looked at development for The Incredibles and then practised making characters and environments through collage. Taking textures and images from the internet and making them into what image we wanted.
The first exercise wasn't great for me; I'd nipped to the loo and had to ask what we were doing and therefore had less time. Oops.

The description was:
A selfish blinkered creature with no regard to hygiene. Hadsott is the kind of man who would remind you that humans have evolved more than they think. He regards sunlight as a poison and relishes in the fact he can stand taller than anyone else.

I used: spider's legs, mossy rock, gnarled wood and a quail egg.


Next was better. We were to create an environment. It's a long description so the key elements I took from it were:

• Devastatingly beautiful landscape. 
• Mankind has removed need for fuel. 
• Once horrendous past is reminded through structures.
• Birds play in air. 
• Vegetation reclaims rightful place. 
• Life has lost it's once glorious colour.

Here I wanted it to feel familiar with a slightly surreal quality to it. I quite like the result.

Mood Boards

I've made two mood boards for my core idea.

As a reminder of the written treatments:

1) Determined to find something that is inexplicably lost.

2) Searching. Inexplicable. Relatable.

My first mood board was quite difficult for me. I believe it's quite hard to create an atmosphere and 'feel' for a story that is humorous. It's much easier - I  think - to create a mood board for a serious topic.

However here is the first one:

I wanted to show elements of searching for something and fortunately I was able to find some extreme images of people in comical poses (head in bin/washing machine/under bed); depicting this notion.

In order to show emotion of frustration and confusion I chose strong expressions that again were quite extreme and emitted humour.

My idea of the environment and colour scheme is bright, clean, ordered and neutral. I have the idea that there's a contrast of tidiness to chaos in finding the 'Odd Sock'. 

I imagine neutral pastel colours with a splash of bright colours for the main items of clothing i.e. sock.

The second mood board had to portray the core idea in a total antithesis of my original one.

I found this one somewhat easier - although turning my idea upside-down initially was quite hard.

Obvious opposites: bright, light-hearted, modern flat = dark, serious, grand house.

I thought about what could be lost that was much more serious and where the audience could still be empathetic. I thought a woman losing her baby on a foggy night.

The main image here is of the empty cot to represent the missing baby.The desperation and confusion is evident through the images of women and their body language and expression. It is dark at night with fog to show a sense of entrapment and further lack of clarity.

The colour palate lacks saturation and is quite dark except for a pale beige.

Mood Board for General Idea of 'Quest'

From leaving the mood board class yesterday...

I wanted to practice by making one for my first thoughts of when I was told the module would be based on the word 'Quest'. Very typical and perhaps cliche elements came to mind initially, but I still wanted to visualise everything I considered.

I thought of mazes and labyrinths. Fantastical castles, knighthood and dragons. Deserts, mountains and treasure. 

The similarities I found within them all is that there's an idea of searching for something and/or achieving a goal. I wanted to simplify and normalise a 'quest' to be something that everyone can experience in day-to-day life.

Written Treatments

I've actually made three...

I wanted to write about my idea in a few different ways.

1) a sentence summarising the core of my idea.

2) key words that come to mind to describe it.

3) three words that I think convey the idea sufficiently.

1 Sentence

Determined to find something that is inexplicably lost.

Key Words

Lost. Frustrating. Inexplicable. Perplexing. Familiar. Humorous. Relatable. Searching. Frantic

3 Words

Searching. Inexplicable. Relatable.

Introduction to Written Treatments and Mood Boards

Today Emma Landolt spoke with us from 'Drive'; where her job is to create mood boards for clients as a way of communicating her ideas. It's also the tool of communicating with her co-workers - to make sure they're all thinking along the same lines.

It was really interesting; she was very clear and pleasant to listen to. I didn't realise there was such a vital role for mood boards within the creative industry.

We also looked into written treatments. We were given animated clips to watch and had to instinctively come up with what we thought would have been the original written treatment for the piece.

Most of us wrote with too much detail. We had to learn to simplify what we saw into the purest, core idea.
I found this useful and I began thinking about my own projects and what words I would use. We simplified it to the point of 3 words only - and this is the aim for our R&D projects.

We also practised mood boards. We were shown a written treatment and had to quickly put together a mood board. This, unfortunately, I didn't enjoy very much. The internet on my computer - for whatever reason - was infuriatingly slow. To the point where we were given 10-15 minutes and I only produced 5 images (maddening!). By the end of it though I felt better - and my internet seemed to pick up a little more speed to find more images and I was relatively happy with it.

I hope when I look for images for me R&D project I will be able to find what I want - this has never been a strong skill of mine. I get rather frustrated when I can't find something that I have in mind.

Here are the mood boards I made as practise in class: