Overall I feel that my animation skills in general have improved and this specialism has defiantly strengthened my passion than killed it. Career wise I will prefer animating and pre production than the clean up and colouring but I understand it is important to know these skills not just for my final film but for the industry. I must also try not to rely heavily on my live action reference otherwise the animation can seem a bit plain and dull as no exaggeration is added. Inspiration wise I just look at anything generally goofy, funny faces and look at various artists and Jim Carrey for inspiration. This last year I have come across and American animation production company ‘Headless production’ and love the work they produce and the style they take. I do think I do need to explore other styles and just need to get out of my comfort zone. I defiantly need to develop my cleaning and colouring skills, adding textures for colour looks amusing to me and I did want to apply that to my man’s suit on the bus animation but ran out of time. I also need to figure out what I’m doing wrong with exporting videos on premiere, I can’t afford to have bad quality for my final film. I feel quite happy with my four pieces but know I still have a lot to improve on and need to develop my colour and clean up along with my time management skills.
Headless studio reel 2010 from Headless Productions on Vimeo.
Tuesday 1 February 2011
EMOTION Final
With my emotion piece, I animated it entirely on flash, as it is very quick and line testing was fast and done the second you draw, I used the program for my soundscape for a dance sequence so I knew how to use it. Once of my favourite things to draw and animate is the face so I wanted a close up. I looked at one of my favourite cartoon artists Katie Shy, I just love her funny looking expressions and tried to apply that humour to my animation. Overall I did love the expressions I produced but it probably would have looked better in pencil than flash, as I don’t draw quite the same on a graphics tablet than with a pencil and it’s just not the same quality on flash as hand drawn.
Emotion Plan!
Planning:
Influences:
I looked at one of my firends in uni, as he has the most photogenic and animated poses I've seen except Jim Carrey. I toke my friends hair and eyes along with Jim Carrey's drastic expressions.
Style wise I looked at Katie Shy, a storyboard artist who I love, she has rich expressive expressions in her characters and like me that seems to be her main point to connecting to the audiance.
(c) Katie Shy
Design:
Storyboard:
rough animation:
I first did a rough animation just to get the general movement and and rough expression right, there are places when the head completly changes shape which I will fix on my cleaned up version.
I looked at one of my firends in uni, as he has the most photogenic and animated poses I've seen except Jim Carrey. I toke my friends hair and eyes along with Jim Carrey's drastic expressions.
Style wise I looked at Katie Shy, a storyboard artist who I love, she has rich expressive expressions in her characters and like me that seems to be her main point to connecting to the audiance.
Design:
Storyboard:
rough animation:
I first did a rough animation just to get the general movement and and rough expression right, there are places when the head completly changes shape which I will fix on my cleaned up version.
3D Planes
Todays lecture we learnt about how to use a 3D plane on after effects. Basically creating a 3D space with 2D images. We made a simple zoom in to a boy in a house, going past plants and a bee flying bee. I really liked the effect this created and would like to apply it to some of my work in the future.
I didn't save my work which I'm really regretting but here is the besic effect that this 3D plan creates with all 2D images.
I DID NOT create this!
I didn't save my work which I'm really regretting but here is the besic effect that this 3D plan creates with all 2D images.
I DID NOT create this!
Miss a Bus Final
Once I tested my animation, it was clean up time. I scanned every frame and cleaned up some loose lines and faint guide lines and cycles as well as scaling down some of the last frames which I think are still a bit too big, but it is an improvment. One of te problems with the first animation was I couldn't control the frames of ones and two's, and that's why I didn't scan my dialogue. Bus after going to see Zara, she showed me an other way to import my frames and still control the timing. With this new knowlege I imported my clean frames to photoshop and applied a background. I didn't do alpha channels for this one, instead I applied a background to every frame and just whitened the back of the man frames. Overall this probly toke just as long and at the end you have less control of when your character is, once editted that's it. So I will probably stick to alpha channeling my frames from now on.
The only thing I had left to do was the bus, I decided to hand draw the bus and apply movement with after effects. I applied what I leanrt in Stan's lecture with the puppet tool, with giving the bus a wiggle effect, like the start of an engine, made the entire vehicle, then parented a wheel to the bus and applied a rotate function to it. Overall it worked quite well, though I did draw the bus in a ver flat persective so probably should ahve shown some of the roof. Also I wasn't sure what the best way to combine the footage of the man running and the bus leaving? I tried atleast three different ways. Tried the adobe dymamic link, wasn't sure how it worked, tried importing my after effect onto premiere and it came out blank? and finally just exported the man running on premeiere then imported that to after effects and exported it there, though because of this I think I've lost quality and also there is 20 seconds of just black, which when I tried to fix in Premire it was even worse quality, so I'm obviously getting my exporting info wrong.
Minus the bad quality and growing I am pleased with this piece, I think he could have thrown the suit case a bit better but it does convay the emotion that the character is feeling and this is my first go at persective applied with a background. I did want to apply a suit texture to his clothes but ran out of time.
The only thing I had left to do was the bus, I decided to hand draw the bus and apply movement with after effects. I applied what I leanrt in Stan's lecture with the puppet tool, with giving the bus a wiggle effect, like the start of an engine, made the entire vehicle, then parented a wheel to the bus and applied a rotate function to it. Overall it worked quite well, though I did draw the bus in a ver flat persective so probably should ahve shown some of the roof. Also I wasn't sure what the best way to combine the footage of the man running and the bus leaving? I tried atleast three different ways. Tried the adobe dymamic link, wasn't sure how it worked, tried importing my after effect onto premiere and it came out blank? and finally just exported the man running on premeiere then imported that to after effects and exported it there, though because of this I think I've lost quality and also there is 20 seconds of just black, which when I tried to fix in Premire it was even worse quality, so I'm obviously getting my exporting info wrong.
Minus the bad quality and growing I am pleased with this piece, I think he could have thrown the suit case a bit better but it does convay the emotion that the character is feeling and this is my first go at persective applied with a background. I did want to apply a suit texture to his clothes but ran out of time.
Monday 31 January 2011
Planning on Missing a Bus!
For my missing a bus, I was at home on the christmas holidays and had just finished animating my diaglogue so to have a break from animating I decided to just plan everything before going back to uni. While thinking of what character to do, my brother was watching the Godfather in the background and that sprang the idea of how would one of those characters react to missing a bus.
Influences: I wanted to try a different style so I looked at some styles with very different eyes to mine and go for just dots, that way I'd have to reply mainly on the boady language than the acctual eyes and face. I chose to use Sonny from the Godfather as my characters personality's influence, his quick temper made his reaction to miss the bus straight to the point.
Design: Setting in the 1920's I looked into hair styles and suits at the time.
Storyboard: with reference from my brother I drew up a storyboard and was pleased with the outcome.
Rough Animation: This animation again was done with pencil and paper. There are some growing issues with it but I hope to rescape this in Photoshop while cleaning up.
Design: Setting in the 1920's I looked into hair styles and suits at the time.
Storyboard: with reference from my brother I drew up a storyboard and was pleased with the outcome.
Rough Animation: This animation again was done with pencil and paper. There are some growing issues with it but I hope to rescape this in Photoshop while cleaning up.
Puppet Tool
With Stan, he showed us the puppet tool in After Effects, it was acctually which a fun session. We learn the wiggle tool on jelly, and how to apply the puppet tool to make a cut elephant drum and I also made him swim or dance I'm not acctually sure? but it was fun.
The puppet tool is very useful for maybe background objects such as cars or food but I probably wouldn't use it for character animation as it would have to be quite stiff and wouldn't gve the effect I'd like to my animations.
The puppet tool is very useful for maybe background objects such as cars or food but I probably wouldn't use it for character animation as it would have to be quite stiff and wouldn't gve the effect I'd like to my animations.
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