For my end of year show I created a poster, business cards ,updated cv and I also updated my showreel.for the talking head video Iv decided to just draw a charcuterie of myself rather than take a video and just talk over it.

For my showreel I simply updated my logo at the beginning if the video, I then took out some older animations that I didn’t think showed off my skills properly anymore and put in some newer animations form my major project, still trying to keep in sync with the music.

When it came to my business cards I ended up scrapping my older business card ideas as they just didn’t quite fit with what I wanted to go for, I could decide if I wanted something simple or something detailed, I knew I either wanted one side of the card to be a full illustration with a background or something less in you’re face. I ended up deciding to do a very simple side profile of my face and using two colours that would pop, pink and green, I thought the use of these colours also helped to express myself since those are two of my favourite colours that went quite well together.

For the cv I decided to change the design a bit to match with my business cards , I also upstaged some of the information on my cv to be more relevant.

When it came to my poster I had made multiple designs but non of them really stuck out to me, I aksed some class mates and they said it would be best if both of the characters where featured in the poster so I did some redesigning, I finally came up with a poster I liked that I thought represented my major project well.

For the art book I have but it in order of my process, so my concepts and then the finished designs, then the animation process and then the assets and backgrounds.

When it came to the display I knew I wanted to incorporate items which would bring magic and spells to mind since my major project was based on the magic of these mysterious cards, I ended up bringing in a crystal ball , a cauldron, a portion bottle and a pestal and mortar. I also had a cloth with moon designs on it so I places it on the table since it fit with the design of my card.

I placed the business cards into the cauldron because I thought it would be a fun cute way to store them for people to pick up. I was going to print out my major projects cards and place them down like when people do card readings, however I thought the space would start to look a bit cluttered especially since I’m planning to get an art book printed out so I decided against it.

The board itself I had painted it to be a huge turquoise version of the card seen in my film, it took me two days and then I realised I needed to cover it up with an a2 poster , Henry suggested I put my poster on a stand next to the board instead so that you can see the design on it so I think I will do that, I put my character turn around and expression sheets on my Board because I though that would be eye catching for people walking by, I also printed out a few of my backgrounds for display in the board. The business cards seem aren’t my real business cards, just fake prints until I get my real ones.

portfolio artstation-

Story boarding-

I made my story boards by making simple sketches and for me it was easier to understand my process if I compiled those into  a video format and from that point I kept adding potential sequences onto the video and stuck with scenes that I thought worked best.when story boarding I really wanted to try and use more interesting perspectives and angels.

Animatics

I have never attempted to make a 2d short by myself before so I wanted to try to challenge myself and make it look interesting. I’m not very experimental when it comes to animation and I tend to go for a very sketchy unpolished style when animating so I really wanted to switch things up. For my first animatic I was trying to make things dramatic and give the shots interesting angles with Intend, for example there is a shot where the stoic woman walks up to the rotted man, for this shot I specifically wanted it to be from a higher angle since that would give the effect that she is taller and more powerful then he is.

In the first animatic I did I had the two main characters roll up to the tavern in a horse drawn carriage, in the carriage I wanted them to be discussing exactly why they are at the tavern, having a conversation on what they where hired to do, they would then shuffle the cards and find out hey they are looking for , then entering the tavern, a shot of them walking out of the carriage and walk into the tavern, everyone in the tavern turns to look at them and they walk on in and sit down. A fly flies by and draws their attention to a corner of the tavern they haven’t seen yet, the stoic woman walks in and find the rotted man surrounded by flies. She grabs him and he pushes her off, and runs out of the tavern . They chase each other through the alley ways untold he meets a dead end, she grabs him and punches him in the face to subdue him and then he is used into the card that was pulled. The card is turned around and shows his face trapped in the card.

I was told by some tutors and classmates  that this first animatic was going to be a lot of work so I decided to cut it down and instead make it so that they are both already in the tavern and it is in the tavern that they begin to shuffle and pull from the cards, I thought that the beginning of the film being them shuffling the cards was a better start off to the film. I also wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted to illustrate the rotted man being sucked into the card, so I then decided to make it so you could only see his shadow on a wall being sucked into the card which I incorporated into my final animatic.Looking back at the animatic planning Stage I would have included more of the two main characters interacting like in the first draft of the animatic.

I was also unsure how the dialog for these animatics was going to work, I knew I wanted to animate tow characters speaking and interacting but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have voice actors, in the end I decided to go for a silent animation that only incorporated music, and used exposition text that can be seen on screen.

while doing the animatic I was trying to make sure it was syncing up to the music choices I was implementing which surprisingly wasn’t very difficult and only took adding a few scenes here and there or just making different scenes slightly longer than others.

Animation

For the animations of the film I did most of the animations on Procreate, Procreate is the program I find easiest to use and I know a lot about the program. Procreate allows the ability to have a background and also have objects in the foreground, it also uses onion skins and allows me to hold frames when needed. I struggled slightly with the animation style I had chosen, I wanted to challenge myself by trying out a style I really liked which was more semi realistic with realistic proportions, I regularly draw this way but animating in the style was a whole different experience, trying to keep the characters on model was very had at times since there wasn’t a lot of wiggling room with some of their designs and through this process of testing out the animations I realised that the stoic woman’s gauntlets where far to big to allow the animation I wanted, so for the sake of making it easier for me to animate I decided to make her gauntlets smaller.when animating I made sure to animate the scene I knew I would find the easiest first so I started with the card shuffling animations since it would just involve me animating hands. I would then try and move on to the animations I thought would be a bit harder like whenever they are running out of the tavern and jumping over chairs or even the lip syncs.

rendering process 

When it came to rendering out my animations I would first sketch out what I wanted very roughly, then colour and then clean it up , I would then line the animation and put in the colour, then the hard part which was adding in the shading which I had to go though every frame and draw a new shading layer since to achieve the style I wanted every shading layer had to be different to govern that wiggly effect. After all of that was done I would add my background and anything that needed to be in the foreground.

example –

video references
For most of my animations I took video references with the help of my classmates and also just myself at home, sometimes taking references was frustrating because without a prop for the camera it was very hard to be able to film myself from certain angles, so in a few of my animations I would of just had to try my best to figure out what would look correct myself and not rely on any references .I would also speak allowed in the video reference in case I decided I did want to use audio dialogue and also just to make sure I was definitely lip syncing the words being said correctly

There is one animation in my project which I really struggled with, the animation where the stoic woman grabs the rotted man, I rarely ever animate characters interacting so closely which is why I wanted to incorporate this type of animation into my project to push myself. I took multiple references of myself and tried my best to make it look like a realistic interaction even though I couldn’t get the EXACT reference I wanted to.

In a few shots of my animations  the stoic woman is missing her shoulder armour pads, this is because it was very difficult to continue animating with those shapes in the sketching process so I decided I would add them later on in the process of finishing io the final touches of my animation, it was a challenge I didn’t expect to be difficult but it makes sense since her shoulder pads are unchanging hard objects and they don’t have much wiggle room for any flaws.same thing can be said for the rotted mans glasses which are also sometimes missing.

I made a short intro for my film that would show what the film is called and then it’s “episode title” I thought this would help give a little more exposition to the audience who is watching so that they understand the animation is all about the cards and what they can do.I also added an ending title just to top it off because I thought it would help it look more complete.

Editing

When it came to editing I did very little, for the types of shots I have used I didn’t see any reason to use much editing in the animation, I put the music in time with the shots and every now and again I have the film cut to black then to the next shot then to black again to give it a dramatic and suspenseful feeling.I also edited in the dialog to be timed whenever the characters are saying anything.I assumed I was going to need to edit the cards texture in an editing software however that was not the case and I found it easier enough to just edit  in the cards in Procreate itself.

music 

for the music I had the idea in mind that I wanted to use classical music that was suspenseful and intense , and I was aware that a lot of classical music is not copyrighted so it would be acceptable for me to use and submit my film wherever I wanted.I was originally going to use Bizet habenera as the music that would play for my film but I realised the more I would watch the clips over and over again the more I thought the song didn’t go well with my animation even tho I managed to get it synced up, the tone just didn’t feel right. I searched for more classical music to see if anything else would fit and I found the song flight of the bumble bee which is iconic but has no copy right. When I added it in and synced it up with the timing if my animation I thought it worked really well so I decided to keep it.

scheduling

whenever it came to the scheduling of the project, in the first semester it was the planning process, planning the story and making the characters then making the story boards and animatics, the  semester two was going to be getting into the actual animation part so sketching out the animation, drawing and finishing up backgrounds, rendering and editing the animation leading to the final submission.

With my schedule I got slightly lost around Christmas as I was still unhappy with my animatic but after I little more tweaking I was happy with it and could finally move on to actually animating.

Conclusion-

I’m happy with my final outcome however I am bit disappointed with some of the animations in my project and I think I could of left my self more time to put more effort into some of the scenes. The project became something very different to what I originally had in mind.if I had done things differently I may have went for a different style choice or have far more character interactions, I definitely feel like I pushed myself for the project but I probably would of pushed a little bit harder if I did it again.I definitely think I have improved from my project in first year, I understand the animation pipeline so much better now and before I would have been afraid to jump into a project and try to see it through till the end but now I feel so much more confident I have the ability to do it.I also think I have a better understanding of what it means to polish an animation which I said before is something I rarely do.

For the end of year show I plan to have the project fully fully finished, I am very close where I am right now, but there are some final touches I’d like to add and more shading In a Few scenes.

For my project I had an idea in mind that I wanted to create that I had been thinking about the summer before the semester began , at first I was going to work in a group but when our ideas kept clashing and didn’t work very well together we decided to go our separate ways, my idea was three bounty hunters that used cards which where inspired by tarot cards, to tell them who exactly they are hunting for through magic (never stated wether the magic is good or bad magic as it would be up to the interpretation of the viewer).I was very inspired at the time by art styles that where more realistically proportioned, I looked into the short film ‘Louise’ because its style really inspired me, I really liked the shading of the short because it’s shadows are constantly wiggling and moving which I thought gave the characters a very alive look even when they where just standing still.Also night in the woods was another animation I took inspiration from because of its nonsensical fantasy spooky setting. When it came to my research I would look into other short films that had a similar aesthetic to what I wanted to go for.I would also make mood boards that depicted the certain aesthetic I wanted to go for.

inspirations-
Louise

Moodboard-

Plot–

Two mysterious women use the power of the cards to hunt down their next target they have been hired for, They have both been summoned to a tavern and it is there that they begin using the cards, the card that is pulled from their deck is the ‘rotted man’. Not long after the card has been pulled a a fly  enters their field if vision, one of the women follows the fly only to find the rotted man himself hiding in the corner of the tavern, a chase ensues and he is subdued when caught, he is then sucked into the card.

I want my short film to be more of a fake ‘pilot episode’ for a show that doesn’t exist, some things in the animation may nit seem very clear at first but this is because I wanted whoever was watching to have a sense of wonder as to why the characters in the film are doing what they are doing, therefore I was hoping that it would intrigue them to want to tune into more episodes of the ‘show’

Characters

I started by drawing up designs for four main characters , each character would serve a purpose, the one who can use the cards who would be more comical, the strong stoic character and the one who hold the group together, when I gave a presentation which incorporated these three characters I was told by the tutors that four characters would be too much work to animate so I decided to go with the  first three characters I had in mind which was the comical ,the stoic and the rotted man character because I thought they might be able to bounce better off each other. Originally I also wanted this short to be three minutes long because in my mind that was doable, but then the tutors gave me the advice that 3 minutes would be too long for one person which I agree with so luckily I decided to cut it down early.

Jackie

The first characters is ‘Jackie’. The names are never directly said in my short but I thought I should name the characters anyway. Jackie I decided should be a jester since she is the comical one, I also  wanted her to give off a medieval vibe since this film was going to be more of an old fantasy setting.Since my short is technically a ‘pilot’ for a show that would never exist I thought about fleshing out her character more just to get a better idea of her and her design, she is a living doll and was brought to life by the same magic that can wield the cards which is the reason she is the only one who can use them. For her jester hat I decided to go with the design that has pointy bits as it almost gives a devil like appearance, she is supposed to look unnerving so she rarely blinks and has wide eyes that stare. I wanted the three characters to have shape language so I gave her larger shoes on her feet since it made her look goofy but also she would stand out more beside the other characters.As for the colours Iv whose I wanted her to look out of place and unique in a way but also looking like she belonged with her counterpart who has the opposite colour scheme from her.One of her colours is also red to maybe hunt that there is something sinister about her nature.

Concept art-

final designs-

Stoic woman

For the second character I wanted her to be bigger at the top than the bottom so she would contrast with Jackie, I wanted her to look like she would be a bounty Hunter so she is armoured, again so she would also give off a more medieval vibe , she has big gauntlets for her work and I also think they just make her stand out.She also has bags under her eyes to give her a bit more character, make the viewer wonder why she is so exhausted looking. Her backstory like jackies is a mystery to the viewer , so the viewer will not know why they are both  bounty hunters and why they are the way they are which will make them curious and want to tune in for the ‘show’ .When it came to her and Jackies colour pallet I wanted them to go together since they are a duo so I made sure their colours would contrast each other but would also go well together.Jackie is the colourful one mean while stoic woman is the more dull one since she is more practical and serious.

concept sketches-

Final design-

Fairy

The third character was going to be a little fairy who could literally sniff out who they where looking for after the cards would give them the name, her design was to fit the look of the cards and since fairies are naturally magical beings her magic was again like most of the other characters, going to related to the magic that the cards emit hence all of her purple colouring.Of course she had to be taken out because 3 characters was already too many but she would have been the least unhinged out of the two characters and would of been able to give them more clear directions, technically she was later replaced by the fly in my animation who ends up showing the characters where to go instead.

The rotted man

The rotted man is supposed to look weak and cowardly, he is a man who has been cursed by the same power that the cards use, he is a man who is rotting but is still alive, I wanted the viewer to question why is he being chased and what did he do ?. He wears smart clothes but still keeping in with that medieval vibe. I wanted to give him the look of he could just be any guy, nothing much about his design really stands out apart from his yellowish green skin, which is there to show that he is rotting.he also wears a cape which he would use to try and keep himself hidden and not stand out ok much. Another reason he is in the tavern to try and blend in with the crowd.

After I had designed the characters I needed to give them a turn around sheet , Jackie is the shorter one out if the two, I also decided to draw the characters a face expression sheet for any of the Potential facial expressions they may make in this short, I tried to show off their personalities as well while drawing these facial sheets, Jackie is usually always smiling and rarely ever blinks, the other one always has a furrowed brow and never smiles.

Background characters

 I designed a few background fantasy characters who could potentially show up in the film. One of them being an orc bar tender, the others where just other people drinking and talking in the tavern.they would of basically been silently judging the two main characters the whole time.

Backgrounds and props

I drew a few concepts for backgrounds to get a feel for the vibe I was trying to go for, I drew the streets outside in a  town because at the time I had the idea that the characters where going to chase each other through a town, i later changed this idea as constant drawing so many building would have been really challenging.I still liked the idea of the scene being bathed in moonlight so I tried to keep that idea for my future background scenes.

the second concept was me trying to figure out the colours that I wanted the tavern to have, and I wanted the tavern to have a greenish yellow undertone.

When it comes to backgrounds I tend to really struggle with the perspectives of things and what ways I could render, so to make this easier and faster for myself I decided to 3d model the inside of a tavern so whichever way the characters where going I could just take a screen shot from the inside of my tavern and use it for the background and just trace over it. I made a few chairs and tables and lights for the ceiling, these weren’t very detailed as I was giving to render the detail in myself to make it look more natural. I wasn’t sure exactly where the characters would be going or what they’d be interacting with at this point in time so I just modelled everything.I didn’t model the streets and alleys since I thought they’d be easy to draw without the reference.doing this type of process I think has actually helped me improve at backgrounds a lot and has made me feel more confident in how I draw backgrounds.

3d modelled tavern-

For the backgrounds I was inspired by a few artists. Alarko creates very sketchy backgrounds but manages to make them look complete and alive, I also really loved the colours they would use in their artwork, however when I would try this technique I could not execute it properly and the unclean lines did not go well with the polished animation style I was going for, I decided to mix how I render backgrounds with different techniques from alarko and Louise which I think ended up working well for me and blended in well with the animation style I was going for.

Alarkos artwork-

The backgrounds are of a tavern, I wanted the tavern to look barren and a bit run down with cracks in the walls and discolouration on the walls.I didn’t want anything in the tavern to stick out too much so I tried to keep every-thing and plain as I could while still have the tavern look polished since I wanted my animations to be the thing that sticks out.This is where I think a bit of alarkos influence comes in because I was inspired by the way he would render the inside of building with leaking wallpaper if discoloured walls.

I drew up to 10 backgrounds for my final film, some of the backgrounds where reusable for a few of the shots with a few adjustments.the main colours used in my backgrounds has been yellows and oranges for the inside of the tavern to give it a warm but also eerie feeling with lots of dimly lit corners, meanwhile the outside streets and alleyways are very blue/green to give the sense of isolation and suspense under the moon light.

Finished backgrounds-

For the props that have been interacted with in the film I drew a magic card, with advice from tutors I was told that making the card purple was the best  the best colour I could use if I wanted to express that the card itself was magical, I also wanted the card to have a simple yet iconic design which is why I chose a moon card, the moon can be seen on a lot of these types of cards.

I also have drawn this card again but form the back, there are two separate versions of the back of the card, one which has nothing on it and then the other which has the rotten mans face trapped inside.

Another prop was the chair, I only drew two separate images for the chair, one of the chair falling half way down and the other of it standing straight up.

At the moment I only promote my work on art station since the website is laid out in a very professional way and has been specifically made for artists, if I where to branch out and promote my major project more I would probably make an art instagram since I use that social media a lot and I know a lot of artist use Instagram since it’s a good way to show off you work in a neat and aesthetically pleasing way, Instagram would also be easier to find other people on I think , art station feels very isolating.

Michelle Lam-

Another artist who I think is good at promoting herself and I’d like to take inspiration form is Michelle Lam, she makes sure her resume is on her website and also her link to her portfolio is on her resume, also links to all of her social media. Michelle’s website is more focused on story boarding and animation rather than the design aspect of things.I research birth of these artists because although I think I’m more design and animation focused I do still enjoy the story boarding part if things so if I ever switched up my focus I would like to know how to promote and market myself either way.

I did some design research for how I wanted my new CV to look , I really liked the designs which had illustrations and pictures to go along with them, also I enjoy when the CV has more colourful aspects in its design since it makes it stand out more.I definitely think in some of these designs the colours could potentially strain the eyes and the text can be too small so I will be trying to avoid those mistakes.

Old Design

Design Deck Page Ideas

For my design deck I wanted to incorporate a lot of the design work Iv done for the project, A lot of it is charcter based design since I tend to focus on that the most.When I purchase art books I love to see artists sketches and process so I wanted to put in what I thought other artists would enjoy to see. I want to incorporate more background work so I hope to insert more finished and polished backgrounds when I finish them. I may even incorporate some of my story boarding process. Also I would like to do a page where I collage the colours of each scene to make a colour concepts page.

Eoys Layout Idea

For the presentation of my major project during the end of year show , I’m thinking of having a mystical medieval vibe , I have many crystals , a cauldron and a crystal ball I’m thinking of decorating the space with , since the theme of my major project is based around magic and tarot inspired looking cards and the idea of fate , I feel like a crystal ball for decoration would be appropriate , I also want to print out my designs for the cards that are seen in my major project and have them spread  out on the table , if I have time I may draw designs in the back of each card to make it more interact-able and interesting.The screen showing the actual animation would be behind the Crystal ball and cards .I also have a porcelain jester baby doll which would go perfectly to give it a creepy vibe but also hint at what the projects overall vibe is. I am collecting images of tarot card layouts to inspire how I can pay everything out.I also was speaking to some of the tutors about maybe painting the boards, I’m not sure what colour I want to go for yet but definitely something with mystical/tavern vibe.

Conclusion 

the next step is that I need to start finalising all of my designs,I plan to ask for more feedback on some of my designs before making my final decision on which ones to use, At the moment I like the ideas for the poster designs Iv came up with so far , however I would like to design more business card designs as I’m unhappy with how some of them look so far, I still don’t know what text I’m going to use for my business card yet, but for my posters I might use my own hand writing , using my own hand writing would be to make the title look more sloppy, scratchy and hastily written to fit in with the aesthetic of the animation. I might make a mock up of what the layout of the eoys could be using the objects I have. I need to print out tests of the cards and the design deck as well just to see how they will look physically in real life and to check if the layout is good .Before I can actually add the text onto the business cards I’ll first have to create a new email made specifically for my Animation branding , then making more social media accounts to go along with that email address.I think I would like to make an actual website as well.