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Experimental design 2

for the final animation I made a few little animatics to try and get an idea of how I wanted the gun animation to look , i designed a character who would load the bullets in his arm and then shoot , I wanted him to look silly and over the top since I feel as though that’s how a lot of the characters in the book appear , he appears as some sort of soldier . I wanted the camera for this animation to be interesting and for the animation to show the mechanisms of how loading the bullets work

 

With a character design of a soldier I created with the world of the codex in mind I started animating the gun hand. I thought it would be interesting if the little arrow on his head blew in the direction he was supposed to shoot working as an alert and aiming system. I had him load in his bullets into his arm and then caulk his arm like a shot gun. I gave him a very ridiculous over the top hairstyle since since in the book it has a way of making characters that are supposed to be serious or even mysterious look ridiculous .

 

I’m happy with the way this animation turned however if I want to add it to my portfolio I’ll definitely zoom in and go into my detail of him loading in the bullets, also looking back I think I should add in a bang animation or perhaps even smoke coming from the hand so you can defiantly tell it has shot the gun .i also would have like to render this animation and give it some clean lines but sadly I didn’t have enough time. I had fun doing the secondary animation for his hair as it was very poofy and floaty. When he realised that his arrow has turned to the left he has a reaction and in turn his hair floats up , I did this because I was inspired by ghibli and how when a character is angry or surprised not only does their body tense up but so does their hair .

Final animations with sound –

for the next section of my assignment I moved on from animation to design. I was trying to be experimental so I ended up creating my own ideas for how I think the society inside the book would function, I didn’t wanna go too exaggerated since I still wanted the ideas to be easily understandable but I still tried to keep it weird and random since since looking through the book the rules in which the world works are very loose and unclear.

I designed a character that would act as the model for this part of the assignment, I gave them a Bob haircut as I feel like if a model did exist in this world they would definitely  enjoy have that strange haircut. wanted to showcase the model in different looks , in a part of the book they show one of the people wearing makeup so I decided to design some ideas for everyday makeup looks that they might wear in their strange society , the makeup is very over the top and sometimes makes no sense why they would even wear this since it isn’t necessarily very appealing, but I think it shows how their world is different from ours and how culturally what they find appealing differs from us. (I added in the fake language to try and imitate the books fake language).

makeup

I wanted to design some outfits , in the book it appears to showcase outfits with a wearable item for the body, hat and then what appears to be a weapon maybe even a statement piece at the bottom. I tried to make the outfits look surreal and impractical since a lot of the outfits in the book are this way , they don’t seem fit for any occasion and in fact seem impossible to move or walk in some cases .I’d say the first two outfits Iv drawn in the image below are more accurate portrayals of the fashion you would see in the book, however the other two outfits I drew where to replicate the comedy that the book portrays with its random nonsensical society.something else I noticed is that the outfits in the book have a lot of tony details and many colours however sorting I noticed a lot of was stripes so in a lot of my designs there are stripes and ramdpm

little details so I could try and make it look more like the outfits seen in the book.( I also tried to my it look like they where actually on the physical book)

 

I drew my model in a few of the outfits . The green onesie outfit is one seen in the book and the other outfits I made up .I wanted them to pose on different strange ways because I felt as though in this universe , if models even exist they would definitely do things in uncouth ways unlike models in out society . I feel like this way it fits the fashion better.

 

overall I’m happy with the way this assignment went and I had fun exploring the possibilities of the world that these people and creatures live in. My favourite part of the assignment was the design aspects since it gave me a lot of freedom to just draw whatever I wanted and make up my own theories . The creature design I’m happiest with would have to be the rooster chick , I really enjoyed coming up with a weird and unique way for it to move and really being able to exaggerate the art style and try something  new since I feel as though the other animations where far less exaggerated . I would like to have things more fully rendered even after the hand in so I can add it to my portfolio.

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Experimental design

When it came to this project I started out being slightly lost on what exactly to do , but I decided to focus on the things I would like to specialise in like animation and design . I looked through the codex book during class and decided I would like to give animating the bird looking creatures a try and also the bullets loading into the arm . I also decided to design a few fashion designs based on the logic of the books universe

references from the book-

 

I made two very simple looping animationsin preparation for a presentation we had to do showcasing some ideas we had , I had a few art styles in mind and I wanted to experiment with textures and the way the animations moved in general , I wanted to try the melting egg I saw in one of the pages of the codex however I couldn’t think of any creative ways to make it move and ended up just being the melting egg as seen in the book but animated and I didn’t like this since it wasn’t animated in a unique way so I decided to move on to another idea .

rough egg animation –

During a lecture we were shown an artist named h_tabasi who animated very unique animations that showcased animals who moved in strange exaggerated ways , this inspired me so I chose two of the birds from the book and began animating . I wanted it to be surreal and funny since the tutors were pushing the idea that maybe the creatures don’t move in the way normal creatures would . I made it so that the rooster chick creature wouldn’t move with it’s legs but would instead move with it’s wattle, the wattle is very elastic and also sticky , it sticks to the floor and pulls the body forward making the creature backflip and then it’s back to square one to move forward again .

 

In this animation Iv drawn up the bird backflips and then lands on its back and that causes it to bounce back up into a standing position , i was given another idea on perhaps making the bird do a roll instead of a bounce once it hit the ground and after testing it out I decided to go with the bounce instead. When it came to rendering I wanted to experimentand go for a fluffy ,wiggly line less colouring style . Once finished I can say I am happy with the way this animation has turned out .

For the other animation of a bird creature I went with this fluffy feathered one with three heads , I brainstormed and thought of the idea of it moving like a jellyfish because of the shape of its body ,for this animation I wanted it to appear more like a textbook example of how this creature would move in the codex world so it isn’t very exaggerated and more just surreal , I looked at a lot of jelly fish references . In my version of the bird I think In the context of the world it’s actually a sea creature rather than a land creature to add to its surreal nature.

During the animating process I was struggling when it came to the three heads , I wasn’t exactly sure how they would move.In my quick test Animation I had the heads rag doll around as if they weren’t heads at all but useless appendages, I was given the critique that it just didn’t work and that it would be better if the heads had some form of direction and I agree with this note. I made them go in a side to side potion as of the creature is trying to waft it’s way through the water , the creature also had to legs but I decoded they wouldn’t move and would just dangle , perhaps the creature uses it’s legs like appendages to graze the ocean floor looking for prey .

Rough animation-

 

When I rendered this I was inspired by shows like chowder , chowder has this texture art style where when a character moves their colours are like a wall paper that moves by as the character moves , I really like this so I tried doing the same for the creature and crested a texture for its colours so that when it moves the texture is just a wallpaper in the background.


texture I created-

finished animation-

 

I think I’m happy with how this animation turned out as I feel as though it accurately depicts the idea I had in my head even though it isn’t perfect , i added a blue hue to the animation and also some bubbles so that the bird would appear as if it were under the water.  if I where to do this again I would definitely fix the heads , I feel like the head may be a little unclear on what they are supposed to be doing and I would try and make the direction they are swaying look more intentional.

 

 

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Timing For Animation

For this assignment I already had an audio in mind that I could use to create my animation. My other ideas were very basic and not as well thought out and I felt as though I was already making a decision on using the audio I first had in mind. The audio is from Disney’s live action musical into the woods where the wolf sings to red riding hood. I thought about scenarios in which I could put characters into relating to the song, so I began story boarding. The story boards are extremely rough, and I added in some parts that would fit in time to the music, in my animatic the wolf tries to distract red riding hood as he attempts to steal her basket, ending with red riding hood pulling out a comedically large bat and hitting him with it.

 

When it came to the character designs, I wanted to make very simple cartoony designs so I could try and push the animation, drawing red riding hood was the easiest design as I already had an idea of what I wanted her to look like in my head, and I gave her the classic red riding hood dress and red hood. The wolf was the more challenging design, I wanted him to look shady like a con man and to have a wolf’s head and a more humanoid body. Trying to make a stylistic wolf head also have a personality was very challenging, I realised I might have trouble drawing this wolves head over and over again since I’m not used to drawing this type of character, so I decided to draw his head from every angle to make it easier for myself in the long run.

 

 

test animations-

 

 

story board-

(Some frames in incorrect order)

animatic-

My Movie 124

For the animation I would film myself doing whatever action I wanted the character to do, of course some of the actions would have been impossible for me to try and recreate in real life but I tried my best to act out the basic movements. I wanted the animation to be nicely timed up to the music and to have a nice flow. Following my story board, I made sure to have the audio playing as I animated so I was able to Time the movements correctly, every now and again I would take the heads of the wolf I drew and pasted them onto my animation instead of having to redraw them every time, I think they ended up working pretty well. I also was given a tip by one of the tutors that when it comes to lip syncing, I don’t need to have the character sound out every letter the characters says, as long as I get the basic mouth shapes of the main sounds it would look synced up and this too helped me out a lot during the animation process.

The wolf in my opinion was the most fun character to animate which I was surprised by considering I’m not used to drawing animal characters, I really enjoyed animating his shady personality, like when he greets red riding hood, he slicks his fur on top of his hair back and gives her this big sort of sleezy smile.

feedback and notes-

I was given a lot of notes while making my animation. a note I was given which I have now attempted to fix was that the ending of my animation didn’t look coherent with the rest of my animation since In the beginning I had the camera moving and zooming in and doing something interesting, whereas at the end I just had a very straight shot of the two character facing each other and it was a bit anti-climactic. I fixed this by doing as the tutor instructed and having red riding hood very dramatically pulling out the giant bat with the wolfs shocked reaction in the background and then doing a huge jump from a Birds Eye view to hit the wolf and I think this ended up making the animation look way more interesting.

before

After-

My Movie 134

When I began animating my first shot of the wolf stepping in front of red riding hood I was told that he was stepping in from the right a little bit too much and that he would look better if he was walking into frame straight forward to greet red riding hood. I think this looks way better now that I have fixed it and I added a camera edit where the camera moves up from his feet until you see his face to try and show off how tall and intimidating he is in comparison to red riding hoods tiny stature .

before

after-

 

Another note I received was that in the shot where the wolf is pointing at the flowers, I had the wolf point at them and then it would cut to a shot of them in the field with the flowers. To fix this I was told it would be better if instead of a cut it would zoom out to the show the flowers, I like this edit because I feel as though it helped to ground the Characters a bit more and show they are in a forests field.I also later added a butterfly flying around the character just to Try to set the scene a bit more. A similar edit I made was that whenever the wolf points to the sun the clouds in the shot were still , this was annoying me because it didn’t look right so I just subtly made them move across the screen like real clouds

before

After-

as I was almost finished with my animation I asked Sarah if there was any small things I could change to improve my animation before submission-

– the animation with the music when the girl is on screen feels static as there no lip synch

– clean up the step of him around the girl (the timing of motion is good)
– add frames/ smooth the girls lines at the end

– the last shot with the basket feels a little off , not much changing and the very end expression of him could go even more shocked.

I did my best to fix these before the submission.

before-

 

after

 

One thing I regret is that I ended up not having enough time to add in some simple backgrounds that I had originally Had planned. However, after submitting this assignment, I plan to render out my animation more for my portfolio by adding backgrounds, cleaning up my animation and adding lighting and shadows.I would also like to add an establishing shot of red riding hood walking through the woods .

overall I think my animation turned out well,I feel like I really tried to do something a little bit different than what I usually do. Trying a more cartoony style and really pushing the body mechanics of the characters and also the added challenge of animating an animal character.

final animation-

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Assignment 1 portfolio

 

 

 

 

 

compilation video with sound-

IMG_7154

 

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Week 5- basket ball

 

For the last exercise we where asked to do a character shooting a ball into a hoop, this exercise was a challenge since we had to do a character interacting with an object and animating them both separately from each other. I looked at a lot of videos of basketball players and I think I ended up finding a video of Le Bron shooting a hoop that would work pretty well as a reference for my animation, I put in the key frames and and added the timing, I found it fun trying to figure out how the characters arms world move while she was dribbling the ball, I used my alien character from my run cycle for this exercise since I wanted to try a more stylised character with different proportions.

 

ref video-

Really rough-

Cleaned –

 

 

when I showed Mike my animation he gave me advice on the big where she is throwing the ball, he said I could make it more impactful and sell the motion more so I added another frame of her with the ball slightly over her head reeling back to throw it.I am happier with this version of my animation –

 

A hard part of the this exercise I think was while animating my character mooning after she had thrown the ball, having the ball move independently and trying to figure out the best way to do that so it wouldn’t look strange and timed weirdly. I had lots of fun trying to figure out the secondary animation physics of her hair as she jumped up and then came back down ,moving side to side.

 

 

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Week 4 – flour sack and weight exercise

 

For the weight exercise Mike showed examples of a character pushing a wall, I decided I wanted to try animating a character picking up a box, I looked at some other animations of weight exercises to get a grasp on how animations convey weight in a believable way, I also took a video reference of myself picking up a box, I tired filming this is a very exaggerated way so I could make my animation look more believable and heavy. The characters I used for their animation was one of my friend Katie’s characters that she designed and I thought it would be fun to see how her character would look animated. When it came to the animation I used the pose to pose technique of all the important poses, and after that I began adding the in-betweens,  I had to do many passes of the animation and I struggled a bit with it because I tried to make the character stumble with the box in her hand and then she falls down holding the box because of the pressure of this weight.

I tried to render this animation but sadly I didn’t have enough time since this animation ended up having a lot of frames, maybe at a later stage I’ll finish rendering the animation for my portfolio.

 

 

 

 

 

For my flour sack I looked at multiple other flour sack animation videos for inspiration, since the flour sack is a fairly simple design to animate I wanted to push it a bit and made in into a perspective and also giving the flour sack obstacles to overcome like jumping over a pit, I added one the key frames where the flour sack would be walking from far away and then making a turn heading towards a big hole on the floor, the flour sack would then jump over the hole. I then started animating this and making the flour sack do little hops on between its walk cycle for some personality , adding in impacting frames as it jumps over the hole and hits the ground, trying to show the flour sack getting closer being farther away was challenging  to try and create.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Week 3 – run cycle and walk cycle

For the walk cycle I wanted to try something I have never done before, Mike said he wanted to see some animations that had more personality rather than someone just walking so I wanted to try and animate a grumpy old man walking with a cain, I first designed my old man, I wanted him to be very bent over as if he had a bad back and I have him a dangling tie so I could have some secondary movement in the animation to make it more interesting. I  Took a video reference of myself holding a fake cain and I walked as if I where a limping old man so I could better understand the movement.

 

inspo videos-

 

I struggled trying to animate the old man because I was trying to communicate through my animation that he is hunched over and limping struggling to walk, I tried using shapes to make the animation easier for myself since this characters design was a little more complicated.overall I think if I where to try this again I might try to make his movements a little more subtle so they would flow more easily together

 

For my run I decided to animate a character I had designed recently, I used the image from animators survival kit of the figure running as my reference for this animation, I was less worried about using real life reference for this animation since I have animated a run before and this character was way more stylised than my old man character, I wanted to draw her running in a forward facing perspective for the challenge and her little antennas gave from for small secondary animation as well as her hair.

 

 

final –

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Week 2 – Pose to Pose

 

For the pose to pose animation I thought that person hitting a tennis ball would be a good fun idea for this specific exercise so immediately began looking into references for this since I feel like this movement would be hard to do just off the top of my head, once I found a good reference videos on YouTube I started the block out, I didn’t exactly copy the movement from the video since when drawing a 2D animation it will automatically translate differently because of the timing, the block out consisted of the main poses.

 

ref video-

 

 

I then started doing the in-betweens, I struggled a bit with them while trying to keep the timing and at times I felt as though I was Almost over animating it with how many frames I was putting in so I ended up having to just delete a bunch of my frames and pick the most necessary ones.Overall I’m quite happy with my animation I just wish I had time to render when though I know rendering the animations isn’t necessary for this assignment, if I did it again I would probably make my drawings a bit stronger while I was drawing then Instead of them being so sketchy.