The first homework for the Animation Studio Module to and insight into shape and form when it came to recreating animated characters as well as acting as a exercise in getting more familiarized to the physics to the brush tool and manipulating it effectively. the first set of slides show off some of my practices with the brush tool within “Kirta” which allowed me to feel more comfortable with the workings of the brush and how to use it to create shapes confidently and smoothly. Following this, I took it upon myself to study the construction of three animated characters and see if I could not only recreate them effectively but also manipulate their construction to create new poses and portray them at different angles to the source material they were being referenced from.
My first attempt at this was with “Optimus Prime” From the original 1984 Generation 1 “Transformers” animated show created by “Toei Animation studios” which the results can be seen below, i found this character to be possibly the easiest to recreate as Optimus’ design is heavily reliant on shapes like cuboids more than anything else, I did have to remain acutely aware of how perspective may impact his stance and or posing but other than this it was a rather enjoyable exercise.
On the subject of Toei Animation, the second attempt was off of Toei’s interpretation of Sonic the Hedgehog which was present in the animated cut scenes of Sega’s video game “Sonic the Hedgehog CD” which was released for Sega’s Mega drive add-on the “Mega CD” (or Sega CD) in 1993 in large collaboration with another major Japanese animation establishment “Studio Junio”. However, I found this design to be incredibly difficult to recreate accurately as the design relies on accurate proportioning of features in order to look correct as if any features are slightly off it can make the entire design look rather odd, as a result this design was the one i was the least satisfied with following this exercise.
The final example is off Kirby from the popular video-game franchise of the same name, in particular Kirby’s first official design which is heavily inspired from his debut appearance in the Nintendo Gameboy game “Kirby’s Dreamland” released in 1992, along with some facial expression designs from the sequel on the Nintendo Entertainment System “Kirby’s adventure” released in 1993. As Kirby’s design is possibly one of most simplistic designs ever created, it allowed for this reconstruction to be incredibly easy to perform but the only aspects that can be challenging is understanding the feature placement on the character as in some poses some features are obscured by the character’s body and or design which may require artist interpretation to fill in the gaps which may lead to some pieces looking odd if not interpreted accurately. this is a skill I intend to improve upon greatly as I proceed.overall I found this exercise to be helpful in understanding where my strengths lie as well as where I need to improve my practices when redrawing characters for animation.