This post is a recap on the production of my animated group project and act as summary to how I believe it went. Overall I found this project to be quite enjoyable and found it quite helpful at teaching me the basics and requirements of animation production and what to expect from it.

When it comes to the teamwork of my group, communication between members was sufficient and I was easily able to keep up with any changes of context and or direction conducted by other team members, thanks to a fellow team member “Tiernan O Donnell” The entire team was given a sense of direction and each team member was given a synopsis to follow and animate accordingly. overall the direction of character design was well managed by fellow team member “Anna Farmer” along with myself  and we all agreed as a team on what designs would be best suited.

If there was any aspects I could improve on how I handle the production it would be how I timed the animation. Initially, I intended for my segment of animation to be 8 seconds long but I found it immensely difficult to create my segment based on the synopsis I was given within the targeted time frame as a result of this difficulty, my animation has exceeded nearly double the initial target time, but as a result, this project has taught me how to perform a considerably large animation production independently within a tight deadline as well as showing me the utter importance of communication in the animation industry in order to make a project work.

Overall this whole production was a great experience in producing 2d animation and I intend to use what I have learned from this production to progress further and help me with future animation projects and allow me to perform the requirements of an animation production Competently.

Group 7 Scene 2 Storyboard   Group 7 Scene 2 Script

 

This post will mark the end of my coursework for the first component of the Animation Studio module. This post will remark what I thought went well in this module and where I think I need to make improvements. As a collective experience I found this module to be very enjoyable and in-depth about some of the essentials regarding animation and the theory behind some of the aspects of animation that could easily be overlooked.

 

• What worked well? & Why?

I found the transfer from using Photoshop to Krita relatively simple and I have benefited greatly from the tools the software provides which Photoshop didn’t have. These advantages I have found with Krita makes me want to use it over Photoshop for not just animation but also general 2d art from this point onward.

 

• What did not work well & Why?

My use of time management was too extreme to the point that it messed with the quality of my finalized work, This was to such an extent that I felt it was necessary to redo some of my pieces to be up to my standards which wasted more time and effort than if I had done it with more time before-hand.

 

• What did I learn about creative team work?

I learned that communication is key to a successful production and without it, it does not just cause confusion but also results in wasted time and work for all team members. Regular communication means that all team members are aware of the changes that are occurring in the production and allows for all team members to make the necessary changes and alterations to their current work to meet a consistent standard across the entire team.

 

• If I were to start the module again what wold I do differently and why?

I would try to use much more referencing when developing designs for animations. My practices before the course used little to no referencing as it was my belief that it was plagiarism to some degree and so, I barley used it most of the time, I would pay for these practices dearly due to having to redo some works because they didn’t meet my standards. Due to this, I plan to reference regularly when developing assets I’m not familiar with.

 

• What do I need to do more/less of to improve my animation practice?

I need to take more consideration for timing in my animated production as I personally believe that my animatic was too fast in pace to easily convey what was going on, in later practices I plan to use proper timing sheets in my productions to prevent this issue from occurring again

 

• What might I change? and How?

I am planning on changing my habit of diving into a project head first without any prior preparation to give my ideas structure as well as try not to go for the first idea I think of so that I can come up with stories and narratives that have more depth and with multiple ideas it will allow for the final story idea to be far more fleshed out.

 

• What should I keep? and Why?

I should keep my consistent input of making sure every weekly homework is completed before the lecture for it, to ensure it does not create a back log of work which may interfere with my working momentum and develop this into a habit.

 

• Final Conclusion

overall I found this part of the module relatively enjoyable and has given me a lot of insight into the does and don’ts of animation preparation and production and has taught me to be aware of some aspects that may be easily overlooked like colour and composition theory and how to use them when telling stories and communicating my ideas.

With the Animatic completed for my Group project, I decided to create a set of Character Turnarounds for the main character “Emmcee” and the dragon to use as a reference. The previous week, my group and I held a debate on what character designs did the entire group like and we narrowed down to the two final designs where my design for the dragon was chosen and Emmcee’s final design was designed by Anna Farmer. these two turnarounds show off the character’s final designs and how they will be portrayed from this point on wards, these will be my main source of referencing for the character’s angles and colour direction for them.

Ref: Original final character design                  Ref: The first example finalized design for the  ,Created by Anna Farmer.                              Dragon.

Week 10’s exercise was taking the exercise from Week 9 and adding colour and line art. This process as quite simple for the most part but it was rather time consuming and could be confusing keeping on track with multiple layers which I plan to resolve by naming each layer individual which is a practice and habit I’m yet to implement which I believe will be essential for professional production.