Lip Sync
This is the first time that I have ever tried to draw a character and lip sync it to a piece of music or audio. I was excited to do this but the more I thought about what I was going to do the more anxious I became. This was because I could not decide what to draw and what music or audio to use. I struggled for a while when it came to what audio I would use for this part of the assignment as there was quite a lot I would have loved to use. However they did not fit within the 8 to 10 second time frame we were given for this assignment. I looked at a lot of sounds on tiktok as well as youtube because there are a lot of videos on the shorter side and may fit in the 8 to 10 second time frame we were given. I found it difficult to find one I was both happy with and fitted in the time frame, they where all either, too short or too long. I looked at a lot of youtube animation memes as I really enjoy seeing all of the different takes on the same sounds. I looked at a lot of Wingedwolf94 on youtube they are one of my biggest animation inspirations as I really enjoy the style of their animations and the designs of their characters such as their main character a wolf with a skull head. While looking at their videos I eventually came across one using the song Epoch and I decided to use a second of the song for my animation.
I decided to animate my lip sync to audio from ”Epoch, the living tombstone remix” I was struggling to find an audio I wanted to use within the time frame, so I decided to take a portion of this song to use. I am animating one of my favourite dnd characters named Birch a fallow deer satyr with tree branch antlers. I like this character because firstly he is cute and secondly I like the decibel of the character. The secondary animations will be the ear movements and small head movements. I am animating in 2D using toonboom as recommended to us by our lecturer. At the beginning of the animation just before the music begins my character is looking down and has their eyes closed. As the music begins to play they open their eyes, look up and they begin talking/singing.
”Everyone makes mistakes
I’ve had more than my share
But it’s ok ’cause I’m gonna repair it”
During the talking/singing process my animation moves his head in time to the beat of the music. With the head movements the ears of my animation go up and down. When the eyes move tears fall from them.
With this animation I wanted to show that something has happened to this character in the past and what ever these ‘mistakes’ are they have really affected them and hurt them in someway. Which is why I added in tears along with the head and eye movements, I wanted to show that they are torn up about the things that have happened in their past.
For secondary animations I plan to add head and eye movements along with adding tears after the line, ”I’ve had more than my share” for a few lines before the tears fade closer to the end of the clip. This animation took me a lot longer than I expected it too as I have been really struggling with motivation when it comes to animation recently as well as never being happy with any progress I made. I went back over the sketch a few times and changed the head movements multiple times before I was finally happy with the result. Instead of the head moving after every mouth movement the head moves with the beat of the song which I believe looks much better than it did previously. Head movements after each mouth movement was very quick and made it all look messy and too fast. I initially did regret choosing to animate a character that had antlers however looking at the final animation after stepping away for a bit I am really pleased with the way it has turned out and I am glad I chose the character I did as it was something different and slightly out of my comfort zone.
One of my biggest inspirations to use this song was an animation meme video by Paper SU on youtube, they used characters from a game named ‘Cult of the lamb’ which I really enjoy. I also really loved their animations along with the colour palette and line texture. For me it all worked together perfectly. The movements I used in my animations are very different to the video as they did entire body and scene animations while I did shoulders and up. Overall I did really enjoy creating the lip sync even if it was stressful at the time. Looking back at the progress I have made creating it and my old animations shows me that I feel that I have really improved and will keep improving as long as I continue practicing and believing in myself.
Weight lifting
Before I had decided what format my character would take I was watching television and saw the programme “The Worlds Strongest Man”. That then put the idea of using a weight lifter as my animation. While looking for some references for my weight lifting animation I came across a lot of ”The Worlds Strongest Man” clips and decided to reference them. I looked at multiple clips of them lifting large stones which I used rather than the basic weights. I used this video of the 2021 Atlas stones as my main reference. However, instead of the character placing the stone onto a pedestal the weight becomes too much which leads to them loosing balance and beginning to fall forwards. There are a few areas I believe I could improve on such as the smoothness of the animation and the length, I could have had them fall flat rather than cutting it off.
I really struggled creating this animation much like I did with my Jump and lip sync. I was never really happy with the way it was turning out, which made me start over a few times. This had a knock on effect which meant it took me a lot longer to get to a point that I was happy with my work. This in turn added to my anxiety and made things worse. However, I was eventually happy enough with the sketch to continue and was able to finish it. There are still things I can improve on in the final animation but I am happy with how it turned out.
Jump
The reference I used for my jump animation is Animation reference jump 3 by MoMe on youtube. I struggled with this animation quite a bit as I was never happy with the way things where turning out and kept restarting which led to this animation taking longer than I would have liked however I eventually got to a point I was okay with and finished the animation. It is still very sketchy however, as I had spent so much time on my lip sync and my 3D assignment I was beginning to run out of time. This made me extremely anxious so I decided to clean the sketch up I really liked. I struggle with clean lines on still images but I am happier with how this animation turned out than with my weight lift animation as it is a lot smoother even if it is still very sketchy.
There are a few things I would change with this animation such as making the legs at the final part of the animation smoother. I feel they snap into place rather than smoothly moving from one pose to another. I would also add at least one secondary animation such as clothes as well as a character design rather than just a blank base body.
So far this semester I have struggled with self doubt when it came to my skill sets, which adds to my already high anxiety levels. I find it difficult to accept praise from anyone especially family as I believe they just say that my work is good because they are related to me. After speaking to peers, family and looking back at some of my old work has helped me see that I have in fact improved quite a lot even since I first started this course. I am excited to see what my skills will be like at the end of the year and also when I finish the course. I need to keep pushing myself to step outside of my comfort zone and begin to accept praise from others and to believe in myself more than I do now. I believe that if I did this I would not be so anxious all the time. I feel I could have added more movement and detail to my animations in order to make them more alive and expressive. A big thing for me is my time management or lack of it. I really need to work on my time management and make myself a proper time table to do work as I have really struggled with procrastination and low motivation all of this year. I feel I am getting better at getting my work done within the time frame given however, a proper time table should help me get everything finished without the need of an extension. This is something I would like to see happening sooner rather than later. As well as working on a time table for my next assignments I am also working on anxiety and stress management to help myself not get so overwhelmed with the work. At the moment whenever I feel overwhelmed or anxious I step away from my work and take a small time out. I also use relaxation techniques and breathing exercises. I am finding this is helping me at times. Overall I have enjoyed this semester even if it has been very stressful, seeing my progress along with my classmates progress has been fun.