Category: Animation Studio

The progression of my animation video in the animation studio module was stressful during many enjoyments. Stressing over getting my work complete in its best version and showing my ideas clearly and successfully was something I worried a lot about. Enjoyment in expressing my thoughts and being able to freely experiment with different activities to help me to perform better in my work. Also, learning lots of new knowledge about 2D animation that I didn’t know about was amazing. During this project, I think what I’ve done very well was sharing my ideas when developing the world, and our group worked very well together because we didn’t argue about having different ideas; we all just went with the flow. Every new good idea was developed, and we were always trying to fit them together. and giving each other suggestions on the individual section. I think the part that didn’t work best was on my own, completing the animation, because I was having trouble with having too many scenes that were moving too fast, which I’m still not sure if I’ve fixed the problem until the last stage. I was also having problems with the proportion and the shape of the character in the frame that are right after each other to perform a smooth transition between scenes. Working as a team, I’ve learnt that it’s very important to have connections with each other, which I feel like is something our team needed to make improvements on. If I were to start the module over again, what I would do differently is play around with the angles of the scenes more and give more tries before getting to the final stage of the animation video. This is something I needed to improve on as well, trying and exploring more variety of style and ideas instead of just picking one and staying with it the whole time throughout. Before completing the animation, I should draw more storyboards until I know that the shape and proportion are right and practice on drawing it. Also, I need to sketch out more different drawings instead of staying on one. design and keep changing the details based on the first draft. I should have more drafts of practice for my animation. If I were to change something in this project, one of the things I could do is change the colour palette, maybe have the background lighter and make my characters in more vivid colours. Another thing I would change is the story of my animation; it could be more interesting and more engaging. The last thing I would change is the setting of our world because at the very beginning of the development of the world, I pick my idea of Barbie, but we kind of just kept the idea of dolls, but I wanted the world to be brighter and wonderfully rather than a horror haunted house world. Even though I would like to change the world setting to a more positive and girly setting, I still really liked the design that I’ve created for my room doll. I got inspirations. from the Joker, he’s something I will create a personal story just for him.

This week, we combined all our animatics into a draft animation. To make it easier for me to sketch later while I’m making the animation, I received feedback on my animatic about some shots I could remove that weren’t necessary and about changing shoot angles. Additionally, the group has talked about the ideal colour scheme for the background and character. The character was wearing a denim blue skirt and a burgundy hoodie. In besides having black hair, she has middle-tone peach appearance that is slightly colder. I thought it would appear like book pages with an aged yellowish colour for the background. I’ve found I reference image was something we could use for the world’s colour palette.

Animatic Link: https://ulster-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/ohare-h3_ulster_ac_uk/EdiLov-RiMdGsHHTuj2JmZcB4yF8bcBj97iuw0CFiU61lw 

The workshop this week focused on colouring and line cleaning. The task required finishing the flour sack’s simple design in Krita with clean lines and adding colour. It was a little difficult to get used to drawing on Krita, but the task wasn’t too difficult.

Line and Clean Up Exercise.gif

For the group work this week I continued developing my animation.

This week I focused on creating a short animatic using the storyboard that I drew last week. Before moving on to do the animatic I completed a simple exercise for this week’s workshop. It was a practice run of how we would create an animatic on Krita using a file that was provided.

Plane.gif

There were few difficulties I had to overcome while making the animatic. They were that I was attempting to fit too many scenes into seven seconds. I removed a few scenes to solve the issue, which improved the appearance a little but didn’t slow it down. Another challenge was that there were too many shots, which made the scenes jump relating to as the animatic played and made it seem like there was less of a connection between scenes. I kept what I had for help and feedback later because I wasn’t sure how I would solve the issue.

Dream 1.mp4

Dream 1 2.mp4

Dream 1 3.mp4

I used Procreate Dream for creating the animatic and I also planned to use it for my final animation.

We began the workshop this week with a presentation that covered effective storyboard creation and a variety of approaches that we may use to add interest to our storyboards. placing the subject in the right position so that viewers can more clearly understand the situation and feel comfortable while viewing the animation. The first exercise we had to finish was a storyboard of a flour sack jump. I started the work through studying the example, then gradually changing it after a few attempts at drawing the storyboard because I was having some trouble figuring out where to put the flour sack and what its form was in various poses. Following the description to complete the storyboard was the second task. This work was easier for me than the first one since I was able to draw whatever I wanted, experiment with different styles, and incorporate more of my own elements.

In our group project this week, we talked about the number of rooms in the haunted house and the sequence of scenes. We agreed to have an end scene and an open scene, with Gio conducting the end scene and Hannah working on the open scene. The scenes in the next rooms will be Arwen for room 1, Katie for room 2, Jamayne for room 3, and myself the last room. The assignment required us to create a storyboard for our own section of the animation. I finished drawing my section in rough form.

My rough description for my storyboard was that there is a blind hiding the door; the blind moves to the sides, and the door automatically opens. The girl races into the dark space. A point of view reveals a dusty, web-filled room. I had the impression that the room was set out like a banded circus, with a doll hanging from the ceiling. After taking a step back out of fear, she stepped on a toy. The girl was frightened by the broken crack. and stared at her foot before being pushed to the ground by one of the dolls that were hanging from the ceiling. She screamed as she saw the joker’s head and hurried to stand up and escape for her life. All the dolls began to unhitch from the ceiling and chase after the girl as she ran towards the door.

This week’s workshop started with a lecture covering the 12 principles of animation, timing, and spacing. In animation, timing decides speed; the more drawings I have, the slower the animation will be; therefore, the fewer drawings I have, the faster the animation will be. I think this is an important aspect to keep in mind when doing an animation because it is an easy thing to forget. The audience’s impression of the animation can be influenced by the moving object’s placement and spacing.

The 12 principles of animation are:

1. Squash and Stretch
2. Anticipation
3. Staging
4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action
6. Slow In and Slow Out [Ease in and Ease Out]
7. Arcs
8. Secondary Action
9. Timing
10. Exaggeration
11. Solid Drawing
12. Appeal

Following the presentation, we were given exercises using the sketching software Krita to make bouncing balls. Out of the 12 principles of animation, it seems we mainly focus on the Squash and Stretch concept as we create the bouncing ball. A simple ball that plainly bounced up and down was the first bouncing ball task.

Bouncing Ball.gif

The second bouncing ball task included more movement in bouncing to different place. To complete the task, I did have to draw a guid line to help so I will know where the ball will bounce to.

Bouncing Ball 1.gif

The third bouncing ball task, I completed it as homework. I played about of different types of balls such as the basketball and a yoga ball. How will they form in different weight and the amount bounce they will have when been thrown.

 

Bouncing Ball 2.gif

For this week’s group work, we discussed the different shots that we could use in the animation and had started a rough planning of the animation. We also had a new member joining us.

This week, we had to decide which world we would like to pick and stay in for future development. I’ve decided to go back to the Haunted House Storybook World, the original group. The task for this week was to simply decide on a world group and keep working on the world animation and character design. Each member was required to create two characters for the Haunted House Storybook World: the main teenage girl and individual dolls from each of our rooms in the haunted house. The results of our group’s discussion: a teenage girl’s basic outfit would consist of a hoodie, skirt, boots, and a ponytail. I simply drew a basic sketch of it according to the description. Further character development was completed on some more research.

This week started with a lecture that covered the fundamentals of character development and what characteristics characters must have to demonstrate whether they are good or bad people. understanding how to start with basic shapes and work your way up to a character. Making simple figures with the basic shapes sheet was the first task for this week’s workshop. I completed drawing on this sheet using a variety of colors. In order to complete this sheet, I simply drew whatever came to me, but as I went along, some of the drawings were really difficult because some of the shapes were very much strange to employ in character development.

   

Analysing three of the presentation’s images and developing three characters based on them was the second workshop task. We had carefully examined the characteristics’ image because the characters we created still needed to have similarities with them.

We must create our own characters for the world as an aspect of our homework. The protagonist and antagonist of Rootin Tootin’: Macabre Gothic Western World were two ladies. One of the characters is a vampire, and in my mind, she needs to be tall, pale, and have icy skin tones, as well as sharp edges in her body. A cowboy girl is another character; she should, in my view, be energetic, wealthy, and clever. Before creating the final character design, I drew a rough drawing and did some picture research to find a style that would work for my concept.

Beginning of this week’s workshop, we started with a group shift as Gio, and I got swapped into the Rootin Tootin’. Macabre Gothic Western World. Afterward we had a lecture about the meanings of colours and the purpose of using a colour in scenes. Then we got a short exercise. to complete, which was making our own colour palette and colouring in the image that was provided. I made a warm and cold colour palette in blue and pink. I just blocked in the different tones of blue and pink in the first two pictures. I did a third version in blue with more of the colours blended.

To complete the group activity, we discussed about and created a colour scheme that we all felt would work well.

For homework we also had to either employ our previous thumbnail drawings from weeks ago and add colour to them or make another sketch and add colour to it. I made a new drawing of what I thought the world may look like, and I coloured the world roughly. I developed the idea of the world having the vampires living above the mountain and the cowboys just on the ground surface instead of having them both on the ground and the world separated in half straight. I researched some image references and combined them with the idea that I’ve thought, then developed this image.

The lecture this week focused on tone and value. Throughout the presentation, we completed short exercises. Drawing items that I believe might exist in our world—Haunted House Storybook World—was the first task. Apply various tints and tones to the items once they have been sketched out. Lighting resources were given to many items from the front and right. The second activity involved using lines and crosshatchings to create tones and shades while still drawing out specific objects. For this activity, I have decided to sketch a few buildings.

 

We are switching groups for the first time this week. New members of Ella, Naomi, and Darian were switched into our group at the Haunted House Storybook World, while Gio and I remained in the same group. I gave the newcomers a general overview of our universe and the stages we were at after the group move, and we continued with our world discussion. This week, the following concepts were considered interesting:

1. Every time when the character escape to the door and she steps out. She will automatically get transport back to the middle of the haunted house.
2. Instead of just having creepy dolls ruling the haunted house, we can have more creatures.
3. Instead of a house it could be a castle or a mansion.
4. The rooms in the haunted house could be a place, when the door open it could be an endless forest or beachside with an invisible end.

The homework for this week, I sketched out some new thumbnails of our world based on the developed ideas. Also, two rough sketches with tones.