This assignment brought out my best and worst. First let’s talk about what went well. Starting from the beginning of the projects inception we got off to a very promising start when first developing the general ideas and characters. The work environment and communication within our group was good and inspired me to do my best. We didn’t just live happily forever though as around the beginning we struggled to come to an agreement on a final storyboard. Additionally I found myself struggling initially when trusted to design my own section (Dairy Kingdom) myself. I’ve never had a workload like it and it did turn out to be challenging. Before this assignment I had approximately 0 confidence when it came to drawing landscapes. As such, designing my kingdom for it’s establishing shot made me question everything. I went through 4-5 different designs and was never fully happy with it until right at the end I do like it in the final animation.

Regarding the 12 principles of animation, I am much more confident with some more than others. For example, I can clear my mind when animating pose to pose and incorporating squash and stretch, but I think I suck at anticipation. One in particular I placed emphasis in learning throughout this assignment was timing and slow in and out. I think I did well on them in my intro for the Dairy Pope.

On that note, this assignment taught me valuable meta lessons outside of actual drawing. For example, I put way more time and effort into the aforementioned Pope sequence to the point where it became like my favourite child. I believe there is a notable difference in quality, although I am still satisfied with the overall direction I took. The biggest learning curve of this assignment however was Krita. After we were told that we’d be using it in the future I decided to use this assignment as a crash course for learning the programme on my own. It was a struggle but at the end now I’m confident and actually enjoy it very much. Another thing I learnt was to give myself more time. I along with probably many others didn’t leave myself as much time as I should’ve. I underestimated how long it actually takes and was swiftly humbled. The time pressure resulted in some parts being rushed or uncoloured. I hate to leave them like that but it is what it is.

If I were to start the module again I would 100% flush out my storyboards more. I am super impatient and only had one drawing of storyboard for each sequence. Moreover the designs featured on these storyboards didn’t end up being the ones I settled with in the end. I’ve always had a more impulsive and see what happens mindset when it comes to my art because I like to trust my ability, however this assignment has made me rethink my approach to animating. For the future I should 10000000% practice my clean drawing I think. I tend to get super messy on my art, the fatigue of animating for a while makes it so much worse as well. Now that I’m free however I can practice while animating something more my style.