(549 Words)
On starting this module, I appreciated the focus that classwork had on team work and group exercises. I thoroughly enjoyed bouncing ideas off each other during the brainstorming phase of thinking about world concepts – I felt very engaged in class when the group and I would talk about our ideas, change them and expand them together. This experience has made me much more open minded to different ideas and creative styles than I was previously. Professionally, I have learned to take on board the constructive criticism I receive about my work – I am aware that getting feedback from the viewer will help me to identify when my work only reads well for me, allowing me to change things so they also make sense to the viewer. After learning about colour theory, character design and the principals of animation, I feel like I have grown as an artist as I can apply different techniques to these areas in practice that I didn’t know about before I started the course.
Applying colour theory to my designs worked well. I enjoyed seeing how the colour of a scene or character transformed the mood and personality of the drawing. I feel confident that I can choose when to use monochromatic, analogous, complementary or triadic colour combinations to colour a scene. However, I feel like I could improve on choosing the correct colours to achieve a specific feeling for an environment… some of my colour combinations make a scene appear happy when I want it to appear gloomy. In the future, I will look at other artist’s work who use colour theory to make their viewers feel a certain way and learn how different colours evoke emotion.
The character design class worked well for me because it forced me to break habits I had formed from before starting this module. When drawing characters, I now think about what different shapes I could use to build them rather than simply drawing a circle and adding on features from there. I also think about the way I pose them and understand that their posture and stance adds to the character’s personality. These new skills will help me professionally as I become better at developing characters that appeal to viewers. If I started this module again, I would spend more time silhouetting poses for my characters. this would help me to come up with action poses that can be easily understood and that are more visually appealing for viewers.
If I was to start this module again, I would change the way I conceptualise my work. Instead of coming up with a limited number of overthought ideas, I would spend more time producing many sketches and rough work. That way, I could physically look at the ideas I have generated and pick which work best rather than keeping them all in my head where they will be forgotten. Having rough sketches of characters and environments would allow my peers to tell me what they think would work best, giving me new ideas I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t get them down on paper. To improve my animation practice, I will need to start generating more rough animations and concept work. This will ultimately add more hours of practice to my current skillset, helping me grow professionally.