This weeks exercise we were to practise an secondary action, which means adding an action that supports the main act. This typically adds customization to a primary animation to fit a emotion, posture, character etc. I watched the video shown below that demonstrates a multitude of secondary actions and the importantance on why they’re included.
Week 9: Animatic Process.
Our objective this week is to form a “moving storyboard”, known as “animatic”, to form the timing of our animation, shots and ensure it meets the time requirements in the brief. During my time spent in Moving Image I always struggled with pacing of my shots but overcame the struggle through feedback. From my own knowledge the same principles still apply through a 2D animated shot, however I’m relatively nervous at the thought of drawing these shots to fit the time limit alongside having effectively convey the emotions I want to show. Being a perfectionist alongside this, I intend to not fuss about details and focus on timing my frames.
Before going into the animatic process I watched the lectures on blackboard and familiarized myself with the animation terms of follow through, overlapping action and dragging movement. Weight and mass of objects when animating should be considered as well as secondary actions.
Week 8: Storyboarding and Animation w/ forms.
Week 8 was an introduction to storyboarding, alongside a brief introduction to animatics, that can assist with planning shots and cinematography.
Class Activities:
I created a flour sack witch and wanted to mess around with a silly story. I will admit the planning and framing isn’t ideal here for shots but I had fun coming up with a silly little narrative to fit the description text.
The second exercise was to animate a flour sack jumping. I wanted to try a difficult movement to see if what I intended to animate translates well. I used procreate as practise for getting the idea of doing a rough animation.
Sack animation rough:
Sack animation: in-between frames added. This made the animation sequence a lot smoother. It was easier than I expected to lay down the ground work for an action then draw the missing sections. I also added a floor so my sack jumped and landed in the right areas.
Week 7: Animation Introduction.
Our week 7 task was an introduction to Animating, more specifically timing and spacing. I remember when doing my media course and implementing my clips I had always experienced issues with timing, scenes would either drag on or I wouldn’t be entirely sure on what felt natural to prolong in a scene for emotional impact or a structure of story telling. From my own knowledge timing when it comes to animation is an important factor due to cohesion and flow of a characters movement, and it’s is the key factor to a believability of a scene. Timing and spacing frames translate the speed of an action and the physics/weight of that object.
Week 5: Character Design.
For week 5 we were to create characters that would invest the audience in the story we were going to tell. Characters are what make up a story so I want to invest story telling elements into my character designs to inflict appropriate emotions onto the viewer. I needed to try and understand the story I wanted to tell and how my characters come into play, so I needed to be mindful of the following design steps: target audience, where the character appears, other existing designs, character uniqueness, personality, utilizing exaggeration and strategic colour etc. There is also the matter of us needing to animate this character, so we need to keep our designs simple enough so the overall group are able to translate the designs over into their own style.
Week 4: Colour Theory.
Week 4 was dedicated to colour theory and it’s purpose. I wasn’t in this week so I was unable to complete the on sight exercises, however I watched through the blackboard content to ensure I had a firm grasp on what I missed during class time.
Going through fine art A-Level colour theory had always confused me. I knew how to use colour to invoke a mood or emotional tie to the image you were seeing, however I tried to only ever add darks and lights to symbolize depth, which in truth isn’t always the case. For example I never considered the technique of atmospheric background depth (see Perspective – 10 minutes to better painting), where instead of adding darker values to symbolize objects behind using a cooler cyan (de-saturated colour) to show the difference that it can make by considering colour and stretching the difference. I try to now take complimentary colour palettes into account when creating a illustration and finding new ways to implement colour that gives the feeling life rather than shading to only fit realism. Animation is an illustration of life, and although realistic colour palettes can be used it’s a medium that bends reality to fit a purpose, and that’s also what colour can achieve.
Week 3: Tone / Value.
Week 3 we looked into the importance of value and tone when it comes to design work in animation. This is an important step to how artists render and shade objects to communicate light and shadow – depicts form of the design and the overall shape and texture of subjects. The fundamental concept is “when we change the tonal values of a form it changes how we visually read said forms.” Value of depth- contrasting values allows us to understand foreground and background, horizon means lighter tones and the closer the object the darker the object. With going in depth of tone and value I hope to better frame my subjects and depict accurate value changes to my forms.
Week 2: Composition and Perspective.
For week 2’s homework we were encouraged to look into the importance of composition and perspective to scenes. As previously mentioned perspective is something I was always bad at and heard of the principles of perspective but never put them into action. Performing these tasks I hope to gain a better understanding on how I can put perspective principles into use to enhance my compositions.
Week 1: Form and Shape – De-constructing forms.
WARM UP EXERCISES ON BLACKBOARD.
I wanted to try the small warmup exercises on blackboard to build confidence in my line work. I have a sketchy style however learning line density and control would help benefit me in the long run, so I thought this exercise to be helpful. I tried this also on Clip Studio Paint with my old wacom tablet which, admittedly, I’m out of practise with. My eye – pen coordination isn’t the greatest and it’s definitely something to get use to if I want to use certain programs in the future. I have 2 monitors so the sensitivity was out of whack, however I adjusted this to fit the one monitor and it was easier to use from there.
Continue reading “Week 1: Form and Shape – De-constructing forms.”
Collection of Assignments – Semester 1.
Snowman:
Tie Interceptor:
Zubat:
Sword:
Helmet:
