Below is my self reflection on assignment 1, animation studio. I took the prompts to help me cover the main basis.
What worked well? And why?
Looking back I’m really happy with my environmental thumbnails. I really like illustration, however I mostly ever touched character design and would leave out background work because I found no enjoyment from it. The tone and value, perspective and colour exercises really made me realize planning a environment base on our creative processes, to my shock, was really fun and something I enjoyed doing.
What did not work well? And why?
When doing the time and spacing exercises I think I really struggled getting a grasp on the physics in which something is suspended/falls. I often thought “yeah this looks great” and then playing it over the movement always seemed really awkward. It’s ok when it’s only one pace, however I struggled with anything else.
Planning the script and determining the length of the content to animation was also really difficult because the content I provided didn’t meet the timeframe. I hope to improve on these struggles in the future.
What did I learn about creative team work?
In all honesty I’ve never been good in big crowds. I found that when it came to my own work I always felt too embarrassed/shy, however with working in a creative team I found myself being inspired by everyone’s creations and the things I wanted to contribute to our animation that I put that anxiety aside and began showing my artwork more to my group in class. When looking at everyone’s work it inspired me to try out different techniques and styles that I wouldn’t typically think of doing, and as an artist I think that working in a creative team is a valuable experience to have.
I found that working in a group was a lot better than working solo as there were always different approaches and ideas that poured in that elevated out overall worldbuilding, narrative and designs. Sometimes I would feel overwhelmed by the changes being made and had to give up a lot of my own ideas, however I see this as a positive because if I never got any second opinions on what I was producing I would never see things from an outside point of view and be stuck in my own ways. I also really liked my group and meeting new people whenever things would switch up, and although nerve wrecking it allowed for me to meet people in the class I wouldn’t otherwise meet because of the classes sheer size.
If I were to start the module again what would I do differently and why?
I would be a lot more involved in group chats. I would show my stuff in class but when it came to discuss I always had to force myself to post because I wanted to help my group. I want to get to a stage where I could confidently post my work without feeling a sense of embarrassment.
The biggest thing I would do differently is to work better on my time management and posting regularly on the blog. My blog got deleted due to not updating the link and lost motivation. I feel as well that I could have had a lot more to show if I had kept better taps on my time management and workflow for tasks set.
What do I need to do more/less of to improve my animation practise?
To improve my animation practise I would like to go over aspects of the 12 principles of animation, most importantly spacing and timing my animations. I would also like to experiment further with different software as the majority of the time I was using procreate, which tools are very limiting in terms of animation, for example I would like to look further into Adobe after effects as I feel there’s a lot of potential to be had.
Overall I really enjoyed the time spent in Animation Studio, the work I produced and the time spent with the people in my group. I’m hoping for more opportunities for collaboration as it’s a good opportunity to grow and learn from others.