Storyboard (Idea 3)

 

 

 

Storyboard (Idea 2)

Storyboard (Idea 1)

 

 

Max the rigged Maya puppet

I have been introduced to Max. He is a 3D fully rigged puppet designed for animators to use. Puppet rigs are designed solely so that the animators can be free to animate it how they are required whilst at the same time, keeping the same quality that the rig is left for them.

In this session we made some key poses. The idea was that the poses had to be conspicuous so that others know what Max is doing.



This pose was probably the most interesting in my opinion. I used every single part of the part and moved them into position. This is simulating Max being terrified.


This pose I find one rather amusing but it is an obvious pose as he is clearly angry. I was happy with the result as it turned out better than I anticipated.



This is a yoga post. Max is supposed to be closing his eyes but due to a rendering glitch in the software, it does not show much.

Stop-motion

This particular technique in animation seems to be interesting to me which involves real life objects being moved one step at a time to form a sequence, which forms an animation. This was an interesting part as I've done stop motion in the past using toy materials such as Legos and it was good to once again be reintroduced to it.

For this exercise, I have used an audio file from WOLF. I have used an audio file which quotes "whatever" that is said in a rude way. First I filmed myself capturing the movement ignoring my mouth from distracting me so that I can focus on the character action.

Here is my test of animating the character:
https://vimeo.com/147944180

Animating to sound

Sound is an essential part in animation in my opinion. If animation didn't have sound then the audience would loose interest pretty quickly. However sound does not work well on its own either. If either of them was to be alone then it would be unappealing to the viewers. If sound and animation are both together, then it would be. To me the percentage of importance of sound and animation are balanced.

For this I will be using non-object like structures in TV Paint with a WAV file provided by my lecturer.

Life drawing

The human body is a fascinating structure that can operate in many forms. The aim of this session is to fully comprehend how the human figure works.

On A3 paper, I have drawn multiple sketches of a life model. In this session I have focused on the proportion and how I can observe the figure.

Here are the pictures I have used for drawing the life model in regular order;

















Here is the drawings I attempted doing while not looking at the paper but instead focusing on the life model taking the proportions and structure into consideration but I didn't do very well.



Here is the drawings I did of the people who were sitting opposite me.

Hand drawn animation

This is one of my personal favourite subjects in the animation industry. The good old classical hand drawn animation just like they did in the early 20th century. It is used world wide and is considered by many to be a very good form of animation technique. It is commonly known to be used by Walt Disney, Walter Lantz and Tex Avery.

I remember as a kid, I used to draw tiny basic characters in my drawing book on each page and then flip the pages over rapidly to make it move. That is the basic principal to hand drawn animation.

This is where my classical animation pegbar comes into use. A4 papers are hole-punched with a special animation device.

The image above shows the guide that I have planned out each individual frame, so that when I drew them on paper, I know exactly where the ball is going to be and where the tail is going to be positioned.

 

Here is the result of my final animation - https://vimeo.com/147368671

Internalisation and Intuition

Sometimes drawings can make illusions that words cannot explain, especially when it comes to verbs or adjectives. The can be formed through the artist's mind that may seem irregular to everyone else, especially when it comes to drawing non-object drawings.

For this task I have divided my sketchbook page into 8 sections. Each section represents or expressed different things. These things include (in order) anger, happiness, illness, loneliness, sadness, masculinity, femininity and stillness/peacefulness.

 

 

Drawing thematically

In this lesson of drawing strategies we were given an observational object that we required to draw. The object could be as simple as we wanted. In this instance I took out my water bottle to draw.

The lecturer proceeded to inform us about drawing it as many times as possible on the same page.
We had to draw it quickly, from different angles and different sizes. We also had to draw without preciousness, with little to no detail, ensuring that we would have it done quickly.

This is the picture I drew with of my water bottle. I constantly kept moving the bottle around and turning it so that I could see it from different angles.

This is a drawing of my pencil sharpener. I chose this as very simple but also forms an uncanny shape around one of the stripes.

 

These are various sketches of my left hand. I used my left hand as an observational drawing as I can only draw with my right hand.

Love-sick Lizard

Synopsis/Elevator pitch

A chameleon tries to win over the love of his life, only to come to a tragic end.

Storyboards

Each of us were individually given a separate part in doing the storyline. In this case I was given the beginning part.

This storyboard is the official one that I used. Though I required to redraw it on a larger size paper so that the audience could view the concept.

The scene is a deleted scene that was not used in the original storyboard.

 

 

 

 

 

Character sheets

 

 

Target Audience

We have considered that the target audience would be a teenager at any gender with access to the internet as this type of animation would appear in online communities.

Brainstorm

When we were discussing what our ideas should be we went through things that would be deemed as original with relation to internet cartoons. We decided to go with a simple love story with a tragic ending, as we considered happy endings to be overused.

Moodboard

 

Storyboarding

I have learned that in developing ideas and experimentation for screen, storyboarding is an essential part of capturing your illustrational thoughts. It can project a visual concept for my colleagues, telling stories and give the viewer a better perspective on how the story is going to work out.

A storyboard consists of multiple frames, step by step. The illustrations on each board are often displayed in rough sketches (though not excessively). This is often done to shorten the time taken to produce a pre-visualized concept.

Point perspectives

Point perspectives

Perspective is an essential part in terms of drawing. Everything we see in the real world evolves around perspective. Without perspective it would be a very illogical world. In drawing strategies I have learned point perspectives using one, two and three points. It is an illusion from a point of view, which specific dots will act as guides producing graphical illustrations.

Picasso, a world famous artist used perspective and wanted to give people a way of looking at things in a different way.

I have learned that there are three types of point perspective. All three points are important in drawing strategies and can provide the appropriate perspective the artist requires.

One point perspective
This perspective revolves around one vanishing point.

Two point perspective
Two points is slightly more precise than one point perspective because the drawing can be verified by two different places. This makes the drawing in a little more detail.


Three point perspective
Although using three point perspectives can be effective it is not always necessary to use in perspective drawings, as it would not obtain the same structure as two and one point perspective would.

Squash, Stretch and Exaggeration (Bouncing ball)

The bouncing ball is an animation mechanism that simulates a ball bouncing from one side of the screen to another. I will be using Maya once again for this demonstration. The editable motion trail is now once again used and this time the animation is in auto-mode, ensuring that the ball will follow the path as I want it to.

As gravity forces the ball against a concrete the ball will squash against the solid floor and then reform its shape once it has recovered from the landing.

 

As the ball processes through time the ball will slowly degrade until it either meets a collision or stops completely.

This video shows the bouncing ball:
https://vimeo.com/143520136

 

 

 

Timing and spacing (continued)

Timing and spacing is a very essential mechanism in animation. Similar to the last procedure it consists of moving objects that are set in the same time but move at a different spacing.

With this particular exercise I will be demonstrating this technique with two pendulums. The image below shows that both of the pendulums are equal in terms of start, middle and end frames but the one on the right is more exaggerated than the one of the left.

 

The video shows the result of this pendulum technique;
https://vimeo.com/143464697

Same Timing/Different Spacing

This being my first official week of University I have been introduced to Maya. This software that I have not yet experience but hope to get better at a later stage. With Maya I have studied the different timings but at the same time I have also made the spacing different. Both spheres arrive at the end location at the exact same time but both of them go at different eases.

This screenshot shows the motion editable motion trail. Notice that the keyframes at the bottom are slighty more exaggerated than the keyframes at the top. The top ones being in order which creates a simple smooth tween from one place to another. The bottom one being eased in and eased out.

Here is the video of the final outcome.
https://vimeo.com/142638564