Charicter and Narrative Week 10

Throughout this week we have been making the improvements suggested by Dotty in Last weeks feedback. 

This week we had our final critique
The response from the group was overall positive. Although some of the scenes could do with some adjustment as there is still an element of humor in how the dragon moves.Cara has made a tutorial so hopefully I will be able to adjust and fix this.

Eleni also has her scenes at the end to work on. Im frustrated with her because I told her weeks ago to add the back legs to the dragon and she said she would. She didn't and when we showed to the animation to the class Matt pointed this out.

She has also fixed the flight pattern of the dragon, using Carlas tutorial.

Charicter and Narrative Week 9

I have reworked some of the backgrounds to make them more consistent. The flight pattern of the dragon has been adjusted as it felt too mechanical. It is supposed to be based on a sea snake and how they move. i have been continuing to animate my scenes. I have also been offering feedback to Eleni and Carla.

                                                                                                                                                                 feedback from the weekly crit

• dotty says my metier looks like a hairball
• there needed to be more trees on the scene where the dragon falls to the ground, dies and time passes. 
• the houses should come up in more of a staggered way to suggest that the whole city wasn't built at once. It was also mentioned that the movement looked as though it was too mechanical
• In the scene where the dragon gets hot by a metier it was demonstrated that if the dragon where to be hit the egg would fall forward not backwards. I also said to her that i thought it was odd the way the dragoons body almost prepares for the impact. 
• there was also issues with some mountain shots as they didn't make sense in the context of the narrative.
• the end scene where the dragon flys to the mountain and dies needed to be changed because when she is flying over the city it is as though she has flown in a circle. This is not something we where going for. It has to be implied that she has traveled far and is exhausted. The scene as it stands, doesn't convey that. Doitty suggested looking at the black forest in Germany for inspiration. for the final scene.

I talked with Andreas about the possibility of adding in sound effects to accompany the animation. He has cautioned me about doing so as it may take away from the music. i have since experimented with adding some in at a low volume. using a dope sheet to plan out where they would go.  It seems fine, but i will get a second opinion.

I am frustrated with the other members of my group as they never seem to be in. Granted they do work at home. However, it would be better for communication purposes if they where in university more.Especially as i don't have access to any of the Adobe suite at home. So i reply exclusively on the university computers.

Charicter and Narrative Week 8

This week we have been continuing to animate. In addition i have been collaborating with music student from Leeds College of Music. This process involved communicating via email to the leeds college of music student union. I asked of they had anyone that would be interested in collaborating with an 2nd year animation student.  I had around 16 responses. So i had to set a cut off point. i gave them a week to respond. From there i sent them everything we had done so far and asked them if they'd still like to work with us. From there i narrowed it down to three people. I asked the group which they liked best. We then narrowed it down to Amdreas. We chose Andreas because, his music is amazing and he has experience scoring animation. i sent Andereas this video about why Ghibli films sound so good. It actually goes really deep into music theory and music composition.

We have revived the first draft of the music back Andreas. It sounds really good. here is the clip he sent me

                                                   Andreas's Music 

As for animation this week i made progress with my scenes. In addition to this i also had a crack at animating the dragon puppet that Carla built. I really struggled as it is a complex puppet to use and i am not completely comfortable with after effects yet. Here is ome of my failed attempts.

 

Matt showed me how to use the puppet pin tool after he saw me struggling with the puppet that Carla made, however I consider this i failure. I tried to use the puppet pin tool to create a more fluid motion but it just ended up looking really warped and unnatural.

Charicter and Narrative Week 7

This week we had the first of our weekly presentations. We showed a rough version of the anamatic along with everything that we have done for pre production thus far.

I was ill on this particular day, Therefore i wasn't able to personal present to the rest of the class. However, my team reported the feedback to me and afterwards Dotty came and spoke to us personally about the things we needed to change.

• The feedback front he rest of the class and Dotty was the following;
• The animatic breaks the 180 rule a lot. 
• In the beginning the clouds pull apart too quickly
• timing in general needs to be adjusted
• the scene where she is in the cave is too comical and needs to be reconsidered. 
• the character design was good, although it needs colouring asap and the face needs to be more detailed.  
• The after credits scene might not fit with the context of the rest of the animation

In addition to this, I have had to create more assets due to my poor organization skills. I should have made a list of everything we needed for each scene before we went into production. However, I am staying back every night this week and next so hopefully I will be able to catch up in a timely manner. 

Charicter and Narrative Week 6

Me and Eleni have continued to work on the backgrounds together. We have been going at a steady pace. I have been creating some watercolour houses to use for the backgrounds and i have been editing them in Photoshop.
We have finished the storyboards. Carla is going to make an anamtic from these. 
Carla has also been working on the puppet based off my turnaround and Elenis model sheet.

What went well?

• We have all been very productive this week
• We continue to work well as a team
• The backgrounds are turning out well

What could be improved?

• I think i could have divided up the tasks a little more evenly. It does seem as thorough Carla is doing slightly more work in comparison to me and Eleni. 

Charicter and Narrative Week 5

This week I worked on watercolor textures for some of the backgrounds. I edited them in Photoshop adding stars. I then used the mountains that Eleni made and edited them so that they would fit the scene. In addition to this i also worked on colouring the dragoon turnaround. I asked Eleni for help with the face as i couldn't quite get enough detail in.




I also made a dragon scale texture by cutting up lots of small pieces of paper and arranging them into a pattern that resembles fish or snake scales I scanned this in and then duplicated it in Photoshop to make a sheet of scales for Carla when she makes the puppet.

 As far as directing is going. I have been making sure people are doing work and that work is split evenly Eleni is working on backgrounds and storyboards and Carla is working on the storyboards the animatic and the puppet

What went well?

• The watercolor effect came out as expected. Overall I am happy with the result
• I am happy with how the dragon scales came out.
• I have been very productive 
• I finished off my contributions to the storyboards. I was also left to format them and put in the directions. We may have to edit them at a later date as the style still isn't quite consistent

What could be improved?

• Whilst my time management for this project has been consistent and is a marked improvement over last year My time management for other projects, mainly PP and COP has not been so great. 
• We are still slightly behind on pre production due to Dottys suggested changes to the script and therefor the necessary re storyboarding. 

Charicter and Narrative Week 4

This week we continued to work on the character design, on the changes suggested by Dotty. We also started to work on the storyboards, based on the updated version of the script.

I started work on the 3rd draft of the turn around i will colour it over the weekend so hopefully it will be completely done by Monday. I also want to add a few more poses, which i can either do throughout the week or if i get time, over the weekend too.

Eleni is going to do the model sheet as i think everyone should get a chance at developing the character and it'll be good to uniform our styles.

Work on the 2nd draft of storyboards began. Eleni is going to the the start, i am going to do the middle and Carla is doing the end scenes.We came to this decision after roughing out the storyboards on post it notes and choosing which scenes we needed and which we didn't.  

Carla is researching how the the dragon should move. She has been looking at Asian dragons and how they move. I have suggested that she add extra segments to the body to create a more realistic movement.

Charicter and Narrative Week 3

This week we focused on the character design, the turnarounds and storyboards. However,

Towards the end of the week, we started to think about voice acting. We had decided as a group that we wanted Dotty to do the voice of our dragon. When i approached her, she asked to see the script. She went through it with a fine tooth-comb and told us to take big chunks of it out, otherwise, it would be a 10 minute film

So, I set towards condensing the script down from a 7 page document to a 3. Carla and Eleni have been giving me there input and ideas. It is likely that as we go further into the storyboard and animation we well need to cut scenes. As such this will almost certainty not be the final draft of the script. 

We have divided the tasks up to get back on track. Eleni and i are doing the character design, storyboards and d backgrounds.I am looking into how to create a paper cutout puppet.  While Carla is going to look at ways to create a paper style puppet. 

Charicter and narratie week 2

This week I wrote the script. It was based on my initial notes and input from Carla and Eleni. I initially thought about formatting it like a proper script, however, ultimately I decided not to, as it would confuse people;the animation is too short and there was not enough material to work with. Therefore, I decided to just write a description/breakdown of what would be happening in each scene and give an overview. When the time comes to put together a production booklet, I will format it then.

What went well:

• I wrote the script. 
• We worked well in a team
• I listened to everyone's ideas and had input from everyone and I gave feedback on this input.
• in our first initial meeting we discussed the character and narrative. Carla and Eleni both offered there ideas which i tool into account. The changes we ended up making where
• the moon god should just be a talking moon. 
• there should be an after credits scene of an egg cracking so that it represents the circle of life.

I should take into consideration

• who my target audience is 
• what culture is the dragon from?
• where is it going to be set?

Character and Narrative - Week 1

This week we were put into teams by luck of the draw. I ended up being paired with Carla and Eleni both of whom i get along well with.  Once in our groups we had to create a story with some story dice. This is also based on luck, although we did get to pick a theme each. I chose mythical, because i wanted challenge myself.

i created some initial doodles of what i thought would look good for the story. I plan to write the script, produce and join in with the concept art and animation.

3D Maya

I find it really hard and I cannot get my head round it. I took lots of notes because I knew I would forget. But even after taking notes I don’t remember and only know the basics and even then I still manage to mess up. I can possibly improve by continuing to use Maya. However I do not wish to pursue 3D, as it is something that I don’t want to go into in the future as I don’t feel that 3D is my thing.






However, it does have its uses. For example, deep canvas is a technology used on the Tarzan films and in Treasure Planet whereby a 3D environment was created to assist the animators in creating animation that does not look like 3D animation as we know it today. Some of the scenes would have taken months had they not used 3D programming. They then traced over it so it looks more like traditional animation. They paint over the top and paste that over the 3D models.

MOOM!

Moom was our first introduction into 3D charicter animation. Moom is a simple, rigged 3D puppet used to tech the basics of 3D puppet controll.

 Certain areas of Moom's body were locked so that we couldn't accidentally move something that wouldn't be possible in a human body and so that we didn't break him. So things like the pelvis and the waist and the chest could only rotate a limited amount but could not move up and down. It was also important to learn about parents and children. In this case the fingers are the children of the hand and the hand is in itself a child of the lower arm.

 What went well?

• Moom was fun to play around with and break
• I got some really dynamic poses from Moom.
• I was able to get some good expressions 

Would could have gone better?

• I could have been more focused and planned out what I wanted Moom to do.
• More of a variety of poses

3D Stop Motion Puppet

You make the wire armature out of various pieces of sharp, pointy metal and you twist them
together in the rough form of your puppet.
You then put Milliput on the joints so that they don’t move and they are locked in place; you do this for the shoulders and the hips. Then you get foam and you glue the foam where there would be a part of the body that would not necessarily move, your joints move but your bones don’t: rib cage, thighs, lower leg, head, upper arm and lower arm.
Then you wrap the entire thing in wadding and bandages so it looks a bit like a mummy, then you put the Plasticine on top.

However upon further research, there appears to be multiple ways of doing this that
don't require the use of foam, bandages and wadding. There are people who use a dowel and they will tape it to the leg and where the joint is. They will break it so the joint is flexible but you cannot move the leg part.There is a way of making them in America that uses a material called ProPoxy all over and they don’t use foam. You can also use silicone, which is used in Ardman animations.
Once you have created your masterpiece, you then need to bolt it down to the floor so that when you
do the walk cycle it looks like a walk cycle instead of her shuffling across the floor. You bolt it down so that the planted foot does not move while the opposite foot in motion can move.

Task 10

Response to feedback
A lot of things were suggested but not all them were recorded. So have myself a bit of feedback
based on what I remembered and picked up from the presentation.
It was suggested that I use different poses for the jump sequence, this also links to the
comment on using limited animation on the jumping sequence. I implemented this by creating a
pose to pose sequence and filling in a couple of the in-betweens.
There was a suggestion that the helmet should move faster but at the time I thought it was
fine, but after animating the additional sequences, the timing of the helmet did not fit in. I
might make it faster if I have enough time.
Someone said that I should lip sync the bad guys, and I agree I should but I don’t think I am
going to have time do this. A compromise for this would be a head wobble, to show that he is
alive and not just a still image.
It was also suggested that I should fix the rotation of the tail and the motion, because I had it
fixed in an S shape and it would move on a pivot, but tails don’t move like that, they move on a
pivot up to a point and then they snake. I will fix this if I have time.

Week 16 Last Miniute Animation, Editing and Catching up with blogs

I spent almost the whole week creating this animation. I fist looked up reference of superhero landings. As my character is heavily influenced by spider man, i used him as reference. I first rotoshoped him doing a superhero landing, then i drew my character over the top i rough, i then line arted the whole thing and coloured it in.

I had to throw together a final cut of the project. Needless to say i am not 100% happy with the final result. I used the audio from the anamatic, which i had to extend a little by overlapping it. That's why it sounds a little of in parts. This is what it looks like.

I also caught up with my blogs this week. I fixed any mistakes that i'd made and i also completed by evaluation and self graded myself. Which came out to an average of 47%

What went well?

• During this project my drawing skills have improved massively
• I think my timing has improved a little
• Editing of the initial anamatic was good

What could be improved?

• the music and sound effects. For example i should have created a fresh mix of the audio and i could have added in sound effects especially for the zipper and the parkouring across the rooftops.
•  Some of the shots could have been more cinematic. 
• It also suffers from middle of the frame syndrome, where by i put everything in the middle of the frame. I will keep this in mind for the next project and i will push myself out of my comfort zone by putting the action to the left third or right third. i will also study cinematography and look at different shots to get a better sense of how to make my animations more cinematic. 

Week 15 Almost finished, More animation, editing, bits and bobs

Part of my anamatic has a scene where Billie is jumping and leaping from rooftop to rooftop, chasing down the bad guys. Had i known that i was going to be animating this fully i would have left this scene out in favor of a simpler one. However, been suggested to use limited animation to make the process easier.                                                                                      

 

 

i had fun creating an animated sequence of Billie putting on the suite. I did this because i thought that simply putting on a helmet wasn't enough. In addition to this it also provides me with a few extra seconds of animation to add to the finished product.

to understand the movement, i tried to rotoscope myself putting gloves on. This helped me to understand how the gloves would move as i put my hand through. Unfortunately i ran out of time to animate this full the way o wanted.

What went well?

• thought the project i have been struggling to draw cartoon-ish hands. I feel as though i have gotten much better at this. Now to the point where i feel comfortable putting them into my animation.
• The shot of the zipper turned out really well. Ash, in 3rd year suggested i use a tracking shot and it worked really well

What could be improved?

• the usual, time manajent
• the colouring, espechally on the zipper scene could be more accurate. In the future  i will take better care when shading

Week 14 Walk cycles and additional scenes

In this task we had to learn the building-block principles of creating a 'Basic 24 Frame Walk Cycle'.
We where then shown how to strip down this 'Basic 24 Frame Walk Cycle' into 12 Frames, then down to 8 and finally right down to 4, concentrating looking at the timing and how the frames are held in-conjunction to the amount of frames that you use; 'fudging the timing'.

here is an 8 frame walk cycle i made of a little robot during our strip down

 here is my 2D tratitional cell animation created suring a traditional cell animation workshop/demonstration hostd by Ben

here is my final 2D walk cycle

 Here is my 3D pixalation  walk cycle

What went well?

• the pixalation was fun, and i think it turned out okay
• the workshop with Ben was a good experience

What could be improved?

• i wished i had more time to completely animate my character. And to animate it to a better standard.
• My 2D walk cycle is really rugged and jagged

Week 13 - Interum Submission Feedback, Redrawing Backgrounds and More Animation

Ben has given me feedback on my anamatic, character design and sketchbook flip through video.
Key points of the feedback

• the documentation of my ideas was throughout and well considered
• the model sheet was good and showed improvement over last time, however i forgot to put in the silhouetted poses. Oops.

takeaways
i will amend the modle sheet as soon as possible
i would like to fill out my sketchbook more as there are missing pages still

this weeks animation/redraws

What went well this week?

•  I got a lot done considering Ive just cone back from holiday

what could i have done better?

• i could have added more shading to the redraws of the scenes. I could achieve this by using tools like the gussion blur to add a controlled gradient to certain bits. I would have to keeps in mind colour theory when doing this, such as warm highlights cool shadows

Week 9 - 12 Working over the easter holiday on background redraws

Over the Easter break i had the opportunity to go home to visit family and hang out with my cats. During this period i managed to complete a total of 6 backgrounds. i also figured out a way to represent her blindness and sight once she puts on her helmet. My problem was i was trying too hard to replicate the effects of Out of Sight, and i was never happy with the result. When asking people they said everything from it looks like smoke to thinking she was some kind of magician        

     Then after much trial and error on both Photoshop, after effects effects and in real life i came up with a way to poetry her disability and her suites ability. This was achieved by creating two versions of the same scene.One in black and white the other in colour. the black and white is placed on top of the colour and a mask is used to revel the colourd version. Once i got back to uni i was able to animate it this way.

what went well?

• time management, i was able to stick to my schedule that i had set for myself pretty well
• i caught up quickly 
• i developed a better sense of perspective, especially in the opening scene when she is walking home. her bedroom looks much better now 

What could have gone better?

• i have more distractions at home. i could have ignored these.
• i could have focused on otheraspects of the project such as storyline and sketchbook development.

Week 8 - Inturum Submission and Anamatic

This week i prepared for the interim submission by making sure that all my tasks where up to date. I also filmed a flip through of my sketchbook showing my progress so far.

in order to accurately represent everything that I have taken inspiration from and referenced I also screen recorded my Pintrest bored. 

to create my animation I stepped gingerly into the world of After Effects. Learning this software was a little tricky as i had missed the tutorials for it due to my mental health. I used AF most prominently in the beginning of the anamatic for the scrolling background.

what went well?

• learning after effects in my own
• documenting my sketchbook and all pf the work i did for this project.Putting it all in one video.
• im happy with how much my drawing skills have improved

What could have gone better?

• i was a little pushed for time towards the end.there are a couple of scenes, in particular the fight scene, which i wished i cold have animated fully instead of using limited animation.

Week 7 story, storybording and scripting

This week we had to create a storyboard for our characters. As I had already decided to make Billie blind, I had to take that into consideration when coming up with a story line for her to follow. Initially I wanted to just do an intro that introduce Billie, who she was, her disabilities, her secret identity and her role withing an expanded universe. This would be used as a intro to a conceptual full episode lasting between 10 - 15 minutes. Documenting in Beano fashion the crazy antics and fun her and her friends get up to both as super hero's and in normal life. This would be partially inspired by the Ben 10 format (not the reboot) 

Billie is walking home from school, visualising her world through her cane. It is also getting dark.

She hears the familiar sound of police sirens.

She puts her superhero costume/suit on and her world bursts into colour.

She leaps out of the window. In pursuite of danger.

She jumps, leaps and tumbles across the tops of Beano Citys sky scrapers, like a cat. 

She spots the souse of the trouble and leaps down. A bank is being robbed.

She springs into action, using her superior cat senses enabled by her high tech suite she is able to quickly apprehend the bad guys

woth the bank robbers safely detined, the police arrest them and whisk them away to a jail cell.

Billie winks at the camera before juping up into the air and through the night.

End