Responsive- Final Evaluation

Final Evaluation

When starting this module, I could only do basic animations from within Photoshop and I hadn't been able to experiment with mediums as much. By the end, I know about how to have a moving camera within the animation, how to upload and use different tools that I didn't even know were on Photoshop, as follow doing frame by frame animations a lot more smoothly. This would have taken me years to figure out, but becuase we had a chance to do many briefs instead of one big one, we were free to experiment and look at which areas we find enjoyable and find more beneficial to our future. Now we are finished with Responsive as a module, it becomes a lot clearer what I have improved on and which animations/ briefs I naturally found more beneficial to complete. This included Character Design Reference as it opens you up to design a new person who can fit the theme, but they have no rules agains species, age, setting or story, so this means it gives a lot more freedom than most competitions. This is why I chose to carry on producing characters every month, and I shall carry on doing so for the forcible future.

Apart from gaining software skills, I learnt a lot about communication, teamwork, organisation and professional layout skills. 

Communication has always been a difficult thing for me to accomplish, so learning more about how to work with people I dont know is very useful to me, most of this learning was on Collaborative practice as it meant going into a room full of 2 other courses and finding people who would work with you. Time management is something that gets difficult doing work on your own, this is why Collaborative Practice meant overcoming this issue as you are working with other people so getting behind made things more stressful, this is why I worked hard to keep on time and as soon as a member of my team had finished something, I would add it to the designs straight away. This was also an importance that I learned for individual practice also, becuase each brief had a deadline, accepting too many made it difficult to complete projects, this is something tat happened more at the beginning as I got used to how I worked.

When looking at everything I produced, the Mouri Warrior was one of the things that I most enjoyed and looked best as an outcome, I felt differently to the other character designs as they didn't come out looking like good, well thought out characters, I think for my piece to go well, I have to take time and many more sketches to produce something great, but this was all a learning curve to get used to what I can and cannot do, or which goes better for me in the overall outcome. From Loopdeloop, Chicken was the best thing I produced as he shows an original looking character, a forward walk cycle, as well as bold colours and movements. I spent ages on this designs and animations as I was busy with other animations at the time but when I got going, I was proud of how he turned out.

When looking at all of my animations and character designs together, I can see a definite style and aesthetic of bold colours, dark lines and small amounts of shading. This is something I want to come away from as I dont want everything to look the same, I want to experiment with styles, brushes and overall colour pallets as this will help show I can be versatile, which cannot be seen through aesthetics within this module, but I didn't see it till the end when they were all together. This is something I am aiming to change within 3rd year. This all comes down to testing and development, when I designed something good I shouldn't have changed mediums into digital so it fitted, this is how they all ended up looking similar. I wish i had taken the time to produce a watercolour animation as this would have looked delicate and beautifully coloured, wheres digital can look blocky and flat colours, something i struggle with coming away from. This is how I wish I could have changed throughout the module, by going out of my comfort zones and producing something different, even if it didn't work, just experimenting would have been beneficial to me as a student.

Organization is a big thing I would change. Sticking to a ghantt chart, I would have a direction to follow and understand where I needed to be by that date, this is something I didn't think of doing for the briefs and struggled to produce the work on time, even thought I always made sure they were done, it would involve a lot less stress if I had tapered the workload, not doing the bulk right before the brief deadlines. I also found my software to be something that hindered me, I can only afford Photoshop for my laptop, this means I only have it to use. This means I need to do anamatic, animation, and editing, all in the same place so the look will never be as good if it cant be brought through to After Effects, this is something I will change in the 3rd year as I am hoping to spend more time in the studio as I wast able to as much this year.

 When thinking of the future, I have been able to find many things I can improve on even now. This means that when faced with doing this in the 3rd year, I can make these alterations and hopefully produce a better animation that looks more professional and well thought out. Working within a team also has its ups and downs but when someone can split workloads with me, it really takes off some pressure that I would have been under on my own. This is defiantly something I am having to consider when facing the final year, so I will face it with these altercations that will develop my work further. Although some character, unfinished ideas and aesthetics are some things I can take with me but also take further, as theres no point wasting a good idea, I feel I can stretch these out and produce more work that I can manage, knowing I have done pre-production work to get the kinks out of the ideas and designs. This is another thing I have realised when doing work within the 1st and 2nd year, when you get better as an artist, looking back makes older work less impressive to yourself. This isn't a negative though as it means you have come further. This is what I aim to do when I leave, keep getting better and better to my work can develop as well as my skills.

Overall looking at this module, it has been incredibly useful for me as an artist, as I can produce a lot of quick work and small animations to further myself and find more things to be proud of if I have more work to see from myself as I can become more aquatinted with my strengths and weaknesses so when working with others, I can have partners that replace my weaknesses with their skill, this is what makes great projects, when everyone can bring something to the table.

Responsive- Studio Report

Studio Brief 3- Project Report

Responsive- Boards for the Individual Practice Brief

Boards for the Individual Practice Brief

Responsive- Individual Boards for Collaborative Brief

Individual Boards for Collaborative Brief

Responsive- End of Module Student Evaluation

End of Module Student Evaluation

Responsive- Character Design Reference- Game of Thrones

Character Design Reference- 

Game of Thrones- Original Idea

The original idea for this months character was Brienne of Tarth as she is a strong woman as you can see from the mood board I made to get a good look at her outfit, features and her personality.

This is just a small sketch I started with, I wanted to see what I could do with the hair as I tend to struggle with short hair on women as they never look right. I am happy with how this turned out though as it could look like her with more detail and colour added.

 To start with I sketched a full size version of her drawing her sword. I like the sketch of her body at this point but her face is wrong. Yet I cant see what's needing to be fixed. I am going to leave this design for a while and see if it looks better or worse over time.

After a few days I came back and inked the design, this is when I knew the face was really what ruined the design. It doesn't look enough like a powerful character for anyone to know who she was even if I did enter this character into the competition. This is when I decided to change the character to my other favorite powerful woman from the series

Margaery Tyrell is the other character I was toying with drawing from the start, I haven't really drawn any women in dressed for a while so I have missed doing this so I am exited to draw a  female character. I wanted to make her more cartoon like so this will be an interesting task to do.

I have chosen to do her in watercolours as I wanted to see the effect I could gain from this on her dress as I have been a fan of watercolour over the past few weeks instead of digital. I am happy with how she turned out, apart from the face again, I have been stuck with faces recently so this obviously wasn't my day to get it right. I am ok with her not being the best as it taught me that the face is something I do actually need to study to get a style that I can stick with for a while.

I do like the watercolour though, as it is delicate and full of motion in the dress, yet shiny in the sigil behind her. Which is the element I like most about this piece, along with the skirt. I have also been able to add subtle highlights to the skin that I normally struggle to do with watercolour so I have been able to gain and show some more skills in this piece that I am happy with.

This is the last character I will be doing for Character Design Challenge before the deadline of responsive but it has really let me develop myself and I will be carrying on over the holiday to carry on producing and submitting for this site.

Responsive- Studio Brief 3 - Project Report Details

Studio Brief 3 - Project Report Details

Details I need to cover when writing the report. All of these points will further peoples understanding of the work I have produced and why I have produced it.

• selection, production and evaluation of work in response to Studio Brief 1 and Studio Brief 2 of this module

• effectively communicate the briefs that you have undertaken, why you chose each brief and an evaluation of the success/problems with your response. 

• It is essential that you attempt to summarise what you have learnt from working on each brief as well as how this will impact on your practice as a whole

• The report will need show what you have done and why. 

• What experience, views and opinions are essential for people to understand your work and how do you present them?

Applied Animation-Set 1 & Diggers- Week 13

 Set 1 & Diggers- 

Week 13

When building these sets, a worry has been about the set 2 size and the diggers that one of our members owns as the size is very important in making the set look authentic and correct. If they were too big, it would throw off the size of the trees and really underplay the forest size.

This is the first image she sent over, this was the largest of all of the diggers, and as you can see from the background, it would be far too big for the stop-motion set, this was worrying me because these diggers play a vital role in how humans are destroying the rainforest

Here are 4 more diggers she sent over, these seemed ok as she said they were palm sized, but later on I realised she meant the whole palm size, this meant they were about 8cm large, instead of maybe 3 that I needed for the size to work. This meant asking if she had even more in smaller sizes as this would make everything look larger within the forest, instead of normal smaller trees. This also has less of an impact.

Now these seemed to be a much better overall size. This was because they were about 3-4cm which would be perfect for the set, compared to something larger. They were also a great shade of yellow so they will stand out as an eye sore within the forest colours and nice rainforest location. This will further our cause and what we are trying to tell the audience.

As we only need 3 diggers this meant we had a lot to choose from, so I chose two of the diggers from the far left, and one larger digger that is used to push large amounts of dirt and clear away wood. This can help to immerse people into our setting and what our scene is showing and how they are destroying the forest around our orangutan.

When moving back to the first set, I needed to find a way to attach the tree branch across the front to draw peoples eyes into the scene. I managed to do this by making holes within either side of a sturdy thick poster tube. I then looped the wire through these holes. The wire is from the sides of the set that have been glued down, this is so the branch across the front can be held in place and stay in place becuase it is being tied to either end of the set, pulling in the sides to create more of an interesting shape. 

Here you can see the holes and how I have added wire into the ends to tie the two together, this let it go tight and not move.

To add in extra support, I then glued the tube down so it really couldn't be knocked with filming. I used UHU glue for this and weighed it down with a heavy item to it stays.

Here are the trees again, as the UHU glue was drying, I did another layer of paint over the trees to cover all of the foil left showing and deepens the colour so they look more like real trees. This also really shows their shape and how they look like they could make a  small forest together.

After the tube had dried. I started adding in the texture from the back and adding in some paper mache to the bottom of the set so it wasn't flat and could drift up, not have a straight cut to leaves.

I found this difficult as it just ripped and couldn't cover over the chicken wire as the glue and paper mache just went straight through, this meant I had to work very slowly to wait for it to defiantly take, and for it to stick to the wire.

This is a more textured base now, with more curved edges instead of straight lines, but with bedding and trees around the back sides, it will really fill in and look more full as a nest. After getting it dry, it is a lot harder and sturdy as a set so this will make it easier to have puppets move within it and not have it break apart.

Now to add natural texture and shape, I am covering the tube in two layers of foil.  This will really make the overall look seem like a branch going across the front. Here is the first layer and how it looks, I hot glue gun glued it to the tube as it is more secure this way.

It was at this point, the set looked too tall which was also dragging the shape wrong. So I decided to cut quite a bit off the top, this will let the set become lighter, the correct shape and still look deep enough for the puppets to move about it.

After getting the size correct, I started to add in the two back trees to corner off the back. This helps to take the square shape away from the set and smooths the overall appearance to make the nest more homely. 

I did this with balled up paper and news paper to give it structure and shape, before gluing them all together. This proved difficult, as you can see there is news paper behind the tree. I had to glue it to paper on the outside as it kept going through the mesh. So this was something I found difficult as it had to dry attached so it wont fall off and can stay held in when dry and to be painted.

This is from when both of the trees have been made, this fills out the scene more and gives it character. When they are paper mache'd and painted, they will really look like trees, as well as the branch across the front. So I will be able to have the illusion of the nest being within a tree. This is what I was trying to accomplish.

This is after I have paper mache'd them, they look a lot more like they should, this was really hard becuase the mix wouldn't stay and cover well, without going over the detail that I wanted to keep. I now needed it to dry before adding another layer to make the colour thicker and deeper, so I can add more texture and shading to the set.

Here is the set after its other layer, now again waiting for it to dry, to make sure everything is covered and cannot see any foil. I also need to pull off the paper from behind them as they have dried and are solidly attached to the wire now, but I found the wire to be very difficult to work with and would try to find a different medium next time.

These are the trees for each side, which I really like when I imagine them surrounded by leaves and nest material. Although I like the left one far more for its shape and the shading and highlights it picks up, but the one on the right will have more leaves on top of it so this will make it look like the branch is going past the nest and higher, furthering the illusion.

Here below is the set 1 from a high angle and the angle the camera would be at, this really shows how the branch comes in and draws the eye in and makes the nest look deeper. The branches in the back, then look bigger and more textured because of this. So I am very happy with how it has turned out and the overall effect that I have managed to create as it has been a real struggle to produce, not one set, but two. So this is something I think I have done well to combat and have taken the challenge.

Applied Animation-Further Set Construction- Week 12

Further Set Construction- Week 12

These are the smaller two trees and how they clearly differ from one another, this has let me also experiment in tree shapes, as I struggle to draw trees but when constructing them , you can get a feel for them and what shapes work and which dont. This is defiantly a stage that I have enjoyed as I could experiment and be more hands on in what I can do creatively. This is why I want to make more forest scenes within the future, or add to this modules set after when I have more time to add finer details I wont be able to add this time. 

This is the three trees together which can show the height differences which looks clearly bigger, I have completed the larger tree also at this point and added all of the branches and weird shapes that I thought suited the tree and its overall look. Here you can see the different shapes as well, so hopefully when fully finished, the trees should look all different and visually appealing becuase of this, as they all show different pattens and twists.

This is how I started the smaller third tree, I have made him thinner and with longer branches, as the other two were thicker. This will add more variety within the trees, and when adding the foliage all of the trees should hold it differently.

I have also added a more squished base to this tree as its roots will be more sunken into the ground, as he is a smaller tree. This lets me show different varieties of trees that are within the rainforest. This also lets me keep the trees sturdy as I dont want them falling over or wobbling too much.

Here are all of the trees together and on the set to show how they will be placed and how they will sit. This let me see the scale of everything and how small the diggers needed to be for those scenes for it to work. This was a worry as one of the members of the team, her mother has some from daycare so I need to know the actual size so I can make sure they are correct becuase if they weren't we were going to have to busy some which would cost more money. Yet all the trees look good and different, and proportionally correct to the set and its formations so this was a very positive outcome that I was hoping for.

This is another two angles showing where everything will sit and the scale of the trees to the set.

When the glue within them has dried, I covered them with Paper Mache. For this I mixed PVA with water to water it down becuase it would have ripped the tissue paper if it was left thick, I used tissue paper becuase it meant I could keep the texture of the foil on the surface. This was so it could look like bark and the trees natural texture becuase without it, it would look flat and strange. I also added brown to the mix so I could add layers of this mixture so it strengthens the trees but then also becomes the outer shell so I dont have to do too many layers as this will take time and could cover some of the texture that I dont want to lose.

This was incredibly hard to do though becuase the foil was a slippery surface, so when adding delicate tissue paper, it ripped and just got caught within the brush so this was very annoying and made this task a lot more time consuming to do. Yet once started it tends to do better holding to the paper so once the base or branches are done, it becomes a lot quicker and easier.

This is after one coat, so you can still see though the paint and see some shine from raw foil showing through so this is why I am doing two coats, so this can become thicker and not be seen, but this does show the texture, which does look like tissue paper but I like the overall aesthetic it creates and how it looks through a camera lens, as it adds shadows so this should pick up nicely through the camera.

After doing the tree above, I found it a lot harder to keep a hold of when I left the delicate branches at the top, this is why for these trees I did it the opposite so I could get a tight grip of the base while adding in the smaller sections of paper mache as these were the most difficult, but this is all part of the learning and trial and error which I am experiencing doing stop-motion as their is still a lot to learn when doing set construction.

Here are two more trees done, and it makes such a big difference having them brown, it really brings them to life. This has helped lift my spirits as I am closer to making something that I hope to love and I dont want to let the team down by creating something they dont like, this has always been my big worry.

There are all of the trees together. I am so happy they are done and now I have one less thing to complete for the sets. But there is still a lot to go. This really shows the height and shape differences of them all so when on the scene I hope they still continue to look unique to one another. If I had more money, I would have bought different colours so the trees could have been slight different shades of browns and reds, but sadly they are all the same colour, but once the foliage is on, this is when they will look different and will have slight different coloured leaves.