Funny in 15 progress

This funny in 15 seconds thing turned out harder than expected, and it took myself and my other group members a good while to get to a point we were happy with in terms of an actual idea we thought would be semi-humouros. We tried almost every angle, and ended up going with a old classic, which is by no means original. More than anything we are playing with the 'shock' factor within the 15 seconds; attempting to make the audience believe something else is happening or going on, then suddenly mixing it up at the final second to create a small laugh. 

Here is the basic animatic, warning, it is pretty disgusting, and immature. 

So as you can see we decided to go for a poo joke. As I said, not very original, but we decided to play on the 101 Dalmatians dog walking scene, as well as using that as a base for the visual style. We want to audience to think we are creating the humour from a vulgar dog poo situation, and create a laugh from the unexpected well-to-do dog owner joining in on the fun. 

So far we are working well as a group. Its a small group, which I prefer working in. Everyone has slotted well into a role, with Jake producing the outlines for the backgrounds, Laura as the colour artist and myself as the Animator. So far we have only produced one test with animation and backgrounds together, thought it is not in colour. 

I plan on finishing the core animation within the next few days, and will post an update then. 

Sketchbook progress

Bit of a boring post, but really just an update of what my sketchbooks are looking like. In this particular sketchbook I'm really trying hard to draw from observation. And in particular in pencil. Im so compftable drawing in fine liners I've decided to try getting better at my pencil abilities. Most of these images are from real items / photographs. Some of these I've found on the Pintrest and really tried to replicate them, as I find drawing from other artists work is the best way to improve personally. 

Drawing update

So summer has been really unproductive (blog-wise) as I've been focusing on gaining some actual currency to live off in my second year. But seeing as I am starting in just under a months time, I thought I'd better get back into the swing of things, and to start myself off, do a few sketches. I have been drawing on and off throughout the last few months, but nothing substantial. 

Here a few from last nights draw sesh. Most of these ideas / concepts ive taken from other artists and made my own. I find the best way to get myself back into drawing is to use other artists work I really enjoy and try to recreate them. 

Fat Buoy Swim

So this is the final product of the group sea project, which we named Fat Buoy Swim

For this group project, we initially decided upon somewhat of a democracy in terms of roles in which each would play. It was apparent early on that myself, Jordan and Harry all have very similar interests in terms of what we wanted our jobs to be within the project. However this wasn't a problem, as we all quickly agreed that we would aim to do a 2D piece for the 1 minute and 5 seconds of animation. 

Having decided on the basic method in which we planned to animate, our next goal was to achieve a common sense of style, that we could all work towards. We knew that if we did something hand drawn, that we would all have not only be able to draw in the same style, but enjoy what we were drawing. Throughout our research, we came across a style of traditional Chinese ink art, which was loose, and very basic in terms of colour. It was agreed that we would want to work to a loose style, as it is somewhat easier and faster to animate, which was very important for the success of our animation as we had the smallest group, and the longest sound file to work with.

I feel it is also very important to note that we agreed early on that having such a short piece of animation, that we would find it hard to have the audience relate emotionally to any of the characters, so we decided to create a very humorous piece rather than a very serious one. For me, I think this is where myself, and possibly the others hugely benefited, as it was much more enjoyable finding playful ways of injecting as much humor possibly to every aspect of the animation, rather than trying to make a short piece incredibly sad or striking. It enabled us to have a lot of fun while we animated, constantly adding ideas as we were going, even in the later stages of animating and compositing. We also included music to the scene to help generate laughter, which I think only appeals to a certain younger age group, such as our peers. 

Overall Im extremely pleased with the way we ended the production and the final result. Although we started slow, I feel we finished with an absolute bang, working 15 hour days for the last few weeks made up for lost time, as we were able to finish everything. Im very pleased with how it turned out, even if it only seems to appeal to the younger audience. Our team all worked really well together by the end, and I feel as though we have all learned a great deal. 

Drawing of Life

A selection of life drawing from my first and second semester. I feel I have definitely improved my life drawing skills after my first year (not that I have anything on this blog to compare it to), and although there is a long way to go, I am starting to see how to effectively show weight and emotion, as well as attempting to drawing faster, which requires me to be much looser than what I am used to. 

(encase your wondering why there are some really weird ones in there, some of them are exaggerated life drawings!)

Sea Project, Progress

Despite the deadline fast approaching for this project, the group is making seemingly good progress on 'Fat Buoy Swim' (which is what we have decided to call our 1 minute short!). We always knew that when it came down to it, myself, Harry and Jordan are fast animators when using flash. We have had a couple of snags along the way, but with only 4 days left of animating we have done the bulk of the main animations, with only one or two shots left that need some major tweaks, and one or two more with some minor changes. So all in all, you could say its going swimmingly (I'm awful). In all seriousness however, we are yet to implement any backgrounds, and will need to composite the all the shots and add camera moves in Toonboom.

Here is a quick sneaky peek at me animating some of the waves, in its crudest form (i.e without any texture or colour ect)