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)

Dark Cave, Background Project.

For the second painting, the idea was to create one main light, with an added secondary light. My first intention was to do the inside of the pirate ship, but didnt like anything I drew up.

My second idea was to create a smugglers cave-type scenario. Similar to the first painting I wanted to make it dark, and gloomy. Starting with a black canvas, I went about just adding light to create features and shadows, and not actually drawing much detail at all. Im not very happy with the end product, I struggled to get the right colour light coming from the lamp, and I think the over all look of the final product is just plain weird. If I have time, I plan to do another.

Finished (very weird) Piece. 

Pirates Ship (yarr) Background project

The first of three drawings, based on the pirates animatic I created last semester. These drawings are. or would be, background for the animation. This particular exterior shot was done using a 'complementary colour scheme', which has one, directional light (the sun). I decided to go for a dark green, gloomy feel, as I thought it might suit the whole pirate theme. 

Below Ive screen shotted some of the stages I went through to get to the end result.

For the first background I've done in colour, Im pretty happy with it. the hardest part was getting the perspective of the ship down, which proved tricky. I feel as though I got the silhouette of the ship pretty well done in the end though however.

Original Drawing 

First things first; Background/Lighting.

Adding in the basic texture of the ship, and shading.

Flipping an Image is an age-old technique to get a new perspective of your painting, to highlight mistakes you may otherwise miss.

Finished Piece. 

Falmouth Animation Ident

 As I had decided I wanted a very 2D, hand drawn feel to this Ident, I of course decided to do hand drawn cell animation. I really wanted it to show that the course does have a drawn, 2d aspect to it, and its not just 3D and maya. This project took a fair amount of planning because of this, getting all the timing right, and making sure nothing moved around too much.

I decided to use a classic animated 'pose' character to be waving around in his circle, as I felt this was simply enough to describe the studies of motion within animation. I didn't want the animation to be too long, just quick and snappy, so I roughly set a marker of 70-80 frames. (All at 25fps)

After drawing all the hand drawn aspects, including the word 'Animation', I threw them into aftereffects, as I have alittle knowledge of how the programme works and felt confident I could create some sort of 'projector', which would create the illusion of that a old projector was creating the image. Adding sound effects also helped this. 

Overall I am reasonably pleased with the outcome. I feel the animation could be alittle smoother, and would love it if I was allowed to make it slighter longer, but I feel I reached my goal of portraying the 2D side of the  course.