Ducking and Diving

Aside from the third year films I'm working on I've also been animating a small piece of character movement to improve my anticipation, overlap and making my animations smoother.
In the past I've found some of my line work jitters because I don't clean my key frames up enough so when I come to put the in-betweens in I don't know where the true line is.
This time I have gone through the process of mapping out the rough key frames and tidying them up then putting rough in-betweens in and cleaning them up.

This short piece of movement actually originated from an anime I had been watching called 'Hyouka,' and I felt interested to know what this movement would look like if I animated it in 25fps instead of the Japanese 8fps which 'Hyouka' follows. The only aspects I took from the clip were the basic shapes for the key frames (rough keys from the video above). I then fleshed out the keys myself and added the rest of the movement without looking at the original. Going back and comparing my finished piece to the original now is astonishing in terms of how limited the Japanese movement is and the lack of anticipation and overlap compared to mine. It goes to show that if the Japanese had the budget, fluid movement such as this could be achieved.



Original clip

 

 

 

 

Comparison

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Clawing into animation

More tests, this time taking a shot from the animatic and testing the movement of the bear in relation to his surroundings, in this case, his house.
The style wasn't quite pinned down when this sequence was created so I tested scribbly shadows instead of  more perfect 'Disneyesque' shading.
It's now been decided to do the line-work in TV paint and the colour in photoshop in order to get the sketchy feel the director wanted so any tests after this will most likely only show line-work.

Picture taken from animatic

One is with the outline, the other without so I could see how the scribbles affected the shape of the bear and whether going without an outline would make it difficult to see arms etc.

 

Dapper meerkats and spiffing giraffes

An update on The Bird project called for character designs of a meerkat, giraffe and hippo to be dressed in human clothing to portray a sort of dream sequence Tilly goes through as she day-dreams about returning home to Africa.
So far only the meerkat and giraffe have designs as I wait to hear back about the design for the mother to be approved, as she will be the hippo so I require the design of her dress.

Unfortunately after meeting with the team, the director suddenly realised the meerkat is in fact supposed to be the maid in the story so the lovely dapper gentleman of a meerkat needed to have his gender switched to female. Procedure went according to plan.

There was also a discussion in the weekly about altering the movement of the zebra herd slightly as they all moved the same which felt noticeable to the others. Obviously the issue was how to alter the movement seeing as live action footage depicted zebra's galloping together in the same way anyway so I opted to move legs in the cycle slightly for a few of them and change the way the head moves to depict the illusion they were all done differently. However factoring in how long the sequence is visible for in relation to the animatic isn't very long, roughly 3 or 4 seconds with a camera zoom so spending too much time on this sequence is better spent in the more detailed character scenes.

Hooves, Trunks and Claws

I've been working further into 'The Bird' by developing an elephant walk for another of the African scenes alongside altering some of the animation on the zebra as there wasn't enough variation in each zebra for the viewer to not notice they were similar.
Below are the results of the zebra, I've not done much to the actual movement as all zebras move the same in terms of gait, so I've altered the head movement of a few and changed stripe design.

I found the elephants easier to animate, probably because they don't exhibit the same flurry of legs the zebra does and they move at a slower rate. Below are two cycles, one of an adult elephant, another is a baby with the baby completing a cycle faster than the adult because there's the obvious factoring in weight and size in comparison.

And then for Claws for Concern I coloured the bear to see how he would fit into the background and after the weekly feedback session I was asked to remove the outlines completely as the background itself doesn't have any outline work so the other experiment is to see if no outline can work. TV paint didn't totally remove the outline however from what was achieved with a faint outline it didn't look too bad as the issue was removing the outline would cause the arm and legs to become lost within the body.

Before I removed the outline from the entire animation, I did a test image, one was completely removed, the other I swapped outline colour so a dark grey outline accompanied the light grey body and the light grey outline went with the dark grey shadows. I felt toning the black outline down might look less detracting and bold but it didn't make much difference.

The shadows were also redone in the test below as it was mentioned in the feedback session I didn't quite get the lighting correct in terms of where the bear was in the background.

Claws For Concern

Also began working on 'Claws For Concern' by doing small animation tests for the bear. This bear walks on fours and twos so below I've done a walk test of the bear standing up walking, with an all fours test coming soon.
I did begin a run cycle on all fours but it looks slightly too mechanical when looking at the head, possibly needs a bit more movement to look more natural.

Zebra are 'a' running

Finished a small herd of galloping zebra with just two variations of stripe design, just so it doesn't look like an obvious copy and paste job.
Eyes are empty at the moment just because I'm waiting for the background so I can see where the light is coming from in relation to where the reflection is going to go in the eyes.

Also renewed the original zebra designs I posted after altering the shape to suit the animation. This version is slightly stockier in keeping with the real life version of the animal.

Finally....

Horses are hard.........zebras are probably one of the WORST and most challenging animals to animate. Since the previous post, I went back and redid the zebra following some live action footage as close as possible before tweaking the legs and back to suit the requirements of the film. It's turned out so much better than any of the previous tests and gallops a lot smoother.

The reason I say zebras are one of the worst animals for animation is the one thing horses don't have, which is stripes. What sucks away time isn't the fact you have to draw on the stripes of ten frames of zebra, that's easy, it's what the movement looks like when you've put all the stripes on and this is the difference between stripes that look like they move with the zebra and stripes that literally look like they have a mind of their own. A lot of R & D for me has been in this section, trying to work out how to make the stripes move with the zebra without making it look like a jittering mess of lines. I tried drawing stripes on one frame then copying and pasting the same stripes onto the other nine frames and just moving them into the places they'd be in relation to the position of the zebra but this looked like the stripes weren't connected to the zebra and didn't reflect muscle movement in the way I wanted to. I also tried keeping the stripes static to minimise any eye confusion but had the same effect. The option I had left was drawing the stripes manually by following the movement of the zebra and disregarding stripe shape, allowing them to change between frames. Although there was some improvement, the irregular shapes caused too much jitter which would put people off looking at the zebra for too long. So for the finished product below, I had to compromise between the two, limiting the stripes movement and keeping them at a similar shape, but allowing them to change. This I did by copying and pasting like I did in trial 1 but tracing over the stripes for each frame when they were in the correct place to make it a bit more natural than mechanical.

Next job is making a herd, and for most studios, it's a simple duplication and offsetting the cycles which I've done below but on playing it back, I may vary stripe shapes on a few zebra just so it looks less like a copy and paste job

Fleshing out

Now that the initial skeletal structure has been mapped out and approved, I've then proceeded to add the muscles, mane, tail and ears. Although the skeleton looked fine I did have to tweak the legs slightly on some frames as I discovered joints were too short in proportion to the figure. Unlike my first animation test, I've animated the ears flopping back and forth in accordance with the gallop motion to put a bit more character into the animal. One note to point out is the head looks slightly too mechanical, as in to say, it doesn't look like the head was re-drawn twelve times for the twelve frames which is what makes a 2D animation look more natural. This is because the head was copied and pasted twelve times and just rotated into the correct position each time. This is deliberate, not accidental because I've found in the past my horse heads increase and decrease in size as it cycles through an animation. It's just a basic guide so when I go to put the final line work over the top, I'm following the same size head each time and won't have to go back and re-size frames later on.
Next up: stripe mechanics.

Roughing it out

After discussions with project leaders, the movement has gone back to the drawing board as they desired a more zebra movement than horse movement. The difficulty presents itself when you wish to understand a zebra's movement in more depth but cannot obtain this information clearly from footage that's from a handheld camera and with no one having really done a proper zebra cycle before, it's hard to know exactly how they gallop. Even looking at The Lion King, the zebras don't really move like zebras but have more of a horse's gallop and even look more like horses.

Zebras from The Lion King

I studied live footage further and have attempted to replicate the same movement in the rough gallop cycle below. I've noticed zebras seem to almost bounce their hind legs instead of each hind leg moving independently. By this I mean once both legs are in suspension behind the back end, they seem to come together and move forward together before one leg takes the lead again.

 

Below is live footage I used to study the gallop.

Refining the gallop cycle

Using Flash this time (instead of Toon Boom) I re-did the gallop cycle by observing Spirit's gallop closer and looking to see what made the animation smooth yet fast. I noticed his head moved less compared to my zebra similarly with his back end which seems to extend and contract less than mine. Legs however, moved in a similar fashion so I can see the problem stems from the head and hind.

In this newer version I took the cycle rate from 12 to 10 pictures. The gallop is slightly faster in the updated version but this is because the original had more of a pause as the zebra is in the moment of suspension (all four feet off the ground). I think there's still more refining to be done, due to the back being too short but because my main focus for this was seeing how to make the head and hind move less, I'm not too worried about anatomical correctness.
I'm hoping the next test will be the final one however unlike a horse where their colour is consistent, a zebra has stripes so I think I'll need to look at what I'm going to call "stripe mechanics." This is because the stripes need to move in accordance with muscle movement and stripes will naturally extend and contract in relation to whether the muscle is in the extension or contraction phase. Again I'll have to deal with fixing jerky movement from the stripes as the first test did present some jitter. For now though the focus is on achieving the correct gallop.

 

Zebra Inspiration clips

 

 

 

Some might think animating an animal like this is easy as it's just a case of putting legs in the right place and the body will follow however I can say, and have the defence from the animation team at DreamWorks that created Spirit that horses are one of the most difficult animals to animate. If one leg or even a shoulder is placed slightly wrong in a frame, the whole movement is compromised. This can be seen in my test above that having the back slightly too short makes the horse look more like a dog. 

 

 

Initial designs- zebra

Because I'm a horse addict and I've been given free reign (or rein, no pun intended), I've opted to make the zebra more horse-like just for my own preference and I understand horse anatomy 100 times better than a zebra. Both aren't much different in terms of anatomical structure and I want the stampede to look more graceful and flowing, like a river which for zebra, who are slightly stockier, would look more like a river of mud.

I've been taking a lot of inspiration from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and a little from the The Lion King (the little screen time zebra's get) in order to understand cycle speed according to frame rate. Obviously horses all gallop/run at different rates, some cycling through a gallop faster than others, so I have to make the decision on how fast the cycle should be.

Spirit from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

 

On observing Spirit further, there are two horses that have differing gaits that gain more screen time than the secondary horses, Spirit and Rain. Spirit's gallop is exceptionally more wild and fast to reflect his wild nature, so he completes a full cycle faster than Rain (below)who has a more graceful, slower gallop and takes a few more frames to complete a cycle.

 

Rain from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

The obvious difference is Spirit is male and Rain is female so a more graceful gallop for a female horse is understandable. What it comes down to is the speed needs to reflect the tone of the scene and the character, being Tilly, who is a wild child. My initial thoughts were towards a more flowing gallop and for that I thought of Rain but if I want to show that wild attitude, a gallop more like Spirit's might be best.

 

Zebra stampede scene

 

What helps in this decision is a similar scene is conveyed in Spirit where he races the eagle, beginning at a slower gallop before quickening his pace to overtake the eagle's shadow.

 

 

 

Below are my initial zebra designs as well as further development of one of the designs followed by an initial run cycle.

 

 

 

 

The cycle has been created on ones and although it depicts all the wildness and high speed attitude, I feel the movement could be more fluid. My initial reaction is there's too many frames so areas that have smaller movement are jerky however taking frames out means I'm making the movements with more impact (i.e. faster) more jerky. (Below is the movement done on twos)

 

 

I began this cycle looking at the Spirit run cycle and then drawing my own movement in relation to this.

 

Spirit gallop cycle

My cycle

 

However this proved to be not enough frames for fluid movement so I had to add more.

 

 

 

More work needs to be done to correct this issue.

 

Zebra R&D for 'The Birds.'

I've joined the third year film 'The Birds' with the task of creating a stampeding herd of zebra charging across the African plains, as they said in their words, 'because I'm quite good at quadrupeds.' I couldn't turn down the opportunity to actually be tasked with drawing a massive herd of horses but before even beginning to look at R&D of zebras I knew that horses and zebras, although from the same family, aren't totally alike. Their build and gait movement are slightly different so although I have a decades worth of experience drawing horses, I have zero experience when it comes to zebra.

Their height difference was important too as this affects build appearance and muscle structure. My initial drawings were just figuring out the specifics: what they look like, stripe configuration, ear shape and height.

 

 

I also did basic comparison drawings of a horse and a zebra so I could see how head shape and joint length varied.

Below is the rough sketch of a horse.

 

 

 

And then the zebra:

 

 

What differs the two is the shorter neck but slightly larger head on the zebra along with the stockier legs with very little difference in abdominal structure to the horse. The significant variation in both is obviously their purpose: horses were evolved by man to be ridden or pull carts etc so they have stronger muscle builds and run faster. A zebra's only purpose is to survive on the African plains so although they can't run as fast as horses, their exceptional stamina means they can run for miles without tiring. And then there's also the stripes for camouflage and confusing the predators as several zebra seem to mould into one.

 

I've played around with style but haven't settled on a definite look yet. Below are my designs which will be finalised soon with the director and producer before I look at movement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Blog Update

After the long summer break (and part of the start of the third year whereby getting my head to switch on again felt like trying to start a car with no will to live) I am resuming blog posts!
Before I gear the posts towards third year work and the films I'm working on and animations I'm watching, below is some commissioned work I was given over the summer, which includes painting portraits of pets as well as designing logos for two establishments.

Archie

Muma

Tor

 

 

Now I wasn't just painting commissions for people so as well as this I had been busily painting portraits of horses and ponies at the riding stables I work at so they could be turned into cards and sold as souvenirs.

 

 

And I'm just throwing in my portrait I did of my old rabbit.

 

Smudge

 

 

And then like I mentioned earlier, I was also asked to design a new logo for the stables to use on t-shirts for staff and kids to wear. The client asked for something simple as they didn't want to spend too much money on the embroidery but to just throw ideas their way and see what they thought.

 

I wanted it to have some relation to where the stables was located so close to the sea and because the stables offers beach rides I felt a horse walking amongst the waves would look appealing to the public. The model for the horse even came from one of their own so everything about the logo had some value to the client. The two versions below were turned down however due to budget and the amount of embroidery required for the logo.

Back to square 1 and an idea came from the client about incorporating the name of the stables into the logo like 'Using the legs to form the R.' I said I could try working some ideas out however I did stress that working one letter into the logo may mean losing the letter, turning 'Roylands' into 'Oylands.' However after careful designing and feedback being obtained from family and going back and forth between the client we had a logo which has now been printed on t-shirts and was worn by all members of staff and the children who helped.

 

 

 

This design work then led into me designing a logo for the farrier who visited our stables every week to shoe the horses. The brief was a bit more specific with more focus on the objects in the logo having to look real. In this case he asked for horses and horseshoes with the horse-shoes looking real with the nail holes in the correct places. Originally he asked for a cob type horse for the other part of the logo but because he also shoes race-horses as well as the standard riding horses, he was persuaded into having a more universal horse shape.

I played about with the horse design on a small scale then drew up one logo with several colour variations which I showed him and he accepted the logo on the spot alongside the colour scheme. One very happy customer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crocodile Tears

I can't post the full video on here as it's going around the festival circuit but I can put up the showreel of all the shots I did on the film.

VFX

A final film is here! Re-graded about 40 shots in total to make the atmosphere feel warmer although it looks significantly similar to the footage it started out as. The problem being the director of the film toned the colours down a bit in the edit and I think it's taken away any warmth I put in there. I've included some comparison shots of what I sent back to him and what was in the final cut.

 

 

The first image is the final edit, the second my final re-grade. The colours look completely washed out similar to the original footage whereas the second has infinitely more clarity with the natural greens of the background coming through.

Deep Final

Below are my final render of the man turning into the mouse, the final edit of the section our group worked on and the final render of the cat in the correct background. Not all of the footage is present as it still lacks the live action character pointing her gun out into the crowd but from what has been done so far it looks promising.

 

 

Below are also layout stills I did in preparation for additional characters to be added to the scene.

 

 

 

 

Deep Update

Started adding shadows and highlights to the man that turns into a mouse. Haven't completely decided what colour the pig character should be yet so only her skin has been coloured so far.

And then I've placed the cat character in the correct background in correspondence to what would be happening in the shot (live action girl steps off stage with gun pointed out into audience). She is yet to have shadows and highlights added to her but unfortunately moving her from her previous background onto her correct one was harder than expected. Originally she was sat at a table where you couldn't see the top (i.e. couldn't see her elbows so I hadn't drawn them in) then on moving her across to the other background I realised the table she is now sat at, the top is visible so of course so are her elbows. I had to therefore go back into the animation and draw in her elbows, lesson learned for next time.......put her on the right background to begin with!!

Update: Deep

Below are some colour tests for the pig and an updated line animation with the collar ruffling slightly when the mouse jumps out of the clothing.
I'm thinking either the pink or the red outfit for the pig works best in relation to the background although when pitching this to the rest of the year there was no definite clear winner. 50/50 at the moment.

 

 

 

Re-worked cat character for deep

Below is the cat character where alterations in her animation express her shock in a more believable manner. She's also swirling her finger around the edge of the glass because before, it was difficult to see that she was swilling the glass. This version has limited movement so she'll fit in better with the background.

Clean up of Nightclub scene

Below is the work in progress on the cleaned up version of the nightclub scene which was done in rough last week.

Deep- Shot 2 nightclub

This is one of the shots from the nightclub scene that was already half animated, I just had to go and put in the in-betweens.

Blackmagic camera colouring

In post-production I've gone on to learn more about colour grading and how to re-colour a clip using Davinci Resolve. The play-about shooting we did as a group with the Blackmagic cameras isn't really good enough to get a good colour grade from it but above is a small test/practice using the software. This is in preparation for working on Fashion Photography films after Easter where we'll work with them to add in post production elements like 3D animation or effects like re-colouring and lighting. Each film is different so not everyone wants 3D animation or effects etc added, but I think my focus will be colours because Davinci is a great piece of software to use and being quite colour perceptive, I think I could do a good job at re-touching clips to suit the mood.

Deep- Test shot of cat in scene

Below is a test shot of the cat reacting to what will be a live action character pointing a gun out into the crowd. I know the cat is reacting in the wrong direction as the LA character will be in centre screen but as I said, this is only a test shot to work out how to place her in the scene.

Croc Tears- Even more tweening

Deep Project

This is going to be one of the background character's for the Deep Project, a collaborative film about Perseus running around various film worlds with the head of Medusa in a sports bag being chased by a gang. The world I'm working within is an inverse of the nightclub scene in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' where instead the girl is in live action and the setting is animated.

Croc Tears- Further tweening

Long time since I've posted anything but during the two week break I created three portraits of three of the horses from my local stables back home using acrylics. It's a part time business I plan to go into as I find painting portraits such as these a good way to take a break whilst developing my skills with acrylics.



 

 

 

 

Annie

 

Bracken

 

Tally

Mamoru Hosoda & Makoto Shinkai

Ever since I got into the works of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli back in 2005 (ish) I've been branching off and finding other Japanese film-makers that adopt a similar style and are actually close to being serious competition against Ghibli's animations.

Pictures above: Wolf Children

I consider all animation to be art but Japanese animation in particular I hold very close to my passions because the watercolour medium and traditional drawing is something I don't think the Japanese will ever let go of. I've always had a particular interest in watercolour paintings which is why I probably follow Japanese directors and animations more closely than any other form of animation. They create world's that I want to be a part of and the stories they visualise whether it be fantastical or the ordinary events that occur in family life put the meaning of animation on a whole new perspective for children. What differs the Japanese form to American or British in my opinion is there's always a reason for the story. There's a life lesson for kids to learn from watching these stories whether it's highlighting the effects of global warming and deforestation or accepting people for who they are no matter what they look like.

Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki

Two directors I follow particularly closely are Mamoru Hosoda and Makoto Shinkai who adopt the traditions of drawn animation but have also begun to mix it with CGI for background characters and locations.
Mamoru Hosoda was the first I discovered after seeing 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' followed by 'Summer Wars' and 'Wolf Children.' All three have a strong focus on family life, with 'Summer Wars' and 'Wolf Children' having this connection the most. Although 'Wolf Children' has a fantastical element added (two children born as half wolf, half human), there is still the meaning of acceptance and not judging people by their appearance as Hana (the mother) falls in love with Ookami (the father/wolfman) and although once revealed he is a wolf, Hana continues to love him for who he is. The same occurrence happens when Yuki (the daughter) reveals she is a wolf to one of her classmates, Sohei, who also accepts her. Not only does the story do this, but it stresses the importance of family and having the strength to continue to smile through the tough moments in life as well as to work hard to support a family.
The latter meaning is stronger in 'Summer Wars' as Kenji is asked to pretend to be the 'intended' for Natsuki over the summer break when she returns home to her large family.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' doesn't have an underlying meaning of family but instead focuses on romance and the fragility of time. Makoto discovers she has acquired the ability to leap through time and recklessly wastes them on meaningless events such as re-playing the time spent in the karaoke booth. Only when she realises she has fallen in love with best friend, Chiaki, who is in fact from the future, does she come to realise that time is a precious commodity and should be used to help others.

5cm Per Second

Then there's Makoto Shinkai who has only recently started doing big feature film productions. He's directed the films '5cm per second', 'Voices of a Distant Star', 'The Place Promised in Our Early Days', 'Children Who Chase Lost Voices' and 'The Garden of Words.'
His films always have a central male and female character with the theme of love as the ending scenario. From my own opinion, I would say 'Children Who Chase Lost Voices' (Or Journey to Agartha as it's titled in English) is his best work so far, partly because it's his second full length feature so there was an opportunity to extend character development and story but also I thought the artwork portrayed Agartha as the otherworldly land below the surface of the Earth beautifully.
His stories give people the belief that love can be between any two people, whether they are from two entirely different worlds or have a significant but not too big an age gap. Unlike Hosoda, Shinkai's work does tip further towards the fantasy side of storytelling however some ordinary, family matters do worm their way into his films.



Journey To Agartha (Children Who Chase Lost Voices)

Between the two, I'd say I'm currently more of a Hosoda fan, purely for the sensitive and endearing films he can produce from the ordinary events in a person's life, even if he adds a touch of fantasy to it. His films speak emotion and it's that quality alone that allows people to connect and relate to the character's. After watching 'Wolf Children' with actor commentary, the ADR Director asked each voice actor if they could relate to any of the characters in the film. Every one of them could name one character that reflected them, whether it was the absence of a parent or being shy or not really fitting in amongst others of their age when they were younger and it's that which makes his films so much more beautiful than anything else I've watched. Most animated films are created to entertain, to make you laugh or just to keep the kids happy for a few hours. Every one of those films I've listed from both directors have been created with a purpose to not only entertain, but to connect with the world and the struggles that people face everyday. I think you're supposed to come away after watching their films having learnt something about the world we live in, that every moment spent on it is precious, we cannot be selfish and we cannot hope to survive on our own without our loved ones around us to pick us up when times get hard.