Last furlong.......

With two weeks left before deadlines request me to submit the second and final half of my degree's work, all the effort is going into supporting the final film 'Claws for Concern' which is closer to its intended finishing goal in comparison to my other involvement in 'The Bird.' Not much has been posted recently as organisation of shots still to be coloured was Claws' priority and once everything was in order, it was a case of sprinting as fast as possible to get shots finished and signed off for final post-production corrections.
Thankfully 'Claws' has now been completely coloured and once additional facial details have been included on the faces of characters it will hopefully be ready for submission.

Below are a few of the shots I've coloured. A painstaking process of drawing around the bear frame by frame to fill in colour as outlines are being left off so we therefore cannot just simply fill in between the outlines with the well-known paint bucket tool. Luckily this is where brain-power can be conserved or should I say, filtered into the singing voice as music is your only salvation from the encroaching feeling as boredom begins to set in!

 

 

 

 

Also been creating a mini logo ident for my pet-portrait page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winning some, and losing some

With the recent visit of one of the professionals who judged our film pitches in September, he gave the films in production an in depth review because being someone less in contact with the films he could see what aspects of each story needed a do over before we all got further down the pipeline. This is the downside of being closely related to the films we're all working on, the closer you are to the story, the less you can see overall.

Unfortunately this meant the lovely 'Claws for Concern' film I am currently a part of had a butchering session and shots were cut which I had already done key frames for. However shaving a minute or so off the film means there's less to animate and more time can go into the post-production stage which everyone working on the film hopes we can get to.
Now that the animatic has had a complete overhaul and 3D layouts of some scenes have been created to ease the mind-boggling task of attempting to create accurate perspective in 2D, I've been like the fish factory in the film, churning out as many key-framed shots a week as possible so static images can become life on screen.

For 'Claws' in particular I've been able to start and finish a shot in a day/ day and a half bearing in mind these are just the key-frames with in-betweens and clean up still to do. I think our aim is to complete most if not, all the keys before we start in-betweening just in case there are more shots that can still be cut.
Below are the two shots I've completed recently, both of which follow one after the other in the animatic.

Side project

A commission I was tasked to do on the side just before the Christmas holidays ended was create a logo for a strength and conditioning coach that incorporated his initials, T.B.
He wanted something that resembled a figure running, had to be in white and a light blue to fit to his website and it had to obviously relate to his job so within a few days of receiving the commission I drew up some quick doodles of what he might want. Trying to incorporate the capital 'B' into the logo was a difficult task to overcome as the conjoining of the curves meant a human shape couldn't really be achieved without breaking the 'B' and making it unrecognisable as a letter. So I also tried using a lower case 'b' as the curve in this could form the leg.

Colour was an extremely important aspect of the design also, as it could be used to define the lettering within the form so as can be seen above the white in the designs defined the 'B' and the light blue the 'T'. The only design where I didn't incorporate any white, I was going for a more realistic human form where the darker blue helped to bring out the letters within the body.
The design that was chosen was bottom right as the 'T' and 'b' were distinguishable to a degree and it is clear that it's a human form even though more attention is paid to the lettering in this idea. This design also appealed to me the most as the part of the logo that forms the body and back leg accommodates both the vertical line of the 'T' and 'b', joining the two but can still be identified as two separate letters by the split colours.

 

Logo on the website

 

 

 

 

Galloping is harder than it looks...

11 weeks to go before third year productions cease and our year switches off the lights and shuts the studio door so we can open another door that hopefully leads to a happy future........hopefully.

Nothing has changed in my workflow for the Claws for Concern film, still tasked with the monster job of key framing out sequences ready for in-betweens alongside the director and producer although my job has slowed briefly as final layouts are sorted out so the bear is in the correct place for animation in the shots. However just before this, I was given the sequence involving the bear drowning after his boat is capsized after the storm. They wanted a slow motion, bear flailing his arms as he sank feel and without a time constraint, as the animatic was only a rough guide, I could stretch out the time it took for the bear to perform this action.
To begin with I had only placed down the main keys but when they were given the shot I'd done to review, they weren't sure if the arms would work as of course it's hard to know if the action truly works unless the full fluid motion is complete. The second video below is the rough keyed out version that includes some extra keys to get a better sense of the arms flailing and sinking.

Animatic shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

For 'The Bird' I've completed the other mammoth task of making sure the stripes work on the finished gallop cycle and then placing the zebra in the background to see if it all fits together.

 

 



 

 

For this shot the camera zooms in on the herd and tracks it for a short distance before cutting away so my initial thought was to animate the herd moving across the screen and the background remained static with the additional camera zoom added, however I found when the camera gets closer to the animals, the gallop jitters regardless of whether I used a straight line as a guide for the placement of the hooves for not.

 

 

Herd without the camera move

 

 

Herd with camera move

 

 

I also thought making the zebra move instead of the background would be the best way to avoid what may end up looking like zebra trying to gallop on ice and the hooves sliding across the ground when they should be glued in the same position until the zebra lifts a certain leg to bring forward.

So although I originally believed the second option below wasn't going to work, it did actually work when I tested it so now the background moves while the zebra gallops on the spot to give the illusion its covering ground. Included is also the basic camera move but what also made me want to rule out this second option in the first place was the fact there was a camera zoom as well, which I thought might break the illusion of the zebra galloping forward. Trial and Error as they say.

 



 

 

 

 

Claws and Birds

Forgetting to post now productions are hotting up in the final animation department but both films I'm working on have entered the full animation stage with keyframing happening in Claws for Concern and key framing and inbetweening for The Bird.

The Bird has decided to opt for each shot to be completely done by one person so passing key frames and in-betweens on to different people prevents any confusion in what needs to be done to the shot. If one person does an entire section then that person knows what needs doing to the shot.
So no surprise after all the zebra testing I did last semester, I would be tasked to animate the zebra scenes.
Below I tested one of my original zebra in the completed background with an additional camera move so we could see what would work in the scene. It was decided that tracking the zebra in the second move would work better as of course the main character would be sat on top so focus needs to be with her.

So with a new zebra design that fits better with the overall film style I have begun fully animating the gallop. Once again the tricky part in the weeks to come will be the stripes but the tests I have done previously will help me to know what worked and how I can make them work correctly first time round in this final animation.

And for Claws for Concern we are currently going through the whole film key-framing the shots out ready to be animated by second years who wish to help on the project.
In order to get to grips with the new refined bear design, I spent a couple of days drawing him repeatedly so I could avoid inconsistency in my key frames when I came to do them. It was discovered that drawing his eyes slightly out of place affected the whole drawing which is why keying out the shots is limited to being done by a few people that have got the bear design nailed down accurately. Below you can see I wasn't quite getting his head shape properly so the producer marked out where I was going wrong so I could go back and improve.

And low and behold I got there in the end.

So far I've key-framed two shots for them. One required more subtle animation than the other and I found the more subtle movements were more difficult to do just because not a lot of exaggeration is required, and when animation is a lot of the time, about exaggeration of real life actions it's difficult to tone all of that down for a slight head movement. Luckily my crazy obsession with anime helped to overcome that issue as anime has a limited frame rate so quite often there are static shots within the genre that only involve a subtle head tilt or mouth movement but conveys a lot of emotion, so drawing upon what I see every day in what I watch allowed me to put that into practice with the bear. The reference below came from 'Free! Iwatobi Swim Club' and this came in handy when trying to make the bear look miserable and defeated in his day to day life as an animal working among people as this same emotion is reflected within the anime character. I picked up specifically on the slight head tilt to the left and the way the eyes move.

Third Year- First showreel

Here is my first showreel of third year, bringing together elements from 'The Bird,' 'Claws for Concern' and 'Snowless,' Snowless being my little animated short I'm currently working on for Christmas.

Final character designs and expressions

Working further on the outside animation, 'Snowless,' character designs are finally completed including a sheet of expressions both might pull in the final film.
One difference in the boy's design is his eyes are now two-toned and his profile view is more rounded to fit in more with his front view, something which I felt wasn't quite working beforehand.
The dog was originally written off as done however after finishing the basic screen- directions and shot breakdowns the other day I felt the old design wasn't going to cope with the expressions the dog would need to make in the animation, so his build has been slightly altered to make him a bit rounder and his ears are longer and more rabbit like so more emotion can be expressed.

The Bird

Got asked to complete a turnaround sheet for the mother in 'The Bird' the other day. All the initial design work was there, it was just a case of cleaning up the line-work and colouring her in her various poses.

New year, new work

As 2015 drop kicks 2014 into the setting sun and the new year's glorious self rises up, I have a new project ushered in by my university days drawing to a close and that eventual realisation that 'real' work is charging towards me like a knight in a jousting tournament. Nowhere to go but forward, grit my teeth and hope the joust hits its mark.

With my family owning a small hardware shop in my home village, my mother has asked me to create a short animation to be displayed in the window this winter. (already having to think about Christmas!) The obvious subject of this animation is of course hardware and needs to come with the typical wintery theme.
Original ethereal ideas just included a boy and his dog but then as our lovely Great British winter weather battered around outside, throwing rain at the window and wind in my face I realised this is our British winter, rain and wind, no snow (but on the rare occasion). British kids can't get the same enjoyment of winter as other kids in the world do because where in Scotland or Switzerland schools out due to a frozen duvet enveloping the landscape and so children can trade classrooms for snowballs, Britain gives children the misery of sitting inside watching the sky issue judgement.
And so this is my story, or I should say every British child's dream when winter approaches.....

Working Title: Snowless

Brief synopsis: A young boy dreams of building a snowman, but when winter weather brings only thunderous skies and lashing rain he decides to build his dream out of hardware.

Initial designs were just a Friday night doodle and when digitised became cute and cuddly illustrations. However I realised once they had been drawn that perhaps they were best to remain as illustrations. This is down to how they would move and I felt that the boy in particular wasn't well enough designed for him to move effectively. I think looking at how this design compares to my improved one, there is definite problems with outline thickness and character make-up. The line work is too thick so the character wouldn't necessarily look appealing when animated and his form I feel is too simplistic to get a sense his body could stretch and bend easily.

Initial doodles

 

 

First design concept

 

 

First designs- lines too thick and I couldn't imagine him moving.

 

 

Initial dog- The dog was fine for shape, just the outline needed thinning out.

 

 

Before I realised the boy wasn't going to cut it for style, I did a run test of the dog to see if his body shape would work moving.

 

 

And happily I think I've got him moving the way I imagined him too. All it requires is the finer details but seeing as this was just a test, it wasn't necessary at this stage. One tweak I might make is speeding up the run so he can get from one side of the screen to the other in a shorter time.

 

Going back to the boy, I looked for inspiration that might give me a better style to aim for. The main one being Ame from 'Wolf Children.'

 

 

Although anime is for anyone who knows me, a predictable path for me to look down as I completely adore the genre, I see a lot of traits that other styles don't embrace. Children come across as beings that have bigger heads and large eyes because they are growing into those proportions that accommodate those features. And this is exactly what anime reflects and why Ame is one of the best examples I've looked at for reference.  

 

Others include Pride/ Selim Bradley from 'Fullmetal Alchemist' for the baby-fat face

 

 

And Hikari from 'Nagi No Asukara' for the stick-out cheeks and small button nose.

 

 

Putting all these references together I came up with the current new and improved design which allows me to believe it has the potential of moving. This design may alter in the future, like making the eyes slighter bigger or altering the shape of the cheeks/chin but for now it's where I feel it should be.