Well, we've been given a new module which entails creating an E4 'Ident'. To get a taste I've looked up several examples as a point of reference and a better understanding of what an 'Ident'/ 'Sting' is...
More 'motion graphics' than animation, but it has nice design and sound production.
Charming animation, set in a lush forest environment.
I like the contrast between these two characters and just love the reaction of the little bear.
I adore the concept of this 'Ident' and the visually pleasing colour palette.
I had to include this for the actual animation as well as it's recognizability and history.
Second life drawing session and here are the results!
These first ones were done with charcoal on a 3ft stick! I don't normally draw that bad...
These below were drawn with stick using black & red ink and white paint. They are a series of movements drawn over the top of each other to spoil a good drawing. Each pose was timed starting at 5 mins and then reduced to 1 minute.
First day back after assessment week and we had life drawing lessons. Here's a couple of my first ever attempts, these are pretty big to, used to drawing in moleskin's and on A4 paper! haha
These consist of 2, 5 and 15 minute poses, charcoal and chalk.
After my first 'failure' animating real acting scene's using pencil, I was a little down, but it made me realize just how hard traditional hand drawn animation is and the skills that are necessary. Learning from my past mistakes I started again with a different scene and planned accordingly. I acted out my scene using a stop watch to get the timing down and began my 'key' poses (the storytelling poses). It is so important to have some kind of connection with the character you are animating, to truly feel what they are feeling at the time, as if the pencil tip has nerve endings! I then animated them in photoshop and although very choppy you can get a real sense of the correct timing, this stage is vitally important, the keys must work before you go ahead and add the extremes and finally the inbetweens. I must have rendered about 15 videos before I felt the timing was right. From here with the help of my exposure sheet I can add the extremes before testing again and then the inbetweens and so forth.
With my previous experiment I just animated straight ahead believing it would work alright in the end, but every little mistake shows up when you shoot it on film... Trust me. And so my lesson learnt is hard work, planning and most importantly TESTING!
Speaking of testing here you can see the Yeti Reaction scene and also a WIP opening scene, animated in colour in photoshop.
Just a quick (firmly encouraged by my tutor) update with a couple of line tests from my animation.
Shock & Blink
Scream
The timing on these are off, but it has been an educational experiment. To correct these scenes and finish the others in the same hand drawn style would just take too long and so a change of style is required in order to complete the module, however this sort of animation is what I really want to pursue and achieve some sort of competency! I've definitely learnt the importance of strong draughtsmanship within animation and it is now my main focus for both personal and professional development. You simply can't animate without being able to draw...
Finally just an image I came across this morning that I found quite interesting.
Kaleidoscope by Thien Bao
I believe this piece was created for Imagine FX magazine as both a front cover and tutorial.
I love this kind of freedom of artistic expression and imagination. A very easy piece to look at with great composition and colour harmonies.
The eyes are what I found most interesting, something I don't recall seeing before with the shape of the pupils being a diamond shape! I've seen serpentine eyes before and certainly circular but not diamond. Mind blowing huh...
Well, finally updating my blog after being away for the holidays and having literally ate my own body weight in chocolate!
Hand in is getting so close now and I HAVE started my animation finally! So hopefully soon I will have some interesting things to post, but for now I've got a few doodles and a conceptual image with regards to my animation.
Once again sorry for the poor quality from my beaten up ol' iPone...
