Snail Vs. Rabbit

This is the first storyboard exercise I was given. The aim of the storyboard was to illustrate two characters, or objects, moving at two different speeds toward one another.

I chose to use the characters of a rabbit & a snail, obviously the snail more slowly. I attempted to illustrate the particularly slow speed using shots which showed the small distance he'd moved in comparison to details of the background, such as the plants & flowers. To illustrated the speed of the rabbit I used a variation of things, such as lines to show the speed, blurring of the background & the cloud of 'dust' around his back legs.

I think this storyboard was successful in fulfilling the brief, but I think it I need to explore using a wider range of shots & camera angles within the frame, as well as developing a more interesting drawing style within the frames.

Life Drawing - Session Two

Second life drawing session.

Though I'd done a few life drawing sessions prior to starting this course, I've never drawn a female before. So in this session I found myself struggling more than normal, I think this was due to the wider range of poses she created, particularly the lying down poses which led me to struggle in particularly with foreshortening - something I've had issues with previously.

This is one of my preferred drawings from the session as I was able to get some tone as it was a longer pose, but I think I need to work on the proportions, as her legs appear too short. Another thing I feel I need to work on during the life drawing sessions is drawing more quickly during the shorter poses - for example one or two minutes poses - as I often end up with very little of the figure.

Toy Story

The first drawing project was named 'Toy Story'.   This involved me drawing my choice of toy - a six legged octopus my flatmate made by hand - in different situations & from different angles.

I drew him in varying places, from the fridge to in a blender & on my head. I also drew him as part of one of the Fresher's events 'Psycho Circus'.

I also experimented with drawing him from different angles & in different styles. I tried simplistic line styles, the use of cross hatching, simplistic use of  colour & also a blind contour, continuous line drawing.

I think in order to improve my drawing, I need to experiment with using a looser style as I tend to use relatively clean & very considered lines, but I think I would benefit from experimenting with quicker, looser drawings.

2D Squash & Stretch Bouncing Balls

Light Ball (Football)

Heavy Ball (Bowling Ball)

These are examples of hand drawn 2D animations. This was my first time using animation paper & light box with the peg bar. The combination of these things made it far easier to establish the movements & size of the balls, as I was able to see each layer after I had drawn it. Prior to using the animation paper etc, I'd experimented with drawing all of the movement on one sheet of paper to look at the squash & stretch of the ball as I didn't want to look distorted. After photographing each image with the stop motion camera I created this, although I think it was relatively success, I think in the future I need to concentrate on the size of the ball - to make sure it remains the same volume - & the speed.

Squishy!

First attempt at experimenting with Maya using a 3D 'squishy' ball. Originally I started playing with a solid ball with no squash & stretch, but later used the 'squishy' ball to enable me to exaggerate the movement. I struggled using Maya at first as it's a program I'm not used to, but once I had time to play around & experiment I started to learn all the shortcuts & where everything was within the windows. So this is the outcome of a few hours of experimenting with the 'squishy' ball, not perfect but it's getting there, will keep updated with improvements.

Morphing Animation

I created this simple morphing animation using a stop motion camera.

As a class, we each drew an object or character. I then had to morph the previous person's drawing into my drawing. I had to morph a moomin into a cartoon jellyfish in twelve drawings.

Using a stop motion camera I recorded the images to create this final version.