Life Drawing

These are examples of a life drawing session at the beginning of the second semester.   

I think they show some signs of improvement to drawings from previous sessions. For example I think my sense & understanding of foreshortening has improved visible in the life drawing to the left where the knee is coming forward & the foot is resting against the other foot.

The image below is an example of a slightly longer pose, I think I captured the feel of the pose - with errors at first in the proportions - but overall I think it appears fairly accurate in it's proportions. The area I mainly struggle with regarding sizing is the size of the head as I tend to draw it too large & have to correct this area. 

Attempting to add some detail of the muscle tone & the lighting in the image I find helps to loosen my drawings slightly - as I have the tendency to draw very cleanly & tightly.                                            

Mary & Max

Mary & Max is one of my favourite animated films, telling the story of young girl named Mary living in Australia who is struggling through her childhood. In an attempt to find a friend & understand things going on around her, she sends a letter to a stranger living in New York. The letter reaches an older man named Max who is overweight & suffering from severe anxiety. The story explores Mary growing up being affected by  bullying & the deaths of those close to her. Max attempts to help her through & give her a view of the world that she doesn't have.

The claymation addresses several difficult subjects, such as mental illness, bullying & religion. I think the use of animation is effective in addressing these subjects as I think it can be seen as less, not serious, but dark due to the incorporation of humour. For example the use of phrases such as 'obese retard man' & using the words 'spasticity', although I think the use of this type of humour & what would typically be
offensive is more accepted due it being used in animation. As the character's both have a childish quality in their views of the world this also adds to the humour & makes exploring these topics easier, for example Max is able to explain & simplify religion in one sentence. The use of a narrator throughout keeps the film slightly more light hearted.

The use of colour in this film is significant in illustrating emotions & feelings of the characters. In Mary's Australian life there is subtle use of colour, not highly saturated but with noticeable tones. The most noticeable detail being the bright red bow in her hair. Max's life in New York is dark & drab, constantly living in a world of black & white. But when Max receives Mary's letters there are sparks of colours, in his the brown paper of the letters - implying Mary bringing a hint of happiness & emotion
into his life. This becomes more obvious when Mary sends him a red pom pom to set upon his cap. Similarly to Mary's bow, the bright red contrasts the dark backgrounds bringing colour into Max's world.

'You are not perfect, you are imperfect. & so are all humans.'

Nathan Aardvark - Backgrounds

Nathan Aardvark is an illustrator who specialises in speed & mood painting. His illustrations to the left are favoured due to the busy & surreal nature.

The worlds he creates are seemingly meant for a small character in a natural world, enhanced by the highly saturated, bright colours making it appear otherworldly & surreal. Aarvark also uses details of lighting to imply life in his foliage & plants in the foreground. For example it appears

as though the mushrooms are lit up from the inside & along the ribbons of grass they are lit in an ethereal, magical manner.

The first image would be more simply split into layers than the image to the right, however I think the second image would create a more interesting layout as it creates the impression of looking up & out at something bigger. I also think there would be more scope to animate details, such as the background clouds, the petals & the details of foliage in the foreground.

Reactions & Emotions - Anger to Fear

After taking part in a Performance class in an attempt to understand motion & posing more effectively, the concept for our motion studies project is to illustrate a change of emotion using a simplistic character. It is supposed to appear as though the character is reacting to something out of frame & is to be shown in the character's body language & the way he moves.



The sketched thumbnails to the left are to understand the main movements & keyframes in the animation before I begin to experiment with animating the main frames.

Firstly I videoed myself attempting to capture such a reaction in my body language & movement (below) to attempt to get an idea of what sort of

movements & body shapes would be required. When mimicking becoming angry I noticed I had the tendency to curve my spin creating a more convex shape, which I could translate into my animation.

I then thumb nailed the basic shapes & movements I thought would be necessary to create the change of emotion, testing the animation with a basic stick man character before developing it slightly further later on (left).

Above is the more detailed 2D animation, created with animation paper & the use of a line tester, I also added in simplistic facial features to add the detail of expression to enhance the idea of the emotion I was attempting to portray along with the use body language.

The weakest part, in my opinion, is the last part of the movement into the 'fear' pose. I think that the idea of covering the face & bringing the arms up is possibly slightly cliched & I also struggled to show the movement of the arms effectively. The increasing feeling of anger is the part I believe to be the most effective as there is a sense of self assured-ness when the character pushes his chest out at first, then bringing his shoulders forward as his back - similarly to a hissing, angry cat - & his arms raise making himself larger asserting dominance as well as anger.

Animation Practice Backgrounds

                       

These are selection of images I've collected as    references & inspiration for the animation practice background project. The image above, designed by Celine Choo, is a more simplistic style with little shadow & detail, however the layers in the image would be highly effective - but there may also be issues in details to animate.            

    The cityscape using warm colours is a more 

complicated design,  which would  be more 

complex to split into layers, but there would be

a lot of detail that would be possible to animate. 

For example the flags & materials hanging from

the buildings.

The Celine Choo landscape to the right is more complex than her previous design but the use of layers is less obvious, but again there are more details which would be easily animated.

The landscape to the left, by illustrator Fernando Juarez is one of my favourite illustrations due to the foreground image of the topsy turvy house sitting upon the tree top, with the red kite floating above it. The background layers would consistent of the water, the hills, the sky & the clouds - a detail which could be animated.




 

                       The illustration to the right, again, is a more  complex design which would be more difficult to split into layers, but the opportunity to animate areas is abundant due
to the use of waterfalls.

Comic Book Backgrounds - Tank Girl

 

The animation practice project this semester requires us adapt a still image of a background to make it animation appropriate. Looking at a range of references from illustrators to comic books, I discovered these black & white backgrounds which I think could be adapted successfully.

It would be possible to break this down into a variety of layers, for example the foliage in the foreground on a one layer, the building a second etc. In animating details of the layers it would be possible to animate the movement of the water & also if required it would be possible to bring the foliage to life.

Sea Animation - Group Project

The first group project is based on stories of the ocean recorded by a local journalist. The story we've been assigned is about a gentleman who saves a young man who is being dragged out to sea. The narrative is relatively simple which were able to break down into five main points.

The image on the left shows the first brainstorm after listening to the narrative. As a group we decided that we would prefer to explore the 2D side of animation in creating this animation. In addition the idea of using a slightly more abstract styles incorporating the idea of morphing & metaphorical idea of waves, for example the white horses which I previously used in my sea test. The use of a more abstract style would also give us scope to incorporate more characters in necessary & use a less realistic nature. Prior to do making any decisions set in stone as to the media we'll use it will be necessary to do further sea tests, but the idea of using watercolours & ink is the first thing that has come to mind.

These are some examples of references & ideas I've discovered using watercolour as the main medium. I particularly like the use of bleeding the paints to imply a use of light & change in the water. I also like the use of white specks in the shades of blue to imply sea spray. 

I chose the image below entitled 'Kissing the Wave' as it uses the idea of morphing & combining the use of the wave to create other images, which is an effect we'd like to create our animation. The waves in this design are in a more Japanese style.

Flickr

                         

Have had a Flickr for a few years now & has a variety of images from my personal work, from photography to paintings. So if you fancy it, check it out!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauraandrews/

Animation Backgrounds - Lady & The Tramp

After looking through a variety of image on the animation backgrounds blog my favourite of the backgrounds were from Disney's Lady & the Tramp.

I think the use of lighting in these backgrounds are incredibly effective in creating the mood & atmosphere within the scenes. The first image creates the impression that the outside is unwelcoming due to the dark lighting & muted tones, the warm brighter tones of the door way imply that the interior of the home is inviting & safe. The third image evokes a cold atmosphere due to the black & grey tones & the use of silhouettes creating hard lines in the foreground.

The use or view of the camera in these backgrounds are interesting as they often appear to be looking over objects - such as fences - or from above constituting the idea that there is someone watching the scene or that they're moving over these objects.

The first three backgrounds contrast the fourth in its use of colour, the first three use darker muted tones implying the cold, unfriendliness of the outside. The use of blues creating a sense of sadness & loneliness of the outside. The fourth image shows the nature & exterior in a different light, using a range of colours using a palette of mainly pinks & greens implying a warmth & open atmosphere.

Sea Animation

The brief for this animation was simply to animate the sea, in any way & in any media I liked. At first I had no clue as to what to do or how to start, so began looking at iconic images of waves. The Great Wave was the basis of my inspiration & then I proceeded to look at Japanese style animations such as Ponyo.

With the simplistic style of line drawing of these examples in mind I then connected the idea of white horses in the waves. The image to the left shows simplistic line drawings I experimented with in my sketchbook before trying to combine the idea of the horses & the waves, as seen in the image below. The line drawings show my first experimentation of the the frame by frame 

progression & how it may work. The sea animation shows how this developed further, the horse appearing to morph into the waves.

Animation Background - Pencil Outlines

                                                                  Beauty & the Beast

Hercules

Lady & the Tramp

                                                                       Pocahontas

This semester's drawing project is based on animation backgrounds, with the aim of creating several backgrounds for an animation in different ways. In order to understand what makes good backgrounds I've looked at a variety of images from Disney films interiors & exteriors, within rural & urban settings from animationbackgrounds.blogspot.com. I then simply drew the basic outlines of the background concentrating on the lines as opposed to the use of shading & colours. The most difficult of images to create was the Beauty & the Beast interior just due to the amount of lines & angles in the architecture of the building, but I did find the design very interesting due to seemingly gothic influence. I think the most effective of the drawings is the Lady & the Tramp backgrounds as there is a sense of depth of field.

Anticipation - Heavy Pick Up

An example of a simplistic character picking up a 'heavy' ball in the medium of 2D animation. However this is the first version of the animation created within Premiere (& the animation in progress) as I was unable to use the line tester, but decided to put it on here to discuss some issues I had in creating the animation in this media.

The brief for the project was to create a simplistic character that shows anticipation before it picks up a heavy object & particularly showing the change in the character's body shape - the change from the straight to curved back.

The image to the left shows the process of thumb nailing the animation & also getting an idea of the main poses & movements before beginning to the draw the frames on cels.

The second video is the reference I used in order to look at the movements, but in hindsight of creating the first version of the animation I need to use the video as a reference more! For example I think using the 'chin scratch' at the beginning of the animation to illustrate the anticipation is slightly cliched & overused, to I intend to look at the movement I acted out in the video & attempt to recreate that more effectively.

As I was unable to use the line testers to photograph & animate the images I struggled slightly for several reasons. One, because scanning two different sizes of paper meant that there were slight jumps & skits in the animation; two, because I had to create the animation in Adobe Premiere. After realising I could change all the timings of the images before putting it into the timeline, it reduced the amount of time taken in creating it. However once I'd pieced the animation together in the timeline it was incredibly difficult & time consuming to change one image length when sandwiched between two other images (because I had to redo everything after it...). Also difficult because I had to resize all of the images in the window, adding to the jumpy & skittishness of the movement. Overall making a less than average animation!

However, as it is work in progress I intend to improve upon certain details;
- the anticipation before picking up the ball
- the timing of the struggle of the first pick up attempt
- the process of creating the animation to reduce the jumpy appearance