Backgrounds - Watercolours

The second exterior is to be painted & due to my lack of skill & experience with watercolour paints I've chosen to use a monochromatic colour scheme.

I've attempted to experiment with water colours - which I found a challenge - to explore how to create light & shadow & mainly to try not to overwork the paper!

Was slightly more successful than I'd anticipated, but I need to refer to the original reference material more as i just made some of it up which resulted in it in fact looking nothing like a set of cliffs.

Character Animation - Key Frames

These images show the development of the character's expression and the keyframes in creating the character's emotion in the scene.

I based the first few frames on the images I had taken as a reference & as the character is animated I exaggerated some of the details in order to enhance the expression.

I'm currently adding frames in between the images    I already have to make the appearance of the expression change smoother.

Character Animation - References

In order to gain some idea of the facial expressions & the movement of facial details when a person feels panic of shock I attempted to take some reference photographs to base my facial animation on.

As the character is supposed to be a young boy I had to amend some of the features of my references to make him appear younger, such as the strong jawline & stronger features.

The pencil images are the basic frames at the start of the progression of the character's expression.

Exterior Background - Progression

After drawing a simplistic exterior of a canyon with a bending road running through it based on the Knight Rider storyboard, I was able to consider what details I'd need amend in order to make it fit to the brief more effectively for example increasing the sense of depth in the design. I'd also need to adapt the size of the image in order to fit a 12 field background design since my first blue pencil sketch was developed from photographic reference.

In my second & final version of the exterior I attempted to increase the depth of field by making the size  of the plants between the canyons more obvious. From the foreground to the background I changed the intensity & thickness of the line to illustrate the idea there's more detail in the foreground, fading to a paler blue in the background. 

Sea Experiments - Characters

Above is another example of a sea experiment I created playing around with water colour paints. I think this technique is effective as there is a sense of mark making & the different shades of blues & purples are more obvious & defined.

The designs to the left are concept designs for the combination of the characters & the backgrounds. Again experimenting with water colours & blue/purple tones to fit with the idea of the ocean & the colour scheme.


Although the version with the paint running is possibly my favourite visually - due to the blurring of paint shades & the bleeding into one another & I like the level of detail in this design - I think the third design would be more effective within our animated piece, particularly in relation to the white horses as waves.

Ferngully - Backgrounds & Foliage

I recently watched the 1992 animation Ferngully; The Last Rainforest.

The animation style is mainly animation of the characters with little secondary animation & background animation. They background shots are mainly layered images of forest & foliage, incorporating camera moves & panning to show the vastness of the rainforest.

I thought these images were good examples of how the use of colour & lighting could create a sense of depth & a 3D space.

Walk Cycles - Flirtatious

After choosing to create a flirtatious female walking for one of the three walk cycles, I started looking at catwalk shows specifically Victoria Secret shows due to the nature of the designs they wear. I sketched a basic pose of one of the model's so to get a feel of the details of the movement. The main details I noticed are;

- the hip height, one is higher than the other.
- feet cross over, one ankle is behind the other.
- hands on hips to exude confidence.
- shoulders pushed back.
- head slightly tilted or turned at an angle.

Backgrounds - Initial Layouts

These images are the basic sketches of the exterior designs.

The first outline is for the painted exterior - which I think I'll attempt to paint using a monochromatic colour scheme due to my lack of experience with water colour paints. I added the detail of a moon/sun as to give a light source in the frame enabling me to create strong shadows across the canyons, giving a sense of depth. I need to experiment with using water colour paints in this design & also explore the way the light hits the areas of the frame.

The second outline is the basic outline for the pencil exterior. Drawn on 12 field paper I've attempted to create a sense of depth with the use of perspectives along the length of the road & the canyons surrounding it.

Background - Canyon Sketches

The background project is based on the Knight Rider storyboard from last term. The exterior design will be a frame of a desert canyon as described in the script.

I've begun to look at references of images of the desert to give me some indication of how to create a sense of depth & how the lighting reacts with the details of the canyon. I drew some simplistic, quick sketches in blue pencil to create rough outlines & the basic areas of shadow.

One of the exteriors is required to be a simplistic pencil sketch creating a sense of depth with minimal use of tone. The second exterior is a
painted frame of the canyon with a specific colour scheme, attempting to draw the viewer's eye to an area of the scene - possibly where character animation could take place.

Lighting - Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez

I did this quick sketch of one of Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez's pieces (in my previous posts) to explore the idea of lighting & shadow.

I attempted to capture the main details of shadow as opposed to all the details within the design - such as the blades of grass - as my main concern was looking at the use of lighting.

My favourite detail of the image is the use of shadow reflecting the wheel across the ground adding a sense of a light source to the image.

Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez

I discovered Manuel Rodriquez Sanchez whilst browsing for illustrators who designed interesting background designs which could possibly be adapted as an animation background.

I find his work particularly interesting due his use of scale, for example the houses placed inside the flowers as if they were grown & the houses hanging from the ferris wheel.

What also attracted me to his work is his use of lighting, his monochromatic colour schemes with a hint of blue tones creates a menacing but seemingly calm atmosphere within the scenes.

Experimental Animation - with music

In taking the original test of the ripped up pieces of paper further, I planned to create more morphs within the animation. So as opposed to just morphing from fire to bird, moving from fire to tree to bird to ‘fish’ to flowers to animal, attempting to make the animation more fast paced in accordance with the music & therefore more visually interesting. However this was more of a struggle than anticipated, after planning out the frames & frame rate I had an idea of the timings in which they need to be creating in yet I didn’t quite anticipate how difficult it would be to in fact create these shapes & make them more. However I think the slightly looser style of the forms is interesting & it enabled me to make the animation appear slightly more abstract in its style.

Although I had some basic ideas of the timings from listening to the track, I wasn’t as accurate as I had hoped in imagining how long each frame needed to be seen for. There is a layering of beats which also made it slightly more difficult. Some areas of the animation fit with the music nicely, such as the movement of the fish & the pieces coming down to the floor, but I think it does need to be tighter in some areas.

Also made in error in the first few frames in that you can see the background that the animation was created on, which I hadn’t realized until upon capturing all the images & due to the time scale I was unable to go back & correct as I would have had to redo the entire set of images in order for them to morph correctly, so this was a slight disappointment.

Experimental Animation - Tests

I found it difficult to originally come up with ideas on how to create my experimental animation, which is led it be inevitably difficult to get started. But after I point I decided to just throw myself in with whatever ideas that came into my head whether simplistic, strange or complicated & tried to consider using different media.

One of the first ideas I had come up with was creating a stop motion style animation of make up on a female’s face creating patterns or changing her facial expression or style, however upon trying this I discovered it was near impossible. As I had to keep applying make up to the model it wasn’t possible for her to be in exactly the same position in each frame, so she was constantly jumping around the frame. So I scrapped this idea.

I decided to begin experimenting with the use of paper in different ways. A more simplistic idea I created was the use of cut outs – in this case I chose butterflies - & made them move around frame & appear to flutter their wings subtly. This was slightly difficult due to the overlaying of the movements in their wings & such, making things more difficult to move & although I liked the subtle style of animation, I felt there wasn’t enough movement.

Ripping up pieces of bright coloured paper to create movements & morphing was the basic idea for my second experimental piece. Although difficult to create the exact shapes I wanted & difficult to move shapes once created due to the nature of media, I found it effective in creating interesting morphs & also found the highly contrasting colour scheme appeared effective.

My third test was probably the most simplistic of the three. Involving a thin layer of grains (quinoa in this case) lay over a brightly coloured sheet, where I then created patterns but creating space in between the layer of grains to allow the coloured paper underneath to show through.

I’ve chosen to take the idea of using ripped up pieces paper further, as I think it will enable me to experiment with using the idea of morphs from different things to others, whilst maintaining an interesting visual style due to the bright colour scheme.