Your New Aesthetic

Back to school.

Here are some recent concepts/sketches that I have produced to develop My idea for the graduation film, which to explain briefly will be an animation accompanied by a narrative poem that I am writing.

After the Rush Hour

Buh. Brain death noted.

So it is done, 2 thirds of the way through our course. Although we technically have a little bit of a wind down period before our official end of year now... But it's nice not to feel guilty about sleeping.

Negotiated uploaded on Thursday at about 10:50 I believe, that was another looong night. Sod the timeline that I said I would upload, you can just have a goosey gander at a few of the finished stills from the hand in piece.

I know the model is not fantastic and I did sort of have to rush it a bit at the end, but I would find it difficult not to be pleased with the amount that I have achieved and learned. I was an ambitious novice, and I feel as though I managed to deliver on my brief. Albeit that that the quality is not as high in particular areas as I was hoping – certainly it is not as adept a job as some of my contemporaries may be capable of - and there are some rudimentary mistakes which are disappointing to me, but I had to pay a time sacrifice somewhere. To have learned as much as I have is satisfying enough.

Here are the poses/final concept for Heracles

The model is not complete - clearly - and the poses are not final, it was just to see if I could move the topology around successfully. I would love to texture this feller up in the style that I've painted him, so maybe that can be a little summer project...... As well all the other things I intend to set myself.....

The Approaching Curve.

Learning curve. For me the negotiated brief has been a monstrous learning curve. The last time that I tried to model anything at all was my own face for Georg's Masterclass. Before that it was the environment that we all had to do last year. Fun.

However, I have seriously enjoyed modelling so far, and I have learned an invaluable amount. My only qualm is that I wish that I had known how much I would throw myself into some of the other projects -- The pitch, as well as working right up to the bleeding edge on the third year projects, in the studio til 7am for Will's -- I think that I would have been less ambitious with the negotiated. For somebody with a very basic knowledge of 3D modelling, I drew up a complex modelling project that I really wish I had more time to work on.
It's pretty clear to me that I'm not going to hand in a finished representation of what I wanted to hand in, as Georg pointed out to me, a high quality result in this project would most likely be at the expense of another project. Sadly, the time sacrifice has been made on this project. I'd like more time, but rules is rules, I was meant to be out of my comfort zone, and to push myself to learn a new skill. I am going to finish the model, just after the hand-in, I want to take this to the end and develop my skills in area that I was previously weak in.

Anyway, the screens are various parts of the model as they are currently, and a quick pose test, the next post will be a visual time line of how this project panned out for me.

Suckers Intl. Has Gone Public

Quick Update, I've been a bad blogger.

Pitch - Went well, despite some story issues? I think it was well received, although the chaps we were pitching to had areas of expertise in areas outside of game production, they still have a vast knowledge of animation process and professional practice, so their feedback was valuable. I'm pleased with the outcome, I think that both Kat and I pitched well, and that we were clear and articulate. Without arrogance, I feel as though the visuals of our pitch were a particularly strong element of our pitch and really help sell the idea. It was a good experience to work with Kat, she is a brilliant artist and very easy to work with on ideas. I think that Kat's very strong artistic capabilities really pushed me to work that little bit harder and develop my own artistic and digital skills for this project, so I'm grateful for that, heh. Hand in bible is displayed below.

AT Essay - Holography, that is what I am doing it on. It's coming along ok, it's just a bit of a pig in terms of time, because I really need to be using this time to work on my negotiated brief.

Negotiated Brief - I'll update in depth on this later, but in principle, I am buggered.

jake_kat_pitchdesignbible

Crew Assignment

Its time for a VERY belated post on the Third Year Crew assignment. I realise that I haven't even mentioned my involvement in the crew assignment on the blog up until this point, but from here on in, expect regular updates abound.

Right, well my job for this project is to work on three different projects producing the sound for all three.
The projects that I am working on are:

Timmy's Gift - Cherie Hague
The Pied Piper - Will Bowsher
Mirror Man - Sean Ridenton

As of a few weeks ago, Michael Churchill will be doing the final mixdown on Timmy's Gift and Mirror Man, meaning that I will be responsible only for the foley. However, for the Pied Piper, I will be recording the foley as well as completing the final mix.

Below is a vague schedule that I am going to attempt to stick to.



I realise that the schedule might suggest that I have not started working until April, however I merely did not make a proper schedule until then, it seemed non-sensical to put on weeks that I had not scheduled for.
I am also aware of the fact that it is going to be difficult to keep up momentum when term starts again and we get lumbered with more projects, but you know, idle hands....

I'll keep updating the process as I go, since everybody else can use visual mediums to indicate their output in the form of videos, renders etc, I might try to photograph/screenshot the process, make the work process seem a bit more tangible.

Pre-Production Evaluation

Well, I finally handed in my project after my extension and it's a relief to have it all finished.



I enjoyed the project, I found the entire process very involving and educational. It was enlightening to see how each chapter of the process was important to the final outcome. I'm very pleased with the overall visual outcome of my project, and the quality of the work, however I'm disappointed with the quantity of work that I have produced. As always, this project was a lesson in time management, especially towards the end, and it left me feeling pretty frustrated with myself as I a simply underestimated the amount of time that it would take to paint the concept pieces and draw up and paint all of the poses. Ideally I would have a) finished the fourth character design and turnaround b) completed model and pose sheets for all characters and c) produced one more piece of concept art.


Research

I found that although we had a little too long to carry out the research part of the project, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a little bit of a history geek and it was great to be able to apply the knowledge that I had learned to a practical function. Before this project, it was an area that I would have probably overlooked when considering character and environment design, or at least not devoted the time to it that I should have. It is an integral part of the process and helps enormously when it comes to design elements, and it makes the difference between an accurate, plausible design and a poorly constructed, unlikely one.

Character Design

Character design was an area in which I have previously dabbled (be it for projects, or personal sketches) but not to the extent that this project asked of us. It was an area that, with hindsight, I could have spent more time on initially since I found that I rushed a couple of the designs towards the end, and perhaps did not express the characters that I was trying to. However, character design is something I was and continue to be interested in and thanks to this project I have a far deeper understanding of the process and involvement required when designing characters. I am pleased with the designs that I came up with. I was eager to make them different from previous interpretations of the characters, but to still make them recognisable as the characters they were written as. The development stages really helped get involved and thinking about the designs so that I could create something unique.

Concepts

When it came to the concepts there was a constant face off between my own artistic vision and my questionable painting expertise. The concepts were very time consuming and frustrating at times but I am very pleased with the finished pieces. I created them by using a mixture of painting - 2 digital, 1 acrylics/watercolour - and textures over the top to add some depth. I coloured the characters in a similar fashion. I think that this visual style is successful, and to me the flat base colouring of the characters is reminiscent of a more adult Tin-Tin.

Ultimately I really enjoyed the project, and whilst I may not have achieved the amount that I would have liked, I am happy with the visual triumphs of my bible. The whole process has given me a deeper insight into the visual side of pre-production and it's given me things to think about developing my skills on, for example; I have trouble with getting character into my faces which I think is one of the most important aspects of character design, and I really want to develop my digital painting skills, especially buildings.

Doctor, Doctor gimme the news....

Heres a few concepts for The Doctor Who production bible, although it's unlikely they'll end up in the finished bible.







The sketch/rough painting of shan shen alley is one that i have now painted up in acrylics on a large canvas, quite flatly, so that I can have it scanned in to work on in photoshop.

Drawing Life Again

And heres a few more.

Drawing Life

Just some life drawings from the past term. 

The Good Doctor.

So, I've been trying to complete a design for the doctor (and co.), and each design just seems to fall a little short of what I am trying to realise on the page. 

In order to get the ball rolling I researched the doctor as an existing character, and focused on a few earlier incarnations of the doctor that I could take inspiration from.

One particular article described the doctor as "An andventurer and a scientist." This in itself gives the designer freedom to come up with an original idea.

In terms of costume I started to look at earlier doctors Tom Baker and Patrick Troughton for ideas, I prefer the slightly disheveled look and I think that the Baker's scarf is a pretty iconic doctor who prop.

I had a look at one of my favourite graphic novel characters, Nikolai Dante - from the 2000AD serial of the same name - as a source of inspiration for maybe a slightly more 'hands on' doctor. I want to keep the intellect that makes Dr Who such a unique character, but I feel like developing on the adventurer side of the Doctor, the idea that he travels time and space through a sense of wanderlust as well as the drive to quell any malignant alien activity.

Cocktails and Lederhosen

The premise of this project was to work within a team comprised of roughly 5-6 animators and 2 writers to produce a production animatic for the fictional board NUFSED. We were told to adjust or adapt an existing fairytale to improve the public image and awareness of fairytale creatures. Each group was given a different genre to work from, ours being Dramatic Narrative.

The group that I was working in decided to choose Goldilocks and the Three Bears for the fairytale to adapt. The idea behind ours was that we would try to subvert the audiences existing opinion of fairytale bears, to make them seem less dangerous, more humorous and ultimately much more approachable.

The working title for the piece was “Goldilocks and the Three 'Gay' Bears”. I should point out that although the bears in the piece are incredibly camp and lively, and there are obvious inferences of the bears sexuality there is nothing in the script or finished animatic that describes or defines that they are homosexual.

The script follows Goldilocks through a slightly altered version of the original telling of Goldilocks story, though there are some distinct differences in some of the story elements. For example – the porridge bowls are now martinis, the beds now a sauna – the idea is that at the end of the piece the bears invite Goldilocks to join them in a party as opposed to chasing her away. The writers aimed the script towards a more adult audience by using language that had it been avoided would have made the piece viewable by a larger age range.

I found the project quite stressful, but enjoyable for the most part. The tight deadline was exciting as well as daunting and it gave us a good idea of working in a busy, last minute environment. I must admit that I became less interested in the projected on the second and third day of production. At first I was excited about an intensive creative experience in which we might produce something that I could be proud of enough to put in my portfolio. However, as we got closer to the end it became clear that we were not going to produce something that I was particularly proud of. I began to feel as though the whole piece had deteriorated into getting cheap laughs by doing banal, stereotypical accents (which I admit I did enjoy, and had fun doing the voice acting, but it is not what I wanted from the experience) based around a flimsy and contrived moral teaching.

The final piece is – at least for me – something that I don't feel at all proud of, nor am I terribly fond of it. The bears are roughly and and quickly drawn and painted (by me and others) and do not reflect any of the work that went into designing them, and they went through several simplifications throughout the finishing process. I feel as though the story is clear but in the end poorly executed. Watching it back, I feel as though without the small parts of (dubious) narration that it would not have been clear to anyone unfamiliar with the original story. I feel that the speed at which the piece flows is slightly uncomfortable, and without the ridiculously over the top voice acting provided by Matt.L and Myself that it would have left people cold in terms of entertainment. I feel as though the choice to make the bears more accessible by making them 'gay' is potentially offensive, although it is meant to be taken in good spirit and neither the writers or the animators were attempting to offend. However I feel that the “misrepresentation of bears in fairytales” idea was contrived and almost just a cover for the fact that it was a chance to get laughs from people by playing on the “gay bear” idea. Also there was no character building in terms of Goldilocks to explain why or for what reason it furthered the story for her to be “a bit of a slut” as it says in the narration. I also think the premise is transparent and that people can see through it to the cheap laugh barebones of the project. I am not saying that I disapproved or feel we should have been more sensitive, I was part of the process after all, I just feel - with hindsight - that we took the wrong path with this project, and made it tacky in the process.

The above might seem like I had an awful time on the project, and that I am in some way angry. To clarify, I enjoyed the project a lot and we got on with our writers very well, I just don't think that I got what I wanted from this project, which to be honest, probably is mostly my fault. 

  

Now I'm just Experimental

Here is Tom Dowler and My "Experimental Animation Project"

There are a lot of issues with our final production but I am nonetheless very pleased with it. I do feel as though had we gotten on with it sooner, and given ourselves more time we could have devoted more time to the animation

and it could have been much smoother and much more focused. I really enjoyed animating in the technique that we used, but I did feel a little rushed, an consequently the animation is dubious in places (for example the hand in the water is very 'rubbery').

I enjoy the overall feel that the animation has, I think that we have been almost lucky in the way that it fits to the sound clip. It really suits the erratic strings, and the urgent vicious structure of the clip. The animation feels themed overall, there are a lot of connotations of danger involved, especially with the crashing waves and the images of sharks and the drowning man. There is quite a subtle but poignant narrative that runs along to the sound clip, lent to it by the animation, but the imagery suggests to me that somebody has been drowned or lost at sea in this raging storm. I am fond of the way that the clips of the sea build up to a climax, and reflect the dangers inherent in nature, and then the switch to the animation is indicative of a story being told, despite just wanting to try out a new technique. I think that the switch to animation does work, and feels natural, the chalk and dark paper creating a grayscale, dreamlike look to the aesthetic. The animated scenes to me work effectively, although they leave a lot to be desired in terms of technical ability. I feel that the sharks and the boat scene are most effective, from a technical standpoint as well as a storytelling device. I enjoy the way that the sharks signify a climax and denote a sense of peril, which is countered by the boat and the leaving of the sharks, leading us down from the climax to a calm conclusion and a return the – now relaxed – live action ocean.

The main problem that I have with the finished production is the technical side of the chalk animations. They are, due to time constraints, a little clunky and a little under polished and are in need of more inbetweens.

Overall I am very pleased with our finished product despite its flaws, I feel as though our attempts at the techniques involved are reasonable and work successfully. Obviously with more time and organised planning I would hope to produce smoother, cleaner animation, but I think that the idea of an experiment is to try something new, and I feel as though we have produced a coherent, as well as visually pleasing experimental animation. 

The Hungry Caterpillar 2

This is my finished 11 second club entry, I would have given a development and progress update type thing now, but my memory stick with all of my line tests has broken. Typical.

Despite it's reasonably poor reception on the 11 second club ( I checked, I finished 132nd with a rating of 3.82 I think) I am still pleased with this. However I completely understand the criticisms offered to me. 

The grabbing of the camera is easily misconstrued as being a morph or some kind of growth spurt. I think that is most likely to do with the timing here, it needs to be snappier, with less inbetweens and more overlap at the end, I feel as though up until the zoom/grab it works relatively well, perhaps he is a little static and conservative with his motions. 

Perhaps the grab was over ambitious at my current ability, and I should have stayed with squash and stretch, and just finished off smoothly, without trying to add that bit of dynamic action at the end.

Overall though, I think that I've produced something that I am proud of, I like the floppiness of the character, and the timing of most of it, obviously I will take the criticisms on board for next time I am doing character animation.

The Hungry Caterpillar

    

These are my inital designs and ideas for my eleven second club animation. I know that it seems cliche and a little unimaginitive to do a caterpillar, which is what springs to so many minds when they hear the word cocoon. However, I felt like I could really have fun with a large, flabby character with a lot of arms, and squashy, stretchy animation. It was suggested to me that I keep his enviroment cramped and restrictive, which I agree with, it will really lend a sense of discomfort to the scene and atmospher that suits the sound clip well.

Below is the video of the two acting clips i will take my reference from.

 

Double Team

Second post of the evening, just to cover the emotion change excercise that we were given last week.

I ended up working on mine very late and close to the deadline, due to complications with my previous attempt at the excercise. This is my reasoning for its obvious shoddiness.

I had two finishes to this one:

SAD TO ANGRY



& SAD TO HAPPY





The reason the I did not hand in the first one is because I felt that by making the character stand I was making a mistake in terms of camera and silhouette, the animation at the end is choppy, unimaginative and rigid.

That said, the latter is hardly better. There are obvious problems with silhouette, it is very difficult to see what is actually happening in the pose. As was also pointed out to me, the whole sequence needs longer pauses at crucial points, such as when he drops the harmonica, or when he inspects the coin. I think that the main issue is that I just didn't spend enough time on it, making sure that it was smooth, well timed and clear to the viewer what was happening.

And Lift.

Belated post on the lift excercise from a couple of weeks ago.

Here is said lift.





The idea behind it is that the character is not expecting the object to be heavy, hence the lack of anticipation towards the beginning, although i feel that a little anticipation would have been a sensible choice, just to make it more believable. The lift loses the sense of weight and timing when the object is lifted to the characters chest. The object seems suddenly to change in weight, becoming much lighter, only to become unsteady and heavy again. I believe that had I pulled the pose into more anticipation prior to the big heave up to the chest, it would be more convincing. I like the drop and the jump/fall, i feel that the timing works well and the movement is fluid and plausible.

It's Blogging Time..

First post after getting back into the course on 2nd Year, so far so good.

Just thought I would upload my appalling walk cycle, it's fairly obvious that I need to keep up practicing on these.




Using the separate colours was an attempt to make the movements of each individual limb and the head/torso clear. Unfortunately I seemed to have conflicting ideas about the drawing styles, and opted for stick arms, torso and head, with full bodied legs. I think that combined with the colours, this makes it very difficult to see what is going on. However, based on playback I can see that the body is poorly proportioned and constructed, the head is far too animate next to the body, which along with arms and legs makes the animation much too busy to work as a walk cycle, because the eye has to focus on too much. I will keep on producing walk cycles throughout the year and post them, and observe whether or not I improve.

Bored of Stories

My completed, back breaking storyboard. Took forever. I'm very pleased with it however, I feel that in terms of artistic ability and capability I have achieved a new area and new standard for myself. I do think that the story could have been made clearer, perhaps a few more frames here and there to develop the tension and make the story a little more engaging.

Blogger has decided that it doesn't want to upload again, so who would I be to tell it otherwise? I will upload the storyboard if I can get blogger to recognise jpegs.

Hayle is No More

Well, it's finished and not a moment too soon to be honest. There was a certain sense of "whatever, that'll do" attitude towards the whole project from all of us as we came closer to the end. We had been working solidly for a couple of weeks, and the worry that we might not get it finished had infected us as a group.

Having said that, I'm fairly pleased with the final outcome, I'm pleased with the way it flows, the way the timing works and how the sound fits the animation. What I am most pleased with however is the overall visual style and how we have managed to keep aesthetic continuity between 4 different artists. Anyway, here be the finished beasty.





I was responsible for:
Production
- The backgrounds
- the animation and texturing of the old woman screaming
- animation of the scene in which she is finally subdued
- compositing the final edit
Pre-Production
-Ideas(group)
-Early Character Concept (Hamilton)
-Final Character Design (Old Woman)
-Colour Setups
Role
-Director

I am pleased with the work that I have produced, I feel as though my animation and timing has improved, as well as my understanding of programs like flash and premier. I am also very pleased with the work that the rest of my group has produced, the animation all tied together and looked pretty professional considering our time limit, the texturing and colour pallet was perfect, suiting the backgrounds very well and the sound effects were very good, staying low down in the mix and adding to atmosphere without being intrusive and distracting to the story line.

Overall, I think we've managed to achieve a very finished looking animation with good continuity and a distinct artistic style, even if use of computer software compromised the aesthetic that we had initially envisioned.