Research:
For this exercise, our task is to animate our classmate’s character based on their story focusing on body movements only.
I have mild ornithophobia but I wanted to get out of my comfort zone since I have never animated a puffin before. Hence, I thought this exercise would be a good opportunity.
The backstory of Finn includes his struggle with acrophobia and his inability to find a mate since he can’t catch any fishes.
I couldn’t do life observation, so I browsed the internet and watched Youtube videos to observe how the puffins move before starting the exercise.
Using Procreate as a way to do storyboarding and animating, I came up with my first animatic.
However, the animatic isn’t well received by the teachers as it seems like Finn is surprised by the water that has ruined his practice, not being afraid of the actual water.
I was advised to focus on his body movements more for example him looking for something to use to propose to his mate instead of actual fish.
I was running out of time for the exercise and decided to go for something simpler like him losing his belonging instead.
This animatic was then approved by the teachers, so I exported the video into TVpaint to start the cleanup process as I thought the drawing is too rough.
I asked my teachers for feedback and they said that I need to hold some of the frames longer as it seems like everything is moving too fast.
I followed their advice and feel that the animation does look better than before.
Unfortunately, with my second version, when the puffin hits his head as he turns from left to right, I animated both his hand and his foot which makes it hard for the audience to focus. Thus, I made another version to improve the audience’s experience.
Reflection from class:
My biggest regret in doing this exercise is that I didn’t try recording myself acting out and using the video as my reference. It is the most crucial part that I missed simply because I was worried that I wouldn’t finish the exercise in time. Hence, I feel like the animation could have looked better and had better phrasing if I have done so.
Another challenge that I faced is to keep the design relatively the same – size and overall visual. I tried to have the character sheets next to me at all times while doing the exercise, so I think I did pretty well overall.
I like the final look of the animation considering I haven’t animated a bird before. I also think my cleanup has made the body movements and proportions clearer.
Stop motion TECHNICAL WORKSHOP (10th of Jan): Puppet Making week 1
Research:
I have recently been interested in dark hybrid monsters and thought that it would be a great idea to make a puppet out of them.
Looking at the sketch, I felt unsatisfied as some seem too stiff to make it moves later on and some seem too hard to make within the three weeks process.
Meanwhile, I was working on my new character called Jacob Basken and thought it would be more interesting to animate an arachnid. It would also save my time since I know exactly how I want the puppet to turn out.
After going through my design once more, I decided to make only the head part of Mr Basken since my teacher advised that it would take a long time to make the puppet for his whole body.
Password: ilikeicecream
First off, I started by measuring the size of the head that I wanted and cut out the balsa wood and glued them together to make a cube. I then sandpapered the cube to become more round to resemble the head.
After I’m satisfied with the result, I then used 2 steel strings and twisted them together to make the leg. I repeated the process until I have 8 legs altogether.
Reflection from class:
The class was positive because I wasn’t too rushed into making the puppet and have time to polish the wood into the right shape.
I also got to apply the knowledge of making the puppet legs like I was taught by one of the guest teachers a while ago. Hence, I’m delighted to see where I’m heading.
Life drawing (12th of Jan):
Due to technical issues, myblog doesn’t allow me to attached gallery images so I’ve attached tumblr link to the images below.
Please follow the link below to view my life drawing images:
https://at.tumblr.com/bt-noodles-doodles/711168995705962496/hjk7d8broixe
Reflection from class:
After not doing life drawing for a while, I have become really rusty and forgot how to draw legs in general.
I tried to apply more 3D aspects to the drawings but felt like all the sketches fell flat and didn’t come out the way that I wanted them to.
Therefore, I will be making more research on human anatomy before joining next week’s life drawing class.
Overall reflection week 11:
I thoroughly enjoyed all the exercises this week and felt like I have tried a lot of new things that will push my creative skills into the right direction.
I have been reminded that the better the references/research, the better the animation performance and my understanding of the exercise.