Character Design development

This week in visual Language we were given a new brief, we had to take the character we had designed the week before and create a spin animation so you can see the character from all angles. We were told how to ground your character using an oval to place their feet on. I then drew my character from the front, back, and both sides so I could fill in the in betweens later.
I have decided that his name is Victor. He lives in the Dark Arches and he's quite lonely. He was turned into a vampire when he was 15 and as such all of the older vampires reject him as do humans who are afraid of him. He can also be quite mischevious sometimes though and scares people when he's bored, but he's a vegetarian vampire and doesn't eat them or drink their blood. I like the way he doesn't have a neck so his head can move freely and he can do spooky vampire things, and I think its also in keeping with his character because I've decided that he can hover too.

For this character design I wanted quite a cute and simple character, and after designing him initially I wanted him to have quite an 'Adventure Time' look. I think this idea of a simple character suits the personality of Victor as well and many of the characters in Adventure Time share the same simple body shape, which served as inspiration.

21st-25th October

This week I refined my 24 drawings on the 'slug' brief into 12 drawings that I felt reflected the word well. I was a bit confused about how to narrow down the images and I had already had a couple of different ideas for my final storyboard narrative, so I basically drew out different ideas for the storyboard, thinking about shot frames, expressions and story etc. I experimented with what the slug would look like, and in the end he turned out to be quite cute and similar to the Aardman slugs in "Flushed Away," which I think gave him more character and likability. I originally thought I would do a story board about a slug who wanted to be a snail, but I tried drawing it out and brainstormed a bit and came up with a more simple narrative instead. This idea was about the idea of a slug being afraid because a human is trying to pour salt on it because its been eating their plants. I liked the idea of personifying the slug and giving them personality and fears because I think it is quite funny. Overall I think my storyboard sums up the word 'slug' pretty effectively. I tried to use the knowledge I have learned about camera angles and setting the scene from previous group critiques to make this storyboard better, in particular I tried to use close ups of the slug in order to make its expressions clear, something I thought more about because of the feedback from my peers in the previous storyboard critique. I also used colour this time and tried to add in backgrounds. I hope my peers will be able to tell what is going on in the story board. This brief has definitely made me realise how an idea can progress from just one word and how useful a sketchbook can be in creating new ideas and developing them.
Below is some of my finished 'slug' storyboard;

Animate it! Finished Animation

I have now finished my 10-15 second animation for the Animate it! brief. My animation is about 12 seconds in length. I learned from doing this brief that it's better to try your best even if you think it will go wrong or your animation will not be 'good enough.' I think I spent too much time when we were first given the brief worrying that I couldn't actually do it and being afraid of doing it badly that I just put it off. I eventually settled on an idea with the help of Mike and Matt and decided to just try my best with it. Once I actually began drawing the animation, I found it to be (mostly) quite enjoyable, but also took quite a lot of patience.
I am actually very pleased with the finished animation as I didn't think I would be able to do something like this, and after receiving such nice feedback from my classmates in the group critique we had today I have more faith in my ability. I really like the "boiling point" lines that Matt advised me to use in parts of my animation as I think they give it so much more life and style than if I had just left the scene stationary.
One of my main problems when making my animation was trying to get my face to look the same in each shot; because my features were so small I found this very difficult to get right. I used a lightbox throughout most of the animation process which helped some in trying t get my features right but I still think they are a little bit off. I would also have liked to have added some more squash and stretch to my animation; but at the same time because my animation was in quite a realistic style I don't think it was that necessary. I had to retake my animation about three times on the dragonframe in order to fix different things like timing of each shot that bothered me. After testing the part of my animation where I am opening my eyes, I decided to change this after Matt said it looked strange to have only one eye opening at a time. I redrew this sequence with both eyes slowly opening and I think it looks much better and suits the style more. I also tested my butterfly scenes and after feedback that the flying movements were too smooth and bird-like, I decided to take out every second frame of animation and re-test it. I found this looked alot more true to what a butterfly actually looks like when it is flying and is partly why I am afraid of them, so I really wanted to emphasise this. I would like to edit this version to make the lines I have drawn a little bit darker. I think filming myself making the movements I needed to animate really helped me to create actions that looked realistic and to keep the form of my arms etc consistent.
Below is my finished animation:

Animate it! Progress

I have slightly changed my Animate it! idea since my last blog post. I have now decided on a slightly different scenario that actually includes me in it, however I am keeping the idea of my fear of butterflies. I have completed a storyboard of my new idea; the animation will focus largely on the movement of my eyes. I like this idea because it would be a lot more expressive and will demonstrate my fear a lot more than a wider shot. I am currently in the process of hand drawing each frame of the animation. The most difficult part so far has been keeping size and appearance of the objects consistent in each different frame, this has become quite frustrating. As a reference I have taken different pictures of myself performing different actions so I can draw from them. Even so I find transitioning from pose to pose quite difficult at times. I have currently done about 4 seconds or so of animation, and from flipping through the different pages I am so far quite pleased with some of it. My main worry is that people won't get that its a fear of mine and also if its really choppy. I hope it looks good when all is put together. The last time I wrote a blog post about this brief I was confused about which sort of art style to pursue that would work best for the brief. I have now decided on quite a realistic art style for myself, but am keeping the butterfly quite stylized like I discussed in my last blog post. My style when drawing the animation was inspired slightly by the music video from the song "Take On Me" by the eighties band A-Ha. I have always loved this song and video and particularly the sketchy, black and white, boiling point line style of animation that was used. I have linked the video below;

Animate It!

After receiving this brief I did a few brainstorms and thought of different ideas for each word. For the idea of fear I primarily thought a good idea would be to use my phobia of butterflies as I thought it would be quite different. I also have  a fear of the dark which was another idea. I thought it would be best to try and keep the idea for my animation quite simple and personal. I also considered the "Longing" idea, and thought of the idea of longing for food (something I can relate to strongly) or longing for another person. I thought 'Happiness' would also be nice to do and thought maybe I could do something to do with my dog, who is always happy. In the end though I decided to choose my butterfly idea because I thought it might be interesting as it isn't a phobia everyone will understand.
My animation will be 2D hand drawn; I would like to pursue using photoshop to animate in future projects but for now I think it would work best for me and I think the hand drawn style might compliment the animation.
I originally was going to try and animate a scene where I am outside sunbathing, I see a butterfly and run inside in fear. I was worried about doing this as I didn't think I have the skills yet to make it look good, and I was unsure of how to do it. I discussed this with Matt, who said instead of doing this idea, I could do something more abstract, such as a butterfly flapping around innocently, but with different sudden cuts to a close up of its face and its legs and other things which I dislike about them. I liked this idea but was concerned that it might be too little material to last for ten to fifteen seconds. I planned it out in a storyboard and talked to matt more about it though and we agreed it would be enough. I also created a (very bad) animatic that showed how I would like the timing of the animation to work. I am finding this brief really challenging so far because I am never happy with my art style and I'm not sure where to start with the actual animating. Another problem is the fact that in order to animate how a butterfly flies, I have to watch numerous videos of them flying, which I really hate. I think in order to tackle this problem I will draw my butterfly in quite a stylized way.

Animate it!Character Design

For my Animate it! brief I am focusing on my phobia of butterflies (apparently its called "Lepidoterophobia.") Because I will be featuring in the animation, I wanted to spend some time on my character and the reactions and emotions I will be displaying in the animation. I have drawn mys actual face so many times over the years, mostly for my foundation year, but I've never really drawn my body in full or sitting. First of all I thought of what pose I would be in if I was sitting relaxing in my garden, and then I did this in my room, in front of my laptops webcam so I could take a picture as a reference for my animation. The thing I found hard about this was actually drawing my facial features on a scale that is so much smaller and more fiddly than I'm used to. I then repeated this process, taking photos of myself looking scared and the relieved expression after the threat of the butterfly has gone. (In reality I would have ran inside the moment I saw the butterfly.) I found this helped with the key poses in the animation, but not with everything in between, so I then actually filmed myself doing this action. This was very helpful in making the movements look right.

Happy Me

Scared me