Statement of Intent

During the course of the extended practice module i intend to develop my specialist area of

backgrounds and environment design, while also working on my animation skills.I will be working in

a group with Oli, who will be the director and script writer, while i do all the backgrounds and concept

art. We will both be sharing the animation between us. I would also like to produce concept art or

illustrations for some live briefs, and improve my 2d animation skills. I would like to experiment

with colour and maybe use limited colour palettes for the backgrounds of

our final film, and experiment with a more cartoonish style than i usually go for. I would also particularly

like to improve my motion graphics skills in after effects, as i feel this would be very beneficial for leaving

university and improve my employability. I intend to improve my portfolio and create some dynamic

animation in our final animation and through live briefs, such as loop de loop and 11 second club, but

my primary focus is on improving my drawing, digital painting and composition skills in order to create

environmental concept art and background design to a high standard. I will be searching for live briefs

which fall under this environment design category so i can improve in this area, and also looking for

live briefs specifically for motion design so i can practice my after effects animating. If i cant find any,

i will be completing live briefs such as loopDeLoop using after effects animation. I also intend

to work in a group with other members of the class to complete a live brief, perhaps a YCN

or D&AD brief. I am excited to improve my animating skills both working as an individual and

as part of a group, and in the hopes of securing a job sometime after ive finished university.

Animating Background characters

I have began animating the background characters for the fight scenes between maynard and blackbeard. I have never used the paper cut out style of animation before, and although I found it difficult to get used to at first, once i got used to it i really enjoyed it. The main challenge was getting in enough variation of movements, and if i had more time id like to go through the animation again and add more details, such as more movement in the head/arms of the characters.
*Unfortunately my background characters were not able to be used in the final animation due to a problem with rendering and an error the file caused. At this point in time we dont have time to fix this and re render the entire animation so we will have to leave them out, however i intend to fix this for the screening and for my own use after handin. I am disappointed but still got experience with paper cut out animation i wouldnt have otherwise had because of this.

Finished bgs

Below are the finished backgrounds i have produced for our groups animation on blackbeard. I am really pleased with how these have turned out and this week has mainly been adding detail and refining the backgrounds. Seeing them in the animation i think they look really well and match the design of the characters that weve gone with. 

Backgrounds

Below is the background ive done that will be used for most of the water in our final animation. Im very pleased with the look of the water ive achieved here, and after weve applied a ripple effect to it on after effects i think it will look very good.
Ive also planned out the layout for the background of colonial Virginia which will be displayed when Spotswood is introduced in the animation. I have included some illustrations i found which gave me a good idea of what an american colonial town would have looked like at the time, which i then based my layout off.

interior bg progress

This is the progress on the room interior background im working on; im very pleased with how its looking so far, especially the blending ive done with the paint, as ive never been very good at digital painting. However, i found it easier to blend the paint by playing with the mixer brush tools settings, rather than manually blending everything, which im not very good at yet.
what went well
-using new tool, the mixer brush, with different settings to achieve blended look
-colour scheme works well
 what could be improved
-by painting i think ive lost a bit of perspective, particularly on the left hand side panels

Interior background progress

From the research i did into the interiors of buildings in 18th Century, Colonial America, I have come up with this room design for one of the scenes in our animation. Because the room is that of Alexander Spotswood, Governor of Virginia, i tried to make it quite grand and fancy inside to reflect a room in the house of someone of his power would have lived at the time.
What went well;
-i really like the perspective and framing of the background
-my team approve of this layout
-i used inspiration from the research i did and think this room stays true to the interiors of the time period

what could be improved
-perhaps add more furnishings as i start to paint

Background research- Interiors

Above is some research into what the interior of quite a grand house would look like in 18th Century colonial Virginia. I will take inspiration from this research in order to create my own background, as one of our shots takes place in a setting like this.

Documentary Research

I have formed a team with Andy and Liam for the documentary brief, and we have decided that we will be focusing on the golden age of Piracy for our animation, specifically on Blackbeard's death. I will be doing the backgrounds for the animation, as well as animating, which we have decided will be in a paper cut-out style. We have also decided we want the character designs to look quite illustrative, as if from an old history book. We intend the documentary to be an expository, narrated style documentary to tell the facts of Blackbeards death. In terms of research, sources like books, documentaries, and trying to get in touch with professionals and visit museums.

Below is a mood board I have put together with some research that will be essential knowledge to make this documentary. I have researched and gathered images from the setting of this event, (Virginia, Ocracoke island, surrounding sea) as this will be necessary to me when creating the backgrounds. I have also gathered some illustrations of Blackbeard himself as inspiration for what our character designs might look like, as well as looking at details like the ships (sloops) used and Blackbeard's flag. I have also linked some documentaries I watched as research. 

Shot 2 Dogs Trust

I have now begun the second shot of the second animation for our campaign. We will not be submitting our second animation as it will not be finished in time for the competition, but we will be submitting our first complete animation. I feel that this shot is going much better than the last one, probably because the angle is much less difficult to get. I have to fix the humans walk cycle because she slows down a bit too much between steps, but i am happy with how the action of her crouching down looks. I used footage of myself doing this action to get it right. At this point in time i still need to add in-betweens to this shot.

Dogs Trust progress

I have now finished the first shot of the second animation for our dogs trust campaign. I found it very difficult to add the flesh to the stick outline i had before, especially when deciding at what point the dogs knees bend. I found Richard Williams guide to animal walk patterns helpful to understand where the knees would bend. I moved the dog forward as it walks more this week after feedback that it doesnt move enough for the steps it takes, but i still feel that I could improve this and may come back to it if i have the time. Now i will pass this scene on to Medi for colouring and cleaning up. 

Finished Backgrounds - Dogs Trust

Below are my finished backgrounds for the dog's trust campaign. 

What went well:

• Watercolour in the park and kitchen scenes
• pastel colours convey cheerful mood in the second half of the animation
• textures in alleyway scene
• backgrounds suit the feel of the animation

What could be improved:

• I messed up the living room scene by colouring the entire floor, rather than leaving some of it uncoloured or using a lighter colour. This will be greyscaled anyway but I know i could have done better by being less hasty with my colour choices.
• I also spilled a little bit of paint on the park background, which is annoying, but I didn't have time to fix or redo it.

Scene 1 walk cycle

This week i began animating, starting with a walk cycle for the first scene of the animation. This is my first attempt at a four-legged walk cycle, so i found it challenging, especially at the angle which the dog comes towards the camera. I found the following videos extremely useful in planning out the steps and timing for the cycle, especially the 3/4 guide as there weren't many videos on how to get the steps right at this angle. I found the method of marking where each step would go and at which frame very useful, the back legs usually being two frames faster than the front. I also used Eadweard Muybridge's study on a 'marching dog' useful to see how what each step looks like. 

What went well:

• Plotting each step of the walk cycle and getting the right timing
• finding the right perspective for the scene
• getting the rhythm of the body to correlate with the steps

What could be improved:

• the dog is a bit far over so i need to make him walk towards the camera more
• making the dog bigger as he walks closer to the camera
• moving the dog forward more with each step to fix the 'skating' effect

Practice run cycle

This week i did a short test run cycle of a dog. This helped me to understand the way dogs move and will be useful when i begin animating for the project. I used disney character sheets from 101 Dalmatians and Lady and the Tramp to see how they approached run cycles.

LAUAN504 Background ideas

I will be designing the backgrounds for our group's dogs trust campaign. We have discussed ideas for what we want the backgrounds to look like as a group and have found research ideas from existing animations. Below is a moodboard of the different aspects of each of the scenes that I liked. I plan to incorporate the different effects into my backgrounds that i have outlined below. Most of them are Disney concept art, from Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians, and from We Bare Bears. I really like the simple, slightly stylised look of them and think they will suit the theme of the campaign well, as (in the disney films below) they have been used to present stories about dogs, and are simple enough as to not distract the attention of the audience but also to remain visually interesting.

Dogs Trust research

In order to best fulfill the brief we are working on,  I have researched Dogs Trust, to find out their key beliefs and how they would like to be presented in our campaign.
Dogs Trust is the UK's largest dog welfare organisation. Their key aims are to work "towards the day when all dogs can enjoy a happy  life, free from the threat of  unnecessary destruction.” Through the competition brief set, they aim to make rescue dogs the most desirable dogs in Britain.
The client wants to be presented as positive, friendly and compassionate. They believe that dogs have the right to life and happiness and that the canine-human relationship is special, something they urge to be communicated through the campaign being created. I feel our idea for this brief fulfills this requirement, highlighting the special bond and happiness that humans and their pets can give one another.

LAUAN504

This week we started work on the competition brief. Myself, Carla and Medi have formed a group together and will be working on the Dogs Trust brief. We chose this brief because it appealed to us the most and because we got the most ideas from it initially. We have also decided on an idea for a campaign and agreed on how we will be splitting the workload effectively. Medi will be doing character designs, I will be working on backgrounds, and Carla will be doing the storyboards and animatic. We have decided on having two 15 second animations for now, which means we will be animating ten seconds each. I have begun drawing lots of dogs because i think it will be beneficial when it comes to actually animating.
What went well:

• Generated lots of ideas as a team
• Decided on individual roles within the team
• Decided on a general story for our brief

Below are some previous campaigns we have been researching to take inspiration from. Although they were helpful to see what has been done before, we will have much less time to tell a story in our 15-second animations. Each of the ads maintains Dogs Trust's aim to keep the campaigns lighthearted and positive, and emphasises the bond between dog and human. We have kept this in mind when planning our campaign. 

Lip Sync

I found the lip sync task quite challenging, mostly because I have very little experience using after effects and find it quite intimidating, particularly time remapping. Once i got the hang of it though, I found the task made lip syncing make more sense to me and i have gained knowledge that will be useful in future projects. For some reason my lip sync matched up to the audio much more smoothly when i played it back in after effects, and didnt match up as naturally once i had exported it.

Character and Narrative shot progress

This is the final result of the first shot where we see Spindra's shadow. I am pleased with how it looks, however i think it looks a bit choppy which bothers me. I tried a few different spacings of the frames to see if it helped with making the motion look smoother, but this was the closest i managed to get that i was happy with, with the amount of time i had to do it. 

Character and Narrative Shot 2

I have finished the animation for the panning shot of Spindra. The main problem i had with this show was actually not with the animation, but with aligning the camera in animate cc so i got the shot i wanted. I had alot of trouble because I first made the canvas very long so i could pan up the animation, but positioning the camera in the correct way with this canvas proved to be very difficult. I may take my animation into premiere to try and fix the framing of the camera because, while i am happy with the animation, the camera movement is really annoying me. 

Finished Walk cycle

Below is the finished walk cycle scene when Spindra first enters the office. I am really happy with how this has turned out, especially because I spent so much time on it. It is the most complex walk cycle or even shot i have ever done and i found the angle of the walk hard to get right, which is why this shot in particular has taken me so long to complete. I drew over the rough guide on a different layer for each asset, such as the legs, dress etc. and then coloured each individually. I would like to go back and add some motion to the spider legs if i have the time, but my focus now is finishing all my other shots.

Shot 3

I have begun working on the first shot where we actually see the character of Spindra the spider lady. It is a panning shot which will being at her feet and pan up to her face, revealing her spider-y face. I took some reference videos for the shot of me shifting my weight from one hip to another, so that it wasnt just a static pan of her, so it wont look so static and boring. I will add the pan up to her face once i have finished animating her movement.

Walk this Way

Below is the final result of my 3D walk cycle. I found this task made me more confident in using Maya and also helped me better memorise the different steps in a walk cycle, which will be helpful for me in the future when doing walk cycles for other projects. It was more straightforward than i thought it was going to be, i mostly struggled when doing the alternative poses on each side and getting them to match up with the rest of the cycle.