Life drawing

In this session we did some drawings where we only looked at the model and not the paper which came out with some....interesting? results! and then some 30 second sketches!!! and this is where i take back my comment from last lesson about liking quick sketches me no like them no more haha!! think i need to practise quick sketches more cause i found it very hard to get the most important information like the line of action and the positioning of the legs and arms and overall just turned out very badly =S however i feel i am improving slightly with my longer sketches. Again hands + feet = PROBLEM!! but i feel i have improved with drawing the faces. The proportions i feel still need to be improved but are getting better. I feel my drawings are getting looser gradually as well. So hopefully i am improving even if only a little!? =S

Experimental Animation

For the experimental project i decided i wanted to do something with paint or ink and drop it onto paper/card. I thought this would be a good idea as i could create smooth lines for calm music and splats for beats, so i thought this medium would give a wide range to what i could do. I also feel it would be fun and messy! =D I then went on to search for videos on youtube for examples of the style i want to try.



This was the first video i found and loved the technique of dropping ink into water mainly cause it looks pretty!!! and theres pretty shapes!! haha =) it also works really well to music. But someone did point out that its more film than animation (which i didn't really think of because i was too busy thinking PRETTY!) so not sure i could do it but maybe could blend it with a different idea. I do like the start of the film though where it just starts with splats which is more animation and the idea that i wanted to do.



Heres another video using the same technique. Still wanna try this even if i can't for the experimental animation cause it just looks so cool haha.



Then someone suggested to me to look at this music video, which im pretty sure was made on computer partly but i do like the idea of mirroring the animation and would like to include that in my piece.



This is an example of someone using paint on film. I like the use of colour and the start of the animation with just the lines moving across but i think it gets too busy from there on. But i like the idea of the coloured lines moving along and blending into each other and changing colour.



This video isn't very clear but its similar to what i want to do with the paint splats. I like the idea of reversing the effect as well so you could do it backwards so you start with the splats and end up with a blank page. I like how you see the progression as well.



This was created by adding coloured ink to oil. I think its stop motion because you don't see the person blowing into it, though think it could be created this way even if it wasn't. I think this would work well to music as well. I like how the colours expand gradually.



This is is someone using ink on wet paper and shows how you can use ink to show lines as well as just splats. I like how the lines gradually grow across the page.



I thought this stop motion was amusing but i mainly liked the painting part because you saw the paint brush doing the work (without a hand) which i thought was a clever idea and thought i could add that to my animation as well.



This is paint on glass and i think its a really effective technique. I like the parts where they wash the paint away as i feel that looks the most effective.

Advanced Maya

These are the images i produced after the lesson last week about "image based lighting" HDRI images. I played around with using different images from Paul Debevec's site. I prefer the lighter image because it is clearer. I found it really interesting doing this task because i like how the image and the light reflects in the spheres. I also think this is very useful to know how to do because i think i could make my final render images of my future animations look alot more interesting and better quality. And as you can see i was in a christmassy mood when i did this =D

Week 3

The week of the lift woooo!!!

Before i started producing my animation me and jenny recorded our actions so that we could get the timing better, which was very amusing as we had to make the sound effects of lifting a box to be able to act it out right.



I do have a slight problem with using the way i lift a box as a reference as i don't feel i lift a heavy box properly in the first place =S.

I was still undecided on whether i wanted to do 2d or 3d but when i started making the lift in 2d my decision was very easy because it was terrible!! I wanted to draw it on the computer instead of on paper however i haven't really got the hang of drawing on flash because its not the same as drawing with a pencil. So i tried drawing the frames on corel painter with my pen tablet. I wanted to get a rough idea whether this would work in the first place so i decided to just draw the first part of my animation where he rubs his hands together. This is how it turned out.



As you can see the size of the box shrinks as you watch the animation also the person changes size. I think this is because i was worried about the time i had to produce it and i rushed so it looked really bad, and also because i found drawing on the computer harder than it was on paper. So i decided to make my lift animation in 3d as i thought i would produce a better quality animation.

This is the 3d animation that i produced



I enjoyed making this animation in 3d more than the walk cycle as i could put more character into the animation. However i did find some problems with animating the character itself near the end of the animation. When i moved part of his spine other parts of his body would move that i didn't want it to even though i keyed those parts beforehand. So i ended up just moving the hips neck and shoulders. Because of this i couldn't get as good of a bend in my character when he picked up the crate. I felt that the preparation and anticipation of the lift was good and felt that it gave him character. But when it got to the actual lift itself it went wrong, as if someone actually lifted an object like that they would fall straight forward because his center of gravity is wrong. I did try improving this as in my animation i moved his feet forward and back to improve his center of gravity but didn't move them enough.

The feedback i got from kathy this week was that she wanted to see more drawings that show how people lean and how that effects their body language. These are the images that i produced this week. I took the idea that kathy gave about drawing from films which i quite enjoyed though found it hard to find scenes in films where there are two people interacting with each other instead of over the shoulder shots! which are mainly used. I mainly drew with using pen and pencil this week which i thought looked quite effective. I tried more simple drawings without facial expressions to see if i could get the persons character across without.

Week 2

Week two and its the return of the walk cycle!!

i want to try and make my character animation in 2d for a change but im gunna make the walk in 3d also just so i get back into animating and also if 2d fails i can use 3d =)

I started off doing my 2d walk cycle as i thought it would take the longest and i was reminded of a very important lesson that apparently i forgot on my first attempt which is.......NUMBER DRAWINGS!!! and the result was i got very confused and decided to start over lesson well learned!! (hopefully) so onto the second attempt.



the arms in this walk are way to flicky and need to be more fluid in movement also the arms and legs are moving slightly too quick so i will go back to my drawings and add some more inbetween drawings for my third attempt



The movement in this walk is a lot more fluid though now i feel i have gone to the other extreme and have made the walk too slow.

I then tried increasing the frame rate to make it faster but it made the movement jerky and ended up handing in my third attempt as i ran out of time. another lesson i learned make sure you make enough time to make your 2d animation especially if it goes wrong. I should have taken out some drawings to make the movement faster but i liked how fluid it was and didn't want it to turn out jerky =/ On my next task i will deffinately film and time my movements to make sure i get it right.

On to 3d and as i took more time on the 2d than i expected it did become a little rushed and have decided for my next task to just focus on one to get a better result.



The feet are very bad in this animation i feel as they became very slappy which i should have changed. I also don't feel i got as fluid a motion as i did with the 2d and he looks very robotic =/ The arms movement is wrong as well as they look like they hit a wall. I do like the shoulder movements in this animation though and i like how the head sways as he walks. I think i got the timing better in the 3d than in the 2d however i still feel that it isn't right but think that is because the animation looks so robotic.

After doing this task i am torn between 2d and 3d as with 2d i find drawing the animation can become tedious at times especially when you get things wrong and have to start over. However I feel a lot happier when i see the final result because i feel i put more work into it and its more exciting to watch cause you don't see it move till the end when you put the images together unlike with 3d. But i prefer the making part of 3d animation which is probrably because it is faster and easier to adjust, but don't feel as excited when i see the end thing.

Went to life drawing this week which was good to get back into and we started off with some quick sketches which i actually enjoy more now than the longer sketches.




















The proportions of these drawings i feel are very bad like the arms being too long or the legs too short though i think i drew the basic actions well. The weighting isn't too bad either.

We then draw a longer sketch




















The proportions again i feel could be better like his arms are too thin (bad drawing day). Though i do quite like the face in this drawing though it looks nothing like the model as he looks slightly italian haha. As usual need to improve hands and feet.

We then went on to do something different where we drew on each others drawings and the result of mine was this




















I thought it turned out quite good which i think is because you can see all the lines where people adjusted it which looks quite effective. I also liked kat's way of drawing with charcoal and pencil and will have to try that out with my own drawings.

From my session with kathy this week i was told to be more experimental so i used white pencil on black paper, chalk and charcoals for a change and these are the drawings for this week.


























































































































I found using the charcoal and chalks a lot more enjoyable and liked having more colour in my drawings so think im going to draw more in colour.

3D HEAD!!!

Modeling my face has been both interesting and annoying haha. Interesting because i want to see the final outcome and i quite enjoy modeling when it goes right. And annoying because it takes alot of time to get the shape right and its frustrating when you still can't get it right, and also looking at ur face all the time while ur modeling doesn't help haha. But i think im getting there with time =S.

This is an image of my face turned symmetrical and as you can see im deffinately not which means i can't model one side then mirror it dangit!!









These are the reference images that i am using









And these are some images of the stages in my modeling
























I still need to adjust it a bit like the bottom lip is too big and you can't see the creases for the mouth and the cheeks need adjusting a bit. But other than that i think im getting there.

Start of year 2!!!!

Back in falmouth yay!!! =D and the start of new projects.

im looking forward to the character project as i think it will be a good chance for me to try animating in 2d as i felt i kinda got stuck in 3d last year and missed it. Though im not sure im better at 2d but really want to have a go.

im enjoying kathy's project as well partly because im now noticing the differences in peoples body language which is interesting and funny at the same time. I think i need to be more experimental with my drawings though because i've only used pencil so far, and i need to focus more on the whole body as in some of my drawings im drawing parts (mainly the face cause i want to practise that) These are the drawings i have done so far.

From doing a drawing a day i can deffinately tell when i am in a drawing mood and im not as they start to go out of proportion =/ and again still need to practise hands and feet!!!

Im looking forward to starting the experimental project as well as i feel i need to learn to be more experimental and i enjoyed looking at the different techniques animators have used. I really liked the animation Damon the Mower that was done on paper and it had a split screen so it showed two parts of the animation at the same time which i thought was really clever. I also liked the look and style of the animation overall and the mediums that were used. I thought the way he drew part of the people or animals instead of a full figure was effective aswell. We also watched Neighbours by Norman Mclarren again which always makes me laugh and i am looking forward to trying out the pixelation technique next week.

Summer

I've been playing around with my graphics tablet over the summer as i got it for my birthday and love it! i've only really got the hang of drawing pencil drawings with it at the moment haven't really experimented as much with all the paints. I found i was a bit looser sketching on the pen tablet and think that was because i knew i could undo or erase things alot easier. Also when i got back into drawing on paper i found i was looser too so maybe it helped.

Here are some of the drawings i done over summer