Animation Context - Week 3
Image Association

In 'Animation Context' we were focusing on 'learning how to learn', the notes from which, I have included below -

We were also tasked to associate four different images of craft-related items with a Film, Musician and an Animation, and explain the reasoning of the choice. I enjoyed this task as it got me thinking about the many different ways that an inanimate object could relate to other things, and as most of the forms of media that I choose I have a strong opinion on (Both positive and negative), this list is quite personal.

The sheet that we were given

Feathers

Animation - South Park

Both can make you laugh historically (in the feathers case, being tickeled by one, in South Park's, through its humour), however it may be irritating depending on the context (In South Park's case, a controversial episode, in the Feathers, continuous tickling.)

Musician - Christina Perri

Majestic, calming and relaxing

Film - Forrest Gump

Obvious reasons

Christina Perri

Sticky Notes

Animation - Simpsons

There's loads of them, and can be easily forgotten about (In Simpson's case, watching the newer episodes, and in Sticky Note's, simply screwing up the note and disposing of it.)

Musician - Nicki Manaj

Mainly used with the main concern being look and aesthetic as appose to usefulness.

Film - This is England

Can be informative, but also visually appealing

This is England

Glitter

Animation - Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

Harmless fun to begin with, but quickly takes a turn for the worse (In DHMIS's case, the subject matter of the short, and in Glitter's case, it will start appearing everywhere and become annoying.)

Musician - Kesha

Again, obvious reasons

Film - Minions

Entertains kids, but for adults they can't escape them after exposing them to their kids. There's also a lot of them and they're tiny.

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

Pipe Cleaners

Animation - Rick and Morty

Both have a slightly rough style

Musician - PSY 

Like pipe's, PSY used to be very popular, but now he is never or rarely seen.

Film - Green Mile

They're both long... That's it..

Rick and Morty

https://vimeo.com/187225418

This is my second experimentation in the stop motion room. This is similar to the previous experiment, however the movement of the block in this animation follows rule 6# of the 12 principals of animation, which is known as 'Slow in Slow out'. This was used to make the movement appear more natural and realistic, as in reality the object would need time to accelerate and slow down. Even though I have only been in the stop motion room once prior to this experiment, the process came a lot more naturally to me and I feel as though I am fully familiar with the stop motion room. There are several improvements which were made after learning from the first attempt, for example I feel the lighting and angle is much better, thus showing that I am slowly improving with the stop motion process. I feel that I pulled of the effect reasonably well, though I wish I would have made the starting movements a lot more subtle, therefore making the slow in more evident, which I will keep in mind next time that I utilise this principal. Below is the bar sheet which I created for this animation.

I have also produced both of my current Stop-Motion exercises within Maya.

'Making Of'  - Week 2

During 'Intro to Making Of' we were tasked to create a map of Media City of any area which we desire. For my map, I decided to produce it digitally, as that is the area of design that I am most competent with, but the final design of the characters that I drew is heavily influenced by more traditional methods, as they are stylised like stencil art, and are inspired by the work of the graphic deisgner, Gary Taxali, whose style is often referred to as “reinvented pop art”. Taxali works on a range of surfaces, textures and fabrics, which he often illustrates his signature cartoon drawings and styles onto, however in this instance, I have just stylised my digital method of illustration to resemble his.

An example of Gary Taxali's art

I thought that this style created some contrast between the modern look of Media City compared to the traditional look of stencil art. My map spreads across the Cbeebies studio, the BBC studios and the ITV studios, and each building is represented by a character from the individual studios, as the Cbeebies is represented with the yellow blobs that are considered to be the mascots of the channel, the BBC studios is represented by my drawing of David Brent dancing, which is an iconic moment from an iconic show, and finally Jeremy Kyle for the ITV studios. I am pleased with the final look, as it isn't obvious where the map is showing, but not impossible to figure out as it is quite cryptic, and I also like the cartoonish and humorous designs of the characters which I made, however next time I would like to experiment with alternate methods of design.

My first 'Making Of' map

I really enjoyed the second week of our 'Creative Play' course, as I felt it gave us a really good chance to display some creativity. My favourate of all the tasks was the one where we had to create our own animals using the same cutouts, as we got to see how even by using the same assets, each member of our team managed to produce something brilliantly unique. As I was cutting out pieces which at first I intended to use for a certain body part, as I stuck them down I realised that they could instead be used in a much more humorous way as an alternative body part, such as the Emu head used as a tail, or the Camel humps used as an open mouth, which I think has resulted in a unique outcome, if a bit messy and unpolished.

During this session, we're also tasked to redesign the male and female toilet signs and adapt them to represent a movie of our choice, here are my two contributions -

The first one that I drew was of Shaun and Liz from the British film 'Shaun of the Dead'. I chosen these two because they come from one of my favourate movies, and one that has a widespread popularity, therefore should be easily recognizable. However, I didn't like the fact that I had to only colour in little details instead of making it a silhouette as toilet signs often are, regardless of how necessary they were. Despite that, I really liked the outcome.

After learning from my previous idea, I was able to make these two a lot more simplistic, due to the iconic features that these two characters have, therefore I didn't need to go into a lot of detail. In case you couldn't tell, they're Homer and Marge from 'The Simpsons Movie'.

This activity has increased my interest in minimalist art, which is something that as a graphic designer, I enjoy producing a lot.

https://vimeo.com/186176254

This is my first ever Maya animation, so for that reason I decided to keep it as simple as I possibly could. Despite how excited I was to use this programme, it was much more of a problem to wrap my head around it than I thought it would be. Next I will attempt to produce some 3D models using tutorials on Lynda.com, as I am excited about mastering this software.

Animation Context - Week 2

During this session we were tasked to go an look for a job role that we would like to occupy in the future.

Animator (2D computer animation)

After looking through all of the job roles relating to animation in the http://creativeskillset.org/ website, I decided that the job role which personally appealed to me the most was 2D computer animation. The reason for this, is that my work is mostly produced digitally using programs such as Photoshop and Serif Draw Plus, as I find it easier to add a layer of polish to anything I produce, and I have grown fond of these specific programs, despite nearly all of my final outcomes being influenced by or developed from many original sketches. 2D animation is also my favourite form of animation, as I have been influenced by classic American animation such as 'Looney Tunes' and 'Tom and Jerry', through their very quirky designs and slapstick humour, and also more modern cartoons such as 'Rick and Morty'. I have picked three qualities that the website listed that are beneficial for this role, and I will decide upon a way to develop my skills in these areas.

• have animation and acting skills, combined with a good sense of graphic design - I will continue producing my works of graphic design for my facebook page, in order to further develop my sense of graphic design, and before animating any complex action for a character, may film myself or another person acting out the motion, in order to get a better idea of how the action looks whilst being performed, thus creating a more realistic looking outcome.
• have a good level of computer literacy - I will familiarise myself with a wider variety of computer based animation programs, such as Maya.
• be able to take direction and willing to address constructive feedback - I will start to ask for feedback on anything I produce more regularly, hoping for a constructive comment or comments, and work on any complaints which will be addressed. This will help me to become more reflective of my own work, and may also help me to give honest feedback on other peoples work.

(Left) Notes from this session (Right) Tom & Jerry

https://vimeo.com/185639897

My first professional Stop-Frame animation. I thoroughly enjoyed performing the task set on this brief, as it got me excited about what I could make later when I develop my skills, and though I was disappointed that I wasn't able to get some of my own personality or uniqueness through this very simple experiment, I realise that it was essential for getting to know how everything worked, and I think that the final product came out very smoothly. Below is the bar sheet which I used to assist me during the animation process.