Reflection of the last 2 years

When i first joined this course i had no idea how to do any sort of animation, i was actually slightly worried incase the course wasnt for me, but once i started i found the course very interesting, in the first year we learnt all sorts of animation techniques such as 2D stop motion, 2.5D animation, 3D animation, rotoscoping and loads more.
I quickly found what my strengths and my weaknesses were on the course and by the second year i realised that my main strengths were mostly focused on the motion graphics and visual side. I think i learnt this the most from one of the live briefs for E4 in which i created a 10 second sting, my animation showed a 3D E4 logo bulging up and down and eventually exploading, turning 360 degree's then repeating, i was so happy with the outcome of that animation and it remains to be one of my favourites in the last 2 years.
I also found that another one of my strengths is 3D modeling as i have modeled quite a few characters and objects within my course and one of my favourites is where i modeled and animated the character 'Stimpy' from 'The Ren and Stimpy Show'.
The course has also help gain skills for working within a group which is really usefull for getting ready to work in the industry as we had to each do one part of the animation and keep the communication flowing within the group, just like people in the industry would go about it.
One thing i havent done much in at all in these last 2 years is 2D work as it is one of my weaknesses but i think i will attempt to gain more skills in the 2D side sometime in the near future as 2D animation is one of the things that really interests me about the subject.
Overall i am really glad i chose this course, i have gained many skills and friends, and to be honest, im kind of sad that its all over soon.

Falling blocks animation complete.

Yesterday i rendered my falling blocks animation, i left the computer to render over night and found out this morning that it has worked really well, i am very happy with the outcome of this animation i think i may even add some sound to this animation if i find the time, and here it is...

Day trip to see Paranorman at the cinema

A few months ago the class went to see Paranorman, and since then it has become one of my favourite films and i now have it on DVD.
Paranorman is a stop motion animation film about a boy called Norman who can see ghosts and nobody else can and doesn't believe him, he then accidentally angers a witch who summons zombies and he becomes a hero as he is the only person who can stop them.
I watched a special feature of this movie a few weeks ago and i was amazed at how the film was actually animated, each character had tons of different faces which just clicked onto the head for each facial expression. The whole production process of this film must have taken absolutely ages to complete but in my opinion it was deffinatly worth it as it is a brilliant film.
I think i would maybe like to try out doing a stop motion animation one day.

Talk with children's book illustrator Paul Hess.

A few weeks ago now. Children's book illustrator Paul Hess came into the studio to have a chat with the class about what it is like to work in the industry and having an agent etc.
The talk was very informative and interesting to be actually told what it is like to be working as a professional from a professional.
He also brought with him a few of his books for us to have a look at, one was called 'Nail Soup' and one was his peter pan pop up book that he actually said had sold out and he made quite a lot of money from it, enough in fact to have a year out from working.
Another thing he brought was a portfolio of his work and showed us the process and techniques he uses in his work, he works mainly in watercolours but says that he fancies trying new things as he has been doing that for quite a while. He told us that he had been trying out digital painting more recently.
He also showed us that when the work is sent in to a client for a book or something, sometimes the quality of it doesn't stay the same and sometimes they could end up filling something in by taking it from another one of your previous paintings, for example a background etc. without mentioning it to you first.
Here are a few examples of Paul Hess's work...

Festival Research

Pictoplasma

Pictoplasma is a massive animation and illustration festival that focuses mainly on character design and is hosted in both Berlin and New York, they hold talks from illustrators and animators from all around the globe. Every year on my animation course we get the chance to go to Berlin to see it and sometimes New york if you can afford it. Sadly though, i have not been able to afford Berlin or New York in the 3 years i have been here, which is very unfortunate as I would have loved to be able to go as i think the talks and events would be very helpful and i think i would learn a lot from the experience.

This year they held talks from some of the artists i have mentioned previously such as one of my favourite artists Jeff Soto and one of my more recent favourites BAKEA.

They also host a lot of workshops in which you get to design your own characters and models and also get to keep your creations once you are finished with it which i think is another really good thing about it as you could end up walking away with new skills or techniques learnt which can be useful for your own work in the future.

I really do hope to go to one of the Pictoplasma festivals one year.

Animex

Animex is a more local animation festival to me as it is hosted in Teeside, this is slightly similar to the Pictoplasma festival as it holds talks and workshops from a range of different animators, illustrators, designers and game designers.

It is really helpful to go to these festivals as you can get the opportunity to chat to successful animators etc. and if you are interested in working in the industry you could even hand them one and maybe they could get in touch with a few jobs for you or even hire you.

Problems with current animation!

Throughout yesterday and today i have came across a lot of problems with this animation as dynamics are very unpredictable when using them in Cinema 4D, every time i was saving the animation then going back and opening it up the big E4 logo reveal would be all messed up and distorted as the blocks would fall differently to how i originally saved them, today i had sorted the animation out once again ready to render, so i began to render it and after 4 hours of rendering it i previewed the progress of the animation only to find that the blocks were falling differently once again, this was very frustrating and i even considered giving up as i could not understand why this was happening.
I then began to google how to create keyframes for the blocks so that they would stay the same every time they fell, and came across one thread in a forum on the website C4Dcafe.
I followed the simple instructions that one user mentioned on how to do this, i then saved the project, closed it down, and opened it up again and yes, it stayed the same as i left it!
The above video is the 'Test' render of when it did not work, i will begin rendering the working animation tomorrow and hopefully upload the animation onto here tomorrow too.

Will Sweeney

Another Artist that i quite like is an artist called Will Sweeney, he is a london based illustrator and a graphic artist who specializes in comics, animations, clothing designs and music artwork.
Although i don't really take part in much illustration i still really like will's style, and the characters he has designed.
I feel that i have always been quite inspired by comic books and comic art as i am a big fan of comics and graphic novels and once even considered trying to get into the comics industry as a career.
I would really like to start drawing again and gain more illustrative skills sometime.
I really like the way his work looks like the more traditional style comic art, which is like when the images are drawn with pencil first and then traced over with pen to give the artwork the finishing touch.
i also like some of the colour palettes he uses too with a lot of things in the images being in just the one colour with shading, then the background would be coloured in a different color etc. which is a very simple way to colour up and would help with time constraints, and it still manages to look good at the same time.

Update on current animation

Today i have managed to finish off my 2nd animation for this project, the animation shows lots of little E4 blocks that fall into place and form a big E4 logo at the end, i have encountered a few problems with this however as i had saved the file to go away for lunch it was fine, then when i got back, the blocks in the animation fell differently which caused the E4 logo reveal at the end to be distorted thus resulting in me having to go back and basically start it again which was really quite frustrating.
I am currently rendering it on this computer as i don't want to run the risk of saving it again only to come back to a distorted reveal logo.
Here are a few screenshots of the animation, after having a preview of it to see how it looked, i then decided to turn the luminance on on the shapes to give it more of a shell shaded look.

Weekly Reflection

This week has been a rather productive week in terms of adding new things for my blog, getting organised and making a start on my 2nd 5 second animation.
as you can see, most of the week i have been sorting my blog out by adding a few influences and sorting out my time plan for the final weeks of the course.
On Friday i made a start on my 2nd 5 second animation, however i had forgotten to take screenshots of my progress but i will post a few screenshots tomorrow.
The tutorial i have been following to help me with the animation is called 'Stick Textures To Dynamic Objects For A Fun Reveal' on the Greyscale Gorilla website.
I thought as well as creating this animation for the greyscale gorilla competition i could also make it into a small sting for the E4 channel, in my animation i have loads of little purple E4 shapes which then drop down to the floor and reveal a big E4 logo once they have all dropped.
I am fairly pleased with how it is looking so far, i just need to tweek certain things to give it a better look and also need to try and make the little E4 blocks land closer together when they drop to the floor.
I have also been having problems with trying to render my first 5 second animation as i have tried it 3 times now, but im sure i will get that sorted in the week coming.

Update on current project

I started creating this short 5 second animation before the easter holidays, i first posted a screenshot before i broke up for the holidays with just the polygon object by its self, since then i have been trying to think of ways i can add to the animation to make it look like my own work instead of it just being a copy of the tutorial on greyscale gorilla, so to make it different i began to add cloner to the object, i then  had a bit of a mess around with the count of the clones and also decided to animate the start and end angles of them so that they move around the original polygon shape.
The original tutorial that influenced this animation is called Polygon Reduction Deformer Effect which i found on the Greyscale Gorilla website.
The 5 second competition i am entering with this animation is called 'Primitives'.

BAKEA

Juan Carlos Paz aka BAKEA is an illustrator and sculptor who mixes digital design, illustration and photography within most of his work, he also does a lot of monster characters within his pieces and the monster characters are usually composited onto photographs of mountains etc in a very humorous and silly manner.
Yet again as i've already said about the artists i mentioned previous, i really love how this artists work is so surreal and silly.
I really like the bright colours and designs of the monsters, i would maybe like to create something similar with my own designs and by creating some sort of character in Cinema 4D and compositing something onto live footage or photography.

Ted Parker

Ted parker is an artist i have just recently stumbled upon and i really love his work as it is so silly that it puts a smile on your face, most of his pieces include a silly, simple smiley face even then the characters are in strange situations.
I think that i could be influenced by this artist as i like to make work that puts a smile on peoples faces and gets people in a good mood, and i also like to be a bit silly with my work but in a way that works.
Here are a few examples of his work.

Jeff Soto

One of my favourite artists is called Jeff Soto who is an illustrator and a muralist , his work mostly consists of very surreal things and the creatures within them are usual very odd, being really furry, hairy and/or mechanical. 

He has a very distinct colour palette, subject matter and technique, i really love how bold his work is and how it just stands out from the norm.

His work influences my own as i have always been a fan of surreal things, and i always try to make my work bold and stand out, i don't really like things being boring, normal or plain.

Here are a few examples of his work.

15 Day Time Plan

Tuesday 16th -
- Update my Blog with influences and describe why i like them and how they influence me and my work.
- Discuss my targets to be completed with my tutor.
- Type up a detailed time plan and upload to my blog.

Wednesday 17th -
- Render first 5 second animation for work based project.
- Browse the Greyscale Gorilla tutorials and give one a try to help towards my second 5 second animation, once complete, find a competition theme to match my animation with.

Thursday 18th -
- Render my second 5 second animation.
- Research animation festivals and upload my findings to my blog.
- Type up my SMART targets and upload to my blog.
- Type up my making of guides for first two 5 second animations.
- Type up my Brief for my series of four 5 second animations.

Friday 19th -
- Make a start on following another tutorial from Greyscale Gorilla to help towards my third 5 second animation.
- Make a start on printing things off for my progress file, including Skillset research, UCAS Application, competitions/festival research, Local and national company research.
- Aim to complete my Creative CV, once complete, print off for progress file.

Monday 22nd -
- If third 5 second animation is not yet complete, i will complete that.
- Find 5 second competition to match my animation.
- Update blog with recent work.
- Render third 5 second animation.

Tuesday 23rd -
- Type up making of guide for third 5 second animation
- Begin browsing Greyscale Gorilla for ideas on my fourth 5 second animation
- Begin fourth 5 second animation

Wednesday 24th -
- if fourth 5 second animation is not complete, get it finished.
- Render fourth 5 second animation
- Update blog with recent work progress
- Create making of guide for fourth 5 second animation

Thursday 25th -
- Type up evaluation of work on the 5 second animation project
- Type up 500 word written analysis which explains the knowledge and skills i have gained from this project etc.
- Finish printing things off for progress file.

Friday 26th -
- Begin gathering work together for my portfolio
- Show tutor my chosen portfolio pieces for feedback
- Begin writing commentary for each piece of work in which i will talk about the skills, technique and concept

Monday 29th -
- Complete writing commentary for portfolio work
- Type up evaluation for portfolio work
- Begin putting show reel of my work together

Tuesday 30th -
- Finish/render showreel
- Check through all pieces of work for hand in

Wednesday 1st May -
- Attend 3rd year interview
- If there is time to create another 5 second animation then i will begin one more
- Render extra 5 second animation

Thursday 2nd May -
- Create making of guide for extra 5 second animation

Friday 3rd May -
- HAND IN DEADLINE!

Current Project and Plan

For my current project i am going to create a series of short 5 second animations for the competitions on the website Grey Scale Gorilla, to do this i am looking at tutorials on the website and then i am linking what i have learnt and completed using the tutorials to one of the themes to choose from for the 5 second animations, my goal for this project is to create a minimum of 4 short animations, which is one each week until the dead line, i will obviously create more than 4 if there is time as i think this is a great way to improve my portfolio too.
Here is a screen shot of the animation i completed last week, i was quite proud of it as i hadn't created anything like it before and i love the way it looks.

Stimpy screenshots

I had some good news last week, as i logged into a computer in the studio i found that i still had some screen shots saved onto the desk top of my Stimpy project, which shows the background and Stimpy composited onto the background, here are the images.

Skillset - Jobs in the industry.

• Runner

This is usually an entry-level role in Animation studios. Runners are employed on low salaries, and are expected to cover a multitude of, sometimes menial, tasks. They are often a combination of handyman/woman, production office dogsbody, relief receptionist and messenger. However, many people with successful careers in all aspects of animation started their careers as Runners.

This route into the animation industry has nurtured the potential of many individuals, and produced some very talented practitioners who may otherwise never have had a chance to progress in the industry. While working in this role, Runners can demonstrate their abilities, prove that they have a good attitude, and discover where their main interest or talent lies.

Depending on their aptitude, skills and interests, Runners may be promoted to junior or training roles in Editing, Camera, Animation, Model Building, Scanning, Digital Colouring, Digital Compositing, Rendering, or in the Production Office, among many other departments.


Skills


Runners must be bright, helpful, presentable, articulate and have basic literacy, numeracy and communication skills. It is helpful if they already have an interest in animation and, to get the most out of their time in the job, they need to develop an understanding of the production process. Runners must be able to cope under pressure, accept instructions from all quarters, show initiative and problem solving skills, respond quickly to requests and know how to prioritise their tasks.

• Modeller

Modellers build three-dimensional computer models of everything that is needed for a CGI project. As they develop their skills and interests, Modellers may concentrate on different areas such as characters, objects, environments or special effects.

Further on in the process, Riggers will rig the models to enable them to be animated and Texture Artists will apply texture which will be further enhanced at the Lighting stage when tone and depth are added.


Skills

One of the most important skills is to be able to think in 3D. In addition, it will be necessary to demonstrate at least some of the following within a portfolio submitted for a Modelling position:

• ability to follow design reference accurately and work in a range of styles;

• ability to create moderate to complex and organic models;

• ability to model characters, props and environments, working to a good level of finish, if required;good drawing skills including use of light and shadow and a good understanding of anatomy;strong sense of scale, form, weight and volume;

Key Skills include:

• good understanding of modelling with either Polygons or NURBS;

• ability to do UV mapping;

• ability to problem solve;

• ability to communicate with colleagues and work as part of a team;

• ability to take direction and willingness to address comments and make changes;

• ability to work with a minimum of supervision and capacity to function as team leader, if required;

• ability to deliver on schedule, working under pressure if required;respect for the procedures and requirements of a particular studio, production or pipeline; knowledge of the requirements of the relevant Health and Safety legislation and procedures

I think if i choose the career path i will have to develop my skills in Cinema 4D and try to experiment with modelling a range of different things, also i think i need to experiment with things such as UV mapping etc.

SWOT analysis.

Strengths - My strengths within animation are mainly to do with 3D modeling and 3D animation as most of my work has been realized in 3D. Also since i was quite happy with the project in which i created model sheets for a character i would like to say that character design is another one of my strengths, however as it has been a while since i have actually drawn anything i would quite like to start drawing again and improve my skills, i also need to improve on my Adobe Illustrator skills as i only mainly know the basics of illustrator and currently prefer using Adobe Photoshop which is not as good when it comes to creating and designing characters.

Weaknesses - My weaknesses within animation are mainly to do with 2D animation and drawing as i haven't drawn for a while, i would like to try making a 2D animation sometime but first i will need to improve my drawing skills etc.
Another weakness of mine is my confidence in my idea's for projects, as it usually takes me a while to think of what to do, this then knocks my confidence in my work off balance, this is something i really need to try and overcome.
Rigging is another one of my weaknesses as i have rigged characters in the past, and some of them turn out fine with good working foot rolls etc. but then others just don't seem to work at all.
And another weakness i have to admit to is keeping this blog up to date, i am terrible, trying to sort that out though.

Opportunities - Opportunities i have and have had this year to improve on some of my skills are things such as on Friday, illustrator Paul Hess came into college to give us a talk on what it is like have work as an illustrator, he also told us all about the pro's and con's of having an agent and how to get one, it was a really helpful talk. He also set us a little task in which he gave us a story out of one of his books he is working on currently, we then had to design a character, in this story the character we had to design is a ghost that lives in a banana tree, this is a good opportunity for me to try and improve my drawing/illustrator work and i am going to try and complete the task sometime soon.
Another opportunity i have is with this current project i am doing. For this project we have been looking at live briefs and selecting ones that we wish to do, i have decided to do a series of 5 second animations for the website Grey scale gorilla, this website has a lot of tutorials for things on Cinema 4D which i am going to have a go at and try to further improve my Cinema 4D skills.

Threats - My threats at this time are currently deadlines, as i am aiming to experiment with a lot of new things and only have a few weeks left on the course.

My most recent project - Modeling and animating Stimpy.

For my most recent project i decided to model the character Stimpy from the popular adult cartoon 'The Ren and Stimpy show' i modeled the character using cinema 4D.
Whilst making this character i did come across a lot of problems but i managed to overcome them and this helped me learn a few more things along the way.
The final animation consisted of my finished Stimpy model which was composited onto a background which i created in Adobe Illustrator, Stimpy then walked across the screen. Sadly though i have lost the final animation and a lot of the screen shots that i took for developement work as my hard drive recently broke, here are a few of the images that i do still have.

Compositing.

In one of the CAAD sessions in college we learnt how to composite a sphere onto a photograph to give the appearance that it was composited onto live footage and give the shape a sense of realism.

I think this technique is very useful for my future animations and i am glad i have learnt this.

Character design - Model sheets

Here is how my final model sheets turned out for the character Borghoul, on the third model sheet i also  decided to draw his pet brain Squidge.

I created the background on photoshop and for the splat effects on the background i had downloaded a new brush.

Overall i was really pleased with how these model sheets turned out.

Character Design

Firstly, I need to apologize as I haven't been posting regularly at all this year, I should have been keeping on top of my blog but sadly I haven't.
I am going to take this time to upload as much work as I can to show my recent work and progress within my modules, however my portable hard drive has recently broke, causing me to lose certain pieces of work that I hadn't yet backed up, which is a shame as i was rather happy with some of the work I had on there, including my most recent module in which i modeled the existing character 'Stimpy' from The Ren and Stimpy Show, I had composited him onto a background I had created and the animation showed him walking through the scene, however i do still have a few screenshots of the character itself and will post them up soon.

The first thing I am going to post is my character design sheets and development.
The character I had created was a zombie named Borghoul, I had always wanted to create a zombie character as i have always been interested in the idea of them.

Here is my first attempt at drawing my character, I was overall quite pleased with this design even though it was the only one I could come up with, so I decided to stick with it and try to make it look better using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.

After tracing over my character design in illustrator I decided to change little details about my Character such as, instead of the tuft of hair at the right side of his hair I decided to replace it with more of the zombies brains hanging out.

Here is how my character design looked after I had finished tracing over it with the pen tool, without the pencil drawing behind it

Once I was happy with the line work of my character, I then decided to colour it up, to do this I used the program Adobe Photoshop, I also added shading to the colour to give it a more textured look, I did this by using the Eyedropper tool and selecting the colour, I then selected a darker version of the colour and used a different brush around the edges of my character

I then decided to try and design my character without using any line work, and just using basic shapes in Adobe Photoshop instead to see if my character would look any better, and it turns out that I prefer this version to all of the others as it looks very simple yet effective.

Below is an image showing the front, side and rear views each created using the same technique in Adobe Photoshop.