Evaluation

Evaluation on Pre-Production

For BA1 pre-production our task was to design a biped character, this could be based on a description from an existing piece of literature, everyday object or just someone we found interesting. We had to also consider a narrative scenario that we'd be able to storyboard for our character to eventually develop into an animation. Pre-production consisted of the character sheet, 12 frame storyboard, animatic and blog of our choice.

I felt like I was introduced to an array of new techniques for this project, I was introduced to new software like ‘fotomagico’ to produce my animatic. Alongside getting to grips with photoshop and a graphics tablet to create my character design sheet and storyboard. Which I felt considering they were fairly new to me came out pretty well. Animation is a new passion of mine, so it was great getting to learn about the process behind making an animation.

Timing will always be an issue for me, along with not asking the tutor for help if I feel I’m struggling. I say timing as I feel like my work could have been a lot more in depth and better quality if I’d put the work in sooner. Rather than keeping to myself. I feel as if I could have planned out my animatic and storyboard in a clearer and professional way if I’d researched deeper into how to produce them.

I talk about timing again it is something I need to work on, it’s hard to produce your best work at the last minute. I need to be vocal about worries and queries I may have. 

Post - Post Final Story Boards

From the changes I made to my animatic, I updated my storyboard. This was the cakes in the first frame. I decided to make the cake the main focus, that this big cake compared to this small egg would show the audience how small and useless he feels even though he made something so great. 

The bathroom changed again, I felt like the ones i'd done before were too basic. As a result added a shower to the side of the sink and a mirror. Which I did think about having my character distant reflection in, but felt like that would take away the point from the items on the shelf when you're trying to see him in the mirror.

A simple change was an extra plaster on my characters face, another being the look of the window. I felt this was one of the best changes. You can see the whole window, one of the windows is also open which I attempted to portray. It looks a lot neater.

Animatic

I know this is too fast to comprehend, but as the moment this is my animatic. A very fast assortment of frames that I will later edit on fotomagico.

Animatic Producing

I made a 16:9 box and printed it out to make a template for my animatic, I felt like I needed structure. In order to get the placement as accurate as possible. 

It worked pretty well, I understand that I will be able to edit it further on the rostrums and fotomagico later. But I wanted to give myself a head start.

Attempts at the Story Board

From the animatic I previously made I decided to pick the 12 frames that would make up my storyboard, the ones that I felt had the most meaning to the story. I know it's not the right way to do it, but as I was drawing the storyboard, there was a few frames that I decided I wasn't happy with the way it looked. So I made some changes, to for example the bathroom. I felt like the angle wasn't right, I tried to over complicate it. 

For example here I changed the look of the compost, before he was just sitting in a box of compost. But this time he's the main focus of the scene sitting on a pile of it. Due to these changes I will go back to my animatic and reassess some camera angles and what is actually in the shot.

Practising the StoryBoard

I decided to start working on my storyboard and how I would go about drawing them, what would my style be? Would I draw straight on the paper? Or go by layers and draw over the top of what I've already drawn. I decided to go by layers.

I feel like this style was easier for me, it also felt more authentic to my original ideas as I just drew over my original drawings. This was very important to me because I love hand drawn work.  

I was reading a book on Aardman Animations when I cam across these storyboards, I felt like they were a perfect way of me seeing what an authentic storyboard looked like. It was also for a stop from animation, it was more critical that each scene was accurate. You can't afford for a storyboard to be wrong when you're animating with stop motion. 

This was the ending result frame by frame for 'A Close Shave', you can see that they're near enough the same.

Post Final Character Sheet

I was simply just experimenting with different facial expressions and positions and came out with something that I was actually happy with. Unlike my older painting I didn't put shading on here, as I felt like there was enough going on and shading would probably be too much. I went with a range of emotions from sad, sad wiping his eyes, happy and curious. Also just showing the eyes, as they are his main feature to communicate.

Experimenting With My Character Sheet

Taking inspiration from character sheets i'd seen previously I attempted to place my character in basic positions, to which I added colour and very basic shading. To which I felt the shading could be better, so I researched into this further.

I found a video online talking about digital painting, in this case the perfect shading. From the arrow marks I made previously I added a darker shade to where I felt they would be.

If you think about dark and light, they're really not subtle on objects/characters. You can really tell where the light is coming from, I do think this turned out pretty well. The shading is quite effective, although I must consider whether it take too much away from the simple design I'm trying to show.

Storyboard Template and Story Board Lingo

Just to keep myself in order and to keep this blog on track, this is what I will need to place my storyboard on.

12 panels that I plan to do very quick drawings on, on photoshop. From my original rough drawings.

There are many rules when it comes to composing a story board, those of which I was unfamiliar to. But I have learnt. The basic units of visual storytelling in film are:

The single image >> shot >> sequences >> acts

You must think about what you want to portray to the audience, so you need to think about what order you want your frames to be in. Maybe what effect you're trying to portray with them.

Composition 

STAGING - You must think about where in the scene you want your character.
RULE OF THIRDS - It's normally the aim not to get the character dead set in the middle of the frame, as it makes it less interesting for the viewer. You can divide your frame into three horizontal/ vertical lines and use them as a guideline.
DIRECT THE EYE - Using features of the frame as perspective lines you can lead the audiences eyes to the centre of interest.

Character Sheet Research

I decided to research further some character sheets to get a good idea of what mine can look like, I notice that some are simply done with line work. But I like the idea of having mine in colour. I feel like it will bring him to life.

Animatic (Take 2)

I produced another quick animatic on photoshop, this time the pictures were more deatiled and I added a few more scenes to hopfully bring the story together. I timed it so most of the frames were 2 seconds each, apart from the frame with the guy holding the cake in the kitchen. In my opinion the signifier, we start to understand why he feels the way he does.

Character Sheet

In animation, a character sheet, also known as a character board, character study or simply a study, is a document used to help the animators understand the appearance, poses, and gestures of an animated character.

I went through I few character sheets until I found one which I liked, this one belonging to the beloved characters Tweety and Sylvester. In this model sheet you're just getting a good idea of the characters physically from different angles rather than different emotions. However I think I will end up using some emotions to show variety. As then it will show more of a character sheet than 'model sheet'

I did this with my character iteration that I had at the time that I was happy with, I showed the front, 3/4 front, 3/4 back, side and back. It gives the audience a good idea of what the whole character looks like from all angles. And importantly I can progress in developing him further,I can pick out bits about him I want to improve in more detail and I can start to figure out how to start animating him.

I used photo shop and tablet to add colour to my character for my character sheet, It's just very basic, but I'm already pretty happy with the colours. I would play with colours a little more, add tone. And possibly take away the black outline. I feel like his colour/shape holds itself enough.

The background was originally an off colour, I didn't think about his before I started painting, as a result the colours are slightly off. Which isn't too bad, editing was a little tricky.

Expanding my Designs

I continued trying to develop the appearance of my egg design, really focusing on the face (eyes) at this point, I wanted to try and get his emotions across as much as possible with his eyes as that's his focus point and I have no dialogue within my animation.

I decided to keep my egg design as simple as possible, and to have all of his emotions portrayed through his eyes. Eggs are very simple but they're used to makes very complicated things, they're incredibly useful, I wanted to portray through my character that he's very simple, but has complicated emotions. Which his eyes will portray. I also had the idea of him cracking through the scene, to possibly show him feeling broken (emotionally) but showing it physically. 

I got this idea from Gromit in Wallace and Gromit, he had no dialogue but was incredibly expressive though his eyes/eyebrows and it's incredibly powerful. Much like my characters emotions.

Just a quick video of one of my favourtie scenes in animation ever, Wallace and Gromit in the wrong trousers. In this scene Gromit shows so much emotion without really trying, and I think that's brilliant. 

First Draft - Egg Anamatic

I have extended my original 12 frame story board, I did this to create an anamatic that would be roughly 30 seconds. 

This is a very rough first draft of my anamatic, some of the frames are in the wrong place/haven't been included that I will do. Since I've made this I've made a few changes. Each frame is roughly 2 seconds each, except from one 5 second frame of the windowsill. I did this to create extra suspense, he's just jumped out of a window. The audience in theory wants to know what's just happened to him. It's just over 30 seconds, which isn't too bad. But I would like to compact this down to 30.

Storyboards

A story board is defined as 'a graphic organiser in the form of illustrations or images in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualising a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence.'
We had a lecture on 'storyboards' and the correct way to produce one, it was from this that we came up with our own narratives and as a result rough storyboards that would help us in our development of characters.

(An example of a story board from Disney's Alice in Wonderland)

Step by step you can see roughly what is happening, it's a simple and cheap way to get organised so you don't have to waste footage when filming. Especially in stop motion. This is what we had to do for our own characters, by thinking of a narrative and showing it through images.

They had to be 12 shots, all within the time fram of 30 seconds. However we could produce more frames for the anamatic that we intend to make. 

Concentrating on my egg character, I roughly attempted to make my own, It involves my character who has just been used to make lots of cakes. But soon realises that's all he can do now. As a result he gets upset and attempts to fix himself with pills and plasters, when he realises he can't fix himself in this life. But he can help those in the next. To which he jumps in to a pile of compost. 

Egg designs

After researching into different shaped egg shells I started to sketch what I wanted my character to look like.

 These are very rough. I decided to get an egg and sketch it, I added shading, I will have to experiment more with the idea of shading, as I feel when it comes to animating it. It will end up being that much harder.

As we have to make a biped character (2 legs) I wanted to make his legs out of what he is (ie using the yolk within him to leak out the sides to help him walk.) Instead of adding human legs on him. This is just because I feel like that's been done before, it will hopefully make the character more interesting to look when when he moves. I will carry on this idea for now.

I looked at a few facial ideas for my egg character, I was surprised to not find too many well known animated ones. But here were a few of my favourites, (TOP LEFT) Togepi from pokemon, who has a very kawaii face, (TOP RIGHT) iloveegg.com is somthing i've loved since I was young, also very kawaii with their simple faces still showing a range of emotions. (BOTTOM LEFT) Humpty Dumpty from Puss in boots, he seems to have a hyper realistic face. Being able to portray a array of complicated emotions. And finally (BOTTOM RIGHT) Egg Fu, appearing in many DC comics, with a robotic feel.

And this, party for research and partly for fun, Weebl and Bob are two eggs in a web series that love pie. They move by just rolling around, they're never static. Just constantly moving back and forth.

Puppet/Doll Research

I decided to reasearch ideas for my puppet idea (losing it's soul and learning to walk), my initial idea was to create a very simple looking puppet with a simple face. When looking around I found victorian dolls (which is my comfort zone) and wanted to carry on with this idea. However I realised I shouldn't keep to my comfort zone and branch out. So I decided to concentrate on my egg idea.

I found an artist called 'Paul Klee', who in my opinion created outrageous puppet designs. Often only recognisable as humans. I felt inspired by this, I love the weird and wonderful.

Just an example of some of his work, but I felt like this idea although fairly original wasn't where I wanted to go. 

Designing Continues

After a crit session I decided that maybe I shouldn't make up an object like a backpack with everything a child could want in it, but use an ordinary object that reminds me of my dad. I.e a circuit board or soldering iron, I attempted to draw them, but I was excited about them. my mind wondered and my pencil decided to draw. 

I started to think more about the reason why my object would be moving, and felt that this was important for my character design AND narrative. It went from a window walking trying not to break itself, a puppet who lost their hand (soul) and learns to walk alone. And an egg that want to repair itself, Ideas I wanted to develop.

Starting to Design

For our character we need to portray a personality, I decided to do multiple different styles of my dad to get a feel of what I could do/ what design I could have. I picked out his main features ie glasses, polo shirt, tools. At this point in time I wanted to go to his work and examine the machines there, how they move. Could I put personalty to them? HOWEVER, he's in Germany on business so I've been unable to.
I will still go to his work when he gets back to look at the machines, I like the idea and you never know what I could use it for.

I went on the idea of maybe looking at him from a child's point of view like I have done, that maybe he's an inventor and can make anything. And as a result my object would be this invention that the child has come up with themselves. I came up with very generic ideas, ie sweets, games, juice..the list goes on. I came up with a backpack that has all of these features. But this just seemed too complicated. I might go back.
I decided to look at other ideas I find interesting.

Coraline

We had a lecture on the importance of characters, we watched an interview with one of the animators of 'Coraline'. A stop motion feature I had previously seen and thoroughly enjoyed, to me the style is similar to Tim Burton in it's exaggerated features and long limbs who I'm also a huge fan of. We were introduced to Coraline's Dad, who also reminded me of my own.

The exaggerated features caught my attention. The long neck, large chin, large nose and eyes.
My dad is an engineer, and I've always found what he does fascinating. I thought about possibly combining the machines he creates software for with my design. It hopefully will become clear later, let the ideas.

BA1a - Introduction to Character Design project

Welcome to my blog! Here I will show my research and ideas I have for each project throughout university, SO let's get started....

Our first task of the year is to design a biped character, this could be based on a description from an existing piece of literature, everyday object or just someone you find interesting. We must also consider a narrative scenario that we'll be able to storyboard for our character to eventually develop into an animation. It must be biped (have 2 legs) so we can create a walk cycle later on.

I MUST SUBMIT

• Character Design Sheet in A2 or A3 - digital format (jpeg or PDF)
• 12 Frame Storyboard- in digital format (jpeg or PDF)
• Animatic silent - no more than 30 seconds duration (QuickTime) 
• Reflective Research Portfolio - communicating the results of the iterative process used to develop your character and narrative concepts (PDF Format) 
• Evaluation of 250 words - on the project and achieved outcomes