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Wednesday 5 December 2012

Flash Experiments

I'm starting to come to terms with timing in Flash. As we've been told, perfecting the ball bounce is a great way of composing both timing and shapes in each frame. But, why bounce when you can fly?


For now this is just me getting accustomed to the shortcuts on the keyboard and working on my tablet again. I intend to eventually animate Beeble (my strange little character eyeball thing) using Flash, but for now, expect little clips like this while I suss out the basics.

Monday 3 December 2012

Flashbacks to Flash

I've missed Flash so much! Not just Flash but the memory of using Flash...its all coming back now, let the animation begin!

This is my seasonal contribution. That is all. Merry Christmas.

Eleven: Picking something up

More or less same technique I was struggling with in the previous task, but I've managed to improve a little, as in, I knew what to do so I could actually spend more time focusing on the animation itself. Timing is off for the walk quite a bit, as is the fall though.

Eleven: Pushing

I struggled to come to terms with this, and it shows in the animation. The walk is terrible as is the acting when Eleven pushes against the wall. HOWEVER, I managed to actually use the tools that affected the hands! In my mind, a small success....

Thursday 15 November 2012

DEEP script: My first storyboard on photoshop

Hi again, finished the storyboard for Dereks DEEP script, my first storyboard attempt in Photoshop. I made a template for the boxes, then two layers titled 'grey' and 'black'. The grey layer was the basic outlines of the shapes and people within the soryboard while the black was the detail and final 'outcome'. I have yet to figure out how to draw characters onto a second layer on top of the background without the background showing through though, I'll have to ask a second or third year for some help with it.



Friday 9 November 2012

Beeble

I accidently made a character today, and I think I'm in love. His name is Beeble, he is a little mutant experiment thing, and he is adorable...when not attacking peoples sleeves and socks. I'm seriously considering developing this little guy into an animation when I'm done working on all the storyboards we've been set.


Thursday 8 November 2012

Cartoon Takes a.k.a An Excuse for Killing Cubey

Hi, been busy doing research for the storyboard task so haven't been as loyal to the blog as I'd like. Also, been listening to the 3rd years pitching ideas and trying to summarise the information I got from their feedback:
- Be aware of the time it takes to tell a story. The story could be amazing, but you can't get many emotional transitions into the plot in just 3 minutes or so.
- Think of how the story is structured. Will an audience get the meaning through what you plan on showing them?

And so! Cartoon takes, in which a character looks at something, absorbs the information, then promptly freaks out. In this case, Cubeys friend from my previous animation was out for revenge, so dressed up as a monster to scare Cubey, only Cubey seems to have been scared to death......

I love this reaction as I've only ever seen it a few times and it is a humourous method recognised globally as 'this character is scared'. Only I decided to cut the animation short of Cubeys ghost returning to his little body....


Thursday 1 November 2012

Life Drawing

Here are a few of my recent (and favourite) life drawings.

Ink 'action' poses
 The ink action poses are my favourite so far, because they seem really dynamic and stylised.

Graphite 'cylinder' drawings

Charcoal and graphite warm up sketches

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Moving Morpheus: Posing in Maya

We were shown a little dude named Morpheus who can be 'morphed' into various characters, for now though, we had to learn how to move his limbs about and such. Heres four poses:

Crouch - I like crouching like this, for no particular reason really.



Scared/Please don't hit me - ....speaks for itself.




 Depressed slump/ more homework - his arms don't look as relaxed as I wanted to, will have to work on that in the future....


 

Sleepy yawn/stretching - Quite proud of this one, I get the feeling I should have exaggerated the leg poses though, maybe even pull him up onto the balls of his feet.



Overall, feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Thursday 25 October 2012

Make Burt walk

Maya practise again, this time with a character called Burt. Once everyone was done practising how to walk (paying attention to how they did it that is), we learned how to make Burt move, both as a character in an animation (film, tv show etc) and as a character in a game, where they essentially 'walk' in place.
I had fun experimenting with different 'walks', but eventually settled on a relatively 'normal' walk, where the leg swings out to the side slightly as it moves in front of the other.


Wednesday 24 October 2012

Make it jump.

Its not Halloween yet, but we've been asked to make a square man jump, then react to something off screen. Not jump as in show him a horror film that could traumatise the little guy for life, more, jump as in hop to the side.

Managed to talk a flatmate into jumping about for a bit, only she kept jumping sideways. Seeing how I was pushing my luck in the first place I didn't try correcting her.

For the reaction, I decided to keep the 'plot' simple:

Square-dude is jumping at the same time as his friend (who is conveniently off screen) who then falls flat on his face, giving square-dude the giggles.

I used a HB pencil on this one (progress!) so you can actually -see- the animation this time. Pretty proud of the movements though for the laughing I feel he should move a bit slower at the end when hes 'calming down'. I remembered what we were taught about stretch and squash so I exaggerated the shape of the guy as he jumps (and prepares to jump) using my flatmates jump as a guideline.

Saturday 20 October 2012

See Squishy Roll....and bounce...bounce mostly...

Learning Maya is pretty difficult, if only because of the sheer amount there is to it (so many buttons!!!!) BUT I'm getting the hang of it, slowly but surely!


So, I decided to try and show off (just a bit) and made three obstacles for Squishy to navigate, a hoop, some stairs, and a tunnel/tube thing. I noticed when I was done that Squishy seems to be moving at the speed of light (maybe he was promised doughnuts at the end?) so I think my next area for development is my timing. Still pretty proud though!

Sunday 14 October 2012

2D Bouncing Balls

Another bouncing ball assignment, only this time in 2D using the line tester. My main concern was trying to get the timing right. I skyped home and asked my sister if she could time a tennis ball (I didn't know anyone with a football) dropping onto grass (3/4's or so of a second), then I dropped a large marble onto grass on campus and tried to time it. The 'bowling ball' dropped within about half a second and pretty much just rolled rather than bouncing.

I used the blue pencil and it seemed pretty good when I scanned it into the line tester, however looking back at this video the shapes are difficult to see even in fullscreen, so next time I'll stick to using blue pencil for the initial drawing, but then I'll go over the final drawing with a HB pencil. If that doesn't turn out any better for the next animation, I'll then try using biro.

3D Bouncing balls: First attempt

Using Maya I tried to make two balls bounce, one 'light', one 'heavy'. It isn't as easy as it sounds, we used a stretch and squash technique to make the animation more 'believable', I wouldn't say realistic as in real life a bowling ball doesn't change shape drastically when dropped, but in animation, it's not uncommon to exaggerate features or movements.


Sunday 7 October 2012

Update for 'Toy Storyboard and 'Small Eel', aka, learning to use flash again...

Here's the other drawings for the toy storyboard, the final image is of Gizmo crawling in through the window. I've been meaning to upload them earlier but I've been trying to come to terms with Maya (3D animation software) as well as trying to remember the basics about using Adobe Flash (its been a long...long...time).

Hanging from a tree.

Lost in the undergrowth

Getting his bearings


Didn't make it as far as he thought...

Getting home via drainpipe...

Back home (at last).

And finally, heres 'Small Eel', inspired from a trip to the small aquarium in Falmouth.

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvJoVI3Hqjk&feature=g-upl








Wednesday 3 October 2012

'Morphing'...literally a second long...


This is my segment from what will soon be a group animation, we each had to draw 12 images that would make 1 second of video, but we also had to 'morph' the final image from the previous student into something else. I had to 'morph' a duck, into an octopus, which I set up so that the next student could make a 'boom box'.

YouTube link for 'Morphing': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT6wDx4SAAs&feature=g-upl

Friday 28 September 2012

'Toy Story' on Campus

 Hi again, been asked to take a toy around and draw pictures of it in different places, so here's a few drawings of 'Gizmo' in a rough story format as I explored Tremough Campus over the last couple of days....

Gizmo on my desk (where he should be).
Giz getting ready for a day out.


Typically, the second I step outside, it rains. So, here's Giz 'taking shelter' beneath some large plants.

The rain -finally- cleared up!

 Planning on doing more soon, hopefully with a few more experimental camera angles.



Tuesday 25 September 2012

Hi...

Hi, I'm Katie. Just started uni and looking forward to learning more about animation.