Alright, alright. So perhaps I’ve been neglecting my blog… a bit. This will change, I’m hoping. Second year’s been doing a damn good job keeping us all busy and hidden away from the outside world. Once I’m on holiday I’ll be sure to go through the mountain of work from first semester and post something. Only two and a half weeks until the semester’s over, and second year’s half finished. Surreal stuff.
I’ve been developing concepts of kids for our last character design assignment of the semester. This is one of those concepts. A sad girl, wondering if I’ll ever update my blog again. Enjoy.
This animation assignment nearly killed me. Not because it was overly difficult, but because I couldn’t manage my time properly. There are several mistakes (no, really), and I want to go back and fix them because I actually like the animation for the most part. Timing and spacing is something that’s going to take awhile (forever?) to master. But hey, I’m trying!
We had to create our own character (yay) and animate them anticipating, struggling to lift something heavy, struggle to throw said object, follow through and end in a believable resting position.
Midterm tomorrow and then reading week. Hoping to update this thing more.
Really, really, really want to fix this up. Enjoy.
In my character design class, our professor, Pete Emslie (http://cartooncave.blogspot.com/) had us watch ‘Rabbit of Seville’, a Looney Toons short from 1949. Pete paused on great action poses from the short and had us sketch them out quickly. He wanted us to capture the gesture that is the foundation of a great action pose. It was the best in-class assignment I think I’ve ever had. Below are my sketches and the short. Maybe you’ll spot them in the film? Enjoy.
The first animation assignment of the year really stressed animating on different levels. By that I mean, simply animating every object on a different sheet of paper and combining them when shooting the animation. Does that make sense? Hmm…
We had to animate the flour sack in a boat (or anything, I chose a bowl), and show the sack being forcefully tossed into the air by the water. When he falls back into the bowl, we had to animate a large splash.
I animated each object at a separate time, so after three weeks it’s all come together. The splash at the end is barely visible, thanks to the bad compression. Wish I could upload the Flipbook file instead.
I probably would have made the bowl and flour sack bigger. After four long months of sans animating, it was nice to jump right into an assignment. A little rusty though ;D Enjoy.
Wow, I can’t believe we’re into third week already. I feel a little stressed and semi-swamped with assignments. Need to get back into the swing of things, back on school time.
The first part of our first assignment in storyboarding was to interpret two poems and create concept story beats for each one. In class everyone pitched their ideas, chose the best from the two and created rough story beats that were more refined, cleaned up and applied proper tonal renderings.
The poem I ended up working from is called ‘I’m Nobody’, by Emily Dickinson. It reads -
‘I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us - don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.’
‘How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!’
And based on that poem, below in yellow post-its are my concept beats and on white index cards, the rough story beats. The beats read from left to right. Below those is a rough character lineup/size comparison.
Storyboarding is a bit different than last year, so this was challenging, but fun and rewarding. I’m becoming more and more interested in story and wouldn’t mind being a story artist someday too. Enjoy.
The final painting assignment asked us to reproduce a painting by an artist whose style influenced us. From that painting, we had to create a second piece based only on passages from selected books, mimicking the artists’ style and technique.
I adore Miyazaki’s concept sketches from Howl’s Moving Castle, and reproduced the original ink wash to gouache on water colour paper. I’m actually content with the outcome of the painting. So much that I won’t be posting the second painting because it’s not too good.
I’m never happy with my work. Weird feelings. Enjoy.
I’m not afraid to admit I still dig Pokemon after 11 years. I’ve been playing Pokemon Platinum lately and it’s awesomely addictive. Put down the DS just long enough to draw Trainer Lauren. Enjoy.
Our painting professor asked us to take our last character from character design and incorporate it into a scene related to the character. My painting doesn’t directly relate, since an ostrich probably wouldn’t be wandering around in a park, but I thought it’d be better than my original idea, some sort of gym.
This painting is by no means perfect. I’ve been drowning in finals and huge assignments so I only spent a few hours on this. Very rushed. I need to buy a book on some sort of Photoshop instruction. I am not PS savvy. D’oh. Enjoy.
We had to put together a character model pack for our character design class. It was based more on personality, so I came up with a Jane Fonda-esque Ostrich, who has devoted her life to aerobics and yoga. Eighties themed.
Quick side note - I cannot believe there’s only two and a half weeks left of school. First year is almost over and it has flown by. There’s been a lot of ups and downs but I feel I’ve grown as, not only an artist, but a person as well. All the talented and knowledgeable animation faculty have opened my eyes to a new side of animation, and for that I am very thankful. Enjoy.
