Sketchbook Drawings - Inspired by Music

These are the results of what I see or feel in my mind when I listened to the song which inspired me to draw them. I'll let you think what songs they were...unless you really want to know, and in that case I will spill the beans. :)

Sketchbook Drawings - Film Characters/Creatures

Drawings of my favourite film characters and creatures (well, dinosaur). As you can see, I have a clear taste of what films I like. 

Sketchbook Drawings - Surreal

Basically, I took items around my room and made them surreal. Including what my old radio would look like if it were alive (pretty evil, due to the fact I was given it around 6 - 7 years ago and have never used it - has just been shoved in a drawer all these years) and a ninja I-Pod (because the headphones look like a weapon they might yield). Found this very fun indeed.

Monkey Walk

Before the walk I made of myself in Maya, this was the first project I did which involved animating a walk. I actually picked it up very quickly. It was quite difficult in some ways though, because his arms are very long while his legs are short, and animating short legs effectively is no easy task. But hopefully you'll see that it's a convincing walk.

Storyboard

These are just a selected few photos from my storyboard project. We were given a task of reading one of three given scripts and turning it into a storyboard, and I chose one about Pirates (unfortunately at the moment I can't for the life of me remember exactly what it was). I've had experience of making storyboards before, so this wasn't new to me. The same goes for scripts and script writing.

Backgrounds

This is one of the backgrounds I created for my one project. It had to be an interior shot with some sort of light source. Because it had to be something from my pirate storyboard, I went for the captains cabin room, and opted for a candle as a light source. This was the first time I had ever used watercolours, so I do need practice with them. But overall I am pleased with the result.

2D and 3D walk of myself

I recorded a walk of myself walking from one side to the other (just my ordinary walk) and had to replicate it in both 2D and 3D. I am actually very pleased with both of them, especially the 2D version. It turned out much better than I imagined. What I find funny in a way is that although it is far more complex than the first walk animation I made, in my opinion it is far more better. But I did learn alot from my first, and the mistakes I made that time were not made for this one. The 3D, on the other hand, I found a little simpler, but unfortunately I couldn't put much time into it as I had other projects to complete, so it is not how I would have liked it. Overall not very happy with it, so I will be having another attempt at it in the future.

Life Drawing 5

Maya Character Poses

These are a selection of poses I made with a character in Maya, just to help get to grips with posing characters and moving 3D models. I found this very fun, and as you can see, made some 'artistic' poses!

Life Drawing 4

2D Walk Animation

For this task I had to animate a walk cycle using just a stick man character. But it needed to be as if it was on a treadmill. As it was the first time I had ever done a walk cycle, I found it a little difficult, and as you can see, I do need some practice. But for my first every go at it, I'm pretty happy with the result.

Gone to Bradford Animation Festival!

I will be travelling to the Bradford Animation Festival tomorrow and will be there for nearly a week, so I may or may not be able to update my blog for a while! But I am really excited about going to Bradford, especially the BAF game days where I'll be able to see games such as Fable 3 and Enslaved! There are so many things I can't wait to see! It's going to be one awesome week! :)

Cubey 'Take' Reaction

For my last project with cubey (yes folks, this is the last time you'll see him! It's a sad day for all!) I needed to use everything I have learned over the past few weeks (the principles of Animation) and give him a 'take' reaction.

3D Ball and Chain



Mary and Max and Waltz with Bashir

This evening I watched a film called Mary and Max. I really enjoyed it! It's one of the best stop motion films I've seen. The animation was so smooth as well, and really brought the characters to life. I was told before I watched it though that it is meant to be a sad film, and as I quote "make sure you have tissues at the ready!". Now I don't want to spoil anything, but I didn't find the most upsetting scene sad whatsoever. And I think this was because of the music. I just didn't think it portrayed what happened in the scene well enough. This is just my opinion, but for me it's a shame. And music has a big effect in films. But nonetheless, it was a very well made and gripping film.

The week before I watched Waltz with Bashir. Wow! It has to be one of, if not the, best animated film I've ever seen, and certainly one of my favourites. Everything from the amazingly realistic and style of the animation, the colours and lighting, to the storytelling and characters were all just brilliant. I can't fault it! Even the fact that it wasn't in English gave it a certain charm and uniqueness. As I just mentioned, it was the style of the animation that jumped out at me the most, and how it was used. It was visually stunning, and one of my favourite styles of 2D animation.

2D Character Reaction to Noise

For the third task I needed to take what I learned and the techniques I used before with the cube character, and evolve them further. This time it needed to react to a sound off screen. The exact task was:

"Cubey is standing in centre stage

Suddenly s/he hears a noise out of shot

Animate your character reacting to the sound"

But we were not allowed to insert any sound, which I personally think was a good idea as it meant the animation had to be clear enough that you know what the character is reacting from.

 As you can hopefully see, mine is a superhero, who at the very start is shown being cocky, confident and somewhat arrogant. As he reacts to the sound, you can clearly see he jumps in shock and frightment. In the end whatever it was that made the sound (I haven't officially stated what it was, which gives the audience something to think about and give them ideas of their own) was too hard or strong for him, thus he comes flying back and crashes into the ground. I'm fairly happy with the outcome, and I didn't want to spend to much time on details and the drawing (shading etc) because this isn't what the project was about. It's about improving the actual animation and showing the principles of animation.

I am looking forward to further projects, and to further show more performance (emotion) in my animation, which includes;

- Body Language

- Silhouette Technique

- Exaggeration

- Line of Action

Life Drawing 3

My second life drawing lesson was very familiar to the first, except we didn't have a model, so instead we had to draw each other holding different positions. There were also objects used, to show examples of weight or strength. You could say that my drawing has slightly improved from the first, and I myself feel a bit more familiar with using charcoal now.

3D Bouncing Ball (With Anticipation)

This is a new animation of the bouncing ball, but with this one I gave it anticipation. So instead of it falling from the sky, it makes itself jump (using the squish and anticipation principles of animation)

3D Bouncing Ball

This was a similar task to the first, but instead this time I had to use stretch and squash, as well as make the ball a character e.g is it a boy or girl, is it happy or angry, etc. I decided to have the ball as a girl, which you can probably tell the most from by the way it lands softly and gently. And I made it a happy and joyful ball, by the way it bounces and squishes in the air. If I had wanted to make the ball more aggressive, I would have made it bounce, fall and rise more faster. And I would have made the squish and stretch effect a lot more and with greater effect, to show the anger.

3D Heavy and Light Balls

These are my first attempts of animating in Maya. As you can see, it was to animate both a light and heavy ball. I'm pretty happy with the results, and you can clearly see the difference between the two. I enjoyed this project very much, and hopefully I can press on and become more acquainted with Maya and become better at using it.

Maya Talk

Yesterday was my first proper Maya lesson. It involved animating a ball and using the graph editor to make the bounce more realistic e.g giving the ball a feel of weight when it falls and rises. I actually found the graph editor quite daunting, and I couldn't get to grips with it at all, so I left the lesson unsatisified with what I did. In that lesson I was set the task of animating two balls; one heavy and the other light. So you can imagine I was thinking to myself "That's going to be a difficult task!". But I didn't let that get to me. I set off promising to come in the nest day in the morning and to learn what what to do and how to improve what I did the day before. And thats exactly what I did. Just now actually, before I began to write this! Surprisingly I got the hang of it pretty much straight away, and in the end I created and completed two 3D bouncing balls, both with realistic bounces for the effects of being heavy and light. I'll upload them as soon as I learn how to make them into a movie file and explain in more detail.

2D Jumping Cube Character

My second 2D animation project was to draw and animate a 'cube character' jumping. Using what I learned from the ball project (Timing, Weight and Stretch and Squash) I needed to add and use two more principles of animation; Anticipation and Overlapping action. As you can hopefully see, the anticipation is shown by the character leaning back readying to jump, while the overlapping action is when they move forward a little after they jump to balance themself and also using it's arms to do so. I'm actually fairly pleased with this, and to me is an improvement in both quality and animation over the balls.

Life Drawing 2

Once again, had to do something completely new to me for my latest Life Drawing lesson. I'm fairly happy with what I did, but because I haven't done anything like this before, drawing in this style hasn't quite come to me yet. But I'm sure it won't be long before my sketches and drawings improve in time.

Dragon Age 2 Destiny Trailer

This is a CG cinematic trailer for an upcoming game. The reason why I've put a link for this on my blog is because of the CG. It's amazing. This is one of the many aspects of animation I would love to go forward with. The amount of time and effort that must have gone into this is staggering, but the end result is something else. It looks almost real. I'm very much into the film and gaming industry, so watching something like this, which is quite powerful and heart pumping, almost sends a chill down my spine and is something I would very much enjoy making.

This also gives me a chance to write that I'm also interested in character and creature design, and what's found in games and films are what have inspired me to to devise my own creations.

2D Bowling Ball and Football tweaked versions

These are just slightly tweaked versions of the animations below. All I did was have the squish effect last a little longer for the football, and the bowling ball roll a little slower. I'm hoping this makes a visual difference.

2D Bowling Ball and Football

My first given 2D project was to animate both a Bowling Ball and a Football falling and showing how they would react to coming into contact with a hard surface. As everyone should know, there would be a major difference between the two, which hopefully I have shown in my animations. Overall, I'm actually not too pleased with them. I could have done a much better job, and wished I had done as well. But unfortunately, I became really ill over the weekend and a couple of the days after, which I had planned to improve them and add or replace some frames. Now I know you may or may not be thinking "thats no excuse", but seriously I could not use my eyes as they were in that much pain, and my head was pounding constantly, and still is as I write this. Not good for an animator! Thus I wasn't able to edit them, and what you see above is in my eyes, an unfinished product. If I had improved them, I would have used the squish and stretch effect more thoroughly, added a few more frames here and there to slow the football down a little, and to animate the bowling ball to roll a lot more. I plan to re-do these animations (or just the one If I can't find the time) and upload them on here, to show what I could have done if I didn't become ill. But all this was a learning process for me, and I enjoyed it very much. I feel both sad and frustrated that I couldn't complete them, but it's something you have to deal with, and I'm just glad I started on this project early.

Life Drawing 1

Had a life drawing lesson yesterday. Really enjoyed it. I think it was the first time I've properly used charcoal for something like that. We were given the task of drawing a skeleton, and this was the result. Overall I'm pretty pleased with what I did.

Flash Bouncing Ball

This is just a simple bouncing ball animation I created in flash. Took a few minutes to create. If I put more time into it I could have made the animation smoother and better, but it's just a rough concept on what my bouncing football will look like on paper.

First Assignment

Just been given my first assignment today. I have to animate both a football and a bowling ball coming into view and showing how they bounce off a hard surface. Shouldn't be too difficult, with obviously the bowling ball falling faster and not bouncing (I'll most likely make it roll a little) and the football falling a little slower but bouncing a few times.

What got me into Animation!

I was around about 9 or 10 years of age when I became interested in animation, and one of reasons what got me into it was in actual fact the film 'Jurassic Park'. This was one of my favourite films when I was a child, and what fascinated me the most was the CGI dinosaurs in the film and how they were created, because they looked so real, yet I knew they were designed and built from a computer. From then on whenever I watched a film which included CGI or animation, that was what I seemed to focus on the most, and I always enjoyed watching the special features and finding out how they were made and what went in to create them.  I always drew a lot as well, and have pads after pads, sketchbooks after sketchbooks, of just doodles or drawings of mine, mainly of creations which I had thought up in my mind. And I thought to myself; "This is what I want to do. I want to have a career which involves all this stuff I love and want to do. So thats when I sought after becoming an Animator.