Life Drawing 6

These are from three different life drawing sessions, one of being just quick one to two minute poses and the others around fifteen each. I experimented with a different chalk/charcoal just to see how my drawings came out.

Back for a new term!

Hello again! Has been a while right? Sorry about that, I had no computer over the holidays and now finally I have bought one! I resorted to mostly laziness of gaming and movie watching, which is always fun! Funnily enough, I played Fable 3 (which was one of the games showcased at Bradford Animation Festival) and I felt I knew the game more because of that, and because I saw how it was made with animation. And when I saw one of the animated fighting sequences I was like "YEAH, I SAW HOW THEY MADE THAT!" Was a very good game overall.

Well, todays the day I start my new term at University! Would like to look back and say I very much enjoyed what I have done so far, but I still need to learn and will need to improve on things! Just looked at the new timetable and there is a 3D Modeling/Environments lesson now up on there! This has really got me excited as 3D modelling is what I want to do!

Anyways, now that I'm back I can start blogging again! So look out for more posts! And if you can please comment or message me. I'd really like to know how I am doing. Thanks!

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.