I completely forgot about the blog until just now, I will attempt to sum up the last few weeks. The concept art assignment forced me to use photoshop, which I've always avoided because I found it confusing. I no longer find it confusing, my head is definitely around it now, and knowing photohshop a little better enabled me to do my 2D assignment a lot quicker and more effectively. I'm quite pleased with how it came out!
To sum up, the most vital thing that this subject has drummed into me is that you should sketch your ideas in tiny thumbnails first and then develop them step by step. I look back at animation I've done previously and see a lot of undynamic poses and boring animation that could have been made a lot more interesting with a little extra effort and planning. I am going to attempt making an animation over the holidays using this new philosophy (previously i would do a sketch in flash and draw over it in illustrator, but i know see the importance of starting small and with an actual pen and paper).
The first thing i did over the holidays was to make a goofy walk cycle for said animation. i sketched out some key poses, then resketched them larger in flash, and planned every frame of the cycle before touching illustrator.
take a look:
sketchy version: http://greasymoose.com/random/crazywalk.swf
finished version: http://greasymoose.com/random/crazywalkcolour.swf
this is easily the best walk cycle i have done, it only took most of a day to do as well from start to finish.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
today we looked at atmospheric perspective
colours change or fade as objects recede into background to create depth.
and a few other things, but mostly we talked about and worked on our concept art assignment.
colours change or fade as objects recede into background to create depth.
and a few other things, but mostly we talked about and worked on our concept art assignment.
giants that can't decide who owns a hat. too cartoony for concept art. if i do a finished version of this their heads will be smaller and more realistic and their hands larger and more gnarled.
the heroic prince. again, too cartoony for concept art.
the princess locked in a tower for a few hundred years too long
the older prince gets turned into an eagle
uh...fernando plays cards with a squid
again, too cartoony for concept art
mark showed us how he uses corel painter last week, i stuffed around with mountain ranges, trying to learn some brushes and so on... i like the effects with light but obviously i lack the knowledge of how to polish things so they look like finished art and not someone playing around with brushes.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
sketches
hand practise in sound class
a concept for a cartoon i want to do called "Fernando: Squidhunting Manwhore", where Fernando, an insatiable manwhore, does bloody, gruesome battle with giant squids.
a rougher sketch of the same character, this time with a spear. if i do the cartoon he will probably use a harpoon.
a fat guy dancing, sketched from a photo found on google images
more hands and shading, this time in animated cinema society and web class
not really relevant to the exercise at all but i thought it was kinda cool
a throwing pose, and then i realised he had to be throwing something, so it may as well be a cat.
a guy with a brick for a head, holding a brick. or a box...whatever you like. perhaps inspired by perry bible fellowship, best webcomic ever! read it at www.pbfcomics.com
new blog
My phone got disconnected so I haven't had internet for a while, so no blog until now. During this dark, internet-less period in my life, I have discovered that I'm supposed to have been uploading life drawing pictures to this blog, so I will attempt to start doing this now.
Last preproduction class (2 weeks ago, last week was anzac day).
Value is the relationship of one point or detail in an image to another with reespect to lightness or darkness of those parts and detail.
Principal 1 - Description of Objects
There are two types of shadows, Form shadows and Cast shadows.
Principal 2 - Expression
Principal 3 - Decoration.
There are four characteristics of colour:
Value
Hue (base colour)
Chrome
Temperature - relative to surroundings.
Colour quality - two or more colours reflected from a visually monochromatic surface.
Colour distance - warm colours appear to come forward, cool colours recede, generally the darker, the heavier.
Simultaneous Contrast
Differing colours placed next to each other will enhance their difference.
Colour Context - simultaneous colour in action.
LIGHTING
*consider, what mood are you after? Harsh or soft? Coloured lights?
*types of lights: main/secondary, rim light (130 degrees, reinforces one side)
*backlights - separate object from b/g.
*ambient lights.
THIS WEEK (yesterday, the 1st of May)
Locations:
When doing locations, include a figure of recognizeable size to compare scale.
More colour theory:
red - visceral, more meaning and symbolism than any other colour. Yellow - the sun, calming. blue - depressing, creative. green - jealousy, hate, scheming.
Think about conveying mood when picking out colours.
which colours have duality?
Last preproduction class (2 weeks ago, last week was anzac day).
Value is the relationship of one point or detail in an image to another with reespect to lightness or darkness of those parts and detail.
Principal 1 - Description of Objects
There are two types of shadows, Form shadows and Cast shadows.
Principal 2 - Expression
Principal 3 - Decoration.
There are four characteristics of colour:
Value
Hue (base colour)
Chrome
Temperature - relative to surroundings.
Colour quality - two or more colours reflected from a visually monochromatic surface.
Colour distance - warm colours appear to come forward, cool colours recede, generally the darker, the heavier.
Simultaneous Contrast
Differing colours placed next to each other will enhance their difference.
Colour Context - simultaneous colour in action.
LIGHTING
*consider, what mood are you after? Harsh or soft? Coloured lights?
*types of lights: main/secondary, rim light (130 degrees, reinforces one side)
*backlights - separate object from b/g.
*ambient lights.
THIS WEEK (yesterday, the 1st of May)
Locations:
When doing locations, include a figure of recognizeable size to compare scale.
More colour theory:
red - visceral, more meaning and symbolism than any other colour. Yellow - the sun, calming. blue - depressing, creative. green - jealousy, hate, scheming.
Think about conveying mood when picking out colours.
which colours have duality?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
last day before holidays!
I've left it a bit long since the class so I'm relying heavily on my scribbled notes to recall what went on.
note pose numbers, note everything on the layout that the animator might need. Animators without layout experience are bad, they might create things that don't fit in with the sequence.
the x-sheet should be included in the layout folder. When plotting key poses, start by drawing TV essential in. Note in red pencil which background number you are using.
When planning shots, focus on the necessity rather than the ease.
Mark then showed us a zip pan where you create 4 panels of blurred colour and alternate them quickly in between to pans from and to the two images you want to meld into each other
note pose numbers, note everything on the layout that the animator might need. Animators without layout experience are bad, they might create things that don't fit in with the sequence.
the x-sheet should be included in the layout folder. When plotting key poses, start by drawing TV essential in. Note in red pencil which background number you are using.
When planning shots, focus on the necessity rather than the ease.
Mark then showed us a zip pan where you create 4 panels of blurred colour and alternate them quickly in between to pans from and to the two images you want to meld into each other
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
wk 5 blog
On Tuesday I spent about 2 and a half gruelling hours doing thumbnails for the first excerpt from the Jimmy/Aliens script, and then on Wednesday I forgot to take it in! Oh well, at least it's done.
This week in the lecture we went over more specifics of layouts, composition, field sizes. Mark emphasised the importance of pre planning in making a scene as easy as possible. He analysed a duck dodgers layout and ended up drawing it again to illustrate the process that goes into creating a layout. It was interesting to see how its done, but I can't help but wonder that if by the time (if) I make it to a professional position and might be called upon to do a layout (especially unlikely given my talent for backgrounds) that it wouldn't all be done digitally by then. Certainly drawing with vectors negates most of the purpose of field sizes, although it is true that you still have to think about things like line thickness.
Mark stated that it is best to blow up your storyboard roughs rather than draw them again so that you retain the life of the drawing, which is usually most present in a rough sketch. This makes good sense, but you would have to make sure your rough drawings aren't too rough and keep in mind that someone has to do a cleaned up drawing over the top so it has to be detailed to a certain extent.
This week in the lecture we went over more specifics of layouts, composition, field sizes. Mark emphasised the importance of pre planning in making a scene as easy as possible. He analysed a duck dodgers layout and ended up drawing it again to illustrate the process that goes into creating a layout. It was interesting to see how its done, but I can't help but wonder that if by the time (if) I make it to a professional position and might be called upon to do a layout (especially unlikely given my talent for backgrounds) that it wouldn't all be done digitally by then. Certainly drawing with vectors negates most of the purpose of field sizes, although it is true that you still have to think about things like line thickness.
Mark stated that it is best to blow up your storyboard roughs rather than draw them again so that you retain the life of the drawing, which is usually most present in a rough sketch. This makes good sense, but you would have to make sure your rough drawings aren't too rough and keep in mind that someone has to do a cleaned up drawing over the top so it has to be detailed to a certain extent.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
aarg
I only just figured out how to log on again, last week it didn't accept my griffith student email and the password retrieval thing didn't work, i just spent an hour trying different passwords, eventually it accepted one i'd tried before. have i mentioned that i think blogs, along with spam, are the scourge of the internet? When I try to look something up so often the search engine presents me with some vague reference to what I want to know more about on some idiot's blog. I think blogs should be illegal.
Now that that's out of my system, last week in preproduction class (week 3), as best as I can recall, we looked at cinematic storytelling and the importance of storyboarding. We looked at the the technique of changing the angles of a dull shot to make it more interesting, but not too much as to distract the viewer from what's going. Up or down shots can be used to make one character seem large or smaller than another, even if they obviously aren't, for instance when Burns talks to his lawyers in the Simpsons and the camer angle is from behind and blow him, so even though he is seated and they are standing his head is slightly above theirs. We went over the rule of thirds again, which is things in groups of three are visually pleasing. Also examined was picture flow, the essence of which is that dynamic elements strongly influence impact. We looked at bipack backgrounds, backgrounds looped together in continuing way, which can be effective ways of saving animation or just creating cool effects. Mark mentioned the necessity of scanning things at various resolutions and linking them together, I would like to try this in Flash some time where vectors should make this process easier.
Yesterday (wednesday week 4), Mark went over the importance of strong silhouettes. It is a simple principle but I hadn't really thought about it before, and I immediately thought of various Disney films and how they must always be thinking about this, and various Japanese animations where they go after realistic animation rather than an exaggerated, distorted movements, and silhouettes are not quite as important (but still present). We were briefed on Overlays and Underlays, which in cel animation would be an important consideration. In Flash I've never really thought about it because you can easily swap layers around as you see fit but now I know the proper terminology for it anyway. Speaking of terminology, I heard the phrase "Lycer Reel" for the first time, which means animatic. I don't know who this Lycer is but animatic seems to make more sense.
Always design for flexibility, as in, when designing backgrounds, think about whether the background may be able to be used again. This mode of thought favours standard camera angles and settings that you'll use again again, I guess you can apply the principle to props as well, background characters even. Reuse as often as possible!
Do not converge eyelines, as in have lines in the background run through a characters eyes, as it diverts attention from the focal point, usually the eyes. Also avoid diagonals coinciding with lines of cheeks, but broadly try not to parrallel lines of the characters and the backgrounds run close together.
Mark spoke about being honest with your employers, about deadlines, or a project being messed up and work snowballing. Hopefully they're understanding, but you might also avoid them being fined, and therefore wrecking your chances of getting jobs in the future
Now that that's out of my system, last week in preproduction class (week 3), as best as I can recall, we looked at cinematic storytelling and the importance of storyboarding. We looked at the the technique of changing the angles of a dull shot to make it more interesting, but not too much as to distract the viewer from what's going. Up or down shots can be used to make one character seem large or smaller than another, even if they obviously aren't, for instance when Burns talks to his lawyers in the Simpsons and the camer angle is from behind and blow him, so even though he is seated and they are standing his head is slightly above theirs. We went over the rule of thirds again, which is things in groups of three are visually pleasing. Also examined was picture flow, the essence of which is that dynamic elements strongly influence impact. We looked at bipack backgrounds, backgrounds looped together in continuing way, which can be effective ways of saving animation or just creating cool effects. Mark mentioned the necessity of scanning things at various resolutions and linking them together, I would like to try this in Flash some time where vectors should make this process easier.
Yesterday (wednesday week 4), Mark went over the importance of strong silhouettes. It is a simple principle but I hadn't really thought about it before, and I immediately thought of various Disney films and how they must always be thinking about this, and various Japanese animations where they go after realistic animation rather than an exaggerated, distorted movements, and silhouettes are not quite as important (but still present). We were briefed on Overlays and Underlays, which in cel animation would be an important consideration. In Flash I've never really thought about it because you can easily swap layers around as you see fit but now I know the proper terminology for it anyway. Speaking of terminology, I heard the phrase "Lycer Reel" for the first time, which means animatic. I don't know who this Lycer is but animatic seems to make more sense.
Always design for flexibility, as in, when designing backgrounds, think about whether the background may be able to be used again. This mode of thought favours standard camera angles and settings that you'll use again again, I guess you can apply the principle to props as well, background characters even. Reuse as often as possible!
Do not converge eyelines, as in have lines in the background run through a characters eyes, as it diverts attention from the focal point, usually the eyes. Also avoid diagonals coinciding with lines of cheeks, but broadly try not to parrallel lines of the characters and the backgrounds run close together.
Mark spoke about being honest with your employers, about deadlines, or a project being messed up and work snowballing. Hopefully they're understanding, but you might also avoid them being fined, and therefore wrecking your chances of getting jobs in the future
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Preproduction Week 1
Today in preproduction class we looked at script breakdown techniques, shot terminology, and some additional layout instruction.
The script is crucial to a project. If the script is rubbish then the animation would have to be absolutely top notch to make it watchable. I find though that I don't go back to films with fantastic animation with weak or uninteresting storylines.
Always meet the director in person before taking on a project. In my own freelance work I am unable to do this as my employers live in New York. All our communication happens through AOL, which is frustrating, especially since the person who hands me my feedback is not especially literate. In fact, she's stupid and has no background in animation whatsoever. I have not really liked or respected any script I've worked on for them so far, and the result is that the products are poor (but I need a job).
Breaking down a script is a straightforward process, you basically highlight the nouns using a colour code system, red for the hero, yellow for silent extras or incidents, green for atmospheric extras or incidentals, orange for stunts etc. Why pink for cars?
Shot terminology was covered last year but it was a good refresher, but also Mark introduced the concept and conventions of going through a script as a director and noting whether its a l/s, m/s, c/u, e/c/u, shot angles, etc.
Towards the end Mark gave us some pointers on laying out backgrounds, and set us exercises related to breaking down scripts. I don't own colouring pencils of my own, and I've already been to the shops this week. I might try bleeding on the script where the hero is, perhaps utilise the yellow properties of my urine for silent extras/incidentals, greenis mould from the bathtub for atmostpheric stuff. pink might be a problem.
The script is crucial to a project. If the script is rubbish then the animation would have to be absolutely top notch to make it watchable. I find though that I don't go back to films with fantastic animation with weak or uninteresting storylines.
Always meet the director in person before taking on a project. In my own freelance work I am unable to do this as my employers live in New York. All our communication happens through AOL, which is frustrating, especially since the person who hands me my feedback is not especially literate. In fact, she's stupid and has no background in animation whatsoever. I have not really liked or respected any script I've worked on for them so far, and the result is that the products are poor (but I need a job).
Breaking down a script is a straightforward process, you basically highlight the nouns using a colour code system, red for the hero, yellow for silent extras or incidents, green for atmospheric extras or incidentals, orange for stunts etc. Why pink for cars?
Shot terminology was covered last year but it was a good refresher, but also Mark introduced the concept and conventions of going through a script as a director and noting whether its a l/s, m/s, c/u, e/c/u, shot angles, etc.
Towards the end Mark gave us some pointers on laying out backgrounds, and set us exercises related to breaking down scripts. I don't own colouring pencils of my own, and I've already been to the shops this week. I might try bleeding on the script where the hero is, perhaps utilise the yellow properties of my urine for silent extras/incidentals, greenis mould from the bathtub for atmostpheric stuff. pink might be a problem.
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