Context of Practise 3: New Character Development

 Context of Practise 3
New Character Development

• This week:
• I developed and created three characters I will animate for my performance tests.
• What went well:
• As I wanted to change the designs from last week and work with characters I am more comfortable animating, I decided to focus on creating animal character designs. This meant that the focus could be more on the performance/acting, rather than considering anatomy as much.
• I started by exploring a German Shepherd character design, who would fit the traits of a character who is arrogant and short-tempered, however I felt that this design was not working how I intended it to. I also found that I wanted to try some further design ideas, before making up my mind.

• In the end, I developed a bird character, a cat character and a dog. This also played into creating interesting personalities for each of them, as the cat character, who I have simply named Sally, is shy, lacking in confidence, but pretends to be confident in themselves (similarly to Dr Delbert Doppler). The bird, a Lovebird, is round and bubbly and finally the Chihuahua character is very angular-looking, arrogant and hot-headed. I tried not to let stereotypes of the animal impact the personalities as much, but allow the overall shape to aid with that (for example, you would associate Chihuahuas with energy and playfulness, rather than laziness and arrogance).
• Here are my developed designs:

• Using my knowledge developed from reading "The Illusion of Life" section on appeal and developing a better understand of fluid poses, from "Drawn to Life", I found it easier to pose and develop more appealing characters.
• What could be improved:
• These characters need final, quick turnarounds developing and some test animations. I need to understand how they would move an act better, by possibly exploring facial expressions and producing some rough tests.
• Character design is only a small part of this development, but it is something I would like to improve upon for future projects, such as creating more complex designs and a variety of shapes to fully explore every single design potential.
• Next week:
• I will be finishing these designs, by illustrating a quick turnaround sheet (front and side-view) and then testing them in animation.

Context of Practise 3: Character Performance Analysis

 Context of Practise 3
Character Performance Analysis

• This week:
• I chose three characters to analyse and made some quick notes on their body languages and personalities.
• What went well:
• As I already had a lot of information on the Tiger from The Tiger Who Came to Tea, I decided to continue with analysing this character for my essay. I watched the Channel 4 animation again, specifically looking at the scene of the Tiger initially entering the house and when he is sitting at the table. I found an interesting book, by BA, BEd Communication Studies Specialist, Gordon Wainwright, on Understanding Body Language. I used this book aid in analysing the body language of the Tiger.
• I was able to apply this information to also Dr Delbert Doppler (Treasure Planet) and Mabel Pines (Gravity Falls), to further understand how their body language shows the characters' traits and personalities. 
• I was able to triangulate sources of information on each of these characters, as Sergio Pablos provides an analysis of how he animated Dr Doppler and I watched some shots from Treasure Planet, which back-up what Sergio describes.
• Here are my notes:

• What could be improved:
• For my final character analysis, I chose Mabel Pines, because of her bubbly, but gullible personality in the series, Gravity Falls. I was struggling to analyse her body language, as compared to Tiger and Doppler, there are limitations with animation of a TV Series and I haven't been able to find as much information of her.
• I need to re-watch the series in order to provide a better analysis of her character and body language.
• Next week:
• I will writing out a plan for my essay and finishing any analysis which needs to be completed.

Context of Practise 3: Starting Some Character Concepts

 Context of Practise 3
Starting Some Character Concepts

• This week:
• I started exploring some initial character ideas and received feedback on these also.
• What went well:
• I had started by using previous characters I had made and attempting to further expand on these, however I found that this approach wasn't working the best. I needed to come up with new ideas. I liked the line-of-action and pose of the mouse character on the second page, so I decided to take this idea and explore it further.

• Using shapes and what I had learnt of character designing, I created 6 initial mice designs and produced some rough renders of two which I favoured:

• Overall, the top middle design did have a better pose and line-of-action to the other poses, however I did like the design in the top left, because of the large eyes and rounder body.

• What could be improved:
• I need to work on making my poses less stiff. This will be done through practise and attempting to push the poses more when I further develop characters.
• I asked Mike for some feedback! He did feel that his favourite design was the more angular one on the top middle row. In addition to this, he felt that I needed to produce more ideas and exploration, especially for the other characters I will be animating. Therefore, I think I will be scrapping the mice designs as I don't feel these work best for the characters. I need to research some animated performances of animal characters to assist in my creation of creature characters.
• Next week:
• I will be analysing animated performances and designing more characters.

Extended Practise: 11 Second Challenge October

Extended Practise
11 Second Challenge Colour and Submission 

• This week:
• I finished the colour for Shot 2 and submitted the final 11 Second Challenge clip to the competition!
• What went well:
• I have improved on my speed for colouring, as I was able to colour my designated scene in under a day, when we had several days for colouring. I have seemed to have understood the colouring process in Toon Boom Harmony, so I should be better with this in the future.
• Here is my coloured scene:

• Furthermore, Joseph edited and put together the final animation, with lighting and colour adjustments and sound. Overall, I think we did an amazing job in such a small amount of time, the characters' movement is smooth and well timed and the spiders' movements work. Here is the final edit:

• Here is evidence of posting to the 11 Second Competition:

• What could be improved:
• I think we really underestimated how quickly we would be able to work on this, so we could have spent more time developing characters and story ideas. As the deadline was the 31st October, we didn't think there was enough time to spend exploring more technical movements and animation, as we kept the overall acting quite simple. 
• Furthermore, the Spiders' movement could have been improved as it doesn't really fit the final audio track very well. In the storyboards, it was illustrated as a gradual mouth open, with saliva coming out and we ended up scrapping this for time. Therefore, timing needs to be considered more in future projects.
• Next week:
• I will be looking at possible D&AD Competitions and beginning to think about my final film.

Extended Practise: 11 Second Challenge - Betweening

 Extended Practise
11 Second Challenge Inbetweening

• This week:
• I worked on the in-betweens for the 11 Second Competition, which Emily had done the keyframes and breakdowns for.
• What went well:
• I was able to apply a lot of my knowledge using arcs and easing for this particular animation, which I had learnt more techniques about in The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams and a new book I was looking at for COP, called Drawn to Life, by Walk Stanchfield. In addition to this, it tested my ability to stay on-model with a character design that wasn't my own style.
• Here are the key-frames:

• One of the biggest problems I ran into with this, was having to use Photoshop for animating, as that was what Emily had access to. I extremely struggle to inbetween in Photoshop, as the software isn't properly built for high amounts of frames and so much data in one file. Therefore, I found a tutorial on Toon Boom Harmony's website, which allows you to import Photoshop folders as layers into the software. 

• I was then able to properly inbetween the keys, without worrying about over-loading the software and crashing. Here are the betweens I did for Shot 3:

• One thing that I was happy with was the spider movements feeling more "jumpy". I wanted to create more of a feeling that the movement was sporadic, so I exposed frames on twos with just a one exposure between, to create that jumpy-like creep forwards.
• This also creates contrast with the fly, whose movement was a lot smoother:

• As a lot of the acting had already been decided by Emily, through her keyframes and breakdowns, so I focused more on follow-through and overlapping actions, which would be seen in the flies long nose. I found that adding drag and smears made the thrashing movement more believable. 

• What could be improved:
• I think that despite the spider movement feeling sporadic, the head could have been much smoother or had more movement to it. Unfortunately with limited betweens, I couldn't create much movement, without making adjustments to the keyframes. I'll keep that in mind next time when storyboarding or giving feedback to people in the group to consider this.
• I found that the fly isn't completely centered in the frame, so this is something we will have to fix in post-production, by either cropping the video or moving the layer to centre on the background, depending on how the backgrounds have been illustrated.
• Next week:
• I will be colouring Shot 2!

Context of Practise 3: Research Post 3

Context of Practise
Research Post 3 - Character Animation Crash Course, Reg Isaac and The Illusion of Life 

• This week:
• I made notes on the books, "Character Animation Crash Course" by Eric Goldberg and "The Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson. I also received an email response from Reg Isaac.
• What went well:
• I think that I found a lot of relevant research from both "Character Animation Crash Course" and "The Illusion of Life" and they both look at personality animation from a different perspective to books I have previously analysed. "The Illusion of Life" especially expresses the importance of character appeal and also further goes on to provide information of character body language, from films such as The Rescuers and The Jungle Book. Characters from these films could be a great idea to analyse going forward, as I would have the research from "The Illusion of Life" to cross-reference information. Here are the notes I made:

• Furthermore, I received a response from Reg Isaac, who provided a test animation for Klaus, worked on the animation for the Netflix Green Eggs and Ham adaptation, and also worked on The Tiger Who Came To Tea for Channel 4, with LupusFilms. They provided a lot of information regarding character personality and acting, which can be seen here:

• What could be improved:
• Now that I have looked a many resources of books and primary research, I would like to start analysing some case studies. One of these can be the Tiger from The Tiger Who Came To Tea, as I already have some of Reg Isaacs' input. Furthermore, I need to look at some examples of use of body language and where it works and where it might not.
• Next week:
• I will be creating an essay structure, analysing case studies and starting with practical work.

Context of Practise 3: Research Post 2

 Context of Practise 3
Research Post 2 - Drawn to Life and Animated Performance

• This week:
• I made notes on the books "Drawn to Life" Volumes 1 and 2, by Walt Stanchfield and also "Animated Performance" by Nancy Beiman.
• What Went Well:
• From Drawn to Life Volume One, Walt Stanchfield talks a lot about the importance of Gesture Drawing. He explains that this is where we "acquaint ourselves with [body language] symbols." He further goes on to mention that, "we learn how to manipulate the figure to evoke certain emotional or psychological responses." I understand this to mean that the line of action and initial silhouette/pose of the character should be enough to convey personality and mood, without needing the character to speak or move. This details the importance of gesture drawing to fully understand the body language we convey, to give insight into our thought processes.
• Therefore, I decided to start with gesture drawing, as practise of this. I used the website LineofAction.com, which provides online figures to draw from.
• Here are the studies I made:

• "Animated Performance" by Nancy Beiman explains personality and acting in animation from a more technical stand-point, rather than psychological. She is in agreement with Walt, as she explains that, "Line of action creates personality," however she also goes onto explain, "personality and attitude expressed through the key poses create acting." One book that further explains the technical aspect of drawing acting and personality for animation is "Character Animation Crash Course" by Eric Goldberg, which I shall be looking at later this week.
• Here are the notes from "Drawn to Life" Volumes 1 and 2, and "Animated Performance":

• What Could Be Improved:
• I need to consider making my gesture drawings more fluid, but also ways in-which they flow into character designing and appeal. I need to start designing some characters next week and possible explore the "malleability" of a character to express body language.
• Next week:
• I will be creating an essay structure and starting some practical work.

Extended Practise: Statement of Intent

 Extended Practise
Statement of Intent

• This week:
• I wrote my Statement of Intent for the Extended Practise Module
• What went well:
• After looking over my evaluation of 504, from last year, I found that a lot of what I wanted to improve upon was my 2D Animating, Character designing/exploration and expanding my knowledge of Post-Production software, such as Adobe After Effects.
• Here is my Statement of Intent:

• Next week:
• I will be continuing work on the 11 Second Challenge.

Extended Practise: 11 Second Challenge October

 Extended Practise
11 Second Challenge October - Continued Characters

• This week:
• I continued working on some character ideas and concepts for the 11 Second Challenge brief.
• What Went Well:
• I explored some different colour themes for the characters, as I said I wanted to do this in my previous post. Furthermore, I explored some colour thumbnails based upon initial background ideas Joseph had created and Emilys' final turnarounds.

• So I created some colour variation, with the simple abstract styled spider. As a group, we decided that purple might fit the best for the theme. I tried a solid purple colour and a purple colour with black legs. Emily created a spider of a distinctly different style, which we thought was more appropriate, as it would create more visual contrast to the fly.
• Furthermore, I created some thumbnails to explore lighting. I liked the thumbnail I made in the bottom right, therefore I chose this one to try adding colour.

• Finally, I made a quick sketch of the spider, using Emily's final turnaround, in order to understand how the character model works. One thing I noticed I kept doing was laying the eyes out incorrectly, so this small sketch sheet labels points I keep drawing incorrectly. I will keep this beside me, also, when animating.
• What Could be Improved:
• One thing that needs to be thought about is how texture might be applied. I do like the rough paintbrush texture I have been using for the concepts, however this will not be used for the final animation. In post-production, some noise-grain might need to be added, which would also create an old-film effect.
• Next week:
• I will be starting animation on the project, with Emily!

Extended Practise: Briefing and First Live Brief

 Extended Practise
Module Briefing and First Live Brief

• This week:
• We were briefed on the Extended Practise Module and I was contacted by Emily and Joseph to work with them on the 11 Second Challenge.
• I produced an animatic, storyboard and some initial character concepts for the competition.
• What Went Well:
• I will be contributing to the animation and visual development for the short animation and we started to come up with ideas for the specific audio clip. As it was horror themed, we wanted to keep to those generic expectations, so we came to the idea of animating a spider and a fly. This would also keep character designs and the concept simple, so we could focus on the visuals and animation.
• I started by producing a quick story-board based upon our ideas and then developed some concepts for the two characters.
• As I storyboarded into Toon Boom, I was able to see the movements play-out like an animatic, which made things easier to visualise. 
• Using my research from COP, I looked at 'Acting for Animators' by Ed Hooks and he explains that a form of bad acting is not making the character do anything- for example, the frightened fly wouldn't just shake and tremble, it would try to break free. This is something I kept in mind when animating the performance.
• Small Improvements Worked Upon:
• My first animatic had the spider loom over the camera and chomp down at the end. As we felt that the sound didn't have a noise at the end to indicate the "CHOMP!" it didn't make much sense to have.

First Animatic:

• I also changed the perspective of the spider and fly, so they were framed so the spider was on the right and creeps into shot.

Final Animatic:

• This worked much better and felt it held onto the moment long enough for the spider to loom over the fly. There is a short lipsync, where the fly asks, "What's happening?" before spotting the spider.
• Here is the final storyboard:

• Furthermore, I worked on some initial concepts for characters. Here is the visual development I have so far:

• I really like the simple style, I think it works really well for animating. I also looked at a variety of shapes and sizes for the spiders' head, which helped me to narrow down what works and what might not. The final image is based upon some concepts Emily made and I tried to merge the styles together.

• What Could Be Improved:
• I think there needs to be a close-up of the flies face, saying, "What's Happening?" before it pans out to reveal the spider. I will discuss this with the group to see what they think. It could maybe pan out from the shot before, rather than having too many cuts to close-up and mid-shot etc.
• The spider and fly designs need to be developed and finalised further. I will be exploring some colour adaptations of the silhouetted spider design, during next week.
• Next week:
• We will be finishing the quick pre-production stages to start animating, as the animation is due on the 31st October.

Here is a chart, created by Emily, showing our overall schedule for this:

Context of Practise 3: Research Post 1

Context of Practise 3
Research Post 1

• I have decided to create a series of research posts, which will go through my process of exploring and breaking down the topic. They will also look at specific books at a time, in order to break down the research workload, also.

• This week:
• I looked at the books: "Acting for Animators" by Ed Hooks, and his responses to me from my email, "The Animators Survival Kit" by Richard Williams and a video series by Aaron Blaise, which explores the principles of animation. 
• What Went Well:
• I found there was a lot of research into Acting for Animators, as the methods of acting apply for animation, as well. Ed Hooks explained to me that a lot of audience response and the way and audience will relate to the character is mainly due to a deep psychological, evolutionary basis. For example, an audience will feel empathy for a character, if a character is expressing emotion. Some areas of further exploration from this can be body-language and movement, which feeds into why a certain character may react certain ways to things and how this is then demonstrated to an audience. 
• Here are the written notes I made from The Animators Survival Kit, Aaron Blaises' video tutorials and further notes on Acting for Animators.

• I initially took these principles explained by Richard Williams and Aaron Blaise into practise, by producing an animation of a daisy blowing in the wind. This doesn't have acting or personality, like what I had learnt from Ed Hooks, but it simplifies what I had learnt, so I can build upon it when I do animate a character.

• What Could Be Improved:
• There's a lot of information at the moment and a lot to write about in terms of character personality in animation, so I think I need to narrow this down a little bit more. This could be exploring "How animators use appeal and body language to express a characters unique personality in animation," or "How animators use acting to emote in order to convey character personality." This still needs work!
• Next week:
• I will be doing more research by looking at the books: Drawn to Life by Walt Stanchfield.

Context of Practise 3: Statement of Intent

 Context of Practise 3
Statement of Intent

• This week:
• I wrote a Statement of Intent for my COP 3 essay and practical.
• As I had changed from my original idea, I had to do more research this week to get a better understanding of the practical responses I could do. After talking to Mike, I found it easier to gather my thoughts and research character performance and decide on a practical outcome, based upon my research.
• Here is my final statement of intent:

Context of Practise 3: Time Management Lecture

 Context of Practise 3

Time Management and Planning Lecture

• This session:
• Michaela spoke to us about techniques and tips about managing time and work-load.
• What I learnt:
• Here are the notes I made:

• Based on this lecture, I wanted to create myself a Gantt chart for my COP process, so I can schedule myself better, whilst having to work at home more. The Gantt chat I created is a lot more general, but it works to help me find the general idea how when and what I want done by certain times. I have also considered to give myself a little more time than I may need per job, to keep more organised - as things may take a bit longer than I expect.
• One thing I also do every single evening is make a To-Do list for the following day. Every week I have set out goals written onto a whiteboard in my bedroom, then the daily To-Do list is for daily tasks.

Gantt Chart:

Using a To-Do List:

• I've been using a daily to-do list since I first started University and this notebook has been something that I have written in a daily to-do list since the beginning!

Whiteboard Weekly Tasks:

• This hangs above my desk, so I know the overall tasks I need to complete this week. This weeks was more specific, but some weeks it can only have one or two things written there.

• I will continue to follow this organisation method as this has worked the best for me!

Extended Practise: ClipStudioPaint Competition

 Extended Practise
Live Brief: Clip Studio Paint Competition

• This week:
• I produced a last-minute entry into an International Illustration Competition hosted by Clip Studio Paint, with YouTuber Lavendartowne judging.
• What Went Well:

Here is the brief:

• Despite only having a day to get the illustration finished for the deadline, I produced a few initial ideas for the character, before the final illustration. I wanted to have a hedgehog character, as a lot of the entries featured cats, bunnies and humans. I also wanted to use a theme which was about re-using plastic and cans to make a rocket and suit. Also, Hedgehogs are pretty cute.
• I started with a few traditional roughs, and some digital exploration. I had to work quickly as I didn't have much time, so the ideas were drawn pretty roughly.

Idea Exploration:

• I, then, produced a bright, colourful, fun illustration of the Hedgehog in space! I focused a lot on textures, such as using textured brushes, images and layering, which adds a lot of "feel" to the drawing.

Here is the final illustration:

Here is the evidence of entry:

• What Could Be Improved:
• If I had more time, I would have looked into other creatures, characters, moods and style. I wanted to explore the composition more, as I felt that it could have been arranged better, to be more visually appealing.
• Next time:
• I will produce more concepts and exploration of possible character ideas, before moving onto my final illustration.

Context of Practise 3: Changing my Ideas and Research

 Context of Practise 3
Changing my Ideas and Initial Research

• This week:
• I decided to change my point of exploration from video games to acting in 2D animation, as I felt this best fit my areas of interest. I also felt that I could learn and develop my acting in animation, which would significantly help in my Extended Practise module.
• What went well:
• I gathered a selection of books and articles which explore acting for animators. The list of these include:

1. Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks

2. The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams

3. Animated Performance by Nancy Beiman

4. The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

5. Acting and Performance for Animation by Derek Hayes and Chris Webster

6. Acting and Character Animation - The Art of Animated Films, Acting and Visualising by Rolf Giesenand Anna Khan

7. Skwigly Animation Magazine:

1. Acting for Animation and Character Performance by Andy Joule

2. Acting for Animation: Character Development

8. Acting in Animation Thesis by Niklas Bjorklund

9. Animation: The New Performance? By Teri Silvio

10. Animation Arena - Acting and Animation by Doron A. Meir

11. Emotions and Acting by Elly A. Konijn

12. Animation World Network: Performance and Acting For Animators by Judy Lieff

13. The Nine Old Men by Andreas Deja

14. The Artifice: The Use of Animation to Convey Character Traits

15. Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair

• Furthermore, to gather primary research, I contacted Ed Hooks, Barry Purves and Reg Isaac, asking about their approaches to animating characters and how they convey personality and emotions of a character. Here are screenshots of emails, evidencing contact:

Barry Purves:

Reg Isaac:

Finally, Ed Hooks, who responded!

• Ed Hooks provided a lot of information and insight for acting, as he has also written the book on Acting for Animators. My questions mainly focused on putting yourself into the characters' shoes, how to animate emotions and animating to for a character's personality.
• What Could Be Improved:
• I need to gather more varied research from videos and video-based analysis. I plan to look at some short animated scenes and analyse them with the knowledge I have learnt from reading through the written-based research!
• Next Week:
• Ill continue research from videos and pencil tests and create some pencil tests of my own to start applying some learnt methods and ideas.