Alongside my show-reel, I collaborated with a student web designer over the past few months, to produce a portfolio website. Jaydn Edwards is a student web designer, currently completing their foundation course in Creative Web Design and wanted to collaborate to produce a mock portfolio and web design idea for me.
Throughout a series of meetings, we decided to produce a site, which included animations, concept work and project work, to fully show the work I have done over the year. This also included work outside of University and an overview. The website is editable and therefore I am able to make changes to the images presented, making it easy for me to modify and update in the future. The site is not published as of yet, however there is a PDF of the drafted pages.
I plan on improving this with more recent work and possibly including my Show Reel, unless I choose to further update this.
Due to my developing interest in CG Animation, I decided as an extension to Study Task 9, to further explore more professionals, whose focus is on CG Animation. On Instagram, I follow a variety of CG Artists and the CG hashtag, so I'm able to interact and view new artists every day.
Kurtis Dawe is an artist I followed recently, because of their work on creature and animal CGI. They modelled and sculpted Dumbo, and his mother, for the 2019 release of Dumbo. They were also given the opportunity to sculpt and model Pumba for The Lion King (2019). I find their work inspiring and the idea that they can create such realistic models is very fascinating to me.
A CG Artist, 3D Modeller located in Mexico, working as a freelancer on a variety of personal and professional projects. Their work is more stylised, however focuses on a horror and fantasy aspect, which I like, but also more mature work, containing gore and body horror. They produce a lot of redesign ideas and brainstorming current creations.
David Bunting, a professional storyboard artist who has worked on productions such as Dennis and Gnasher and Bob the Builder, introduced us to Toon Boom: Storyboard Pro. As it was the first time using the software, I learnt a variety of tools and also about how the software has helped in terms of the industry. He explained how the industry has changed a lot because of the introduction and advancement in technology and that the fact we are able to learn and utilise the software through our practise, makes us more organised and skilful in practise.
During the session, I created a quick Monkey character, to understand the drawing tools of the software and then we were shown the tools and how to storyboard, using the software. I created a notes sheet and then produced a short storyboard using the character.
I was given positive feedback in the variety of shots I used, however I could further practise my camera angles, in storyboarding and how they can affect the audiences opinions and relationship with the character or situation in view.
In evaluation of my reflection of my first year, I received feedback stating it was evaluative and engaging, not only in my evaluation of University work, but my lifestyle outside of Uni. I included a variety of image examples and spoke confidently and clearly to the group. I think if I had to do this again, I would add less information to each slide and just include images. I would also be further analytical in my work, however I was able to:
Praise my achievements in the work I have done thus far
Explain to the group the things I need to work on and how I will approach this over the summer
I need to be more reflective of the skills I want to take forward, as I am still undecided.
I was given further feedback to continue working on my backgrounds, but also work on my 2D and 3D Animation skills, to further improve them.
Throughout the year, I have found that I critisize myself a lot and I have improved far mre than I thought I had, when evaluating my progress. This is not just in animation, but I've also become more independent and able to make more friends and interact with people.
I struggled to compile together a showreel because I felt that I hadn't done enough animation work this year that could be featured in the showreel. I think that I should do more 3D work over the summer and try to add more of that to the showreel next year. I would additionally like to improve my character animation and backgrounds and will do this by doing further practise over the summer, with figure drawing and personal projects.
William Kentridge, an artist known in South Africa, gave voice to political themes and oppression through various works. He released an animated short in 1989 named Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City after Paris. It is made using charcoal and erasing and re-drawing on the same surface.
Czechoslovakia
Karel Dodal, a Czech filmmaker, specialising in Animation, studied the Animated Shorts of Felix the Cat to learn animation. He and his wife, Hermina Tyrlova formed a studio together, making advertisements and political animation, such as The Secret of the Lucerna Palace (1936) and Ideas in Search of Light (1938).
Unfortunately, I was unable the find both animations, but only screenshots of them.
Israel/Australia
Yoram Gross worked in live-action in Poland, his home country, before moving to Israel in 1950. He created the first feature-length animated film there, a stop-motion feature, Joseph the Dreamer in 1961.
In 1968, he moved to Sydney, Australia, where he opened a studio with his wife, Sandra Gross. They produced the feature-length film, Dot and the Kangaroo (1977), which used combined media.
In the Maya lesson, I created a variety of animations using the assets given to us. Using the canon and ball in the scene, I first made a "realistic" animation, where there is stiffer movements and less squash and stretch of the ball, as it hits the wall and lands. This adds weight to the ball.
I, then, produced a version which uses squash and stretch, easing, arcs, overlapping actions, as part of the principles of animation. To further practise animation in Maya and the use of the graph editor, I created a bouncing ball animation, using the same idea as the initial canon-ball, to practice using the software. I reworked the bouncing ball animation twice, however I feel the movement of the ball and spacing could be further improved at the end of the bounce, as it feels choppy.
To further explore advertising in Animation, I decided to look at how it has been used through history and additionally, explore more areas in-which advertising has been made using animation. Using the books, Animation: A World History, volume 1 by Giannaberto Bendazzi and Animation: A Global History by M. Furniss, I was able to find further sources of information.
The Marlboro Cigarettes rebranding in the 1950s was one of the breaking ideas for advertising.
The public and clients liked the use of animation in advertising, as it allowed advertisers to sell their products without being too forward or forceful and it produced a memorable story or ideology, making brands have a more positive reaction from audiences.
Animated characters allowed for merchandise, from popular icons, such as Tony the Tiger. The characters had the benefit of not ageing, because of the medium used.
Hungarian, George Pal produced the stop-motion advertisement Philips Broadcast of 1938, which is described to be fun, colourful and stylish. It appears experimental for an advert, despite how long ago it was produced.
Overall, my first presentation to the group was successful and I think that I was well-prepared and able to speak loudly and clearly about the game Cuphead. I found that sometimes I did repeat myself and stutter through the presentation, however I was praised on the fact that my presentation only included images, which were used to reinforce what I was speaking.
I felt that in some places, some text would have been helpful on the slides, to aid with what I was saying, but only as short titles. Some further images could have also been used on each slide, rather than just one, but it helped keep the presentation simple.
I opted to make my presentation more visual and try to use a limited amount of notes, in order to make the presentation more fluent. I think that I could have included more images, though in the presentation and possibly a video-clip containing game-play, however, with the limited time to 5 minutes, I wanted to be as consise as possible.
Overall, my research process, I felt, was the most successful, because I was able to compile information from a variety of sources and from the developers, themselves. I also played and watched the game to understand the fundamentals and story. I chose to focus on the stylistic choices in Cuphead, as that was what made the game grow in popularity.
Natasha Tan is a concept artist, who works for Ubisoft, producing realistic concept art for a variety of games, such as Assassins Creed and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Her style captures mass of space and structures, whilst including colour concepts and shadow and light, within her paintings. She primarily works digitally and with environment paintings being her main outcomes in her portfolio.
2. Claire Hummel - https://www.clairehummel.com/
Claire Hummel is currently an art director working for Valve, however she has worked in illustration, concept art and currently working on 'In the Valley of Gods'. Her work is consists of both stylised pieces and realism, in contrast to Natashas' work. She creates pieces ranging from stylised portraits and character designs to realistic environments and landscapes.
Shaddy Safadi is a digital game artist, who worked on games such as Uncharted 2 and now currently works as a freelance artist. He creates both stylised and realisitc concept art, such as the realistic style used for The Last of Us and in his portfolio is work features more stylised pieces for other projects. A lot of his paintings are done "Digital Plein Air" thus painting from life, outdoors, but on a digital tablet, in order to capture the realism and depth in his work.
Background Artist
1. Gina Garavalia
Gina Garavalia is an illustrator, concept artist and designer who graduated in 2016 with a BFA in Art and Design. Her work consists of both realistic and stylised background art and she demonstrates imagination and wonder in this. She also enjoys fantasy paintings and works in freelance at the moment.
Trent Correy is a 2D and 3D Character Animator currently working at Walt Disney Animation Studios. He worked on character animation in Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6 and Frozen. In an Instagram post, he admitted he'd only been using CG Animation software for a year, whilst working on Frozen and eventually he was able to master the tools. He is based in LA, California and is currently working on Frozen 2. Due to his work in both CG and 2D Animation, I chose to add him to the list of practitioners.
2. Aaron Blaise
As a feature film director, concept artist, character designer and animator, I chose to also add Aaron Blaise to the list, because of the variety of roles he has worked within and his experience in the industry of animation. He has worked as an animator in films such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. He draws and animates primarily animals and his work recently consists of tutorials and help videos for aspiring artists and animators.
Animatricks is an animation festival, which hosts a competition looking for films with unique storytelling, character design and style and techniques. A minimum of 70% of the film must be animated.
This competition in Singapore is open for international artists and the artwork submitted can be any size, medium and genre, thus animations, concept art and backgrounds can be submitted.
https://aninetfest.com/
Anietfest is a competition festival and although the duedate for submissions have passed, another competition opens for the next festival 20th February 2019
http://www.loopdeloop.org/
Loopdeloop is an international animation challenge, based in Melbourne, Australia. The loopdeloop submission must fit the months' theme and loop.
http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/current
The 11 Second Club holds monthly competitions, for any medium of animation. The January theme features a transcript, with talking, encouraging people to create character animation. Mediums include CGI, 2D Animation and Stop-Motion
Blizzard have a variety of art competitions, such as for Environment Design, Character Concepts and Animation Contests, with a variety of set themes and designs. These are all Student-catered competitions to help those engage with the professional industry.
I found it difficult to find many competitions which catered towards beginner/amateur animators, or for specific mediums. I think that if I were to take part in an art-based competition, it would have to be a themed one, where any medium was accepted as part of the process.
For my disseminate studio brief, I have decided to produce a presentation on the Indie Boss-Rush game, Cuphead, which uses traditional animation style centred around the 1930s.
My initial research consisted of looking at the game on the Studio MDHR website and further research into the way the game was made, through a series of Youtube process videos and information provided by the developers themselves. I was interested in looking at this game because of how popular it became for a 2D Platform genre and how well the studio was able to replicate the style of 1930s animation.
The Studio MDHR FAQ section of their website was most helpful in researching for the presentation
http://studiomdhr.com/faq/
I was able to play the game for a large portion, however I also watched Youtube play-throughs and videos, as I couldn't continue the game because of the difficulty of it. Despite this, I found the animation within the game interesting and almost reflective of the process I used for digital animation, at the beginning of the year. This followed creating a traditional animation and movement, before scanning into Photoshop to colour. The style used in Cuphead is smooth and exaggerated and I think that's something I'd like to use more in my own work. I additionally liked the line-work of the characters and the colours used to demonstrate character appeal.
For the research and bibliography, I made a Google Docs document, to collect a series of videos and webpages to further explore the games creation.
To explore more animated documentaries, I decided to use the book, Animation: The Global History by M, Furniss. I was able to find more about more popular studios producing documentaries.
Out of Inkwell Films Inc. released two science documentaries in 1923, which combined live-action and animation, named The Einstein Theory of Relativity and Evolution. Evolution was a prelude to the "Monkey Trial" in 1925, which addressed teaching Darwin's theory of Evolution in the classroom, breaking state law.
Shelia Sofian produced a documentary tackling social issues, at first with animated shorts, such as Survivors (1997), which is a film about domestic violence, made using Conte crayon.
Truth has Fallen is her latest work, released in 2013, tells the stories of three people who were wrongly convicted of murders. It is made using paint on glass and was able to complete the film, with a community of artists assisting her and she was able to complete the film through crowd-funding.
(Public Service announcements and informational animations)
'Tea and Consent' is a public information animation used by Thames Valley Police to address issues with sexual consent. I chose this for being a simple, stick-figure animation, with an effective message.
Commissioned by the 'Global Health Media', 'The Story of Cholera' depicts transmission, prevention and spread of the disease. Colour is used to show the disease spread and the animated format allows for my sensitive themes to be shown, which is one of the reasons I chose to put this on the list.
'A is for Atom' is a 1952 American animated public information, used to promote peaceful use of Nuclear energy, a few months after Hiroshima. I chose this not because I enjoyed the animation or message, but I thought it was interesting in terms of the overall use of animation for this announcement, to try and provide an educational and sensitive outlook.
"Computer Critters" is a series of animated shorts for a Public Service announcement, which explains the uses and safety of using a computer. I chose this for the fluidity of the animation and character appeal.
A public informational animation about eating disorders and how treating children/raising children how to feel about their bodies. I thought the overall animation was beautiful and energetic and the message was delivered in a respectful way. The idea of using Hansel and Gretel to tell the story also helps appeal to younger audiences.
The Yogi Bear Anti-Smoking PSA makes use of popular characters and culture to try persuade and inform audiences, which is why I chose to put this in the list.
'Old Lady in the Shoe' is a Canadian Fire Safety Animation, which was aired in the 1970s to talk about fire safety uses.
Again, similarly to the Yogi Bear PSA, the use of G.I. Joe characters helped target young children to explain the use of bike equipment.
As a way of encouraging children to exercise, this PSA called "Couch Potato" is made using stop-motion and I thought it was unique of an animation to be included in the list. It was used as a way to encourage children to exercise
Pelican Crossing is a 1960s-70s animated public announcement to show how to cross the road at a pelican crossing.
Overall, Public Service Announcement animations were mainly accessible on YouTube, however as uploaded copies, because of when they were publicised.
A short animated documentary, about the story of the ship 'Ungvar', during the Second World War. The animation is beautiful and smooth, using colour palettes too to creating atmosphere and mood.
I found this short animated documentary interesting because of the use of mixed media. Made by Olivia Humphrey from the UK, it combines both photography and hand-drawn animation.
'That Dragon, Cancer' is an interesting medium for Animated Documentary, as it takes place as a game documenting Ryan Green's infant son, Joel, dying of cancer. The game was Kickstarted and launched January 2016.
'Food' is an animated documentary uses mixed media and characters made up of Food talking about themselves and their habits. I thought that the medium used was clever and interesting for the subject of 'food.
I could only find the trailer for this animated documentary, Still Born, made by Swedish animator Asa Sandzen. The trailer shows mixed media content and cut-out animation, to respectfully talk about a sensitive subject.
A German Animated Documentary about an elderly womans' account of an orphanage where she stayed, during World War II in Germany. Dennis Stein-Schomburgs' style used within the documentary are captivating and illustrate memory, through the use of splatter inks and textures.
Thembi's Diary is a short animated documentary making use of textures and colour, to re-tell a diary by a 17 year old South African, who lived with AIDs.
'Mike's Story' is a part of series of films about post-natal depression, about peoples' stories regarding it. I feel they handled a sensitive topic respectfully and the cut-out style of animation used creates a serious and dark atmosphere, along with the colour and light.
'Stems' by Ainslie Henderson is a short documentary about the process of puppet making and stopmotion, within a stop motion short. I chose this because of the cleverness of the storytelling and the puppet animation at the end of the movie was brought to life.
'BABA' is a short documentary by New Zealand filmmaker by Joel Kefali, in which his grandfather describes his experience as an immigrant moving to Turkey. I chose this to add to the list, because of the bright and colourful animation used to comedically describe his experience. Animated Documentaries allow for real-life stories and past events to be told in a more sensitive and creative way. Using animation not only means that events and issues can be re-told, but also can bring knowledge to certain situations and tailor for specific audiences.
Professional Practise 1 Study Task 5: The Power to Persuade
- An Indian Ad for the OnePlus 5, using 2D Animation, with elements of cut-out, thus making the visuals appealing to watch.
- A Dairy Milk Oreo ad, produced for Dairy Milk Malaysia. Animations are by Animation Studio, Buck. Both the story-telling and the quality of the CG made me choose this for the list
- Another Dairy Milk ad, but this time from Canada, using 3D, CG Animation
- Aqua ad produced using StopMotion, by a team consisting of London Animation Studio, Mummu and Rock Hound
- A series of Pepsi ads, created by a studio in Brisbane, Australia, using CG and VFX. The Animation and Visuals are creative and the idea of creating a series from ads creates interest.
- Rightmove animation created by Trunk Animation's Layla Atkinson and illustrator Anna Kövecses following a couple on the hunt for a new home. The bright colours and 2D/Platform style along with the minor details added to the background made me choose this ad.
An advertisement for Audi, during Christmas, made using CG Animation and tackles gender stereotypes and representation within the ad to create a wider message.
- Heinz Australia produced an Pixar-like story advertisement, made using CG Animation, produced by Y&R New Zealand
- Wear The Rose, England Rugby ad was released 2015 by O2sports. The 2D Animation used in the ad is beautiful, produced by VCCP
- Apple recently released a new global Christmas Ad, featuring a young girl whom doesn't share her talents/gifts. The Animation produced and style is dynamic and unique, combining both CG and practical sets.
There were more animations for advertising than I expected, as this allowed me to realise how much Animation is used outside just entertainment. It also shows that storytelling and practise can be taken place during the process of advertising. It also allows artists and animators to continue making personal projects, whilst still earning through commissioned projects.
A 2D Animation made in TV Paint, I thought the art style was beautiful and the story. The cinematography made for interesting and complex shots within the animation.
Directed and animated by Tingting Liu, a Chinese female animator from Laika Studios.
A 12 Minute animated short, The "production of CONSTRUCT was to speed up the CG workflow and mirror a live-action production and took advantage of the latest advances in virtual production technology that allow filmmakers to create a feature-grade film without the budget or resources of a major studio."
Kevin Margo's Sci-Fi film project, whom also worked on Destiny 2 VFX, Tom Clancys’: The Division, The Elder Scrolls
A process animation, showing use of pop-up books and projection to tell and create a story. Use of mixed-media, by The McGuires, British Multimedia Artists based in Hull
The Last Film is a Student Film made entirely in a traditional 2D media. Albert Val Boix was a student at Southampton University in the UK
Crow: The Legend is an upcoming VR Animation, produced by Baobab Studios, based in California. I decided to include this in the list, despite not being completed, as it uses a storybook style, but incorporates Virtual Reality for storytelling purposes.
The Tale Teller is an animated short produced by Josiah Brooks, made in Adobe Animate and Photoshop. Josiah is a freelance animator based in Australia, who works mainly on Youtube as an artist.
This was an animation I found on Youtube when I was exploring cut-out and traditional animation. I included this in the list as it used a range of mixed media and is less conventional than previous animations presented on the list
The music video was animated traditionally and digitally, using Photoshop by Jonah Primiano, living in LA. I included this in the list to show the range of purposes Animation can be used for, such as for the music video.
Coldplays’ music video for Strawberry Swing combines 2D traditional animation with Pixilation. It was directed by Shynola, based in London
I Have Your Heart is a cut out animation, which started in New York City, before the project became more world-wide when animators from Australia worked on it also. The characters were drawn traditionally, then scanned in as moveable puppets in Photoshop, then printed on stock-card, crafted into standing sets.
An experimental CGI Animation made in Cinema 4D, it shows how animation can be brought to life/ experiments can be brought to life through sound.
“Soggy Flakes” is an animation I found on Skwigly, a stop-motion film, shot in Dragonframe and composited in After Effects. I chose to include this because of the exceptional character designs and puppets featured in this film. It is directed by the Affolter Brothers, made in Canada.
As an additional animated short I found, Kitbull is both moving and an aesthetically beautiful animation of a cat and dog finding friendship. It addresses issues such as cruelty to animals and misunderstanding. I love the stylistic choices used by Pixar, directed by Rosana Sullivan and Kathryn Hendrickson. Overall, in the research process to find Animations which are made to entertain, it was quite easy as a lot of animation produced is for entertainment and storytelling. What I struggled most with is finding animations with mixed media, however with further research I found that most of them utilise this process. For example, Kitbull used a mixture of both 2D and 3D animation, as this was used in the backgrounds. I would like to explore mixed-media in animation further in my research.
