Process and Production: Pitch Bible and Animation Feedback

Process and Production

Pitch Bible 2 and Animation Feedback

After presenting my Pitch Bible 2, I received a variety of feedback in order to tweak and improve the work I had done on my animation. This consisted of minor adjustments and tweaks in the editing and also fixing some movement.

The feedback I received follows:

• To fix one editing mistake at the beginning of the animation, where Meara moves slightly on the last frame
• A frame in the walk cycle holds for too long, creating an unnecessary pause
• A few frames in the jump up onto the windowsill weren't needed, as it felt too slow of a movement for the action.

Immedietly, I re-exported and made these minor changes to fix the animation. I would have liked to change the title font, also, however I was unable to access the font I used for my Pitch Bible, so I had to keep this the same. This is something I'll think about fixing and adapting in the future.

Process and Production: Pitch Bible 2

Process and Production

Pitch Bible 2

I made minor improvements from my Pitch Bible 1, by adding in further slides, explaining limitations of the world, adding in character animation samples and finally, adding my animation at the end of the presentation.

I kept the text and character layout consistent, as though it would be a real pitch for a series, therefore demonstrating themes and branding throughout the process. I looked at other Pitch Bibles I had seen before and noted in my previous blog post, using these as a format for my Pitch Bible.

Process and Production: Study Task 10

Process and Production

Study Task 10: Audio, Sound and Final Thoughts

Due to the fact that I couldn't find any audio track which suited my animation, I composed one myself, using Garageband on the iPad. I spent a lot of time listening to fantasy and adventure music, which consisted of using a lot of world instruments, to demonstrate the "travelling" and "journey" idea, which I incorporated in my sounds. I used the sound effects from the animatic within my animation, also, which made editing sound a lot easier.

In the final edit, I didn't like the transition I had in my animatic for the opening titles, as it didn't work with the following scene. Therefore, I compromised, by using the background within the castle. This also adds consistency to the visuals, as it also ends with this cut.

For my final evaluation of the animation, I believe that:

• I have greatly improved on my background work and I am more confident with my character animation, despite choosing to challenge myself by drawing more complex figures and body shapes.
• My editing work has improved, after learning new software to assist with this.
• I've become more analytical of my work and therefore have been able to push myself to improve different scenes or how I approach the animation.

What I need to improve on and what could be made better is:

• Sense of weight with my characters, with practise with timing and consistency.
• My storytelling skills could be improved, as I struggle and dislike generating ideas for a limited story, due to the fact that we had a 40 second limit. I need to become better at understanding pacing within this.
• My character designs and linework could be improved by learning how to adapt line-weight in TVPaint and producing interesting, but simple character concepts.

In the future, I will work on my figure drawing and use reference to help with angles and body-shapes. I would like to focus more on 3D work, next year and work in groups, where 2D or 3D character animation would be my focus, rather than the characters nor storytelling element.

Process and Production: Study Task 10

Process and Production

Study Task 10: Testing and Editing

After completing the shading and backgrounds, I needed to test how they worked together, this week, before I began editing my animation. Overall, I felt that I could've made the backgrounds a little simpler, to fit with the animation style, however, they seemed to work well together when I did some test scenes.

In order to improve the quality, this week, I'll need to add shadows, so the character feels a part of the scene. I also need to work on Keying in After Effects and possibly changing the background colour of the exported animation, so that Meara's scarf doesn't change to purple.

I will do this by following After Effects tutorials on YouTube and reading the guide provided on Adobe's website. 

Professional Practise 1: Portfolio

Professional Practise 1

Portfolios

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.

Professional Practise 1: Study Task 9, Extended

Professional Practise 1

Study Task 9 - CG Practitioners

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

https://www.artstation.com/kurtisdawe

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.

Raul Eduardo

https://www.artstation.com/reso

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.

Process and Production: Study Task 10

Process and Production

Study Task 10: Backgrounds

This week I worked on:

• Continuing the shading of my character animation, whilst working closely on producing backgrounds. 
• Keeping backgrounds consistent, by using references and referring back to other backgrounds I had drawn.

When I was testing the animation, with the backgrounds, one background I had created was too small, so I quickly learnt to make the canvas slightly bigger than I needed, in order to fit everything in frame.

I needed to further extend the background and then blur the edges, to create focus on the chest in the space. 

I followed some digital painting books to help me choose brushes and what colours to use to create depth and sense of space. After reading the Digital Painting Techniques: Volume 1 by 3Dtotal, the first section of the book explains creating and downloading new brushes. I used this method to create a textured brush, which worked for the stone and leaves.