jamiegriffithsunit1

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Final evaluation

My character and his background went through many changes and adjustments throughout this project to arrive at my final products, the idea generation and concept creation of my protagonist Orville Wildhog changed many times during this project, whether it was down to the complexity of his design, or merely adjustments of his body proportions, I believe I successfully arrived at my final ideas for both my character and background through developing my basic drafts into more refined and planned out development.

·      What were the requirements of the brief and did you adhere to them?

I stuck to the brief closely and followed through with all of these requirements.

 My animated character is the central subject of my game and therefore there was no need for any further characters to be around in this particular scene, the background I created was all hand drawn and scanned in with help from Adobe illustrator to refine and smooth down my lines.

The background has an element that moves, this being the fireplace, I was originally intending for more animated aspects of my background such as the clock, but I wanted to focus more on larger scale objects for this stage as it was quite a small-scale room compared to what I perhaps would have created in an outdoor setting.

 As for my animation’s runtime, the minimum duration was 10 seconds, this was not enough time for my animation to progress anyway, therefore my final project comes to 20 seconds, which is double the required time and a perfect window to show both of Orville’s interactions with his surroundings.

·      What was the creative process you followed, and which sources of inspiration did you use? 

My creative process was to think about what aesthetic and style I wanted to aim for if I was going to convey a Western theme and where this particular style had already been used. By looking at the art style of games such as Don’t Starve, for example, I began to come up with ideas for buildings and structures from the game’s style.

Because my game is intended to be light-hearted as opposed to completely serious, I also thought about how the Wild West is conveyed in pop culture by certain films such as Back to the future III, which portrays the harsh time period in a completely new light with comedic attributes.

·      What planning did you have to do before you started animating?

Before I began the process of animating, I had to plan out how I would manage my time and what I would have to have finished by certain deadlines that I gave myself, I took into account how long the animating part might take as I am not a professional in Adobe Animate and would need to familiarise myself with the basics. I also had to figure out what size my document would be in Animate to prevent quality reduction when it came to exporting the video file. The process of having my character interact with my background needed planning, and I did this by creating two new poses for him when he needed to point in a certain direction.

·      Why does your character look the way they do? How did you come up with the concept? Does the character successfully communicate your intentions? How and why? What style did you adopt and why? (realistic, anime etc)

Because I wanted to present Orville as a bit of a stupid or oblivious character, I gave him exaggerated features such as massive eyes that point out in different directions and a small build to show that he is not a threatening character. 

The idea of having a character who is not very intelligent embark on a quest that seems beyond their abilities is similar to that of the 2015 game Kerbal space program where these simplistic character attempt to build a fully functional spaceship. The characters in this game also have similar facial features to the ones implemented in my design, this game may have been a subconscious contributing factor to Orville’s appearance.

·      What are the background environments? Why have you chosen these as your backgrounds? Why have you illustrated them in the way you have? How does this help communicate your intentions and the atmosphere of the ‘game’?

I wanted to show that Orville’s farm had a lot of family history and sentimental value, therefore, I decided to fill his walls with family portraits and possessions that show the many generations that owned the family farm decades before him. The idea of these paintings comes from a game that I recently played called Little Nightmares in which there is a stage with the guest’s portraits hanging on the walls.

As much as I loved this game’s style and how it fit so well to the context of the game, I was aiming for a more up-beat tone and so I created colourful and eye-catching paintings for my stage for a lighter mood overall.

·      What software and did you use for your illustrations and animation? Why?

For the illustrations, I used Adobe Illustrator as well as Photoshop. I used Illustrator to create my Image traces which I would then convert to a transparent PNG file and then import into my Photoshop document to digitally render.

 The reason for me using an image trace rather than going straight into photoshop, is because I needed to ensure that there would be no white areas on my lines as this would make the drawing look poorly rendered and rushed. The lines would have also looked pixelated and blurry.

2. Analyse your final animation in detail(write it like a diary entry)

·      What was your initial intention for your animation? Did it change in the end? How and why?

My initial intention for this animation was to show my character in his first stage of the game, as it is the first time we see him, he isn’t expected to do anything particularly impressive as we are so early on in the game and the player would need to become familiar with the basic controls. In my head I wanted a simple and basic animation that showcased his walk cycle and how he would move himself around the composition, I believe I achieved this in the end as not only do we see him moving realistically, but we also see the subtle motions that he does to point and inspect certain parts of his environment. 

At the beginning of this task however, I was planning on making a background with perspective, similar to that of the digital designer; Daniel Thomas, but, I decided to stay with the basics and not over complicate a process that I was already unsure of.

·      Were you limited in any way by your imagination? Or software knowledge?

Yes, as I have barely used Adobe Animate besides my Rotoscoping task, i was completely new to the software and therefore did not want to over complicate the process by making risky decisions that may have caused me problems further down the line.

·      What new skills have you learned? Did you learn by trial and error, through online tutorials or help from the tutor?

My main source of guidance was asking the tutor how to use certain functions within the software such as the keyframe options etc. and how to make the background layer run throughout the entire animation. I am definitely more familiar with the software now, however, there is still plenty of room to improve and develop my abilities in this type of task.

·      Have you created an animation that actually looks like a game? If not, what needs to be improved?

Yes, I believe I  have created an animation that successfully replicates that of a point and click game, and I have done this due to the way I have moved my character around the scene in parts, such as when he stops and then turns to walk the opposite direction. 

Although it does look like a basic point and click game, I feel as though my character could have moved a little more smoothly and perhaps should have picked up an item of sorts from the environment around him that would assist him when travelling onto the next stage of the game.

My idea of moving the hands on the clock was lost as I was too busy focusing on larger-scale aspects of my background.

·      Overall did you do a good job? Did you manage your time effectively?

I think I did a reasonably good job considering that I am new to using Animate in this way, and my time was managed well, to the point where I was actually able to improve some parts of my work that I may not have had chance to had it not been for the extended deadline on this particular task.

3. Evaluate your performance and final work for this project.

·      How satisfied are you with your final piece?

I am satisfied with how my animation turned out, I am surpised that my walk cycle worked. Although it could be smoother, I still think it is clear to see how my character is moving around.

·      What were your strengths and weaknesses?

I would say that my strengths in this project were the character design and background design as they are simplistic but also complex when it comes to the shadows and colours used within each asset.

·      If you were to do this project again, what would you do differently and why?

I would change a few things if I were to re-visit this project, firstly, I would add a startup or loading screen before entering the first stage of the animation and I would also add some sound effects swell as extra movieg aspects in the background of my setting.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Animating the final piece.

It was now time to animate my character frame by frame against my background. To begin, I opened Adobe animate, I then placed my background into the document.

Once my coloured background was in Animate, I created a new layer on which I would place my character’s walk cycle. I named this layer “Orville” as I needed to stay organised and make sure I didn’t work on another later by accident. While I was working on my character layer, I had my background layer locked to prevent any mistakes.

To begin with, I had my character just outside of the frame, this was to make it seem as though he had just entered the scene from another room as opposed to just appearing, and also to allow me to familiarise myself with repositioning the character itself.

By enabling the onion skin tool, I was able to see where my previous frame was positioned as a reference for my current one. This allowed me to mark where each of his feet touched the ground and use them as anchors to prevent them from slipping forwards without reason. For the entire time I spent animating this character, I always had one layer visible from the previous frame and the next to aid the process.

I decided to have my character interact with his surroundings to make the animation a bit more interesting, to achieve this, I created two more character designs in different poses as shown below along with their own speech bubbles which appeared at a different rate:

The speech bubbles grow larger across three keyframes to make it seem as though it is smoothly, yet quickly introduced into the composition without any sudden motions.

When Orville turns around in my animation to inspect the mantlepiece, I inserted my front facing character design between the left and the right pose to achieve a smooth and believable movement within the character.

Turning loop:

The Fire:

I decided to have the moving aspect of my background right in the centre of my composition as it is a good focal point, and implies that it is an object of significance which urges the player to inspect it.

To achieve the effect of a fluid crackling fire, I created a basic flame shape within illustrator and gradually distorted it with the curvature tool and the twirl tool. Once all five flames were made, I saved them all as different png files and looped them across the animation, ensuring the layer that I was working on was behind the character.

Similarly to the flame, I created 5 different shapes but this time, with varying opacity levels for the glow, which would accompany the fire and give a sense of warmth to the stage.

the final animation is shown below:

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Creating the walk cycle

Now that my character and background were both complete, I then moved onto my walk cycle which I would use to move my character across the stage. By using the reference below, I was able to give my character a walk cycle of his own.

I decided to extend the length of my character’s limbs, as they were too stubby to show movement, I wanted his motion to be exaggerated and clear to see. By using my turnaround sheet as a reference, I drew a basic body in pencil and then proceeded to add the arms and legs to their appropriate positions. I made sure to darken the left leg so that I didn't lose track of which leg I was drawing.

After I scanned this initial cycle in, I then enlarged it and went over it in a fine-liner pen to give me smooth and refined lines to work with when it came to creating an image trace within illustrator. Once these clean lines had been traced, it was now time to export the illustrator files as PNG documents and to digitally colour / render my character in Photoshop.

The basic walk cycle at this stage is shown here:

By selecting the profile-view head of my character from the turnaround sheet, I was able to successfully place it on top of each pose. 

I then began the colouring process, Each of the 8 poses had their own A3 document to prevent any risk of quality reduction when transferred, I created individual layers for each aspect of my character, for example, skin, hat, nose etc. By using the pen tool and sampling some of the original colours from my turnaround, I was able to make a simplistic adaptation of my character without highlights or shadows, as I wanted him to stand out against his surroundings.

What went well in this task?

I believe the process of tailoring a walk cycle to my small-scale character went very successfully and showed a clear, consistent sequence to his movements. The colours remain constant throughout each frame of the animation which prevents any jarring or distracting inconsistencies within the walk cycle.

Did you encounter any problems when creating your walk cycle? 

I think the only issues I had were how long it took to work out if I wanted my character to walk in a certain way and also the process of colouring each individual pose, as I didn’t realise how much time it would take to fill in each of the character’s positions.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Creating the background.

As my game is set in the wild west, my basic idea (which was the foundation for my final background) was a family farm that had been passed down and inherited throughout generations. It would appear small on the outside with cramped up rooms and mismatched extensions, however, the interior would be much larger and would also showcase lots of Orville’s family heirlooms and accomplishments as shown by my exterior concept below:

To create the final background for my game, I sketched it out and then went over it in a fine-liner pen. I tried to carry the same art style of my character through to this background so everything would look like it belonged together.

When all the lines were completed, I scanned in my drawing and imported it into illustrator. When the image was opened, I transformed it into an image trace which left me with cleaner and clearer lines (than the initial scan) to work with when it came to the rendering process.

I removed all white areas of the image leaving me with a transparent PNG file which I then took over to photoshop. By creating layers for every single part of my background I was able to keep track and edit parts of the setting without the risk of accidentally editing one of the others.

I decided to remove the painting in the left corner and replace it with a different one as it hadn't traced well. I coloured all of my background with the brush tool at varying opacity levels and hardness.

The finished background is shown below. When it comes to animating, I will try to implement some moving aspects into the scene such as flames in the fireplace and some hands for the clock.

Orville will interact with this background by either pointing at an object or picking something off of the floor etc.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Unit 49 - Task 1. Idea Generation

Plot summary

The plot of the game I am creating involves following my character Orville Wildhog, who has inherited his family’s farm, on his journey to locate his missing pig “Stanley” (a long-time friend). It will take place within Orville’s hometown of “Little Pig Horn” and the main antagonist will be Orville’s evil cousin “Lard” who wants Stanley for his prize pork contest over in the next town of Buffalo Ruff. Orville must navigate and follow clues and hints from his family farm, through the town and into the gold mines where Lard is planning his escape out of the county. Along Orville’s journey, he will be required to search for items and tools in various places and gain knowledge or information from other townsfolk about any unusual happenings. Orville will be able to collect raw items and create objects that allow him to advance on his journey at certain shops. Blacksmiths will manufacture tools, Saloons can dispense drinks with various perks such as advanced speed or jump abilities, the bakery can dispense bread or meat to sustain hunger statistics and tailors can make clothing items that allow the wearer to disguise or sneak past certain restricted zones like the Pig Horn county jail or Sheriff Barbwire’s office in order to access the next stage. Throughout the game, Lard and Stanley will be seen in the distance at various stages, if the player spots them and clicks on them before they disappear, an achievement will be unlocked and a secret item will be added to Orville’s inventory which will allow him to enter a stage back in the town. If Orville keeps certain items they will assist him in the battle against Lard, such as the potions or tools mentioned earlier. Orville will defeat Lard and Stanley will appear.

Visual style

My animation will have a subtle hand-drawn aesthetic to it and will have very prominent brown and orange colour palettes whilst still including other colours such as blues greens and so on. I aim to make the whole thing look as though it fits the wild west theme that I have decided to use by including a sepia or grainy style on certain objects or environments. I will take inspiration from the graphic designer Daniel Thomas as I like the mix of simplicity and complexity of his characters.

Daniel Thomas Work:

Credit: http://www.danielthomasart.com/

Credit: http://www.danielthomasart.com/

By using simple shapes and appealing colours I will try to achieve a similar outcome, however, I may not stick to it completely as I want my character to be unique and not just a carbon copy of someone else’s idea.

Backstory

Orville Wildhog is the only son of Clarence and Lurlene Wildhog who were the town’s main supplier of farm goods for almost 50 years until their old age meant stepping down from the family business and handing the responsibility over to their son. Orville was 20 when the decision was made and had never had a job like it before, so he sought company. On his 21’st birthday his parents bought him his fourth pet, a piglet to raise on the farm, he named him Stanley III because Orville couldn’t count past three. Despite Orville’s sudden start to his new job he soon settled down and found a rhythm to his work that he stuck to. He milked his goats in the same order every week and made sure each chicken had what he thought was the same number of seeds in their bowls.

Wildhog Family Farm was of significant interest to Lard Larson, Orville’s cousin. When the new ownership was announced, Lard swore to himself that he would get his revenge and use Orville’s favourite pig as a means to buy back the property that he believed was rightfully his. Orville was oblivious to this, as was he to practically everything else, which allowed Larson to construct a plan that would surely be problematic.

Character designs and turnaround sheet:

My character went through many changes throughout the idea generation process but remained faithful to it’s simplistic yet vibrant style as it accurately represents Orville’s characteristics. He is supposed to be portrayed as an average Joe / regular townsperson but with his own distinctive look.

Character design process:

I decided to give my character a small build with exaggerated facial features to allow for the background that I will create to have more sense of scale to it and to give Orville a recognisable appearance. I then practiced how the current final design would look as a draft turnaround sheet:

Before I began to create my actual 5 point turnaround sheet, I made some last minute changes to my character, such as removing the beard and details on the clothing, I did this to make the process of drawing Orville frame by frame in Adobe Animate an easier task.

Pencil turnaround sheet with guidelines:

Once the turnaround sheet was fully drawn to the standard I was happy with, I then went over it in fineliner and scanned it into illustrator where I transformed it into an Image trace, leaving me with crisp and refined lines:

By masking out the white areas of the image and saving it as a JPEG, I then imported it into Photoshop. I created individual layers for each turn and feature of my character (Hat 1, Hat 2, Hat 3 etc.) using the brush tool to paint and the eraser tool to refine my strokes, I was left with my final turnaround sheet:

What do you think of your final result, did it work out how you had planned?

I think it turned out very well, I like the colour palette that has been used and the five different perspectives makes the character feel more three dimensional. I believe that the proportions are reasonably consistent throughout (90deg turn arms could have been better in terms of length).

What were your strengths in this area?

My main strengths in this part of the project are the character sketches and the colour scheme that was used to render my character.

What could you improve or what would you do differently next time?

If I were to revisit this project I would experiment with a taller character build as I think that could be a fun new challenge to attempt with much different proportions involved.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Rendering a sofa in Photoshop

When it comes to creating assets for animation or games backgrounds, individual objects take a significant amount of detail and time to create.

To start with, I was given a Basic outline of a sofa which I was then to develop in Photoshop with colours and textures.

I then selected all white areas and masked them out leaving me with just the outlines, the black lines acted as guides for selecting various parts of the sofa (EG. the cushions) and putting them all on their own layers for later editing.

Using the square tool, I created a shape and applied a textured filter to it which made it seem as thought it was made from some kind of material. I then adjusted the square and ensured it fit correctly with a part of the sofa and used my layer mask from earlier to cut out the correct shape from this square.

The images below show the object before and after the texture was applied along with dodge and burn.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Charcoal life drawings

Using my skills from last week, I used charcoal to create three individual direct observation drawings of two models. For the first two drawings I was allocated a time frame of half an hour which allowed me to focus on the accuracy of the shapes I was making as well as the light sources and positioning of the shadows.

Example 001

I believe this study depicts the subject well and the use of tone is accurate, however, I believe the feet could have been smaller as they seem to be out of proportion to the rest of the body (mainly the right shoe). Other than this I am satisfied with the end result and feel like I have improved with the process of charcoal drawing since last week.

Example 002

Similarly to the example prior, the feet are the only aspects that need to be improved in terms of size. Excluding the feet, I think this is my favourite study of the three that I made, mainly because I like the use of bold shadows and the way that the subject is positioned as I wasn’t required to use time attempting to draw the face. It has an abstract feel to it and I think the lines are bold yet precise resulting in a rough but clean sketch.

My Third Drawing.

This third study was made in 10 minutes and was a standing pose which meant it was larger than my previous two examples. As it was larger it took longer to draw the basic shape of the model however I managed to draw it reasonably well while still conserving time to add the details. To the left of the drawing is a ten second sketch of the subject.

Side Task:

Like last week, I had to create a chalk and charcoal study except this time I would be observing my hand across a 30 minute period.

I think this sketch is decent but could have been improved by adjusting the area around the top of the sketch as something looks a little bit off about it, also I could have included more highlights on the wrist area, however I still think it is a fairly good study.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Working with charcoal and chalk.

for today’s task we were introduced to charcoal and chalk sketches and I created various direct observation sketches from a few references that I found around college.

The first example is a landscape sketch looking out of one of the windows at college and using only charcoal.

I think the end result is quite good considering I have barely used charcoal in the past. I then moved on to smaller subjects that I came across in the classroom. With a chalk and charcoal I was able to create strong highlights and shadows throughout both examples:

Both of these small-scale studies allowed me to implement all the small details on the objects into my studies, they both have definitive light sources which complement the shape of the chosen objects and makes the drawing seem more three dimensional. 

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

1 Point Perspectives

[Direct observation drawing]

What did you have to do?

This task required me to draw a direct observation sketch of the location I was in by using perspective lines. I chose the area outside the classroom as there was a large central point that I could draw. The centre of the page would act as the vanishing point of my sketch.

What rules did you have to follow?

I had to follow the rules of perspective when drawing, and ensure that all horizontal lines were directed toward the vanishing point.

What was difficult?

This task as a whole was not too difficult, mainly due to the location I chose and the simple shapes that came with it, however, when it came to curved walls or the position of objects such as bins, a lot more thought was required which was a bit more challenging.

Did you do a good job? why?

I think I did a reasonable job in terms of the accuracy and location of certain aspects considering this was of my few direct observation perspective drawings, however, I think more details such as the floorboards or text on objects like signs or posters are needed.

2 Point perspective

Using my sketchbook, I created a scene that had two separate vanishing points, By scanning the sketch into Photoshop I was then able to render it digitally and add the appropriate colours.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Drawing from references

I was given two different subjects to draw across various time frames

Working from the same reference across two different time frames highlighted how much of a difference less time makes, the longer time frame of half an hour allowed me to accurately recreate the shape of the object I was drawing as well as the detail within it. The ten minute study gave me less time to secure both of these so I mainly focused on the accuracy of its form.

This 5 minute sketch was quite accurate considering it was a much more complex subject than the mannequin before, however it lacks any kind of shading as I was too busy drawing the overall shape.

The 30 second study shows the back of the figure in a very minimalist way and the 10 second study barely resembles the figure at all. I enjoyed working under a time frame as it allowed me to practice observation drawings without putting too much thought into it, the less time we had allowed me to focus more on the important parts of the drawings.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Rotoscoping Task

For this task we recorded some footage of movement using a DSLR. We recorded various motions such as walking, jumping or running, one of these clips would act as the base line for my rotoscope project.

I chose my clip and imported it into Adobe Animate, once this was done I then resized the footage so it would fit on my stage. With the video footage fitted to the document I was then able to use it as a guide when drawing / creating my rotoscope animation.

How did you find it? Easy? Hard? time consuming?

I found the task reasonably straightforward, however it took a very long time to finish it and would take even longer to add extra details / refine the character. Although it was time consuming, the process didn’t drag and was interesting to find out new techniques and processes.

What were the main problems or disadvantages?

I would say that the main problems that I faced was the process of adjusting the colours after I’d finished and making sure they all showed some forms of shadow and highlights. My work also had to be saved very frequently as the application crashed a lot.

Are you happy with your final GIF?

Yes, I think it’s quite good considering this is my first time working with the process of rotoscoping. I think the way I illustrated the character to make it seem like there was a motion blur really helped the animation look fluid and continuous as a whole.

Could you improve your work? How?

I think I could, if I were to improve this animation I would add facial features either normal or exaggerated /perhaps make the character look completely different. Because I now have experience with this style of animation I believe I could make something much better if I had a lot more time and an interesting character to work with.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Walk cycle - Basics task

In this task I created a simple walk cycle using Adobe animate, I had a reference which I used to aid the process of creating each individual frame.

Using the onion skin tool I was able to see how much my figures position should change since the previous frame. When creating this project I made sure that each foot that landed on the floor remained in the same place until the second step was made, this made it seem more believable and like my character was travelling across a surface. 

Once each body had been drawn out across all frames, I then had to implement the head and keep it relative to the rest of the body, to give the animation a sense of depth I then added some eyes to the face to make it look like my character was looking around.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Research | Animation

·         What is rotoscope?

a technique that goes back to the early days of cinema, when animators would trace live action footage projected frame-by-frame onto paper, either to use as motion reference or directly copy into their work.

·         How does it work?

Animators would take video footage that was pre-recorded and use the movements of the subjects as templates and draw from them to create a fluid and realistic looking animation overall.

·         What are the advantages / disadvantages

The advantages of rotoscoping are that it makes animating realistic movements much easier and gives a cleaner finish to the end product.

The disadvantages may be that this process can be very time-consuming and can usually require access to not just a graphics tablet but also to expensive and complex software tools.

Give examples with images of famous rotoscope animations.

Disney - Cinderella:

Disney - Alice in Wonderland:

Disney - Snow White:

·         What is cell animation?

A traditional form of animation used in the production of cartoons or animated movies where each frame of the scene is drawn by hand.  A full-length feature film produced using cel animation would often require a million or more drawings to complete.

·         How does it work?

Working at first on paper, a traditional cel animation team will plan out and sketch the animated frames (roughs) or the key positions in a sequence before sketching in every frame of the sequence (inbetweening). Each drawing is then inked and coloured onto transparent sheets or cels - from which the technique gets its name.

·         What are the advantages / disadvantages

An advantage of cell animation is that it looks crisper/cleaner and most has a more highly detailed look to it. is more expressive of style, and has a much more classic feel to it, and makes the audience more easily able to relate to characters.

A disadvantage would be that it takes a long time to produce a cartoon or film due to the huge amount of frames needed to make movement and is very time consuming as well, and because of this it is more expensive to produce 2D/traditionally animation films.

·         Give examples with images of famous cell animations.

Spongebob Squarepants

Mickey Mouse

The Simpsons

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Week 7-8/9 Turnaround sheet

Random choice character task:

I chose two slips with a theme and a character type and had to integrate them together into my own character, the two slips I chose were 'fish' and 'demon'. With these two words I created three different concepts of what my character may look like in the end using various reference images.

References:

Source : https://randis.deviantart.com/art/Demon-135056910

Source : https://www.tes.com/lessons/bXvwbGrJiD7ARg/angler-fish

I implemented many parts of both sources into my designs, for example, I gave two of my designs smaller eyes, similar to the image of an angler fish, alongside a very wide mouth on my final design, horns from the ‘demon’ aspect of my character were added to all of my designs in order to convey the part further.

After creating three heavily fish-inspired characters, I then decided to try a more accurately proportioned concept to try and convey the overall 'demonic' characteristic of my design:

After all of my concepts were put down on paper I then chose one above the others as I thought it would look the best when introduced to a character turn around sheet, the design I chose is shown below:

In order to create my turnaround sheet I redrew this character and then took into account how it would look from different angles. Using guidelines I was able to accurately align certain parts of the character such as the eyes in order to get an overall accurate drawing of the figure and form. After all pencil outlines were drawn, I then went over them with Fine liner in order to define each line and show clearly the different parts of my character.

The reasoning for me erasing the pencil lines and defining my design with pen was to make it easier for the scanner to pick up in greater detail for me to work with digitally in Photoshop.

Scanned turnaround sheet:

Did you find it difficult or easy? Why?

I found the turnaround sheet relatively easy, however, having to visualise what my 2D character would look like from various perspectives was quite difficult but I think I managed to keep the characteristics throughout.

Is the overall final look successful?

I think the overall look is successful because it is still recognisable as the same character even when seen from a profile or back view. Some aspects don’t quite match up when comparing the four perspectives, however, they are not too noticeable and so not too much detail is lost.

What could you improve?

I believe I could improve the accuracy of the characters’ proportions, This is shown in the characters’ arm length and how it decreases in the 45° and profile view, yet remains the same in the last perspective as the first.

Digitising and rendering the turnaround

After this sheet was scanned in, I opened it in a Photoshop document and duplicated the layer for later editing,

I then disabled visibility of the initial layer and pressed [CTRL+ALT+2] which selected every white area of the scan. After this selection was made, I opened the layers window and applied a layer mask which disabled visibility of everything apart from the pen outlines of my turnaround sheet and a transparent work space.

Using the pen tool, I was able to create very precise paths around certain parts of the character, such as particular arms, legs or facial features.

After a path had been created, I then opened up the paths window and enabled the selection (marching ants). However, this selection was only going to act on everything outside the path I had created, therefore, by clicking [Select > Inverse] I was able to reverse this and allow the shape I had created to be filled in correctly.

 Inversing the selection was the first part of the fill process, after this had been achieved, I then selected the LAYER tab and selected [New fill layer]>[Solid Colour] and chose the appropriate colour that would suit my character design

This entire process was repeated for all four perspectives on every part of the character. The other angles are shown:

[Basic and initial colour layers in 3 stages]

Stage 1:

Stage 2:

Stage 3 (With mid-tone background to compliment highlights and shadows later on)

Next stage: Dodging and burning

After all four perspectives were completely filled with base colour and separated into their own layer groups, The process of dodging and burning would be introduced to show shadows and highlights across the designs. To begin, I would select the ‘Torso’ path of the first drawing and rasterize the layer, I would do this by clicking the workspace and selecting ‘rasterize layer’ and gradually introduce lights and darks.

 Dodge would lighten pixels and burn would achieve the opposite effect. This was a very destructive way of editing an image, this means any adjustment would permanently stay on the layer unless it was undone manually.

Shadows and highlights were refined and the entire process was also repeated across the other three designs.

[RENDERING PROCESS]

What Photoshop process did you use to render (colour) your turn-around-sheet.

The process I used in Photoshop in order to render my designs on the turnaround sheet was using selection paths and creating new fill layers with a certain solid colour fill which would later be adjusted with the ‘Dodge and burn tools’.

Did you find it difficult or easy? Why?

Overall, I found the task reasonably challenging, mainly due to the constant navigation through each individual layer and asset of every single perspective which ate into my time, alongside the tedious small-scale dodging and burning.

Is the overall final look successful? Why?

Yes, I would say the overall look is very successful, The highlights and shadows are well-placed and I fell it conveys a substantial sense of depth as a whole.

What could you improve?

If I were to improve anything on this illustration, it would be the proportions, I’m not sure how the arms became so out of proportion when I was using guidelines throughout the sketch stage to aid me.

What process could you use to improve the outcome?

To improve the outcome, I would pay more attention to the proportions and smaller details on the character to ensure I didn’t miss or change any aspects.

End result across all four perspectives:

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

1-1 character task.

For this task we had to create our own character from a 1-1 template we were given. our character was based on a previous sketch.

When it comes to character drawing, body proportions are very important

Body Proportions Explained.

1. Head length (top of head to chin)

2. bottom of chin to chest (mid bust)

3. mid bust to navel (narrowest part of the waist)

4. navel to leg break (this is where the leg bends up at the hip, where you will see majority of trouser creasing, and is just above the crotch).

5. leg break to mid thigh

6. mid thigh to mid knee

7. mid knee to mid calf

8. mid calf to sole of foot

Where would you find a 1-1 body proportion?

A 1-1 proportioned example could be a baby, at the early stages of its life, a babies body is almost proportional to its head as it is in the very first stages of body growth.

Did you work from visual reference for your character?

Yes, I used a previous character concept as visual reference in order to create a digitalised version in Adobe Illustrator.

How faithful were you to the original, does it look different?

Although certain facial and body features look slightly different to the original concept due to the pre-made template, I believe I stayed as faithful to the original sketch as I could be.

Overall, I feel I have created the character I was intending for, however, the difference in shape and form of the head and body limited the final result.

What parts were easy and what parts were difficult, why was this?

The easiest parts of this character’s design was the clothing, by duplicating my characters shorts twice, with both being one shade lighter per copy, I was able to create a subtle sense of depth to the design. the face of this concept was the most difficult, this was due to the many shapes that had to be cropped in order to match my original pencil sketch.

I used the curvature tool very frequently when it came to refining and shaping certain features (EG. Mouth, Upper head patterns, Hat).

What could you do to improve your character?

In order to improve my character I would ensure that the overall shape of it’s head and body were accurate to my initial drawing, my sketch portrayed my character with much more shape and form than the digital end product.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Week 4 lesson 4 Drawing bodies with different proportions

Practicing character proportions and design. The first illustration was based on more realistic proportions and the height is made up of 7.5X its head height. The next drawing had far less realistic measurements In order to create a completely different build or figure. Using visual references is very important to character design as it results in accurately drawn proportions and measurements. I think both of my characters were successful and both look in proportion to the rest of their body. My characters could be further improved by adding colour and tone digitally through certain computer programs. While my first character is quite detailed, I feel I have retained the simplistic style and qualities that most characters are expected to have. Certain shapes such as cheekbones and chins can be exaggerated in order to show certain characteristics while still being recognisable as a human face.

[jamiegriffithsunit1]

Character faces / Various shapes task

This task involved a set of shapes that I would have to turn into character concepts, in order to do this, I sketched out the shapes given to me and then began to think about the characteristics each one would present. after thinking about each design I began to create multiple characters as shown:

All design were my own except for the diamond shape, for which I created Admiral Ackbar from Star wars as I wasn't fully aware it had to be completely our own creations.

With my results shown above, I believe I have successfully created characters with varying personalities and easy to read appearances, the shape of a head allows for specific proportions to be exaggerated in ways that strongly convey certain expressions or traits (Heroic or evil for example).

Stage 2

I was then asked to create two different and more detailed characters, one likeable character and an antagonist, my two concepts are shown:

In order to create a likeable character I took inspiration from my oval sketch from earlier and made a rounded head with large eyes and mouth, the proportions of the body would be much smaller to the head to give a sense of scale to the character. I chose to give my evil character much more exaggerated and sharp facial features such as the cheekbones and thin nose which gave an impression of unfavourable behaviour / characteristic.