animationstationyear1

[animationstationyear1]

life drawing, faces

Again here I focused on a specific part of the human body, the face. I tried to get a rage of facial expressions in this title sketch session. My favourite is the old Santa clause looking man, In the refence photo he was smiling and I’d like to think you can tell that by my sketch. I found it allot easier to draw the old men that the other two, maybe its because their wrinkles added in extra detail or maybe the extra facial hair helped to shape the heads a bit more.

So overall I definitely prefer the old men to the other two as they still don't look quite right to me even after making corrections to them.

[animationstationyear1]

life drawing, feet

Because I enjoy focusing on smaller stations of the human body rather than drawing out the whole figure I also decided to focus on feet as well as hands. Again it just seems anything I sketch digitally turns out better than traditionally for some reason, I think its because lately I’ve gotten use to drawing digitally more than I have been sketching which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The feet themselves turned out pretty good my favourite out of these is between the bottom left and the one next to it, maybe its because I added is some more detail to these. I always found it really hard to draw feet in just a regular standing pose as I have done here but looking closely at a reference that I got from Pinterest made it allot easier.

I’m still not a fan of life drawing but its important to practice and who knows maybe if I get better then I’ll end up enjoying it.

[animationstationyear1]

Disney princesses and loss

Another thing allot of them have in common is they all seem to face some kind of loss before the film happened. For example Tiana’s father died 

Cinderella's parents died, Ariel's mother died, Jasmines mother died, snow whites mother also died, Mulan's father is getting older and she most likely would have lost him if she had not taken his place in war but that doesn't mean she hasn't gone through something though as during the film it becomes quite apparent that she doesn't really fit in with civilisation and their way of thinking so having to deal with that her whole life would have been a different kind of struggle. 

[animationstationyear1]

Typical Disney princess tropes

I think this image with all the Disney Princesses categorised by their release year really shows how as time changes so does the Disney Princesses.

The newer princesses are representative of women now and the older ones are just the stereotypical pretty princess that cant do anything.

The absolute things a Disney princess needs to be considered a Disney princess is:

needs to be human,

needs to be female,

The film has to be successful,

You need to be royal/ marry a royal or:

Do a great deed.

All of the Disney princesses fit into these categories, Ariel might be a mermaid but she turns into a human, They are all female and more of them end up becoming royal by the end of the film. Except for Mulan but she saves all of china so she did an amazing deed instead.

There are other things that ties together the Disney Princesses, such as how kind they all are, they all have a non-human friend (which was met before the film started all except for Tiana and Mulan who meet their animal friend during the film.)

[animationstationyear1]

The frog king

This is an old German story by the Grimm brothers and as most of the Grimm brothers fairy tails inspire allot of the Disney films I've decided to read the frog king as it has a similar story line to the Princess and the frog. Obviously there are some differences as Disney tends to take creative freedom when making something but some aspects are similar.

Basically the kings daughter dropped her ball down a well and made a deal with a frog so that he would retire it as long as she cared for him and treated him like her companion. She agreed but as soon as she got her ball back she left the frog outside. Then during dinner there was a knocking on the door and the princess opens it to see the frog who wants to come in for dinner as it was part of their agreement, one the king found out about the deal he made her bring the frog in a hold up her end of the bargain. The at bedtime she took the frog back to he room but was angry and disgusted by it so she threw It against the wall but it transformed into a prince who was cursed by a witch. The next morning the prince took the princess to his kingdom.

The similarities between this and the princess and the frog is that both princess were cursed, they fell in love with the one who freed them from the curse, and Tiana also made a deal with prince Naveen. Even though there are also allot of differences there like how Tiana isn't a kings daughter and they had this whole epic adventure before turning human again, I can still see how Disney took some inspiration from this old fairy tail.

[animationstationyear1]

Kong skull island

Last night I watched this film and the creatures they have in it are very similar to my character so I decided to writer about it. They are called the “skull crawlers” and apart from the tails and the heads the shape of them are the exact same as my character.

They even walk on their arms like my character so I’m generally mad that I didn’t realise this sooner. The only reason I watched it now was because I’m close to finishing and wanted to celibate by watching a film and happened to put this on. It would have been great to analyse how these creatures move in the film to use as inspiration for my character, it would have made it a hell of a lot more realistic.

When they walk on their arms its more of a run and to balance out their weight they tilt their bodies which I could have done for my character as I already had drawing of her in those positions but I only created those after already starting the main walk cycle. Honestly I wish at that point I just started again with her tilted more as that would also add to the creepy factor. 

Skip to 2;15 to see the walk/run.

[animationstationyear1]

Creating new walk cycles

Once I had finished my character walk cycle for the character design side of things I realized how much I didn't like it. I believe it looked a lot better as a loose sketch, I’ve already reflected upon how next time I want to make the animation more stylized and sketchy. But as I didn't have enough time left to change my animation I’ve decided to create some simple quick walk cycles for the principles side of things just to show that I can do a range of different things not just my finished walk cycle.

the walk cycle above is just a simple character with some secondary action in the tail, as he's got very long legs he moves up and down allot more than a regular walk cycle showing he’s more bubbly and bouncy. I really like the way I’ve colored this one I kind of reminds me of a children's book like something you'd see in a Roald Dalh book I just liked having the time to experiment with different brushes and textures inside of TV Paint as I have never had the chance to do that before. Luckily both of these animations were really quick and easy to create because I wouldnt have been albe to create them otherswsie this close to the deadline.

This walk cycle is just a plain generic one to show that ive have been practacing oustide of class and again was qucick and easy to do. 

12/11/19

[animationstationyear1]

walk cycle

This is my finished walk cycle for the character design side of this project. I have some mixed feelings about this finished piece as there are some parts I like and some other bits that I don't.

For example, I am pleased with the timing of this, once her hand hits the floor she drags it along almost clawing at the ground like she's trying to intimidate someone and the mouth opening and closing really add to the effect that shes feeling hostile towards something. But on the downside of this when shes slowing dragging her hands it makes it look more robotic and jumpy but I think that's because on each frame it’s not really an equal amount of distance the hand has traveled, so on one frame it will move further back than another. But I’m hoping thats somtign only I’ve noticed from watching over and over again.

I also dont like the lineart as for th chracter bible pages the lineart has been more of a brown/ grey as opposed to black but I had already begun to animate it before realising and as I left the linework and colour to the last minuite because I spend so much time experimenting with how to make the walk look good i didnt have enough time to go in and change it all.

But overall for my first project using TV paint its not the worst and the actual movement itself looks good to me which is why I’m glad I spent a while re-animating it.

[animationstationyear1]

Turn around

I again faced a similar problem with my finished character turn as I did with my walk cycle, I already added in al the linework before realising I had done it in the wrong color I believe its because I didn't put as much emphasis on the lineart color when initially iterating my character so next project I know its something that so needs to be a focus.

Another issue I have with it is in certain positions when shes spinning she looks flat and not like a 3D character at all. On those positions that I believed to be responsible for this, I re-drew them multiple times but the outcome was the same. Thinking about it now maybe instead of trying to keep those drawings looking like my character as much as possible perhaps if I’d had exaggerated some of her features like making her more round the she wouldnt look as flat? But again I ran out of time and for my first character turn I dont believe it looks terrible and it has given me the expericne I need to do it again but hopefully improve with each time.

[animationstationyear1]

Life drawing exercise

I missed Monday's life drawing class to stay in the media lab to finish my animations, but I found out what they were doing in that class and did some of it in my free time so I at least have some experience with drawing hands.

Even though in life drawing class it's always done traditionally I prefer drawing digitally now especially with the cintiques as it's just so easy to sketch stuff on them. I had a document photshop open on the cintique and used pintrest on the computer as it has some really good refrences for life drawing. Overall I’m actually really pleased with these (which is something i thought id never say about life drawing). I think its a mix of doing it digitally and focusing on something smaller in more detail that i enjoyed it more. Obviously, there still are issues with the sketches such as some proprtions being off (especailly in the top left drawing) but for my first try drawing in a long time drawing hands I dont think its too bad.

12/11/19

[animationstationyear1]

little nightmares

This is probably one of my biggest inspirations for this character design as its one of my all-time favorite video games and the first “villain” you come across in this game is really terrifying in the way they have managed to create it and the world around it.

This is the design of the Janitor as you can see I've taken the inspiration of his incredibly long arms and used that into my character. But I haven't incorpirated the rest of it becasue like I said I still want it to besuitablee for teenagers and this is a horror game for 18 plus.

These are some of the creepy/ scary momnets in the game (which are allot worse when you pla them yourself) When we move onto creating an animation whith a bit of story then i would like to work on creating an atmosphere and really put time into that with reagrds to the background, the music, the colourscheme, the lighting. All the things that make this game so incredeible to play.

[animationstationyear1]

Anthropomorphism

This is the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to animals. This is very commonly used in animation. The main reason it used to be used so much was because animators felt allot comfortable animating animals than humans and adding in animals to scenes can add to the human characters emotion. For example snow white was shown around lots of little animals making her come across as kind and caring but if you look at her face theres barley any expression at all. 

There is an anthropormorphic scale which goes frm human to animal and charcters can fall anywhere inbetween. For example the dogs from 101 Dalmations are towards the animal end of the scale where as Po from Kung Fu Panda is more towards the human end as he acts, dresses and has human goals. When Tiana is a frog she is towards the animal end but not as much as the dogs as she is still is a human and thinks like one more than the dogs do but the frogs body is closer to animal than human even more so than Po’s body.

[animationstationyear1]

New generation of Disney Princesses

As the traditional views that women should be in the kitchen slowly begin to disappear as do those typical Disney tropes. I’m referring to how most Disney films are all about the princesses needing saving by a man or how finding love is all they seem to care about. Like Ariel from The Little Mermaid or Anna from Frozen who was willing to get married to a complete stranger after knowing him for a couple of hours.

But now we are beginning to see a rise of new princesses who's first instincts aren't to find a man like Mulan, Tiana, Merida and Elsa. Take Merida for example she was actually 100% against finding a man and all she wanted was to be tread as equals to the boys as she is able to do everything they can (and somethings like archery she can do better)

 I’m glad now as it means little girls will now grow up watching strong independent women and they now represent actual females allot better. its very important they are finally starting to do this as women are more than just an object of desire who want nothing more than a man.

[animationstationyear1]

walk cycle update

I’ve continued working on my walk cycle this week and completely re-animated it again. This is the newer version:

I changed the timing of her arms so that once they land on the ground they drag along like shes clawing at the floor and also made her arms bend based on some feedback from Millie as before she looked too static. Then I showed it to Millie again and she still thought that it still looked to mechanical because the body's not moving enough even with the secondary action of the breasts and butt. That's when I decided to really push it and re-animate the body.

This way when its in the down position its hunched over and when its up shes pushing her breasts and back forward, this created kind of a swinging motion on the bottom half of the body which is what I was after and now believe this looks allot better. I then moved on to adding in the line art.

I always much prefer how my animations look sketchy than I do with cleaner lines so I think for the next 2D project we do I’m going to keep the sketchy lines and do something more stylized as I always love the look of those animations and it will be fun to experiment with how to do that inside of TV paint.

Then I started to add in the base color of my character which will take quite some time as I have over 60 frames and I need to color each one individually. This is why I’m really not looking forward to also adding in the shading. I just hope I’ve left myself with enough time to do so.

8/11/19

[animationstationyear1]

old cartoons

For initial inspiration, for my character designs, I looked at the old cartoons and noticed they all had certain things in common. For example, the big black eyes which I find quite creepy so I’m going to be incorporating that into my character design.

They also all seem to have long thin necks and their arms and legs bend in ways which it is impossible for humans to bend like that in real life. You can see what I’m talking about better in the actual animation so here is an old Betty Boop cartoon which is now banned (and scarred me as a kid) but even in the first couple of seconds, you can see how I mean by the unnatural bending as though they have no-bones.

I originally wanted to add in that unnatural bend to my characters like in the old cartoons as I used to be terrified of the old man of the mountain but then I realised that even back then those cartoons were aimed at kids and I want my target audience to be teenagers so I’m not going to add in the weird jelly, like limbs but I will sill incorporate the big black eyes and the long neck and arms as I still find that to be scary and there are other examples of those attributes being used in horror characters.

[animationstationyear1]

Gravity falls and adventure time

I’ve decided to look into the TV shows gravity falls and adventure time as they have a similar target audience to the one I want for my show. I want mine to be aimed at teenagers and even though Gravity falls and adventure time are seen as more children shows there are a lot of adults and teenagers who are in the fanbase (especially for gravity falls.) 

I believe this not only comes down to the plot but the design of characters as well. While the plot is somewhat childish there are also elements to it that would be terrifying in real life and those moments are evened out by the simplicity of the character's designs.

Take Bill Cipher from Gravity falls, for example, he's an out of dimension Demon who whats to take over this dimension by starting his own apocalypse and turning everyone you know into stone. If this was to happen in real life it would be terrifying but as the characters are still just simple cartoons its not as bad. ButI'vee been looking at some fan art who all they do is add in some more detail to the character designs and that makes it instantly for an older target audience and begins slowly creeping into the horror genre. original on the right, fan art on left)

The same goes for the Litch fom Adventure time (original on right, fan art on left.)

So for my character design, I’m going to add in slightly more detail than gravity falls and adventure time but not as much as you can see here in the fan art because i still want i tto be suitable for 13-19 year olds. I think the main thing ive take away from this is the amount of detail added to a character design that can really chanege the overall feel of the animation and its target audience.

[animationstationyear1]

re-animating the walk cycle

After showing my character walk cycle to Jhon he gave me some feedback on the way it moves. He said the way she walks doesn't make sense regarding maintaining balance. in certain poses, he's not sure about what's holding the weight of my character. so I’ve decided to look at references from people moving that way and then to experiment with what I learn from them.

The way this man walks using the parallel bars is similar to how I want my character to move. he keeps his arms stiff the whole time and only scoots his arms along a little bit each time to keep his balance. He also moves side to side while doing this, his body actually ends up swinging quite allot which is something I need to incorporate in my character somehow.

this was the initial rules I created when trying to animate it, as she still moves up and down slightly like with a regular walk cycle I had to figure out which positions would be the highest for her. I then created the firsrt basic poses for my characters walk.

But this still didn't quite look right so I decided to start again only this time to have her arms move in more of a circular position like a sweeping motion. like in the top left of this photo the characters legs are going around its body. The result of this was...

But I wanted to exaggerate the arms a bit more.

so now it looks like shes really waddling but I'm not sure if I like this or not. My plan is to wait until tomorrow's class with Millie and ask for her advice.

4/11/19