saskianimation

[saskianimation]

Week 23 ♡ 18/03 - 24/03,

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Week 22 ♡ 11/03 - 17/03, Starting 5 second animation, finishing sheets, up haul of project after sheets

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Assistant Brief - TV Dinner, Supercarrot Clean Up!

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Week 21 ♡ 04/03 - 10/03 character sheets and animatic attempt #1

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Week 20 ♡ 26/02 - 03/03

- character design choices in the hat and dress

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Assistant Brief - TV Dinner, Escape Pea Animation

My first tasks for the Assistant Brief was to work on animating the Criminal Pea character for the “Escape Pea” scene of TV Dinner.

Initially I was just to animate him flipping off the camera, but was given the additional task of animating him crawling up the side of the colander.

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Week 19 ♡ 19/02 - 25/02 Background Leads, Additional Projects

Monday - Met with my Heavenly Accomplice team this morning & we discussed our priorities when it comes to our specialism tests. We decided that I, as Showrunner, would look through everybody’s background work in the evening and appoint a background lead - so that one person can make the style guide the rest can follow.

We had our meeting with Phil who ensured us that we were on the right track, with our first draft animatic coming together. He commented that he loved the tapestry designs Lucie had drawn, and suggested that we could create a real life ‘guardian angel’ for the grotesquely real shot of him! Came away from the meeting feeling relieved that we were on target towards our animatic presentation.

I went to Life Drawing in the afternoon, and then spent time in the evening making notes on the Background Artists work. I genuinely loved all their work, and wrote notes on what I liked/appreciated and what I thought were their individual strengths. Ultimately, I decided on Sam as Lead Background Artist as he has been incredibly organised this last month and every Monday without fault, brought in an organised PowerPoint of his latest developments. I really liked his art direction so thought this was a good choice - I still wanted Iona to work on the castle exteriors though as I felt her style fits within my vision for the building.

Tuesday - Discussed what Additional Briefs I want to focus on over the next year, I’m working on Denise’s “Rocky Racers” as Character Designer and Animator, and on Lucie’s project “Echo’s of the Knell” as Character Designer. I’m thinking of pursuing a personal idea for further character design and animation that I would like for my own portfolio, but have to keep mindful of the number of extra projects I’m doing. During the afternoon, I worked on cleaning up the “Super Carrot” scene for my 4th Year Assistant Brief, TV Dinner.

Thursday - I’ve decided that in order to meet my Character Design assessment requirements this semester, I’m going to complete the Princess’s sheets. So today I’ve been focusing on finalising her design so that it works well with the other characters. I have been enjoying experimenting with her design over the last few weeks an—- mention princess hat and the opinions of family, friends and team mates for video?

✏️ Life Drawing ✏️

This week in life drawing we were focused on expressions - with emphasis on how the face/muscles/fat cells form around the skull. We learned about the subtle curves of the front of the face and were encouraged to draw that into our pieces. We also were focused on the neck muscles and clavicle bones, and how it sits on the figure. We explored this through quick 1 minute expressions and some longer poses.

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Week 18 ♡ 12/02 - 18/02 Further Character Design Development

Monday - Woke up unwell, messaged my team/Susan/DJCAD that I wasn’t able to make it in today.

Tuesday - Lecture on Networking and Professional Set Up (add notes)

Thursday - Today I was just focusing on further character development.

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Week 17 ♡ 05/02 - 11/02 Character Design Development

Monday - This morning we had our weekly meeting with Phil where he encouraged us to lock down the specific age of the princess. I had drawn a development line up of the characters in their current state, really pushing the shapes and silhouette, just experimenting with trying to show off their personalities at a glance. Phil explained that the Princess being too small felt like she was a little too young, and it could verge on the side of being more creepy than comical! I’ll take that feedback into account when it comes to developing her final designs.

Tuesday - We had an update presentation in the morning, just - talked to Phil separately in the afternoon, mention research inspired he gave us / write down ANY AND ALL NOTES AND THOUGHTS YOU HAD!!

Thursday storyboarded with Louise

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Week 16 ♡ 29/01 - 04/02 Plots, Ideas, Script Writing & Concepts

This Monday was the first official meeting with my new teammates, we spent the morning discussing different ideas for attempts against the suitor - such as the princess shooting at him from a cannon, a gargoyle pushed from the top of the castle onto his head (or a boulder falling from a cliffside), an attempted poisoning scene and many more. We watched the short film “Double King” for medieval/kingly style inspiration aswell.

We also discussed who our main characters should be. One of our initial ideas is that a Jester character should be the one that continually takes the ‘hit’ of each of the attempts against the Suitor- he would look more and more disheveled throughout the film. Despite him taking the hits, the Princess and Guardian Angel would still be the ones putting in the effort for each attempt, and of course the Suitor would be blissfully unaware of the actions being taken against him.

In our meeting with Susan, she encouraged us to look back on older silent slapstick style media - ranging from Looney Tunes Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons, to live action Laurel and Hardy/Charlie Chaplin films. Slapstick usually works better when there is an iconic duo involved, too many characters confuses the storyline. The jester would end up being the main character and have more of a relationship with the Guardian Angel than the princess would in this scenario. If that was the route we wanted to go down, she suggested that the Guardian Angel could have been sent to protect the Jester and was ‘doing a bad job of it’ - and the princess would take more of a passive role as a typical fairytale princess, just as unaware of the attempts as the suitor is.

As a group we thought this was an interesting way to develop the initial idea, but collectively decided against it. We preferred the Princess having more agency about her - taking her fate into her own hands! So we scraped the Jester character, instead each time the Guardian Angel would get the brunt of each attempt! This would give the Angel even more of a reason to decimate the Suitor at the end - we also decided to portray the suitor as slimy as possible throughout the film to turn the audience against him.

Tuesday - We had a Job Search Seminar with Susan today - letting us know all about the industry and what sort of portfolios different studios were looking for.

I finished off the week helping my Storyboarder Louise write the first draft of the script, settling (for the time being) on an introduction scene, three main ‘attempts’, a scene of quick fire attempts, before finally the wedding scene where the angel obliterates the Suitor with his heavenly powers!

☆ Life Drawing ☆

For life drawing, we were looking at the bones and muscles that make up our bodies, and drawing how the skeleton fits under the model - with a particular focus on the head, hands and feet, from multiple angles and perspectives.

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Week 15 ♡ 22/01 - 28/01 Presenting & Picking Pitches, Organisation

This Tuesday I presented my pitch to the class, and saw all the wonderful ideas that my other classmates presented. We went on to pick which ones we would like to work on best, and I’m incredibly grateful that Heavenly Accomplice was chosen as one of the 8 pitches to make it through! So I am now Showrunner, Character Designer, and 2D Animator for my idea!

(Heavenly Accomplice Initial Concepts)

I arranged to meet with my new group on Thursday to discuss what everybody’s specialism’s were, what they’d like to participate towards Heavenly Accomplice and talk about what the overarching plot could be!

✏️ Life Drawing ✏️

For this rotation of Life Drawing, we were revisiting anatomy and proportions, with a particular focus on hands, feet and faces. We were concerned with capturing poses that evoked story and a narrative, which was shown in the ‘ballroom dancing’ series of poses.

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Week 14 ♡ 15/01 - 21/01 Thinking of Pitch Ideas & Specialisms

This is our first week back to Uni after the Christmas break - and our task was to think about what specialisms we wanted to focus on this semester in order to start building our portfolios. I knew that I wanted to pursue Character Design and 2D Animation, as well as some Concept Art. I discussed this with Susan and she agreed that I should focus on those specialisms.

I've also been working on the powerpoint presentation of my pitch to show to the class next Tuesday. I have always liked the aesthetic of medieval illuminated manuscripts and the fashion of Royalty from that time, so I wanted to explore that idea further.

I came across this Medieval-Era Painting of an older King Richard II marrying a very young, 6 years old, Princess Isabella. It got me thinking about how a child would go about stopping this union? Who would protect them if the person they were to marry turned out to be awful? This is when my mind turned to guardian angels!

Everyone was extremely religious during these times - so a Princess having an "imaginary friend" who was actually her guardian angel seemed like a solid idea! I really enjoyed the imagery of a best-friend-duo of the Princess and her Biblically-Accurate Angel Side-kick. Together they would get into hijinks as they try everything within their power to make the Suitor leave. (Spoiler: The Angel would just be playing along with the Princess... the second they can they would turn the suitor to ash with their heavenly powers)

I also came across a lot of these weird animal-human hybrids that were often drawn throughout manuscripts - I thought they'd be a fun to consider, or have as a running gag through the animation.

This is the final powerpoint I am going to present next week!