sorchacandoodle

[sorchacandoodle]

So my prayer today is this. That I stop defining myself by my doing, and start defining myself by my being. That I stop measuring time by the clock on the wall, and start measuring it by the experiences I share with those around me.

So I posted this in Animation Belfast as it was an interesting read following on from the talks Conánn gave us this week about self-complicating assisgnments.

"It’s busyness we control. Self-created stress.”

It prompted some discussion between Sorcha and I on the content of the article and how it helps us with our attitude towards classwork:

I feel that one point in the article that struck a chord with me was the anecdote about getting ready in the morning. His ‘team’ (his kids) don’t work at the same pace as him and so this leads him to get more stressed despite always being on time to school regardless. I’ve nailed the thought of “don’t panic, we’ll get it done for deadline regardless” but learning to appreciate other people work at a different pace to myself is something to work on in the future. Life isn’t busy, its full.

[sorchacandoodle]

This is too much fun

WHO IS YOUR BOYFRIEND? Pause at random to find out!!

(music by neilcicierega)

[sorchacandoodle]

this 

[sorchacandoodle]

forever stuck in my head. 

We were told today by Conann to assess each other’s work, which would be sketchbooks and blogs. My team and I have been getting ourselves motivated and into the blogging zone, and this is just how we do it.

[sorchacandoodle]

Philip giving some massive input there. 

This is some of my sketchbook stuff that’s being put towards our big MAYA presentation. I researched into tail movement, and found these squirrel tail references very handy. My ‘ball with a tail’ animation was chosen to be in the presentation, so I used the squirrel to tidy up my tail movement. It was also handy to use when moving CARLjr’s antenna.

Our team hard at work on the presentations and preparations. Note how stressed Aisling’s face looks as she puts the presentation together, and then look at the rest of us. We’re such a supportive group!

This picture was just taken at the wrong time.

[sorchacandoodle]

Mark Mullan doing the wank dance.

As we had to include sound, we began playing around with Garageband, resulting in me dancing in the middle of the night to one of Abigail’s ‘sick beatz’. Note: More serious sound work to follow.

[sorchacandoodle]

Pencil-Tests for Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. Gaston was animated by Andreas Deja, one of the stellar “Nine Old Men” in the Golden 90s of Disney. He mostly drew villains, like Jafar and Scar, but also heroes like Lilo and Hercules. I really want to watch Beauty again, mostly to admire how fantastically performed Gaston is.

If I didn’t love him for his animation, I’d love him exclusively for his incredible blog showcasing the talented artists of Disney history. Click here for the blog, as well as where I found this video.

[sorchacandoodle]

This is extremely interesting. 

[sorchacandoodle]

When researching how to draw folds I found this insanely cool post on tumblr! WOW this is so amazing! Just like borderlands! I can be my own walking cartoon! ahaha! I am so in love! I need to get myself some textile paints and try these out right away. Love them. 

[sorchacandoodle]

I was working on this sketch today. While reading up on stereotypes in animation, I found that there were very little black characters in animation, and fewer black females. Pfftttt I can make one then! easy. What's all the fuss about? I think I need to work on how to draw folds. To be fair this was just a silly quick sketch, but it wouldn't hurt to study some folds. I have a book, called “Drawing people” by Barbara Bradley. Below are some scans of the pages that are relevant to drawing folds. I think I'll have to study these in my personal sketch book to get a little better at doing this. 

[sorchacandoodle]

I love this style of animation so much. 

[sorchacandoodle]

...and a happy new year.

[sorchacandoodle]

Just a quick practice sketch to get me back into the hang og using my graphics tablet. I think it took around 8-10 minutes but to be honest I'm not entirely sure. I tried to make the clouds look soft by using hard brush stroked like Conann was teaching in class. 

[sorchacandoodle]

Fantasmagorie, by Emile Cohl in 1908. One of the earliest instances of hand-drawn animation.

[sorchacandoodle]

Tyrone Owens shared this to the Animation Belfast facebook group, I really appreciate it Tyrone! If you are out there somewhere! Cheers man. I cannot agree more with this video. A humble Professor is the Youtuber's name, but he also has a tumblr with the same name, if you follow that link it should bring you to it. I agree whole-heartily that characters in animations should win oscars. Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle, for instance, would have definitely won the year that came out. Or Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, or Donkey from Shrek, or even Satan from south park! So many brilliant characters I've just fallen in love with I can't cope. 

I mean,... How amazingly adorable would it be for an animated character to have won an oscar?-I can just imagine all the animators and voice actor(s) coming up to the stage to collect the award. Adorable. Adorable I tell you. I want to live in a world where I, (as an animator in training), can have a dream of walking up with my team to collect an oscar for the character we helped create together. Maybe it will be my project team one week in uni? Probably not though. 

[sorchacandoodle]

Just an experiment for our interactive design project made using after effects. I've never used after effects before, so with great difficulty I created the simplest effects man could ever imagine. After a concoction of brain-melting hours watching Youtube tutorials and drinking a mentally unstable amount of coffee, I only ended up adding a typewriter effect over the top of the text and moving the mouse cursor around the screen. I tried to make it look like the a player was actually thinking about what they were doing. I managed to do this by making the cursor move between two options and give it time to convey how the player is thinking about what decision to make. Time wasn't all wasted though! I have learned how to keyframe, how to manipulate text, add effects, (and more importantly delete effects) and how to invent a convincing interface design. 

[sorchacandoodle]

This indie game is one of the most charming and cutest games for the PS4. You play this robot in an interactive world, exploring the concept of humanity. It's meant to be really for children,... or 19 year old animation students wanting to explore different art styles.  The whole world is filled with bizzare, quirky and sometimes slightly creepy characters all drawn in such a way it looks like it came straight from a child's sketch book. It just maintains this infectious, child-like sense of glee. I particularly like the colour scheme used throughout the game. Always bright and cheerful. I love how the characters move too, they seem to sway in slight bobbing movements to create a sense of wind and environment.  Another aspect I really love about this game is that it teaches you a lot about yourself. Through puzzle games and personality quiz' you get a report on what you are like as a person. I remember when playing this game it told me that I was determined, I enjoy the arts and everything visual and that I was a bit clumsy yet still confident ( and maybe a bit too loud) spot on I'd say. They forgot to mention excellent animator but I won't hold it against them.  I think what I enjoyed about the actual interaction design was the fact that the game is so surprising. It shocked me how psychological and deep the plot developed into, and I also genuinely think I learned a lot about humanity and people as a whole. The game is basically multiple choice, which as a team we thought was a good way to explore easy to build rpg games. I myself am working on writing a HTML script for a website, which will show hyperlinks onto pages, play music and let the player decide which plot route to go down. Using straight forward illustrations, our interactive game will be designed more like a multiple choice comic book series.