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Update (Period 9 or 5/5)

Hello the! welcome back to this blog!

I know I haven’t updated this in forever. The reason for that is that I’ve been very busy with my personal life and my animation, of course! By now the animation has to be finished and handed in. I’m not completely done yet, I still have some scenes to make with the help of After effects.

I thought I’d share some frames from my animation as a little preview for you guys! Please, take a look!

This scene is still a  work in progress. 

I hope this makes up for the silence!

I hope to upload the full animation here soon!

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A small animation test. It’s kinda choppy because I made this in SAI and the had to scale the frame times in premier. I had nothing else to work with till today. I hope you enjoy it anyway!

P.S. I don’t know why the side of the video is blinking black. I think it has to do with the SAI file being corrupted in a way?

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Update: Period 7 (or 3, technically)

Hi everyone! I’m supposed to give you guys a little update on my progress from time to time. I keep forgetting, I’m sorry for forgetting!

And I’m also sorry to tell you that I haven’t made a lot of progress. We had to make a storyboard, act out some scenes and make a progression reel. I did all of that but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to share it? I should ask my teacher. If we’re allowed to share our work then I might upload a bit of my story board next week as a filler, if I don’t forget, whoops.

I just want you to know that the story is settled. I just need to edit the storyboard and then start working on the animation. I’ll start by making a sketched animation. Our teachers made it possible for us to animate however and in whatever style you want. Since I have zero experience animating 2D animation I chose to do so in the sketched style. If I notice I can do more within that small time limit we have I will. You know, the whole sketch -> Line Art -> color phase.

I guess I can share a little test I made, so I’ll do that. it’s not official yet despite this actually being part of my storyboard.

Let’s just hope I’ll end up making something great, I’m in a bit of an emotional trip downhill but I try to climb back up that hill,or mountain, rather.

Thank you for reading! until next time!

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Our mosquito girl has a name!

Yes, it’s true! She finally has a name (thanks to the story telling subject I had to come up with one.) I came up with a name that’s not really based off of anything, but I liked the ring it is to it.

I’d like everyone to meet my little girl...

                                                     Viistesi

(Artwork made by my bestest of best friends thank you Julia!)

I really hope you like the name as much as I do! You’ll have to keep reading it for a while after all, too.

Thank you for reading, until next time!

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Update 2nd semester

Hi there! Long time no see hu?

I wanted to write and update way earlier but this part of our project needed all the attention I could give it. It was really difficult, I ended up being so focused on work that I kind of forgot about the blog! I’m so sorry! 

It took me a long time to finish this part of the project, and working on it was a pain. I was sick really often this semester, that’s why I’m currently feeling a bit tense about reaching my other deadlines for school. I won’t be making them all but I try my best.

Without further ado, I want to show you what I’ve been working on this whole semester. We had to create the head of our character in 3D in Cinema 4D. I’ll be frank, I am not the biggest fan of 3D, at all. But I actually really ended up enjoying this task! 

It’s fun to think about how your character would look in a slightly more realistic setting and figuring out how to get things to work was great too! However, I had to almost completely start over at one point because my computer kept showing me the dreaded blue screen of doom, and it wouldn’t go away. It’d appear when booting up the system and reboot endlessly. I managed to fix that problem (by losing a lot of progress on a lot of projects, hence the stress I have now.) and continued working where I could.

Now that you’ve seen some screenshots I’d also like to share a link to a personal video I made on this subject! It’s just more screenshots but seeing the progress I made in some sort of time lapse is way more satisfying in my opinion.

End result!

Now I’m not sure yet what we’ll do next semester (starting in a week or two) but I’ll try to update this blog a little better next time.

Link to the video I made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw_MW8WiRZs

It’s a little less professional but as I said it was made to be a little more personal, so it kind of has my taste of edits hidden in it here and there.

Thank you for reading and until next time!

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Self research (Pt3.)

Hi everyone! I’m back with my last research update!

In this part of the research we had to look at people who inspire us and how they work. Now I tend to not cling to someone as a source of inspiration. I prefer letting things fully come to me on their own and not by the doing of others. Yet I had to look up some animation producers I liked and some other artists I respect / really like in one way or another.

I’ll share some of the questions and my answers with you! Let’s get started!

Choose two animation filmmakers who inspire you? I chose for Walt Disney Studios and OLM Inc.

What do you like about their products?

I enjoy the fact that Disney is still willing to work on 2D animation movies next to the highly popular 3D movies.

OLM Inc. is inspirational to me because they have produced episodes and movies for one of the longest running anime ever and they still do. I think that’s something to respect.

When you look at the colors the studios use, what’s striking to you?

Both Disney and OLM use bright and happy colors. Their products need to be appealing to children of course but neither of them feel over the top when it comes to color usage.

What can you say about the art style of both companies?

While Disney definitely uses more round shapes to create their characters (especially female characters) OLM Inc. uses more sharp and pointy figures, although not as obviously as other anime creators.

What about the way these companies create and edit their products? What can you say about the type of camera shots? Are the animations dynamic?

I’d say Disney is less Dynamic as it uses a large variety of shots and the animations aren’t always fast phased. OLM Inc. creates series such as Pokémon. There’s a lot of close-up and medium shots and a lot of dynamic angles. Simply because there’s a lot of action going on.

Name two more artists who inspire you in a way:

I chose FireflyPath and Quentin Blake

Why do you like the artist / why do you feel any sort of connection?

FireflyPath is an online artist who creates indescribably beautiful fantasy dresses! I’m both in love with the concept of gorgeous out of this world clothing, especially when it’s combined with fantasy themes. Her work is beautiful and makes me dream from time to time. I’d love to be able to do something like that.

Quentin Blake has made illustrations for a long list of books. I personally enjoy his style, since he draws for children stories his style is very fitting. It’s playful and funny and depicts every scene just right! I respect his amount of loyal work he’s performed for multiple writers and himself.

This was just a small portion of this exercise, I might update this in the future as I do not have a lot of time to translate any other questions. I hope you found this interesting either way!

I’ll see you in the next one! 

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Self research (Pt2.)

Hi! Welcome back to part two of my self research!

This one will be real simple: We had to look up some animation shorts we enjoyed because of their style or their story. they had to inspire us in one way or another.

Here’s a few of the animations I chose! Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZK27hsCcDo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgudG8Ne0BE&list=PL9q4Akjs1OHc1d2w40LEtSZcICHkyQ1u5&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYOc-LqkrsE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwltCgkB6Pk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX44CAz-JhU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN_Kbltsqx4 I totally forgot about this series, I didn’t add them in my document I sent to school but I LOVE This series of animations!

Thanks for reading! Until the next one!

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Self research (Pt1.)

Hi there! Welcome back to my blog!

Today in class our teacher told us we do not only have to upload our progress on our characters but also the progress of us as an artist. so here we go!

Self vision

For this research we had to research ourselves. We had to answer some simple questions about what we like and what we don’t like. I’ll grab a few questions that took my interest so you can see what kind of questions we had to answer.

(P.s. the original questions and answer were formulated in Dutch so I’ll have to translate them quickly.)

What interests you?

- I love to design characters and write stories.

- I LOVE food. I enjoy baking and I’d love to learn how to cook.

- I love humor. Every hour of every day I enjoy some fun and laugh. I won’t push it, it has to be spontaneous. But I find humor and fun really important.

- I’ve always enjoyed the different languages in the world. Especially French and Japanese, I really want to perfect my French and learn Japanese.

What fascinates you? (what are things that get your attention quickly and keep you interested?)

- Supernatural being, myths and legends.

- The growth of plants and organisms.

- The relations between humans, animals and their families respectively. 

- Nature: animals, plants and how to care for them.

- Tropical nature, lush jungles, white beaches, clear blue water.

- Day and Night, especially night and the tension it can bring with itself.

- Bright colors in the dark (Like neon lights on buildings for that city feeling).

-Large buildings ranging from skyscrapers to castles and mansions.

- Victorian and/or rich ways of dressing. Richness, power, beauty. The whole royal package. (Crowns, jewelry and gems etc.) 

- Music: Classical, rock, jazz, magical sounding choirs, instruments: piano, violin, bass, accordion. 

- Colors: Mainly cold colors. Blue’s my favorite. Dark shades like royal or navy blue.

-Countries and their different cultures, preferably the western and Asia. The Netherlands, France, USA, Spain, Japan, China, Archipelagos. 

- Other things: Water and the movement of water. Polka dots, speed and the impression of speed. Fire, sense such as hearing, touch and speech. Freedom. Zodiac signs. There’s probably more that I can’t think of right now.

Thank you for reading this part of my research! I’ll see you in the next one!

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Design exercise 6 (final)

Hi everyone! Welcome back to my blog!

In this post I’ll be sharing the final character sheet of my little mosquito girl character! We were told to make a front and side view, add some of the emotions from the emotion sheets and add the color scheme of the character! We were allowed to add some extra information about the character, but my sheet was filled to the brim with art already. Besides, I’m not even sure how my girl is called yet or what she’s in to.

Here’s the sheet! Emotions included.

Now here’s just a sheet of the design.

I personally like the fact I gave her a flat face. When you look at her from the frond you’d expect some depth but no, you have been fooled. Of course there’s a chance it might change in the future but that chance is very small.

Thank you for reading! I’ll see you in the next one!

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Design exercise 5

Hi there! Welcome back to my blog!

In this post I’ll be sharing a little bit of emotion practice. I only made two sheets with several emotions. I had hoped to make a lot more but I have been sick a lot this semester. I might make some more in the future as extra practice.

So here’s what I made!

Thank you for reading! Until next time!

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Design exercise 4 (Pt.2)

Hi there! Welcome back to my blog!

The d key is still not working that good so if you miss out on any d’s or words look misspelled because they miss a d, I’m so sorry! I’ll get my keyboard checked out as soon as possible! Now without further ado, let me show you the second part of the final character design!

Testing out different color schemes and clothing styles.

Here you see the 5 different styles I tried for Mosquito girl! (That’s her placeholder name for now, she’ll get a real name in the future.) Looking at these I like the colors of numbers 1 and 2. Number 5 also looked okay, but not quite. So it came down to the first two. With the story I have in min for this little character I thought the second design would be more fitting. She looks yucky ab scary, yet cute an innocent in a way.

So here’s the final design! Mug meisje /Mosquito girl! is complete!

As you can see I added a scary looking mask to really complete her double life. You’ll hear more about the story much later on in this process. I’m just brainstorming beforehand.

I also found this little extra while I was looking for her front view reference. It’s a small test of what kind of eyes I wanted to use!

I really think they all have their own charm to them, but the bug looking eyes naturally won this, knowing what type of character Mosquito Girl is.

That’s all for today! I’ll see you in the next one!

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Design exercise 4 (Pt.1)

So this there’s quite some story to this one. We had to pick one of our characters from one of the previous exercises and work that one out in different ways. We had to transform and tweak them here and there to create different body types for example.

Initially, I wanted to go for the Cloudy dragon, but I thought that’d be too difficult to work on for a minute long animation. So instead I picked the big haired girl!

I decided to copy her in my drawing program a few times an work from there on out. However after puzzling with this human body for a bit I felt like it was missing something.

I knew right away I wanted her to be smaller and in a form that’d take me out of my comfort zone. I didn’t want her to be a normal human either. So I ended up mixing her with my personal favorite from the 3rd exercise:

The Mosquito Reaper as I like to call him.

I didn’t choose this scary sir because it looked too difficult for me to animate. But now I mashed him together with the idea of having a feminine looking character and as a result I received a potential daughter as a product.

Here you can see me try out different proportions and lengths for her body. I also added the different hairstyles. I personally really liked the ponytail too, but I felt that the curly hair would make for a better mixture of my two ideas and it would make the character more girly (in my humble opinion)

In the next part of exercise 4 I’ll show you my favorite part of creating this character: the coloring! stay tuned!

Oh and also, if you see a word that looks incomplete or out of place, it might be missing the letter D. The d key of my laptop is acting strange since today. I sometimes. have to hit the key really hard to make the letter appear. Sorry for the inconvenience!

I’ll see you next time!

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Design exercise 3

Yes, you read the title correctly. Number 3. Why? Because I was sick during our 2nd design class so I missed out on that one. I’ll have to do that one soon as college expects us to work on all these different exercises, I might be able to do it tomorrow in class!

Anyway, here’s what we’re here for today: exercise 3!

The goal of this exercise was to create a bunch of different characters out of objects you had taken with you to class. Again, we had to pick an object and our teachers would tell us what part of the body it would be. Here’s what I created! 

The object had to become the torso of your character: Look at this fancy feather lady! She actually kind of reminds me of one of my character projects from last year, good times.

Your object will become an eye! And in my case it became the one and only eye of this little dude. I wonder why he’s so alarmed though.

Your object has to become the head of your character! It also has to be frighting! This has to be my favorite out of the bunch! I never expected myself to make a “horror” themed character until they told us to do so, and I’m very proud of the outcome!

Your object has to become the head of your character! (again!) Now this was actually a very interesting concept, however I didn’t really have the time to execute this like how I had it pictured in my mind. Too bad, but still a good effort!

Experiment on your own! Now this one....it’s supposed to be a Chinese dragon of some sort but the picture is tilted, whoops. I’m not a big fan of this one either way, it felt very rushed to make this one.

The object has to become the hair of your character! Now this is a cute fairy! The object I used has a little bit too much dimension for this to actually look good in my eyes but it was worth a try.

The object has to become the clothing of your character! It’s a Skeleton princess...with horns....an a big puffy dress. What more do you want?! I like this one, I think it’s pretty cute! Again, I’m more into the soft horror than I thought I’d be.

Just look at what camera angles can do for you pictures, it looks very different all of a sudden.

I really liked to work on this exercise. It made for some really fun designs that I otherwise wouldn’t have come up with myself! I’ll see you all again with the next exercise! Let me tell you the next one is very important!

I’ll see you next time!

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Design exercise 1

Here’s a few pictures to show you what our first assignment was like! Long story short: We had to create some paint splatters and create characters out of them. Here’s a few examples of what I ended up creating.

First here are the paint splatters I ended up making, it may seem a little odd but it was a lot of fun!

Most of my splatters just look a lot like colorful angry rain clouds, don’t they?

Now I’ll show you some pictures of characters I was able to create out of these splatters.

A cute cloudy dragon! The splatter in this one has been hidden in the tail! so cute!

A pretty ark looking super hero? An anti-hero perhaps? Here the splatter was the whole body, but we had to add an accessory ourselves, so I added a cape!

The splatter has to form the whole body, your character needs to look like a little monster! I think I missed out on the monster part, she looks more like a little kung-fu piggy but she’s adorable nonetheless!

The splatter need to be your character’s ears! And the character has to be cute! Well this is my vision of cute apparently. Something that’s adorable with a cool to intimidating twist. what’s more cute than a cute pet with a spiky collar?

This was the first splatter, make something out of it! It’s a sheep!....A cool sheep? I’m not really sure, it was the first one of the bunch so it’s not very impressive.

The splatter has to become your character’s hair!

The fun thing about this exercise is that we had to pick a paint splatter before our teachers could tell us what part of the body we had to make it! If you take a look at the girl with the big, BIG hair you can probably tell that the splatter was indeed her hair. I think I got lucky with that one.

Try this yourself and have fun with it! remember, to each of these characters there was a 1 to 2 minute time limit. That makes it all a whole lot more exciting!

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Introduction

Hi there! Welcome to my animation blog!

My name is Esmee Lauffer, I’m currently 21 years old and I’m from the Netherlands. I study animation and audiovisual design in Utrecht. I’m currently in my second year (out of 4). In this year we have to start working on an end project for whatever branch we decided to choose. In my case that’s animation, and I’m very excited about it!

Why did I make a blog?

This blog is one of the many things I need to set up for college. I’m a little nervous about  keeping people updated about work I make trough a blog, I’m new to actually writing things here on Tumblr instead of just following others, whoops. But I’ll do my best nonetheless. I decided to write this in English so I can share my work, ups and downs with even more people.

What about uploads?

The first few things you’ll see me upload here are drawing exercises I had to perform at school. It’s all practice all of us can learn from, and I want you guys to learn from the things I did good and my mistakes! (I’m a bit of a perfectionist so admitting my mistakes is a little tough, but that’s part of the learning process too.)  I’ll try to update here weekly on how my progress on my animation short is going.

I hope you’ll follow me and support me on this few years long journey. I’m not sure where we’ll end up with this blog but it’s an important part of my grade. I hope we’ll get to do more with it even after graduating! Thank you for reading!