Wednesday, 31 December 2014

Splash


This is my animation of a character that I created jumping off a diving board into water; I think this worked well. As an improvement, I would make the splash last slightly longer and add one or two drawings in between the last two of the character. This is because there's a bit of a jump from the character being in the air, to when she's in the water.

Thursday, 27 November 2014

Bradford Animation Festival

Whilst on our trip to Bradford Animation Festival, we had the chance to view many animated shorts. In particular, I really liked the stop motion animations which included, ‘Moving On’, ‘Life Begins at Breakfast’ and ‘The Bigger Picture’.

I was really impressed by the animation for the music video of, ‘Moving On’. I think that the use of string to create the characters and scenery was unique and very interesting to watch. Additionally, I think that it was interesting to use this technique to display the sensitive topic of somebody dying and ‘moving on’ since it allows the audience to connect with the characters as well as making it easy to watch.

I also liked ‘Life Begins at Breakfast’ because of its unique style. By using fabrics to create the characters, they appear lovable and adorable. Although this was only a very short advertisement, it is one that I found memorable because of the characters.

I thought that ‘The Bigger Picture’ used a very clever technique, and this animated short in fact won an award at the festival. The fact that this animation was partly painted and partly modelled seemed very impressive and again, covered a sensitive topic in an interesting way. Something that particularly stood out for me with this animation was the transitions between each scene. For example, one of the characters was pouring hot water into a mug and then the water from this scene merged into water in a shower. This was very well thought-out.

Another stop motion animation that won an award at this festival was the music video, ‘Robin’. Although I didn’t think much of the song, I really liked the animation in this video and its use of natural materials such as leaves and flowers to create a beautiful animation.
As well as this, another form of stop motion animation that I liked in this festival was the use of cut out animation in the animations, ‘Tiger is Gun’ and ‘Katachi’.

Even though I didn’t particularly like the narrative in ‘Tiger is Gun’, I did think that the cut out animation style was enjoyable and the transitions were clever. An example of this is where some paper representing grass was used in one scene and then, following the camera panning upwards, the same paper was used in another.

I thought that the stop motion music video ‘Katachi’ was also impressive because of the style being a cut out animation. I particularly liked this animation due to the fact that paper used to create it was all laid out together and never taken away so that it looked like one continuous shot.

My favourite animated short at the festival however, was ‘The Bear and The Hare’ which was a mixture of 2D animation, stop motion and 3D modelling. I thought that the design, music and the narrative of this animation together were very moving and the animation as a whole was very beautiful to look at. Additionally, I think that the link to Christmas meant that this was more appealing to a wider target audience as most people celebrate this time of year.

Friday, 31 October 2014

Weight

This is another animation that I have created on Adobe Flash, using a graphics tablet to draw it. Here, I have caused a character to pick up a rock and then fall over because it was too heavy. I think that as a first attempt, this is okay but the rock should maybe move more, as it stays in the same position a lot of the time. The character also seems to hover in the air for a couple of the frames so I should have perhaps moved it down a bit.

Monty Walk Cycle


This is a walk cycle that I have created on Maya using a rig called Monty. I think that this is successful since the walk looks fairly realistic however, I could have created more movement, making him have a more interesting walk and building more of a character.

Stop Motion Hand

Another stop motion task that I did was an animation of a hand turning over. Although there is a bit of a jump between two of the drawings that I did (the third and fourth ones), I think that the animation as a whole works well and I am very happy with it.

Tail Obstacle Course

This is an obstacle course that I made for the tail on Maya. I think that this was fairly successful however I think that the tail takes too long to get up into the air. If it took the same amount of time that it takes to go back down and then jump onto the block, I think it would have been better.

Jump

For Animation Principles, I created an animation on Adobe Flash of a man jumping. I like using Adobe Flash, however I am not used to using a graphics tablet and used one for the first time whilst making this. I think that this animation could use a few more in-betweens in places as it seems a bit jumpy and could also be improved with a more exaggerated squash and stretch effect.

Tail

 
Here is another example of using Maya again for the first time, I have moved a ball with a tail and attempted to make it look as though the tail is moving with the ball. I think this was fairly successful as the tail moves at the same rate as the ball. As an improvement, it could have showed more movement to show the speed. For example, if  it was moving quicker, I could have shown the tail being thrown around a bit more.

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

My Chat With Sam

Having been able to chat with the one and only Sam Humphreys, he recommended taking a look at Svankmajer’s animations. In particular, he said that ‘Dimensions of Dialogue’ was one to look at so I checked it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxaNkklWBVk&list=PLyOyRcMRhOucwbGskuFn3SBvQ5C-D5bif
I found these animations very interesting. Although the narratives seemed very strange to me, I thought that the way that these animations had been constructed (with materials such as clay, paper, food and kitchen equipment) was very clever and worked well, making them seem impressive and inspiring

Stop Motion Animation


This is a stop motion animation that I created by drawing a ball on lots of different sheets of paper, moved slightly every time. Pictures were then taken of all the individual sheets in order to make it look like the ball is bouncing. Although this task was time consuming, I enjoyed it and was happy with the outcome. I think that the shape of the ball throughout was good and the timing of the bouncing. However, a weakness is that the ball changed shape throughout the animation as I didn’t use a template and so it could have been more successful if it had stayed the same size.

Another Ball Bounce


This is another bouncing ball animation from our first 3D animation lesson, this time not on the spot but moving across the screen. Again, I thought that this was fairly successful as a first attempt as the timing seems pretty accurate. The height of the ball however, on the second bounce, could be lower due to the fact that a ball would perhaps not bounce so high the second time.

Ball Bounce


After our first lesson doing 3D animation, we made a ball bounce. I really enjoyed this lesson and like using the Maya software. I think the timing of the bouncing ball was just about right when compared to a real-life ball, however the movement of the ball seems a bit robotic and could be more fluent.

Hello!

This is where I will be uploading any work or making any comments about my animation course in Falmouth university.