Reflective Report for Year 1.

During my reflection over my first Year of FdAnimation, I have can conclude that I have taken away an astounding amount of skills and knowledge from the projects I have taken part in over the Year.

During my first project of the Year, I was set the task of researching and testing out multiple ways of creating an animation. Being totally new to the subject, it’s fair to say I was rather nervous about the tasks, for example the amount of work I needed to produce, the style and layout of my work and research, and the amount of time I had to produce all of my work and hand it in were on my mind for 90% of the time. However I believed I managed well during this project, as I was able to quickly get used to the speed of working and became confident in working independently. Some of the skills I learned from that project include time keeping and my ability to work at a much faster pace than I would have done a year ago. Another skill I gained was working with new computer software, although I took my time getting used to it, I found that I was able to work with a new computer software named Dragon Stop-Motion, which enabled me to create multiple stop motion animations at a high quality and faster pace. I also learned in detail about the animation production technique of cell drawing, common in Disney’s first animated films, and created my own small animation using this process and Dragon Stop-Motion. I think all of these skills will come in handy next year as they are the basis for one of the ways to make hand drawn animations, in multiple styles and outcomes which I think is very important in the animation industry, depending on the audience.

The second project of my first Year, I was given the task of creating a storyboard and animatic. First I was given one word, which would be the source of the story of my storyboard, and animatic, I developed that word in a brainstorm like activity where I thought up a suitable story, with and A –B storyline, that was simple and friendly to all ages. Again, getting used to the timing and how much work I did in correlation to how long I sent on it was always in the back of my mind, so at some points I was rather stressed out when I came to art blocks or dead ends. I found that I gained a large amount of skills from this project, as I gained knowledge on things such as image sizes and types, being able to produce a sequence of images, and showing a gradual change in things such as emotions and positions. I also gained skills in the colouring side of the subject, where we were given a short but very effective crash course in colouring with Photoshop and being able to apply those techniques into our own colouring programs if we had any. I also gained the skill of working with  video editing software, Final Cut Pro, I found this program very user friendly and could create a number of different styles and layouts for my animatic. I learned a lot to do with timing at this end of the project as well, mainly because we were given a limit as to how long the animatic could be and so we would have to cut down any outstanding areas. I will take mostly the timing and colouring elements into my second year, as timing is almost as important to animations as the production of them, and I want to improve my digital colouring skills over the summer, so what I have learned in this project will help me when it comes to finding and creating new ways to colour and create art digitally.

For my third project I was made to produce an animation based on what I had created through my second project. This animation would be made in the pseudo 3D animation style on a software named Cinema 4D. I made my animation consist of a “Toy Story” kind of storyline, where a toy encounters a problem and enlists the help of other toys in order to set things right. In this case, a clown was playing on a little girls’ bed and his nose falls off under the bed, he goes under the bed to try and find his nose but comes into contact with old toys that he thinks are monsters, and in the end, these toys help him find his nose just in time for the girl to come and an find him. This, so far for me, had been one of the most challenging projects that I encountered, mainly due to the amount of work we were given to do, as well as the pressure of using completely new software. I used my storyboards and animatic to make a basis of what my animation was going to be of, and I was able to use images from my storyboard, in colour, to create the different scenes throughout my animation. Some of the skills I would take away from this project would be working with cinema 4D, and using rather in depth techniques and a large amount of lessons were given to show us all of the workings in cinema 4D. Another skill I would use at a later date would be using Photoshop to create animated scenes, as I used it for two of my twelve-scene animation. I feel as though this project was definitely the most challenging of all the projects I had been given so far, as the sheer amount of little pieces that were included in the animation and it’s production sometimes got the best of me and left me a little lost. However I did manage to retain my sanity and was able to get the animation done to, what I believe is, the best of my ability.

My fourth project of the year was given to me with the instructions to create a full 3D model, along with a character sheet showing multiple drawings of that model. In the beginning I found this project to be one of my favourites, as it was hands on drawing and not using computers as much, to be begin with anyway.  I created a character of a jester who lived in a black and white world, who eventually brought colour to it and in the process, saving the day. I searched through a variety of images related to jesters and clowns, and took particular interest in Harley Quinn from the Batman series. I did numerous drawings of designs and poses of my character, which, I think is one of my strongest moments of the project, and then uploaded them to a computer and was able to make them into digital drawings using software such as Adobe Illustrator and Paint Tool Sai. At the same time I was also using these images not only for a character board, but also as the basis for my 3D model which I would be creating using Cinema 4D. I found that this process was stressful and did take a long time, but I was aware of how Cinema 4D ran because of my previous project, so I was able to use Cinema 4D on my own until I became so stuck I would have no choice but to ask for help. I feel as though I gained a great amount of skills form this project, some of which I would take to next year without a doubt. One of these skills would be using digital colour, and being able to choose a sophisticated colour pallet and produce professional looking pieces of artwork using some of the paint sampling features on Photoshop. Another would be using Cinema 4D to crate 3D objects as well as in my last project where I used them to create a 2D environment. I feel as though this project took most of my time (and patience) away and although I deeply enjoyed it and was very pleased with my final outcome, it was one of the more difficult and stressful projects of the year.

The fifth project of the year was that of live drawing and showing my general drawing skills. This project focused mainly around life drawing classes, and our ability to draw more lifelike features and not focus only on cartoon styled drawings. The lessons, in my opinion, went very well and I believed that I was learning much more about drawing techniques by looking at work that other people were doing in the same class as me, as well as sing other mediums to create me pieces. I used a wide variety of materials to exaggerate and tone down parts of the body. One of the parts of life drawing that I struggled with was the pressure of creating a piece with a lot of people being able to see my work, which made me rather nervous and I feel my work didn’t come out as strong as I wanted it to be, that and I didn’t want to offend the life model by drawing something out of place. I soon gained more confidence and I think this shows in my work as time went on, which ended with me creating a final piece out of what I had researched throughout my project, and what I had learned through the life drawing classes. One of the skills I learned that I would take through to next year would definitely be confidence in my work, and that I wouldn’t need to worry on what other people were thinking of my drawing because they would definitely be more interested in what they are doing with their own work. Another skill I gained in this project would be using different materials to create artwork rather than just pencil and paper, and I feel that over the summer I will definitely be interested in using other materials and possibly even wall space to create pieces of art. I feel as though I started out a bit rocky on this project, but after a while I was able to concentrate on what only I was doing and in the end I am very pleased with the piece that I created.

My final project of the year was to create an E4 “Esting” for the E4 competition, in which I was to make a short (10 second) animation. At first I was at a complete loss for what to do, as I was given the choice of using almost any medium to create this short film. I eventually chose to concentrate more on live action, mainly because it was one of the styles of animation I hadn’t had an in-depth go at yet. I chose to do my film in the style of a Charlie Chaplin silent film, where I dressed myself up as a mime and painted the E4 logo sped up, but also making it look like I had done it in real time. I spent only half an hour shooting footage, as I had space an scene set up prior to the shooting, and about two days full on animating and editing it. I struggled with one thing in particular, which was using Adobe After Effects to edit some of my film. I had the film split into about 3 pieces, which made it a lot easier to animate individual pieces. I learned quite a few new skills in this project, one of which as working with a green screen. At the start of my animation, I have actually used a green screen behind me when I pop up and smile, I think this turned out extremely well as even the little hairs and small pieces of fluff on my clothing turned out well and weren’t cut off or blurred out. I also learned process of editing a film to make it look like a silent film, where there would be jumpy parts in the film as well as editing the sound of an old camera into the film under the music, just to give it that vintage effect. This was one of my favorite projects to do this year, as it was mostly hands on and I got to paint my face, making actual fun out of the project. It was the project that I was completely excited about from start to finish and I am overjoyed with how my final, 10 second animation turned out!