During my first project of the
year, I was set the task of creating a character of my own imagination who
would star in my animation later on in the year. This wasn’t totally new to me
as I’ve had experience at creating characters before, but it was nice know I’d
be drawing something that wasn’t human for a change. I started out this project
with simple sketches of my initial ideas, which was that of a small rodent
hero, largely based off the likes of Meeko from Pocahontas and Scrat from Ice
Age. These sketches slowly developed into fully fledged digital drawings and
ended up being rather impressive looking character boards, showing his initial stance,
his range of emotions and dynamic poses in all stages of illustrative
progression. There were a number of strengths and weaknesses in this project
that I took into account upon reflection. One of my strengths was obviously the
digital drawing and colouring of my character boards, as my newly developed digital
drawing skills over the summer were going to be put to the test in creating
something to look rather professional and well-constructed. However, one of my
weaknesses from this project was definitely the layout and putting together of
my final character boards: as graphic design and logos aren’t the kind of
subject I’m interested in, creating something where strict measurements and
specific spaces was rather challenging to me. Although, with some help from a
class tutorial with Paul, I was able to get past this issue and create a rather
good-looking trio of character boards which all appeared in a clear and concise
set. One aspect which I think I will take away from this project is definitely
what I learned about the designing side of this project, such as the styling
and layout of these character boards and our sessions with Paul, mostly because
I felt as though that’s what I learned the most and I can now apply that skill
to my work in the future.
For my second project, I was
set the task of creating a number of walk cycles and loops, using a variety of
alternative techniques. I was rather excited by this project, as walk cycles
are always something I had considered to be PART of a project and not one on its
own which was a nice change. It gave me a real chance to see, with the time
available, just how many different ways and kinds of walk cycles I could make
on my own. I think it's safe to say that in this project I did get slightly
carried away with just making as many walk cycles as I could but in the same
way, as I ended up getting very interested in making different characters walk
and showing how certain characteristics and certain parts of their body would affect
how they would move. I wouldn’t say I use a wide variety of techniques to make
up these walk cycles, instead I think I just made a lot of different walk
cycles, as in different variations of characters in different states of life
and death, which I think is still something I can take from this project and be
proud of. Again there were a number of strengths and weaknesses in my work
throughout this project. One of my main strengths in this project in particular
were my drawing skills: I think this time last year, the thought of drawing a
complete 24 walk frame in a short period of time would have terrified me, as my
skills in sketching un-human bodies, and my digital skills and abilities weren’t
that high at all. However, this year I definitely pulled through with being
able to work faster and produced more in depth and detailed pieces than I first
thought I could, which is bonus. One of my weaknesses during this project was
probably my lack of using other techniques to actually produce different mediums
of work, for example I could have done a traditional set of illustrations and
rotoscope them together, and I think this a point I will definitely take onto
other projects I do, mainly because it will create a more diverse set of scenes
and add a bit more character to the animations that I produce in the future.
My third project of the year included me sketching,
developing, producing and editing a short animation. I began by creating my
storyboard, as this would give me most direction through the scenes of
my animation instead of me having to write things down. I created a
good-looking storyboard which was clear, simple and had a set colour scheme
through it. This storyboard definitely helped me as I began to create all of
the assets for my animation as well. I began pretty slow, taking my time in
making sure all my assets were up to scratch and full of detail, as I've not
made a full 2D animation before! This eventually caught up with me and I was
left rushing slightly towards the end, that and I also came into contact with
MAC issues, where the computers were just too slow to produce more than 3
seconds of animation. I also had great fun using Adobe AfterEffects, which I
think, will be my go to program for creating animations. It resembles Photoshop
in many of its aspects and I think this is what drew me to it so well. Taking
all that into consideration, I think there are a fair few new strengths and weaknesses
that have come to light. One of the main strengths of my work during this
project was the artwork, I think I was able to create some really strong
artwork which worked well during scenes and all came together visually, exactly
how I thought it would. Although I think the artwork is also one of the reasons
for my weaknesses as well, as taking so much time to produce the artwork I think
over-rode the limit I had set up for myself. This resulted in me not being able
to edit together more scenes in time which, if I’m honest, had me kicking
myself when the deadline came in. I think I will definitely take on the
weakness and learn from it from now on though, as I never want to have myself
in such a stressful situation like that ever again! And I will definitely learn
to manage my time better and work at a faster pace and workflow from now on.
My fourth project of the year I was
given the task of creating 3 5-second long idents to be used in the advert for
the company, Digital Cinema Media. I started this project at an utter loss for
what to do if I’m honest: as the subject was to create abstract pieces of digital
3D work to be composited onto live footage. I ended up choosing two rather dark
feelings at the start of this project mainly because of the abstract shapes I had
created during tutorials and they seemed to fit the bill rather well. I then
went on to choose an emotion to counter balance the dark ones which was
euphoria. For this I did most of my compositing, and I did this by creating
small little particles, which could be a cross between bees and jellyfish…
which zoomed and glowed across the screen. I think this project shows where I had
my strengths and weaknesses quite well if I’m honest. For my strengths, I think
they showed through pretty well when it came to compositing abstract shapes
onto videos and photographs. I took in depth notes when we were being taught on
compositing and it really paid off when it came down to doing that side of this
project for sure. I also had a really big experimental phase where I made a
variety of little shapes, with strange textures, colour and shapes which I think
has made my confidence grow more when using cinema 4D for 3D work. I don’t think
I had many weak points in the project, but one of the weakness in my work would
probably be the trouble (or lack of inspiration) I had when trying to get my
head round creating abstract pieces of 3D art to composite onto video. I did
eventually get into many ideas and try out a few different things, but at the
beginning I was just not able to think of anything that could be put together
for this project. I did over-come this when the class had tutorials with David
and Paul, who showed us it was a lot easier than we all thought. I think I would
take the knowledge I gained about creating abstract pieces with me into future
projects the most, as it was a subject completely new to me and ended up also
being the most interesting as well!
For my fifth project this year, I was
set the task of doing a live brief, along with any other “out of college” work,
over the Easter holidays. I found this to be one of my favourite projects in
the whole year, mainly because of the freedom and lack of structure to it. I
began by doing some personal work for a fellow college student’s album cover
for his band, which required me to use a big mixture of traditional and digital
work respectively which I really enjoyed, as it wasn’t close to anything I had
done this year in terms of content. I also went ahead and entered my work for
the weekly competition called “Illustration Friday,” which has a specific
subject every week, and this gave me a chance to be able to create a piece of
artwork in the shortest deadline I’ve had to complete yet! I really liked this
challenge as it greatly improved my style of work by simply sitting back and
painting rather than stressing over what grade I would get. I then had a go at
entering my work in the competition called “The Young Illustrators Award 2014.”
This was an open competition to designers of all trades from illustrators to
pattern makers to animators. I was equally as excited about this project as I
was the others, simply because of my increased skills in digital art and my desperate
need to show it off. I was really enthusiastic about this part of the project
and I think that’s why it came out so positively, as I was more relaxed and
ended up showcasing skills that I didn’t even know I had when it came to
painting the figures horns and face. The rest of the aspects of this project
all had a similar effect on me, and the more I did, the more confident I was as
both an artist and a person, which lead to me speaking to a number of design
studios online (through twitter) and making me have so much more confidence over
all. Like a much needed morale booster. There were a number of strengths and
weaknesses throughout this project that I think need addressing, and one of the
strengths I had was my skills overall as a digital artist. Over the past year I
have definitely become a much more confident artist, and it’s almost surreal
seeing a lot of the things I wanted to happen this year, happen. And I know
that from hard work and pushing myself to try things I wouldn’t have gotten
anywhere near had I not started this course, is something I know I NEED to take
with me in the future if I hope to get any further than I am now. One of my
weaknesses I discovered during this project was definitely finding time to
spread over different pieces of work, and not trying to commit to one thing at
a time. This will help me not only get jobs and tasks done quicker, but also
help me when it comes to being distracted of losing motivation in pieces of
work, which is one of my many noted weaknesses in my SWOT analysis.
To generalise this year in a small
summary, I think it’s safe to say it’s been just immense in the types of work I’ve
encountered, as well as the work I’ve produced. I can’t even begin to explain
how astonished I am of what I’ve achieved in the past two years, combined with
the knowledge I’ve gained and people I’ve met. My skills have developed to a
level I used to fantasise about having during A Level, and my workflow was more
than quadrupled in the past two years and I’ve been spouting out pieces of work
I never knew I could even think of producing. Not only have both my workflow
and skills improved since the start of the year, my attitude as a whole has
also changed for the better; I’m much more open to the hundreds of styles of
art, as well as having more of an opinion on culture, both popular and
independent, which I think is a vital component when going into an industry
such as Animation and Illustration.
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