Experimental Animation

Final Edit

It has taken me a few days to complete the final edit for the experimental animation but here it is.

Generally i was happy with the outcome of this video but i feel that it could of been better and i would have liked to have done it in a different style. At first i was really keen to start on this experimental project but the more i did of it the more i found myself not enjoying it as much. I could see the purpose of the project as it got us to think about different types of animation and got us to work away from the computer but i just enjoy creating animation with more direction rather than just random stuff moving to a sound track, although i did like the hands on approach with something physical. 

I feel like i would do more animation in the future just to play around with it but it isn't something i would like to do large amounts off. 

Experimental Plan

After experimenting with Plasticine for one of my test shoots i decided to use it for my final experimental animation that would go with my chosen sound track. before jumping straight in i thought it would be a good idea to make a very simple and rough plan .

i created this plan in flash which made it really easy to know when to make the shapes fit with the music as you can put the soundtrack onto the time line. I made sure i exported it out as a QuickTime movie because i could then go through the video frame by frame and basically copy each frame out with the physical Plasticine. 

Experimental Animation

The idea of this task was to get us to create a short piece of animation to sound. but for us to experiment with different techniques and to not create an animation that is created in Maya or flash.

This first video is a test i did using pixilation animation, which is animation using real people as your puppets and creating the animation through a series of photos.

These next few animations were done using Plasticine and traditional stop motion animation. By moving the Plasticine a small amount each time and taking a photos frame by frame.

Digital painting - foliage

I have started to do a lot of digital painting and love doing it so i thought it would be a good idea to do a couple of tests painting trees and foliage as i haven't done much of it in the past.

this was a really quick one and i had no reference it was just meant to look like some kind of branch or bush of some kind.

in this painting i was focusing mainly on the bark of the tree and how to paint it digitally.

Buccaneer Animation Project

For this project we listened to a number of sound clips that were taken from interviews of people that had carried out sea rescue and their stories of what happened. We got into teams and each team was assigned a sound clip. The idea of this project is to get us to work as a team to create a short animated film that works with the story of the sound clip.

within are group i was given the role of the production designer, which meant i was in charge of the overall look of the film and the artistic style we wanted to go for. After a few discussions we all agreed to aim are animation to be a very similar style to the short animation film The Backwater Gospel.

The Backwater Gospel

I have always loved this dark, grungy and rustic style, so i was really excited about creating a short film in this style.

Concept work

I did some research into what things would look like but first i started with some concept pieces of the things that we had decided would be in the film, like a boathouse of some kind and what characters may look like.

The first image is of what i imagines the boathouse to look like.

This digital painting was a quick one of what the characters may look like. But more focusing the style on the same as that in backwater gospel.

More concepts of various things, but again trying to keep within the same style.

The idea was to have textures in this style painted onto 3D models that would be created in Maya. The easiest and best way of doing this was to use UV wrapping. This is where the 3D model in Maya is flattened out to a net which can then be taken into Photoshop and painted. the file is then loaded back in Maya and the textures appear on the 3D object. Here is a quick test i did of a simple post with a very rough wood texture applied to it.

Animation Adaptation

This small project is all about taking a 2D image, a piece of art that we particularly like and to adapt that piece in a way that it can be separated into layers and then put into a 3D environment so camera movement can be added. We also had to adapt the work so animation could be added to it, whether that would be a character or just an object moving.

Artist Research

When given this project there were two particular styles that i was keen to use, one was the art of using silhouettes. and the other being a very dark, grungy apocalyptic style.

For the silhouette style i cam across this graphic illustrator Jonathan Yuen and this very simple but beautiful web design he had created using flash. http://www.jonathanyuen.com/_main.html.

I love this style because its so simple but also shows allot of detail and i feel would work well with this project.

For the second style i looked at the digital art/photography work of Christophe Dessaigne, that i really love because of the dark and sinister feel to some of his work.

http://www.midnight-artwork.com/

In particular these three pieces of work by this artist inspired me the most because they use the strong silhouettes but still have that dark feel to them. 

My Work

Inspired by these to artists, and in response to their work i first done a digital coy of  Dessaignes work.

I used Photoshop to paint this digitally and tried to keep to the same style by using the limited colour palate and silhouettes.

This next piece was completely made up but again using the same style and trying to combine the two styles of artwork.

Next i started to think about what parts of the painting i wanted to animate. For example i could have the waterfall on the right moving, the tree moving in the wind, the female character could walk up from the right and sit on the bench, her hair moving in the wind, a leaf could fall of the tree and blow in the wind as the camera follows it.