Pocket Pals

Another of the third year teams I decided to join is Pocket Pals. This is an app that is being created to learn more about British wildlife. For this project, I'm having a go at modelling which is new to me and is a steep learning curve. Even though I'm finding it quite challenging so far, it's good to learn something new and have the chance to work more with Maya. Once I've modeled and UV unwrapped, I'll have the chance to animate as well.

My first task was to create a model for a Wood Pigeon. We're working in a low poly style, so it doesn't look as smooth but still has character to it. These are my progress shots.

Ticked Off

Now I'm in second year, it is important that I spend time working on third year projects. It gives me a better idea on how a project is managed while working alongside a team. One of the projects I have chosen to work on is Ticked off. It's a story of a clock keeper who keeps getting bugged by a spider in the clock. 

So far I have only been creating little test animations and art, but I will post these here to show. The first is a image I drew to get to know the two characters a little better. They're in a very simple style, but I like that as well as the colour scheme the producers have chosen to use.

 

As well as the art, I've also worked on two different walk cycles for Wick, the mouse like character. The first I completed with colour, although it doesn't have many frames so the animation isn't as smooth. Even so, I made sure to include the follow through on his ears, which I think is a nice touch to add. The second is simply lineart to give a better indication of the way he moves. It's a slower, smoother walk, and I tried to include the way his head might move.

(Update with second video)

After working with Wick for a while, I was asked to try something with the spider, like the way he pops down from the top of the screen. This seemed like a fun task, and I have so far completed a small test. I used follow through on the hair on his body, as well as on his legs, and also made him bounce a little before coming to a stop. Another task was to try an include a cup of tea, which I thought through and made it so he'd have to catch the liquid on the way back up. 

In Preproduction, we've been working on creating our own stories alongside some writing workshops, looking into 3 act structure and the relationships between characters. To the left is my 'wow' image, a drawing that is meant to capture attention and get someone invested. I had to complete this in the style of my given artist, Feodor Rojankovsky, a childrens book illustrator who uses pencil, bright colours and creative characters. While I wasn't sure how to go about doing this at first, I think I managed quite well. Below are some examples of his work, as well as a couple more drawings I did in his stlye of two more characters in my story.

Alongside this image I also had to create an animatic of a chosen scene. First I had to storyboard 20 panels, then with added frames, timing and sound I was able to make them into an animatic. I was pretty happy with the way this turned out, especially the first section. I could have worked more on the scene where the Parrot looks out of the window and sees the criminal getting away though, and I might still do so in the future. I also need to work some more on my sound design, as at the moment it contains only the basic noises.

 

Above is just a very simple animation I had fun making in a short break I had.

Today I dedicated some of my time to working on a scene from one of the third year films, Big Top. It was only a short scene, but it's important to get it looking as professional as possible. Below is a playblast of what I achieved. I found it took some time to get my head around how to make the arms work around his large body, though I think I did a good job at this as well as with making his secondary animation look natural.

Self Portrait

I have finally finished my self portrait project, creating and editing all of my scenes before adding music for the final product.

After getting all of the bits and pieces like my photographs I needed together, I was able to shoot all of my stop motion footage. I came to the conclusion that I enjoyed the idea of looking back on my memories the most so would use photographs in a big part of my animation. Alongside these, I wanted to include a few of my belongings like badges or drawings that present a little more about who I am. I'm happy with the overall result, although I think that some of the stopmotion could have been a bit slower with more frames as the photos are quite hard to see at times. 

The editing I did in Aftereffects was quite time consuming. I encountered the issue of having some of my files in the wrong frame rate, and it took extra work to sort this out; I have learned from this mistake though. I could also have improved some of my masking effects, although I did try hard to add other effects like shadows to give it some depth.

I have added foley and music to my 3D animation of Conan and the Dragon. Since the last time I posted, I added some length to the close up scene of the man, showing the change in his attitude with his expression as he decides to face the dragon. I pitched down the roars we created so that they had more of a rumble like a dragon would, and tried to make the footsteps sound heavier. I think I'll be changing the music as I'm not fond of how it sounds currently.