Animation Narratives (Assignment 3-Production Progress-Week 11)

This blog is going to be one of my final animation posts, for my first year within university. Within my final semester our last assignment for ‘Animation Narratives’ was a group project based on the theme of ‘Adventure’ and we had to work together to use the skills we had developed this year and create a 30/60 second animation.

Over the last few weeks me and my group have had meetings together, with our tutors and have worked continuously with a mix media of 2D animation, 3D animation and have successfully created an animation.

Within this project the beginning process included discussions of what we were looking to create, the style of the animation and also the roles which everyone within our group were going to feel comfortable within and be able to produce their best work. We had decided on a concept of a little kid being afraid of the dark, the adventure of his fear, where his mind will wonder and the monsters he might meet within the dark. The conclusion of this story would then come to an end with the little kid being saved by the bright, shining light of his nightlight and having this realisation of the nightlight in his room becoming the stories heroic point.

We also decided to combine what we had learnt within our first year in university and show the class our combination work of 2D animation and 3D animation. Which had then developed the conversation of which media each person within our group would take, would we all do some mix media together or would we split the group into 2D and 3D and hand out steps of each process for everyone to partake within.

This would need to be a conversation we would soon have in the future and after everyone has developed the storyboard, their concepts and once we all got a little more comfortable within our ideas and played around with the concept.

I was excited to create this animation and I really enjoyed the group work, because it is interesting to see everyone’s work combine together to create a concept.

This is some of the ideas we all pitched together for the first presentation and when we had been given our final assignment brief.

Our first tasks that we set as a group was for everyone to go away and create some concept art for the animation. We didn't really have a set idea of what we all needed to draw but had the idea to produce a varied approach of what we envision the animation look like.

I decided to draw what I imagined the completed shots of the animation may roughly look like, when the character was shaking with fear in his bedroom and what the light shadows and his mind might had envisioned the monsters to look like.

I drew the character huddled in the corner and thought it would look spooky if the monster faces were peering out of the shadows and where slightly highlighted with light.

In the beginning of drawing and creating the concepts for our animation assignment, I think I was initially drawn to the character development of how the monsters may look and move within the animation. I thought that with the monsters there may be me more room for experimenting on the character design, how they would move slowly, creepy or fast and spider like.

The initial thought I had for the monsters would be to give them a very bony and gaunt exterior, as from what we learnt in animation. The sharpness and lines of a character can present them to be a scarier and a bold character. The design of my monster would have sunken in cheeks, projecting their cheekbones, a large head that has a large top and curves within the lines of the face, some large and crazy eyes and to have the audience get lost into the monsters captivating stare. I want the monster to be striking, eerie and steal the scene of the shots they are in, to almost express to the audience the fear the character is feeling themselves.

The next drawing, I created was a more focused shot on what a monster may look like. Within the shot the suspense could have been heightened as we first hear the creaks of the door opening and see a shot slowly get brighter as the light is spilling in throughout the crack of the opening door. I then would imagine the monster sneaking round the side of the door and having a panned out shot of the kid in his bed and the monster and character spotting each other, the fear from the character quivering and the sinister peers from the monster.

This could have been a good shot to show what the character imagines there most fearful thoughts to be and how they would portray this within a monster. The monster could have been imaged as a typical storybook monster or could be more characterised to what the characters fear may have been. An example may have been creating a vision of an alien- looking monster, if the child's fear or interest was space orientated.

The next meeting, we had was a lot more structured in what we as a group wanted to achieve in the next upcoming weeks. We had been talking about mixing the animation between 2D and 3D and the different roles we as members within the group would like. I think from the beginning we all had types of animation that we enjoyed more and were more comfortable creating. I had shared how I would rather do the 2D side and this was the same for Charlie and Ellie to also work within the 2D side of animation. So, with this, it was agreed that Morgan, Thomas and Philip would work within the 3D as they felt more comfortable in this role.

Once we had settled upon this, we all agreed that the textures and concepts for the environment of the 3D animation was going to need a helping hand from everyone within the group and that it will be a good place to start. During this stage of the assignment I was still waiting on my Mac to arrive as I had found myself without an accessible computer to work on at home, during the pandemic situation and suggested that I create the designs on my iPad and for them to then be projected onto the 3D model.

We had all got assigned textures we would be happy to work on within the group and I asked for the characters outfit and their bed covers. Within the first storyboarding ideas of the animation, we had added in items within a space theme, so I thought it would be nice to tie this in with the surroundings and give a little more depth and personality to the characters interests.

I gathered some references of outfits/sleep wear that my niece Darcie would were or that Ellie’s brother would wear and also some fabrics such as the checker curtains within my room. I had taken all of these references and designed a couple variations of sleep wear I think would be cool to see the character wear.

I designed a button up, two pieces set for the checker set of sleep wear and tuxedo style, onesie, based on what Ellies brother was wearing in the reference photo. My last design was based on the space theme and I had drawn up two variations of the top, as this sleep wear set was my favourite, I thought having a simple single image top and another design of a matching top and bottom print would mean there is plenty of options for the character textures.

The next textures I had to do was the pillow and duvet set for the bed within the 3D animation and again I decided on a space and starry night theme. I wanted to keep this texture simple as I could, with just the two components of stars and surrounding a moon.

The colour of the base of this texture references a starry night and a magical shine from a crescent moon. I added some white highlights for a range in the depth and size of stars and also along with the white highlights, some dark shadows to tie all the colours and components together.

As I was coming to the end of creating my two textures for the characters sleep wear and bed covers, due to me being unable to create a texture within Maya and applying it onto the 3D model itself. I felt like I wanted to help in any way that I could, in creating any textures or frames for the animation. This is why I had suggested I create the 2D textures for the characters face and reactions during the 3D scenes, add my own different designs within these drawings and to help in the combining of the 2D animation and the 3D animation.

So, I began in drawing my versions of the opening and closing 3D scenes and referenced the first draft of the animation created for the presentation. I was given the face set up for the characters face from Philip and was able to export this into photoshop and draw on top of this. I added extra characteristics such as feathered eyebrows, wrinkles and a more varied set of mouth movements to really show the expressive fear the character is going through.

Once we had shown our second draft of our animation with the work of everyone in the group, the feedback I had gotten for my face textures was that they looked good, could be improved if at the end as the character is screaming and that a wobbling movement on the characters mouth would be a really nice touch. I had taken this advice and then drew a couple more variations and movements within the screaming mouth, hopefully creating a well-developed opening scene.

The next set of face textures for the character was the closing scene, as the character is back in their bed and safe from fear with their trusty night light beside him. This was a quicker sequence of textures but was still just as important to show the calmness and emotion with the textured face. I had drawn the character coming out of his fear, slowly looking over towards to light and allowing the audience to see the slow fear and uncertainty of the character, turn into a soft smile and bliss. I think the opening and closing sets of textures for the character will work well with the 3D model and hopefully I have given enough help and work into my group.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/8535eb_6e9f223d47404560a97289a2f550e63f/720p/mp4/file.mp4

The next meeting, we had was when we were going to begin the process of splitting our group into another two parts and begin work on the pipeline of animation. Each 2D and 3D animation group would each have a person working on their part and would be passing it on down to the next person, to then add their drawings onto the animation. This was agreed to be the best means of everyone working efficiently to create a successful animation and as long as we had other work when waiting. This meant that Philip, Thomas and Morgan worked on 3D animation and me, Ellie and Charlie worked on 2D.

The first person on the line of our animation was Charlie and he was going to create the backgrounds for the 2D animation. Once these were completed, the next step was for me to include drawings of the monsters and to pass these onto Ellie to then add the character.

This animation was for scene four and was the first scene after the character had fallen into his nightmare, from the 3D animation. I first mapped out where I would like my monsters to peak into the background, where they would appear and the way they would move across the animation. In this scene I decided to have a large monster towards the front of the background and to be peering round, from behind the tree. I then made use of the brushes and dark depths within the tree and added blinking eyes and some monster hands for variation.

I wanted it to seem that although you might not see the monsters, that there are in fact loads waiting to appear.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/8535eb_1a189503c4104f1db0cdd0000139199a/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

The next monster animation I created was for scene five and this was a more macro shot of the trees than the last scene. In this scene the plan was to include monsters more focused on the outer areas of the darkness, within the bushes and to not crowd the scene with too much animation. I added on spikey, yellow teeth to the crazy sets of eyes I positioned around the exterior and developed more movements for the monster hands.

I wanted to give as much variety amongst the monsters even if I was just showing their faces and hands, so added in different movements to the hands such as finger moves, grabbing and extending the arm. My plan with the scene was to animate in a more minimal style, but to continue the creepiness and colour palette throughout it all.

The next and final 2D scene to include monster was scene nine and for this scene all I had to do was create a still drawing one the night light background in photoshop and fade this shot out over a few frames. This was because this was going to be a quick shot of the character sitting down in front of their night light and the monsters were only going to be visible for a few seconds before being faded out by the light.

As I did not have to draw numerous frames to create an animation, this allowed me to focus on my drawing, to keep the same styles an colour plate through, but to have a bit more fun with my designs. I had to postpone the monsters around the outer frame of the scene to keep in line with the shot and again included some spooky eyes and teeth.

In evaluation of my work and experience within this assignment I enjoyed working in the groups for our projects and it was really interesting and enjoyable to see the work everyone, in combination could create. Specially within this last assignment we were able to work effectively together as a group and showed our ability to mesh together the two mediums we learnt in university, 2D and 3D animation. I hopefully worked well and was able to produce a fair and substantial part within my group and put in lots of work and did my part to help carry this project. Working within these numerous groups and keeping the assignments changing really gives me an idea of what it would be like to work within an industry, changing the themes, projects and just making sure your ideas are constantly flowing and you are able to contribute well to any idea.

The different modules we had been taught within our first year in university was everything that I hoped to learn within animation and I genuinely believe that this course is going to prepare me for my future. So far, I have I learnt so many variations of art, skills and in-depth lessons on subjects including animation narratives, the different animations across the world, to colours within animation, compositions, different forms of animating and just all components of what is needed to produce and understand a great animation. I am genuinely excited to continue the next years within university and expand my knowledge, learn and be more confident for my future as an animator.