styles

At the minute i am currently putting together styles for the sequence i have created, i will produce an animatic shortly to post up and to help me see if the structure of the animation works.

So far i have looked through various movies set in the 70's to get reference for styles and i am currently looking at a designer called Biba which was very big in the 60's and 70's and from what i'm noticing is that there were bright colours used shapes through out the designs, however using bright colours and shapes throughout my sequence will not work because i also have to get the feel of London in the 70's.

Compositing in After effects

Here is another test in moving 3d into AE and also using live footage and i also wanted to test on how to add lighting or shadows into the video using AE and did this by creating a grid in AE then creating a light to project on to that.

I've just watched District 9 so i might try to create my own scene influenced by that,

Audience and communication final animation promoting animation at BCU

So we finished the animation promoting animation at BCU and i have to say the animation looks pretty and here it is at... http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwbDvFYeQ78&feature=channel_page

and yes if you look carefully towards the end of the animation where the stars and particles appear out of the hat that was my contribution, I just wish i could have had a bigger part in the overall animation but that was down to me and the guys did great anyway

Developing skills

Part of skills i want to develop are my modelling skills in 3D and although i have been using Maya alot i have been looking at ZBrush and really like the application and have been going through tutorials however i really want to improve my skills even more and quickly so i've been looking at ZBrush tutorials on the Escape website and will be going through them and as soon as i have something to show it will be up... hopefully

Inspiration (Scrawl collective)

At the minute I'm trying to develop my style and find inspiration and I have come across a group called Scrawl collective and in particular two artists named Mr. Jago and Steff Plaetz.





Below are pieces of work from Steff Plaetz's collection and what i like about his style is the abstractness and how a group of shapes come together to create one.

Below are pieces from Mr Jago's collection and what i really like about these pieces are the use of line and how it appears that he has just quickly sketched these and the use or lack of colour in the works.

From looking at these designs i've tried to come up with something similar and this is what i've come up with but i think i will continue working on developing and overlayering on this image too.

Title test

This is a quick test that i did on trying to use Maya and and After effects, i created the text, bars and camera movement in Maya and the lighting effects and sound in after effects. I know it's a bit of a dark theme for ABC but i like it for my first atempt as i was trying to gain knowledge in using multiple software packages for animations.

Over the Summer

Over the summer i will be applying for work experience at motion graphics studios. I will also be viewing as many motion graphics pieces as i can to gain inspiration and knowledge and will be joining motion graphic forums and start networking.

What I am going to do

I want to design and create a motion graphics piece however i'm not too sure whether it will be on a title sequence or an advert but i want to use my knowledge of narrative studies to help me create a animation that has a purpose to it and that combined with skills I want to learn over the summer will enhance my skills.

Through this i should gain more knowledge on commercial animation/production targets and skills i've spoken about in my skills audit will all be refined.

Skills Audit

Good:

• After Effects knowledge
• Drawing
• Animation principles
• character design
• Photoshop/Illustrator
• Identifying target audiences

Improvement needed on:

• Maya Skills (modelling, lighting, texturing and camera movements)
• Expressions in After Effects
• Advanced After Effects skills
• Directing productions, post production
• organization skills, keeping to deadlines

Summary on skills to be improved upon:

Maya- I had basic knowledge of Maya however over the last month i have been completing tutorials on a daily basis however i want to be totally confident in Maya so that I can create anything and so that my skills won't restrict me to what i can create for final projects.

Expressions in After Effects- After Effects is the program i feel most comfortable in using and i think i have great knowledge of it however i want to know and understand expressions which will help me to get better results and work quicker.

Advanced After Effects skills- Here i want to learn more about special effects and also look into merging 3D, live footage and 2D through After Effects.

Directing Productions- For this section i want to learn more on how to produce and direct animations/productions in a interesting and exciting way.

Organization skills, keeping to deadlines- This is easier said then done but i have to learn to break the projects into sections and give myself deadlines on parts of projects so that i don't spend too much time on one area and not leaving myself enough time for other parts.

Pre-production

As part of my final year project for next year i am currently developing my idea's and defining my area of speciality and i definately want to move in the motion graphics circle and have been looking into creating a project around title sequences, adverts, TV skits(short animations)...

Most people would think why would you want to create title sequences but i like the challenge of fitting the whole aspect of the show into a quick 3 minute sequence and setting up the show or film through the sequence, one title sequence that i think is really clever is the one for an american tv show called Dexter... check that one out at www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBN-wXgkUSM.

Over this year whilst i've been studying i have been finding i am really fascinated by works that integrate 2D with 3D or even freehand with live footage, in particular a piece of work on the pysop website(a motion graphics studio) created for EA Sports I love the flow of the 2d animation over the live footage check that out at www.psyop.tv/

Audience and communications - Stars and Particles

As part of a group project we are designing an animation promoting animation at Birmingham city university aimed at 7 year olds. The animation theme we decided upon is about magic because from the group meetings and research we did that is what we felt was the best theme because we felt that children like things all magical and and my role in the animation is to create stars and particle animations.

So far so good i'm just trying to play around with particle dynamics...

character design and modelling

This project was one that i found difficult, i first had to design a character and i went with a mummy but instead of the stereotypical mummy personality where they don't talk, they're expressionless... i wanted to create a mummy that had some personality to it and these are the drawings of that mummy.

This is the final model of my character. I was happy to have created a character and rigged it because i had never used a 3D software package before but i think if i gave myself more time it could have been better and i feel like it lost some of it's personality.

CITV

This is the final character design i came up with, i wanted to create a character similar to the style animations you might see on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and took influences from the cartoons Dexters Laboratory and Robotboy.

This is a still from the final animation and i am very happy with the final outcome.

E-card project

For this project i had to design and create an e-card character and animation. This is one of the projects that i'm most pleased with at the minute. I called the character Sparky, i wanted to make the character generic, for male and female and for any occasion and i went with these designs.