Year 2 Reflective Journal (Carleon Hibbert) (Unit 12)

  UAL Level 3 Art and Design Extended Diploma, Barnet College Student.  

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Unit 12 Evaluation

Firstly, to start with, I’ve learned a lot of things and understand several learning outcomes from this project, and one of the outcomes is understanding the audience. This project was focused on creating something within a field of specialism by providing a positive message for a cause or spreading awareness towards something to a particular target audience. I’ve did research on several causes and explored the ones that I can be suitable to provide a message to, importantly I’ve also done my research on varieties of target audiences based on demographics so I can understand the characteristics of an audience to see their maturity level so they can understand my message or importantly to see what content will be suitable for them. For an example, in Week 2, I started sketching ideas in my sketchbook and using my research on the target audience with mood boards and mind-maps I was able to think more about the audience and create ideas that make my target audience understand the message I’m portraying and see if they can relate to it. My idea is based on creating an animation based on Depression for an audience of late-teenager students and adults and another idea was based on creating a storyboard film based on Isolation for an audience of children, I decided to go forward with the depression idea because it was something that I seem interested to develop and importantly I understand more that target audience better, therefore, delivering a logical message to them.

Secondly, I’ve improved a bit in planning because of the mind maps and research I’ve done in my sketchbook, I was able to figure out what area of specialism I’ll be working in on this project, therefore, I was able to make a list of the things I should include on my A1 sheets, for an example, I’m planned my intention to create an animation or storyboard film in order to gain more experience in that specialism and adding that to my portfolio for university studies, so I made a mental list to include things on an A1 sheet that can illustrate I’m working on an animation production such as exploring alternative designs, ideas, and characteristics and make development on top of that then creating model sheets of the characters and the plans to create the final outcome.

All things considered, I’m happy that I gave myself the chance to create an outcome that is a field I want to study in University, creating a 2D frame animation was very time-consuming yet it was enjoyable during the production but if I’m going to create an animation in future projects, I should be more aware of where I am on the work schedule and give myself mini-deadlines for each stage to prevent the animation being rushed or delivered late. Comparing the animation I’ve done for this project and the ones I did last year, I see a lot of improvement in implementing digital processes onto work for an example, I’m able to use customized brushes in a way to paint better backgrounds and using the potential of Photoshop effects to bring my work closer to a professional standard.

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Unit 12 Final Outcome - Torment

I’ve used Adobe Photoshop CS6 for the Key Animation, Cleanup and Background Art and Sony Vegas Pro 13 for Post Production editing, compositing and rendering. 

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Model Sheets For My Final Outcome ‘Torment’

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Breakdown Process Of Final Outcome

1) First I start the rough sketch stage, drawing the landscape and characters within the scene and start animating their actions and checking compositions of scenes based on the storyboard by using the frame animation timeline.

2) After the rough sketch stage, I move on to cleanup stage, by drawing the Lineart on top of the characters and planning where the shadows will be cast on them by using the Pen tool equipped with the Pencil tool instead of the Brush tool so it will be more easier to fill in the colors. I use the blue color to indicate as shadows and the red color to prevent any colors bleeding through the eyes since it’s white. 

3) After cleaning up the scenes, I focus on digital painting the backgrounds by using the images as reference for colors and I will use my rough drawings of the landscape from the earlier stage to guide me. I’ve used most of my customized Photoshop brushes to help paint tree leaves and clouds, but I mostly use the default Photoshop hard brush to redraw objects on the scene and flat out the colors then I use the soft brush and lowered the opacity to blend them in. After painting, I applied a sunset effect onto the characters so I can add a sense of involvement with the character and the background by using a red-orange color and use color overlay  on the blending options of the cleanup layer and change the layer style to overlay and manipulating the opacity to 50%.

4) On the last stage, I’ll export and render the scenes from Photoshop CS6 and import all of the animation onto Sony Vegas Pro 13, where I’ll do the editing and compositing the animation by giving sound effects, video effects and music to bring more life into the animation. After the editing production is finished, I render the final animation in 1080p HD resolution, resulting my final outcome.