CI Graphic Art Blog @jgladcollegeblog - Tumblr Blog

Paper Wallk Cycle

When I found out that we were doing walk cycles I got pretty worried as I have struggled with them a lot in the past. Going through this step by step really helped me get the general idea of the placment of the key frames and inbetweens.

It was a lot to take in all at once remembering the order of the frames and positions. Though I am pleased with the outcome and happy with the rhythm of the walk. There is a point where the characters back stretches down a bit to far, though I enjoy the way it addeds a bounce to the characters walk. Creating a ‘calm’ or ‘chilled’ persona to the character.

I’m going to uses this animation as a reference for my walk cycle in TV Paint to fix the finer movements of my character. In particular the positioning of the arms and the arc of the arms.

Scribble Animation

A late uploads from a little while ago, where I was experimenting with digital animation using Adobe Photoshop. I planned to try and make the characters in the animation look as if they were mad up of scribbles or like a wire frame. I did this by screen shoting a frame every 0.2 seconds which I then put into Photoshop. Where I drew over the top of each frame outlining the bodies of the two skateboarders.

At the time this was the only way I knew how to animate as I hadn’t explored any other processes at the time, essentially getting into how animation works. Learning the basic using very limited techniques which were mainly in Photoshop.

I made this to show my first example of how I see skateboarding and skateboarders using visuals. This was just a test run to see how it worked and if it would work at all. As well as getting feedback on how I could improve it.

Nothing really stimulated my approach to doing this it was more of a self inspired idea seeing what the limitations were of screen shoting frames from a video to then animate over the top of, hoping to find an alternative way of doing it.

A problem that I had with this was the amount of time it took to do as I first had screen shot about 40 frames 1 every 0.2 second which then had to be put into Photoshop. where I then had to draw over the top of each one, then put into order using the animation tab. Just to make 10 seconds of animation. I knew that animation would take time but this was just a bit to much. So I needed to find something which allows me to manage my time effectively.

So from there I decided to look at different ways I could create animations looking at a variety of ways to speed up the production of animations.

This music video by Sebastien Tellier shows the journey of a girl walking though many different settings changing as she walks through them. Not only does the background change and evolve around her but she also changes and transforms in the animation. It primarily focuses around the females bottom half of the body constantly walking evolving and devolving as the video goes on, from clothing, grass, bones etc.

What interested me the most was the simplicity of the walk cycle as its just constantly looping with slight changes every now and again. This interested me as it made me think about how I could make something similar to this. But more closely related to the context of my brief, maybe looking and a skateboarding cycle.

In my work I’ve mainly looked at evolving and changing the foreground leaving the background blank. This music video has made me thing about what I could animate in the background. Looking at the idea of there being scenery or a background which the centre of the animation moves through. Much like when I experimented with the green screen.

I can only assume that the animator of this video recorded the walk cycle of a female then redrew this within a program looping her walking, then adding the changes and background afterwards. This would be the way that I would go about creating this animation.

This has made me consider not only how I could animate the foreground but also how I can use the background to emphasise and connect it to the foreground.

Links:

http://www.creativebloq.com/animation/best-animated-music-videos-912838/2

#vimeo

Green Screen

After experimenting with a range of animation techniques I thought about how I could primarily animate people. Not animating over the top of footage but actually directing people to create a stop motion animation. As my project is semi based around skateboarding I want to make a stop motion animation of a peer acting out the motion of pushing on a skateboard.

I wanted to do this as it doesn’t come fully under hand rendered or digital processes as I’m looking at using people them selves to create animations, similar to a performance or using puppets. Except from this will look less smooth and will be a bit more irregular. Taking into account having to balance on the board remembering what the last pose was as well as trying to stay perfectly still. There was bound to be judders and slight spikes where the subject has moved either too quickly or has missed a step of the pushing cycle.

These were the main problems I had when doing this, after making the animation with a peers I wanted to try and be the model to see the difficulties of it, also to see if I could make a more dramatic push giving the animation more energy. Pushing on a board is second nature to me I found it so hard pretending to push on a stationary skateboard. I had to think about what I was going to do next unsure if it was the right position. Which I found really strange as it’s something I do almost daily.

The closes thing I could link this to is when I was animating over the top of footage. But I prefer this process so much more, using a room as an area to animate in actively being a part of my animation, exploring this technique using myself as a medium.

This directly links to the context of my brief attempting to reanimate skateboarding, and this is a primary example of this looking at how I can represent skateboarding through a diversity of animation processes.

After capturing this I put the footage into Abobe Premier and put printed texture I made behind me in the animation to act as a city scene, then made the texture in the background scroll as I pushed giving to illusion of movement. As if I was moving through a street. This took a bit of time to figure out as I still wasn’t fully confident with Premier so with the advise from tutors I managed to succeed in the end.

When showing it to an audience they saw it as comedic, as they were not expecting to see me to be a part of the animation. I think the crudeness of the animation makes it comedic as it looks as if I’m struggling to move, slowly moving along.

The limits were that I couldn’t do anything beyond the view of the camera with only slight movements so that the camera could capture them. So jumping and moving around wasn’t really possible. If I was recording rather that making a stop motion animation I could but videoing would make the experiment completely pointless avoiding animation completely. But with what I could put in the background there wasn’t many limitations at all I could of put anything behind the animation from photography to sketches etc.

Researching green screens gave me an idea of whats possible with them and what I could create using them. I just scratched the surface of it would definitely want to look deeper into it. But due to the amount of time I have left I wont have much more time to experiment with this process which is a shame.

Next I’m going to using this for my final video editing it into the footage I already have. Seeing how I could fit it into the edit, looking at whats the most effective.

The Cribs- Mirror Kissers

Looking for more inspiration I decided to research old and animated music videos to see the processes they used at the time, and how different it is to more modern animated music videos such as Tame Impala.

While searching through lists of songs I saw this video, Mirror Kissers by The Cribs. The video features scribbles, doodles and hand rendered textures which look as if they have been drawn over the top of the footage itself, similar to animations I’ve done before where I used many different materials for one animation (Paper Animation- https://vimeo.com/166777797).

The music video was shot on a plain white background, essentially acting as a blank canvas ready to be drawn on. The hole video had over 2740 frames which were photocopied and printed, then being edited back together. I feel this gives a naive look to the video was if it was made in a few minutes, where as in reality it took much longer.

As for the materials they used it looks like they used everyday stationary for the most part such as highlighters, black pens, coloured pencils etc. Adding to the idea of the animation being naive and childish. The videos style reminds me of Hattie Stewarts process of drawing directly onto the image with different materials manipulating the people in the picture.

If I was to experiment more with the paper animations I did I’d like to try to make much longer animations to see if I could achieve a similar effect to this music video. Maybe considering sound and how it could effect the animation, such as the speed, tempo, movement etc. At the same time I’ve learnt that to create 3 minutes of animation would require a lot of care and time taking into account that the ‘Mirror Kissers’ video had 2740 frames, but this could vary depending on the amount of animation I did.

Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzqZborBWtA

Making Visuals with Sound

After researching TraceLoops I wanted to look at other processes that he’s explored, this is where I came across his oscilloscope drawings. To begin with I didn’t think these drawings were made on the oscilloscope, as I had no idea that it was possible to do. The images on the oscilloscope are made with sound, and different wavelengths change the lines on the screen meaning if you change the wavelengths in a certain way you can create either still images, or looped animations with sound.

I thought that it would be interesting to try an use sound to reanimate skateboarding using sound to make animations. So I started looking at ways that I could create visuals with sound, searching possible ways to turn sound into something that can be seen.

Then I came across a video on Youtube which uses a laser pointer to visualise sound. Using a tin can with both sides removed and with a balloon stretched over one side, with a small mirror on it. Then sound so put through the back of the can which makes the balloon on the can vibrate moving the mirror at different angles reacting to the sound push against the balloon. So if you have a laser pointer aiming at the mirror on the balloon the light with be reflected then would move according to how the bass and pitch change. Essentially showing a 2D representation of acoustic waves on the wall in front of the mirror. Depending on the sound a variety of patterns are made.

So I decide to experiment with this to see first hand how it worked. First putting together the can, I isolated a room from light then put sound through the back of it using a speaker. Starting by using a Stylophone playing single notes at a time, it wasn’t as effect as I hoped it would of been but I think it’s due to the volume of the speaker. At the time I only had a little speaker to hand, where as in the video I saw on Youtube the guy had an amp pumping sound into the back of the can. So if I had this equipment to hand it should of had a similar result. It still worked we but just not on the same scale as the original video that inspired me.

Thinking about what I had to work with I thought would there be a difference if I played more than single notes through the speaker so I put songs on hoping that the constantly changing pitch would effect the shape of the and size of the acoustic waves. Flicking through a variety of music genres seeing how they each reacted on the wall. I found that songs with a lot of drums and bass effected the movement of the laser more than anything else, but the size of the wavelengths was still a bit disappointing.

At this point I know that the only way I could increase the size of them was to use something which could push more sound through the speaker. I went to pack it up and when I moved the can I noticed that on the wall that it moved very franticly. Then I realised tapping the can distresses the balloon moving the mirror a lot more than the speaker ever did. I think it’s because I directly impacted the can making it vibrate and move more than the sound could do by just playing into the tube. This made me think about trying to use the can similar to a percussion instrument taping or hitting it in different way to make different visuals with the laser pen. It creates larger acoustic waves but they weren't constant as the impact isn’t constant like a note is restricting the duration of the visual, where as a note would be constant.

It would interesting to see if I could use the sound of skateboarding to try and create visuals with the laser pen making a direct like between skateboarding and perceivable graphics. I would have to record the sound and play it through an amp for it to have a big impact otherwise it would be like the experiments I’ve already done, very small scale. So it would depend on if I could get the equipment to do so.

Though it was small scale it got a good react from peers as they were fascinated by how the patterns of light change on the wall and wanted to also see what effected the movement of the laser. Even without them even saying anything to me the feedback was positive as they were automatically engaged by the movement of the light.

A definite limit of this experiment was the size of the wavelength but for the future I know that the size can be increased I just need a more powerful speaker to do so. I feel the potentials are huge depending on the how I use this process. I could set multiple cans and lasers to see how they react over each other how the sizes would be effected how I could change the sizes through out etc. There’s so much to explore but it’s just a matter of time, space and money.

I think overall the experiment went really well as I was able to test and see what effected the light the most or if it was effected in any certain was showing the advantages and disadvantages to each process I tried. Allowing me to have a more direct approach in the future as I have more understanding of how I can manipulate light and sound. My results may have not been the same as the video that inspired me but I feel like I have learnt more with trial and error to create successful graphics with light and sound. There are alternative ways that I could visualise sound but I don’t have the things I would need to create them.

If I have the time to I’d like to see if I could look at any other processes to translate sound to light, or maybe light to skateboarding in general.

Links:

https://academo.org/demos/virtual-oscilloscope/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxzMzSZF_b4

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCrojSyELz_/?taken-by=traceloops

Experiments After Researching Traceloops

After looking at Matthias Brown I wanted to try creating my own looped animation in his style. I still wasn’t completely sure what his processes were at the time so I just guessed how he made his work. The reason why I wanted to try to create something similar to Matthias Brown’s work is to try and understand the processes he uses and find the easiest way of doing it, so that in the future these processes will come more naturally. I’ve never made a looped animation using non digital materials before so I found it quite hard to begin as I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was right.

As soon as I was about to start I realised that I couldn’t just go straight in with ink as I wouldn't be able to then trace over it on the light box as it would still be wet and smudge the ink as well as get ink on the paper that I’d use to trace. So I had to sketch each frame up first in pencil just to mark the general areas where the ink would be. It took a while to do as I had to try to figure out how I’d make it go back to the first frame. But once I had all the frames drawn up ready it was just a case of going back over the lines in ink.

The was no real technique to it I was just following the pencil on the page essentially tracing back over the lines. At the time I was limited with the supply's I had so all I had was a thick paint brush, so when the drawing shrinks down to just a line it was hard to try and keep the line thin with such a big brush. To get the line thinner I used the edge of the brush to cut down the size of the brush and to leave more negative space on the page, as if the black line was to thick it would make the page look crowded and it would over power the the background.

This was a first for me working in this way having to line the animation first before painting over with ink. I was worried with how it would work and wasn’t to confident with what the out come would be. The only similar thing I’ve done is make the “Paper Animation” but that’s was with water colours so I didn’’t have an issue with the paint drying. But with the “Paper Animation” I had screenshots to guide me when animating on the light box. Where as here all I had was the previous drawings, so I really had to take into account the movement of the animation, making sure it didn’t drift off and that it stayed centred so that it would loop.

The reason for me wanting to make this animation in the first place was to try to achieve smooth fluent lines using hand rendered processes. In the past where I’ve made animations I’ve used pen or pencil, they look relatively smooth and clean but it still wasn’t and clean as I wanted it to be, and when I saw Matthias Brown’s work I wanted to create the same effect as he does with his work displaying such simple loops with clarity.

I feel as though I was able to create smooth flowing lines within the loop, but I don’t think I made it fully clear what was on the page. Now that I know that I can make fluent lines I can create something which is clear and easy to identify, instead of being a mess of lines.

With the materials and processes there’s not a limit to what you can do or what you want to animate more so on how quickly you can work. That’s one of the things that I really had trouble with, that’s why I was worried about the out come I didn’t want to spend all that time making it for it not to work. The other limit being the space I had in the studio, just because I’m inking pages of paper one after the other which I then needed to spread out to dry. Considering there’s about 40 odd pieces of paper I was taking up a lot of room in an area where other people work as well.

At the end of it the doing the process was more important than the material outcome as I wanted to experiment to see if I could work in that particular style meaning I could always recreate something else if I didn’t like my outcome, even though I consider the process to be more important than the outcome I’m really pleased with how it came out, mainly with how the lines move on the loop.

Experimenting with these processes has taught me where the best point to loop an animation is, how I can make them easier using abstracted shapes so there’s no solid structure to the drawing. To develop this further I’d draw and loop something more relevant to my project relating it skateboarding. Next I want to look into Traceloops more to see the other materials and process he’s used to inspire my own work.

Links: http://traceloops.tumblr.com/

Context...

Why animation and why relate it to skateboarding?

The reason I wanted to explore animation during the FMP is because in previous projects where I have experimented with animation I've found it engaging and interesting to do, as there’s so much to explore in it. But in past projects I’ve only scratched the surface of it and didn’t really look deeper into animation, looking at different processes and how they could effect animation.

I feel that animation and skateboarding can go hand in hand was they’re both focused around movement and making something static mobile whether its a plank of wood or a line on a page, they both have the potential to create something visually interesting. Also features of skateboarding can be expressed through animation, such as the fluidity of skateboarding. The animation doesn’t strictly have to be someone on a skateboard it could be a solid line which flows the movement of a skater, to represent the speed, direction or the obstacles they’re overcoming.

Animation is a big part of everyday life, now a days it’s hard to get away from. For example TV there are so many channels which only air animated cartoons, “Cartoon Network” being quite a popular channel for kids with shows like “Adventure Time” or “Looney Toons”. Then on the other end of the age group there’s “Adult Swim” and “Comedy Central” which air more inappropriate animated cartoons like “Family Guy” or South Park” which are for more mature age groups.

This is the same online and even in video games, so I need to look at how my animations effect people and who specifically it effects. To pin point the audience that I’m hitting with my current work. Then from the feedback I get I can look at how I can expand my audience with my next animation, changing aspects of it to reach other age groups.

The reason why I didn’t choose any over traditional way to capture skating is because that’s all been done before and I just don’t think it would interest anyone other than skaters, which limits my audience. Where as with animation I’m not just aiming at one audience as animation is very universal and has the potential to reach such a large audience it just depends upon what I decide to animate that is what will really effect it.

Currently I don’t think that everything I’m animating is completely relevant to the context it’s more so me experimenting and getting carried away with looking at different ways of animating. Getting lost in just creating them rather than linking them back to the context and proposal. As the deadline has been getting closer I have realised this more and I’m going to start using though’s previous experiment which weren't completely relevant before to start creating more skilled animations which will link back to the context.

To help push my techniques and skills in animation I’m going to research films and documentaries which feature either skateboarding or animation, to see how they create and present their work compared to to how I present my work. Looking at the differences between mine and their work and what could take from them?

TraceLoops

I found TraceLoops (Matthias Brown)on Tumblr while writing on my blog, the one thing which made me want to look further into his experiments with tracing was a loop of a face ripping apart then being stuck back together again. This completely fascinated me because at the time I had know idea how it was done, if it was digital or hand made I had no idea.

Looking further into his work I saw the large variety of different looped animations, and when I found out how he did it wanted to try it myself. All Matthias Brown does is simply use tracing paper as a way of seeing what he did in the last frame to see what he needs to change and do for the next frame.

In a way his work is similar to the work I’ve been doing recently as I’ve been making animations by tracing pieces of paper on the light box. But the difference being my animations eventually come to an end where as Matthias Brown’s could go on forever as they contentiously loop. This made me want to try to create a looped animation looking at his style and the how I can loop my own style of drawing.

What inspires me is how how his animations can go on forever that’s what really interests me in his work, looking at how he makes them go on forever, what happens during the animation and how could I get the smoothness he gets with his lines.

I think creating loops with in my work could be a good way of reaching a wider audience, if the style was as basic as Matthias Browns I feel it could reach a more diverse amount of people as it has the comedy of the loop repeating which could reach younger audiences, as well as having the clean professional look which could reach older ages due to the drawing style and finish of the animation.

It would be interesting to try and animate skateboarding in this art style as it’s very fluid which I could relate to the fluidity of skateboarding. To show the movements of skateboarding with these unrestricted lines. I’m going to look at trying to create looped animations with less structure within the draws themselves.

Links: http://traceloops.tumblr.com/

Paper Animation 2- Ink

A late upload from when I first started animating on paper, after making a skateboarding animation on paper using a range of media I thought it was interesting that I had shown many types of media in one animation but at the same time its very hard to appreciate each one as they come and go so quickly. So I made this animation to see how it would look in one media. The processes was the same as the last time, still using the light box to trace the screenshots from the footage.

Much like last time I had trouble with using ink when animating with the light box was I couldn’t simply just trace over it again I had to wait for it to dry before I started the next frame. So though it wasn’t exactly difficult it was a very long process because of the ink.

I essentially made this animation to show what the other possible outcome would of been if I didn’t use multiple materials. Seeing how it would be different from the previous animation, whether it looks better? If it was easier? or the other way around.

Once I had finished the animation the outcome came out quite well, I like how there's no sudden changes in the animation. It made it so much easier to look at as I didn’t have to keep readjusting to what’s on the screen where as with this you can easily process what’s happening.

With there only being one material used it also puts what’s happening on the screen before what the image on the screen is made from focusing on the skateboarder in the animation. Recently I’ve been just animating not thinking about the context of my brief or the reason for me animating in the first place. I need to try to keep the context in mind as well as the word “Reanimate”. Reanimating skateboarding to visualise how I see skateboarding and how I can represent it.

I want to relate my experiments closer to my original context and not just animating because I can, though the experiments I’ve done have really helped me progress within animation I now need to start putting the skills I’ve developed into practice when animating skateboarding itself whether I base it off footage or I freehand draw a scenario.

#Vimeo

Audience

what audience would I currently be hitting ask peers what they think to back up my thoughts consider what audience I want to hit or could I push to expand my audience wider that just a certain group or age range. consider what modern and past animations and cartoons age ranges were how did they achieve it? what did they do .

If I was to say what my target audience was, I’d say teens to young adults as that’s the age range which is more likely to be involved in skateboarding. The reason why I’ve chosen this age range for my audience is because, they come from a similar background to me meaning I can relate to them better to than maybe a 50 or 60 year old. As they’re either in high school or are in college. So the difference in age isn’t that much to my own. Also at that age they understand more than what kid would as they've developed and have matured.

When I’ve shown my recent animations to peers in class I’ve asked what they think the audience is and what age range would it suit? Most said that they think the age range would be around 11 to 14 year old, due to the style of animation as it’s playful and very basic. They said that the only reason the age range would be up to 14 is when one of the animations had a gun come onto it. But because of the little detail it looked like more of a toy so it wasn’t to bad for that age group.

Where as if I was to do more detailed drawings of things such as a weapon or other explicit things the age range would then bump up similar to a video game. So I could look at video games age ratings for inspiration on how they rate games and see if I can use it to reach my chosen age range.

It’s good to know that I can interact with other audiences with my animations and if anything I’d like to impact the majority than just one specific group. A website I found talks about target audiences of animations in general, this one uses “Up” as an example. They talk about how animations are primarily aimed at children as the visuals are simple and the story is easy to follow along side basic characters. Although they reach children they can also reach an older audience by putting serious and sometimes sad story with the movie, which the adults can understand and be interested in while kids can enjoy the humour which goes along side it. The page also mentions that “Animations try to please all audiences” this has helped me think about what makes an animation suitable for certain age ranges and how I could expand my current audience.

One animation which I think caters for a very wide audience is “Adventure Time”, as the visuals are very soft and plush but sometimes the plot is very dark or can have a deeper meaning which only adults may understand. There are also a lot of weapons in “Adventure Time” ranging from swords to crossbows and even guns, but I feel they design them in such a way that they’re still not to realistic and there’s little gore around the weapons.

I’m going to look further into cartoons and animated movies and see the target audiences I think they aim for, as well as look at what audience they were actually aiming for. Hopefully this will give me an understanding of how I could either increase or decrease the age range of my animations, in order to reach a wider audience.

Resource Links:

http://colligateanimation2.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/target-audience.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/adventuretime/comments/11g830/adventure_times_demographic/

Notes.

What audience would I currently be hitting ask peers.

What they think to back up my thoughts consider what audience I want to hit or could I push to expand my audience wider that just a certain group or age range.

Consider what modern and past animations and cartoons age ranges were how did they achieve it? what did they do?

Look Up:

cartoons to reference

adventure time

regular show

other possible disney movies (look into)

Lightbox: Grey Experimentation

After making my light box all I wanted to do was try to animate using it. So instantly I started cutting any paper in the area then began drawing. I wanted to try and use the same processes and ideals of Mike O’Shea to try to create animations similar to his work. So I started by having no plan or direction for it, allowing me to think on the spot, improvising and drawing anything at random. Just expressing myself and having fun with what I was drawing.

I did this as like Mike O’shea’s style of work, I wanted my work to be more raw and natural letting my body take over, instead of over thinking what was going to happen next. Hopefully from this I’ll get more into doodling and not caring about what I draw if they’re good or bad, I want my drawings to express me.

To make the animation I used the light box that I made and pen that’s all that I needed, using the light box the give the effect of an onion skin allowing me to see the last frame so that I can draw and edit around what I did last. It’s similar to when I made the “Paper Animation” as it’s essentially tracing what was on the last frame but instead of having a photo out of footage to go by I have to go by the structure of whatever I drew last.

I found this extremely fun just drawing ridiculous abstract, characters, objects and shapes. I didn’t want to stop drawing but at the same time photographing them all would be an even bigger job and I really didn’t want to photograph more than I could handle.

When I showed my peers the animation they were confused at first due to the animations shape shifting changing from one thing to another. But by the end of it I got a lot of positive feedback on it. One peer said “The animation itself is amazing and you have the speed perfect, but the one think that would improve it would be to crop the frames so it focuses on the frames with no distractions.”

To animate this I just used an app on my phone to capture, whereas Mike O’Shea scans in every frame goes over the lines in Photoshop to finalise the drawings then animates them in Photoshop lining them up as he goes. To work to a higher stander of animating I want to also scan them in and perfect them into Photoshop, going back over the lines and animate it. I feel this will give the animation a more professional look compared to something that was just thrown together, and i’ll be responding to what my peers have recommended.

The process involved I think was just as important to the material outcome, I enjoyed both of them and they challenged me to think about how I could make the animation effective and interesting for the audience (peers) to watch. Looking at what parts stimulate peers the most what and what they found the most interesting about the animation as a hole. The initial process helped me make the outcome, now that outcome will be fuel for what I create next. Narrowing down what is effective and what interest’s people about my animations.

For the next animation I make I want to get a wider range of feedback maybe seeing what other age groups think about them or maybe ask more academic people what they think. To see what people with little experience in arts think about it.

#Vimeo

Rotation & 3D

When I first started animation at the beginning of the project I was worried about how I could make things move, how I could animate, or what I should even animate. But over time it’s slowly came to me naturally, but one thing that I still need to get the hang of is trying to rotate or show different angles and perspectives of an object on the frame.

Yesterday when staying later I made an animation with the light box but at one point I wanted to turn a bullet towards the person looking at the animation, making it look like the the camera was panning round to them. I got stuck at this point for so long trying to figure out what it would like like in the next frame and how it would would look at them angles. In the end to gauge an idea of how it would look I used a pen to see the different perspectives then relate it back to the drawing.

So to practice this I drew a hand and tried to rotate it in my sketch book keeping the angles and scale in mind, as I thought it would help my skills in animation progress allowing me to produce work faster and to a higher quality. To draw the hand I used acrylic paint watered down so it was still loose and easy to work with, rather than acrylic on its own which is to thick and heavy to work with on such a small scale.

I’ve made similar animations in the past where I move around the object but not as direct as this will be as it completely focuses at perspective. I struggled with it at first because I didn’t know how to draw the right angles, in my head I knew what to draw it was just hard trying to translate that onto paper. As I got the hang of it I could slowly see the motion of it and how it would look, which got me more into it as I was interested to see how it came out.

Once I turned it into a stop motion animation I asked a peer how it looked and if they could see what was happening. They recommended copying and pasting it again backwards to create a loop, making it easier to identify what the animation was as it was a bit short before.

The only thing that limited the length on the animation was because it was made in my sketchbook there were only so many pages before the pages were already taken by other experiments. But if I was to do it outside of my book I could kept it going for quite a while easily, but I was only playing around with angles and rotation so it would have been unnecessary.

Making this animation has made me had to take into consideration the length of an animation, to allow the audience to fully identify what’s on the screen and if they could understand what it was. As well as helping me develop my skills in general with animation looking at breaking out of 2D flat animations by looking at showing more than one face of an object.

To push this experimentation further I would make a cleaner and smoother, drawing more frames to make it flow more fluid, showing different angles of an object much alike this animation. Now I’ll try to put what I've learnt into practice to improve my animations whether its digital or hand rendered.

Video link: https://vimeo.com/167084050

Light box part 4

I found this weekend project very useful as it allowed me to experiment and and use different processes. Such as using a variety of power tools, learning the techniques and the best and most efficient way of using them. But the tools were fairly easy to use regardless.

The part that mattered above all was the measurements, the measurements were probably the hardest part of making the light box as if certain ones were wrong it would of effected how it would of came out making possible design errors. So every time I measured something I’d always double checked that it was the right size and the same for when I was marking.

Now using this light box I plan to create a range of animations taking inspiration from the Lightbox: Grey skate edit.

Light box part 3

When the wood hold the light was in place that gave me a guide to cut out the hole for the torch to slot in. To measure the hole out I measured the height and width of the largest part of the light then went up a centimetre to make it easier for the light to fit through.

Testing how the parts measured up on the box I found that the plastic was slightly to short to cover the height of the box, which was an issue as I didn’t have any more sheets of plastic. So my Dad suggested putting some wood along the top of the box, which the plastic could then be screwed into as well as giving the plastic extra support for when I lean on it when drawing, so it didn’t bend inwards.

Then at that point it was pretty much finished but considering it was just made out of wood, I was worried that it could still be splintery. To blunt the parts that were I gave the hold box a couple of layers of paint to semi smooth over the wood. All that was left to do was to put the sheet of plastic over the top of the box.

Light box part 2

Once I got the measurements I cut the box just high enough so that the LED light can easily slide in and out of the box so it can be turned of and on, and be taken out to charge. Also I’d like to be able to move it around without needing a wire attached to it constantly. This allows me to be able to to do work anywhere rather than having to stay in one area.

Using the light as a way of giving me a rough idea of where the middle is going to be, so I can make the hole in the side so that the light can slide in and out. But then I realised that the light needed to be held in the box so that it doesn’t roll around if it was moved. Thinking about what to use to hold the light I thought Kindling would be the best for it was it’s already about the right width, and there’s plenty of it, all I’d have to do is cut it to length to fit the box.

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