K_Gill_Animation- year3

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Feedback on portfolio:

For my background I have allot of higher above angles and none really from a persons perspective or lower down (the same with my animation just bring the camera down more.)

I have a very painterly style but in reality that takes too long and isnt efficient especially for the industry, so practice using textures instead and stamps to overlay textures while keeping it as simple as possible to get across what is needed. 

practice working with perspective grids more as there are obvious issues in the lines for some of my work on my portfolio and also don't line everything, not necessary play around with no lines and just doing a little .

The skeleton one should just be take out- (or re-do it with better skills now?)

I have nice lighting style and colour schemes but using  https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel could really help me

start looking into runner roles as a foot in the door then hopefully work way up from there, Helen is from Locksmith studio whom gave me this feedback.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

finished title card and artbook pages

[k-gill-animation-year3]

title cards for grad fest

We found out we need to make some title cards to go before our films at screening for grad fest, All that is required is we have our name, and title of piece but from there we really have full creative control. My first idea is to look at adventure times title cards, they always have such creative ones that are never like how you thought the episode would go at first but makes perfect sense after, always the art style is always super unique and detailed, with how little time left to submission there is doing a really detailed one just isn't feasible, so I’m going to plan out a sketchy version then take it from there depending on the deadline and how much work I still have left.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Individual tutorial with Jon 11/5/22

Today I had my Individual tutorial With Jon. I sent him my updated animation for some feedback on the overall thing and he said he thinks the initial zoom in is too fast, so thats a good point especially considering how detailed the background is, it doesn't give you much time to process. He also said for the first transition in with the light it’s a bit too muddy especially if its supposed to represent some kind of angelic light. One constant thing that kept coming up was the camera movements as they feel very mechanical in the way the keep stopping and starting, not having much flow between. I should also have the fade last longer when the worker is picking up the doughnut from the service window as its quick and doesn't allot for much time of understanding.

For the credits Jon said the pale backgrounds behind them made it feel incomplete or temporary, which is a good point and I’m going to look into different ways other ad’s/ animations display their credits. Also another good point of feedback is having the credits in the boxes with space around the edges and to make sure its within the title safe guidelines, which I didn’t know how to activate on my after effects so Jon sent me the link to both TV paint and after effects.

https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index.php?id=lesson-first-steps-guides-safe-area

https://www.editvideofaster.com/after-effects-title-action-safe/#:~:text=At%20the%20bottom%20of%20the,show%20or%20hide%20these%20guides.

He also said he could obviously give me feedback on the animation itself but as I’m this far along in my process with so little time left, I’m just going to focus on tidying things up and maybe if I have time adding shading and smaller details.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

business card designs

I decided to also design some business cards for printing as they're great for in person networking..

This is my favourite out of the two and here's the other one..

[k-gill-animation-year3]

personal showcase update

this is a WIP of the rough colour scheme..

Then i added shading and played around with the HUe/ saturation a couple of times but decided to go with the original..

Then I added more shading and highlights for added depth with a different brush..

This is the final version of it being sunny and the one below is the night version..

[k-gill-animation-year3]

career planning research 3

A more entry level job to get into background designs is as a background painter so I’ve been looking at some job openings for that and seeing what skills they require and I need to build on. 

https://careers.viacomcbs.com/Nickelodeon%20Animation/job/Burbank-BACKGROUND-PAINTER-CA-91502/742783200/

In this job advert you must be able to demonstrate proficiency in the style of the show, strong knowledge of colour theory and lighting, willingness to learn applicable colour software, strong time management and works well under pressure. 

http://braintreehouse.com/jobs/2d-background-painter.html

This is another job advert for background painter and again, you need strong understanding of light, shadow, colour, form and composition. Not to mention perspective and strong illustration skills.

https://www.relianceanimation.com/careers.php

This job advert is for a background and layout artist and requires the ability to design background and layouts inside of Photoshop and to draw/paint for the final animation, strong critical thinking and problem solving and strong attention to detail.

The main thing all of these jobs have in common is the fact you need to be able to understand colour theory, lighting, composition and perspective. Honestly these are all things I still need to work on but am practicing these all in my personal showcase along with my FMP.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

career planning research 2

https://www.therookies.co/contests/groups/rookie-awards-2022/rules

The rookies awards is an online contest for beginner artists trying to get into the industry with a huge range of categories for submission this seems like a really great opportunity, the final deadlines on the 1st June 2022 and even if you don't win any awards based off your work all entrants will receive an official Rookie Awards ranking certificate which will look good on job applications. At the moment I plan on submitting some of my personal showcase to the Rookies as I should have enough time to create something I’m really pleased with to see how far it’ll go.

http://www.tomclohosycole.co.uk/

Tom Clohosy Cole is an illustrator who's had lots of big clients and does some great environment designs, the link above is to his portfolio, he has a very clear style to his work and can clearly has a range of different skills as his portfolio shows such  broad diversity. From looking at his websites, Instagram, other online profiles I can clearly see that not only can he do beautiful environment designs but can also do more marketing work such as logo designs, composition planning and very good striking visual style in each piece of work.

https://febinraj.dribbble.com/

Febin_Raj is another artist who has a very unique art style and it shows in all of his pieces. 

http://backgroundart.net/art.html

Greg Bartlett is a 2D background and layout artist exactly how I’d like to be and he has worked on some great projects such as rick and morty, final space, and many more. Unlike the other portfolio's I’ve been looking at his styles for the works he's put on his portfolios are all extremely different showing a huge range of abilities and styles, after seeing his and also a post he's done on LinkedIn about creating a portfolio for background design I really want to have a range of background types, and styles on my portfolio once I’m done. A great example is having both lined and none lined background designs. Also another thing he reiterates is the importance of perspective which admittedly is something I do struggle with but am practicing more with different perspectives. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-make-perfect-background-art-portfolio-greg-bartlett

Looking at my portfolio in comparison to the ones I have been looking at, it needs allot of work. I need to update the pieces that are on their and also add more background works, hopefully the stuff I’m working on for my personal showcase will bulk it out more as well. 

[k-gill-animation-year3]

career planning research

https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/animation/pre-production/background-designer/

I want to be a background designer for animations and games, so I started looking into the background designer role. In the animation pipeline the background designer typically starts working after a rough storyboard has been created which the background designers can then work off.

For background designers they need high levels of technical skills to be able to make varied backgrounds with strong attention to detail and clear understanding of form, colour, texture and light. It’s also important to understand architecture and good understanding of both city scapes and countryside.

https://www.screenskills.com/starting-your-career/building-your-portfolio/build-your-animation-portfolio/

unlike other animation roles this can be an entry level job or something you have to work your way up to, depending on the job your applying for, a good entry level job is as a background painter to then work your way up to background designer, but the most important thing is to have a good portfolio showing very strong drawing skills and creativity.

https://www.animationuk.org/directory/

https://careers.blue-zoo.co.uk/vacancies/457/visual-development-artist.html

For more specific jobs within the games industry environment artists create the spaces for games, often its started with 2D art created by a concept artist and then from that turned into 3D environments. As I am only interested in the design side of it I’m more interested in the role of concept artist.

https://www.screenskills.com/information-and-resources/#/?q=&industries=Games&careerstages=&types=Information&subjects=Job%20boards&pageindex=1

https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/games/art/concept-artist-games/

Concept artists are the first to draw up background designs, characters, props, anything needed really. I’d love to specialize in concept artist for backgrounds but getting into that as a job means you need to start in other areas in the games industry first as its not really an entry level job, although some companies have junior concept artists roles but you need the core skills before they will take you on regardless.

https://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/how-to-become-a-video-game-concept-artist/

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Personal showcase sketches

After working on the thumbnail designs I started sketching out some of the houses in some more detail while referring back to my Pinterest board and some images I put on the composition for reference.

These are some of the buildings from my thumbnails in a bit more detail and then I finalised my big background design...

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Personal showcase start

I really didn't know where to start for this personal project so I just started looking for inspiration off Pinterest of things I like. I know I wanted to do a series of background designs for this project but since then I’ve changed it to making my own little town and coming up with concept sheets for the buildings and props.

I first made a mood board of reference images. New Orleans and the Bayous is a huge inspiration for this project, I love the design of the houses that are on the swamps so I collected a range of different images representing this...

I then started making some thumbnails of a small fishing town on the Bayou while referring back to the moodboard....

The biggest ones are the ones I’m going to develop further into the final background design, along side this piece I plan on having concept sheets for the buildings I’m designing and any other objects similar to how these drawings do...

Plus it will be great to add to my portfolio to show the development and amount of planning gone into the big background design.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Individual tutorial

Today I had my individual tutorial with Jon, the main focus was on the career development work and my personal showcase.

I honestly haven't even thought about that side of things just yet, I feel incredibly overwhelmed with just my FMP right now so all that on top as well is just allot. Talking things out with Jon helped to ease my mind a bit with regards to the personal showcase as thats another project on top of my FMP. Thinking about it I’m not going to animate anything for it but do some background designs and development instead as a little project as thats the side of the industry I’d like to get into anyways.

For the showcase I’m going to try and develop my technical background skills and that will be the main point of it, Jon sent some helpful links to artists that play around with this side of things such as...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbz1IT_Xizk

and also some screen skills links for the jobs side of the career plan. I’m going to look into job roles and what they require so I can try to build up those skills while doing my personal showcase.

Something I do enjoy doing is shoebox rooms so keeping with a similar theme I think I want to create a series of 2D dioramas that are linked somehow. And for inspiration based on these I can look into visual development artists as its similar to what I’d like to do.

https://www.artstation.com/search?sort_by=relevance&query=vis%20dev

https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/animation/pre-production/background-designer/

Jon also showed my this 30 day art challenge thats happening in April which is a good idea for the showcase or to boost up my portfolio more..

https://www.warriorpainters.com/pleinairpril

Also suggested that I do daily studies as just small thumbnails playing with composition, lighting etc which is a good idea to build up from aswell.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Birth WIP update

After the feedback from Jon the other day on how easy the birth looks compared to the voice acting I have in particular I wanted to edit the timing a bit more so it has more resistance and looks allot more painful so I changed the timings a bit on certain keyframes so hopefully it looks like it takes more effort now.

I’m just waiting to hear back from Jon on the updated version before going any further, but also I’m hoping that when I add the layers for the blood and other bodily fluids it will add more horror to it.

I’ve been watching allot of birth videos from this site thats been really helpful for reference footage..

https://www.babycenter.com/video/live-birth

I also added in some slight leg movements for when she's pushing and contracting with the pain her legs will just be naturally moving along so I added some basic leg movements to it and I think its slowly bringing it together.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Doughnut sparkle V2

at the moment this is the final version of the doughnut sparkle and this one moves allot more than the last, this way i also wont need to zoom in on the doughnuts as the sparkle directs the viewers eyes over all of them.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Sparkle reaserch

After doing the doughnuts sparkles really quickly the other day in TV paint, I want to do the final the same way but I need more reference images and also how they would appear.

I found this GIF online that has the stages of each sparkle aswell which is really useful..

The fairy godmothers wand from Cinderella is a great example..

The sparkles are allot smaller but concentrated in mass and also has direction to them. I’m going to try and stylize mine the same buy having them appear and like an S shape so its not just totally random.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Updated front of the doughnut shop

This is what the front looks like now after making some changes based on the feedback I got the other day, I changed the line work to edit the perspective slightly so that now hopefully the eyeline is correct and I also re-did the doors opening at a different angle that makes more sense.

I added the purple hues in the sky more and to the shadows to really tie it in with the city  and hopefully make it clearer that its the same building.

[k-gill-animation-year3]

Feedback to work on:

In our group tutorials I showed my updated animatic:

The first main thing I need to change is the front of the doughnut shop, it really doesn't look like the same place at all and the eyeline level is not right, so I plan on re-doing certain parts of the linework and adding in more purple hue tones like the bug city bg has and hopefully it’ll make it more clear that its the same location.

For the scene where its focusing on the doughnuts, I’m going to work on the sparkle more inside of TV paint similar to the one I have already done but looking at some other sources for reference, but also the keyframing on the doughnuts needs to change and the way it moves is very jolty so adding  in some easy ease to the keyframes will help.

Another bit of feedback which is actually a really cool idea was to add some more to the hallway design as its very empty on purpose but I could add in some smaller parts to give a hint of what's coming up next, like blood foot prints, or staff notices on the wall, or a mop mucket filled with blood etc. I really like this idea and am planning on adding in some more if I have time which right now I already feel like I’m so behind.

Another good bit of feedback from Jon is having the voice over still going as we veer into the hallway but have it quite down, as if the camera is just off doing its own thing separately to the advert, if I have time again I want to play around with this, but that would mean booking out the studio again and getting some more audio to do so which at the moment isn't my priority.

For the updated birth scene it needs more friction as it doesn't look too painful right now and doesn't exactly fit with the screaming voice acting, part of me thinks if I try to find another source and rotoscope that over to get the key details and hopefully make that look allot more intense and painful as there's just not enough resistance. I could play around with adding in a couple more frames here and there and just having it be pulled back in almost for the resistance. All I know is it still needs playing around with.

The last main part of feedback is to just get rid of the service window as its a dead giveaway to the bad quality of the rest of the background that way and instead just crossfade from the hallway to the 100% size background and have it fade instead of trying to follow with the camera.