Matt Doherty: Year 3

Main Research TV Research AX3333 AX3021

[matt-animation]

Background Design

When It came to researching background Design I knew that I had to go back to the basics and relearned everything that makes up good background design, so to do this I went to one of my favourite art YouTube channels called Bam Animation and I watched two of their videos on backgrounds and from these two videos I feel like I learned a lot but I will continue to go back to them as I still believe that it would be better to keep myself reminded of what to do in background design.

After following these two videos here is my first attempt at making a background I already know that there is more I can do to improve myself further.

[matt-animation]

Graffiti

When coming up with my character design for this film I wanted to research some videos on new ways to break down characters before turning them into characters and I remembered this video from a YouTuber that I really like called Ethan Becker.

In this video he explains to not use ovals as they cause indecision and stated it would be better to use a triangle with a dominant side as this cause you to go in a direction. I followed his Tip and I am really happy with the outcome and I think I will try this technique out more in the future.

[matt-animation]

Breakthrough

For this Character design I tried to find a show that had a well built character who still looked young enough to be around the age of 18, my original idea was to use Samurai Jack but no matter how much I tried the character always ended up looking too old for my liking so I decided to change and eventually went for Disney’s Hercules. I still found following this character design to be quite difficult as the proportions in Hercules always feel a little weird to me but I was happy with the end product.

[matt-animation]

Alex the protector of Earth

For my character design for this show I wanted to reference from a super hero series that is aimed at younger children and so by deciding that I looked at Teen Titans Go the version of the show with the smaller characters and the bigger heads as I think this unique style would be easy to replicate and allow me to think more about the story that I would be trying to tell the young kids.

[matt-animation]

Fleadh

When creating my character design for Fleadh I was looking for a show that I could reference from that would be interesting when it comes to making a show all about music and then I thought about Adventure Time. This show has a very unique and interesting design which I am quite fond of and even one of the characters uses a musical instrument in Marceline, so I used this show as a base point for my character design.

[matt-animation]

Character animation

When researching about character animation i found this very good interview with Andy Ristaino who was the lead designer for Adventure Time and in this interview he gives some great advice on how to construct a successful character design. This is definitely a must read for people who are still trying to understand how to really improve their character design. https://www.creativebloq.com/character-design/3-tips-adventure-time-71515912

[matt-animation]

Background design

When researching about background design I learned about the different techniques of creating backgrounds such as traditional hand drawn where they take the storyboard and improve upon that until they have a finished outline and then that is passed on to the colour artists who would colour in and finish the background. In modern animation with the improvements of software's, lots of backgrounds are being made in 3D software's and then if you want to create a 2D feel you would draw over the 3D background adding a little bit more texture.

I found this article where it better explains the difference between 2D and 3D background art and even shows some examples: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/making-2d-game-scene-art-2d-vs-3d

[matt-animation]

Graffiti

For this film I tried researching Graffiti in existing animations and the first one that comes to mind is the scene in Spiderman into the Spiderverse Where Miles Morales is graffitiing in the Subway with his uncle. In this scene I really liked the shots that they used where they were showing enough so that we could see what they were doing but it was slowly building up to the final reveal. This is what I had in mind when I was thinking of a film all about graffiti.

[matt-animation]

Breakthrough

With this TV show I wanted to tackle quite difficult topics that we as humans tend to try and avoid, such as how mental health affects even the strongest of people and that we still get shamed for suffering so it makes it tough to speak up about how we are feeling despite it being the best way to try and overcome what we are dealing with. In order to try and capture the dark and grittiness of mental health I decided to use Batman the animated series as my main reference as despite him being a rich man with everything at his fingertips he still doesn't talk to anyone about his past traumas.

[matt-animation]

Alex the protector of Earth

For this TV show I wanted it to be educational where I teach young children age 3+ about how important it is to care for the world and animals around you and how your actions can have consequences but by making small changes you can Make the world a better place. I also wanted this show to be somewhat educational so in order to do this my main inspiration was Dora, as even when I was a child I loved replying back to her every time she spoke to me through the screen.

[matt-animation]

Fleadh

As part of my research I looked at animations that I watched growing up and music videos that involve playing instruments so that I can have an idea of how instruments in animations look like. The first animation I looked at was Gorillaz as they were one of my favourite bands growing up and the the fact that they were all animated characters who played their own instrument and there was the variety of character sizes which gave me an idea of how my characters could look depending on their sizes.

The second animation I looked at was Your lie in April a Japanese anime which focuses around two young people and how music can bring you together and this was something that I was looking to do with this TV series.

[matt-animation]

Character animation

This will be another majority research based task as this is another thing that I realised while making my film last year, not everyone can be animated the same as if they are all the same character. When it comes to animating characters you must change how you animate them depending on the characters personality and their actual design making sure that you keep these in mind when animating your character it will make their movements seem more realistic. I will research the processes of animators in the past to try and figure out what makes their animations stand out.

[matt-animation]

Background design

Something that I am planning on researching more about is background design as this is something that I really came to like when I was making my final film last year but I know that there are still lots of things about the processes that I still need to learn in order to make better backgrounds. I will research different types of backgrounds and the different techniques or processes that may be used in order to create them for films or TV shows.

[matt-animation]

Graffiti

Graffiti is my idea of a 3 minute film where I take my past experiences of depression and turn them into an artistic journey of how I overcame what I was feeling at the time and also what I did to keep my mind away from what I was feeling. Graffiti is a short film about an artistic teen who lives in a black and white world and while on a stroll through town he sees a box down an alley where curiosity gets the better of him and he goes to check what was in it. Inside he finds coloured spray paint cans so he quickly closes the box and rushes home with it to investigate further, when having a closer look he sees there is a note to him telling him to bring colour back to the world. The young teen then uses these spray paint cans to graffiti around his city slowly bring colour and life back to the world around him.

[matt-animation]

Breakthrough

This is my third TV series idea and it is about an up and coming boxer who has blazed through all of the youth division's as a champion and he is about to make his breakthrough into the pro scene but due to a completely unexpected incident it halts him from making any further progress. I want this to be a darker tv series aimed at mid teens to young adults while making it relatable to some of the struggles some of the people that age may face.

[matt-animation]

Alex the protector of Earth

This is my second TV series idea and it follows a young boy called Alex who has this magical cape that once he puts it on he gains magical powers. Alex uses these powers to help animals deal with problems that they are having within their habitats and also problems that are affecting the earth. I want this to be an animation aimed at children and used to teach them to protect the world and animals around them.

[matt-animation]

Fleadh

My first idea for AX3333 is a TV series called Fleadh, this is a tv show that follows a group of three children as they go about learning about Irish instruments including how and when they were used in traditional Irish music throughout history. They will do this with the help of their music teacher who was the one who originated their interest in Irish musical instruments after he talked about them one day in class.