Melanie's design blog

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Brief revised.

My client Caritas is an organisation focused at bringing awareness and help to those affected by poverty. It achieves this by getting intermediate to secondary aged involved in a four challenge event, over a 24 hour period. The Caritas Challenge will take place the weekend of 11th-13th April 2014. I am making a 40-60 stop animation clip suitable for media distribution, a logo and a slogan which encourages participation in the challenges. I have chosen to do the might k's challenge, in this challenge participants will walk, run, bike, swim or play sports for 24 hours in recognition for those who have to journey to get basic nessesities of life. I will be keeping it plain and simple to get the message across. I want to use a cartoon character to be more enjoyable to watch, also to engage the target audiences attention.

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This is a story about a monkey who has to go on a long journey to get something to eat. It signifies all the people out there in the world who have to travel over long distances just to access basic necessities such as food, water, health and education. 

The mighty K's challenge is a 24 hour event where participants walk, run, swim, cycle or play a sport.

Like, Love, Share, Care.

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Some feedback I got back from the tutors after I presented to the studio group was that it wasn't obvious that the monkey was going to get a banana, I brainstormed some ideas that could make it more obvious and I am going to get the monkey to try and reach for the banana in the thought bubble but then it pops, then the monkey goes for a run to get one. I think when the animation is all finished and in the end when he gets his banana it will be obvious that's what he was going for all along. 

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Understanding how an animation works. I drew key stages of a movement so that it looks more like a stop motion. 

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I have never drawn so many monkeys in my life! Basically this is just me trying to develop the monkey and work out the best way he should look. 

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Peer Critique for Conal Mckie.

I enjoyed watching Conal's demo animation. I think using the lego is an effective way to capture the target audiences attention. Making the logo out of lego is very creative and I applaud his effects, as I imagine this would have been a timely task. 

In his final video I would like to see no 'camera shake', this will ensure a smoother look. I think it is also important to have the camera directly above the lego instead of on an angle and keep everything straight, as this is easier for the eye to look at. Conal did a good job with keeping the lighting consistent and the movements of the lego. I am looking forward to see the final clip. 

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I had considered using gears in my model some how at the start but I had decided that cutting these would be to difficult and wire wouldn't look aesthetically pleasing to the design.

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Testing with heat shrink.

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Summary

My final form is inspired by the movements of the hip joint. Because the hips are triaxial joints, it was important to use this as a key element in making my model, it was important to me that the model had full range of motion, being able to rotate and pivot with ease. Because there isn't anything to lock the hip, it was irrelevant to me to make this an aspect of the design, however, The elastic bands act as tendons and muscles giving limitations on the movement. 

I wanted the metal to act as the bone and joint, this is why I have made this the component that allows the movement, the shrink-wrap used on the metal is what holds it all together. 

The interface is an important part of the design, The finger groves on the black latex rubber gives and the dome of the beige latex rubber makes the object easy to hold, and gives two different options of how to hold it. 

Overall I am very happy with the final design. I believe it reflects the true aspects of a hip joint.

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Presentation drawing, done in two layers. 

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Final Model. This model represents the true elements of a hip joint. It has full range of movement. The hip does flexion, extension, abduction, adduction and rotation, all of these movements together is circumduction. This model does all of these movements without stopping or locking as the hip does not do this. However I have used rubber to cause tension and act as tendons and muscles, they also help to keep the model in a stationary position. I used the shrink wrap only around the joint instead of the whole way like in the previous model, I feel this shows what material is being used and also creates a nice contrast. I added in finger grooves so you can hold it easily as well as keeping the dome so if you want to cup the model you can.  For this model I have used 4 types of rubber (heatshrink, the blue one is theraband which is a latex rubber, the black rubber is starprene which is a closed cell foam, and the cream rubber which is open cell foam.), I used mdf  wood, and wire. 

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Orthographic to scale. 

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With this iteration I used the latex rubber to create a dome which fits into the palm of the hand, I also added black latex rubber to make it comfortable for the fingers to go. I used rubber which is used in physiotherapy to create tension. I used this in a way which represent the muscles and tendons. I used the shrink wrap again to represent ligaments which connects bone to bone (wire to wire.)

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This is my favourite model so far, I used shrink wrap to join to separate bits of wire. There is a gap in the middle which allows for full rotation. I want to add in rubber strings to create tension.

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Planning for my presentation drawing. 

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Storyboard. 

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Iteration. I wanted to make it have an interface that is easy to hold. The two domes fit into the palm of the hand. The rubber is to create tension and act as tendons.