Unit BA1a Nathan Ramos

I’m a year 1 animation student at NUA and this is my weekly blog on my research and projects.

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Evaluation

Dynamics

When I started the course, I had never done one bit of animation, so taking this fact into consideration I feel like I definitely improved rather fast throughout this unit. An animation principle which I constantly visited throughout unit 1, was squash and stretch. In all my animations you can see where I attempted it, from the ball bounce to the final walk cycle and a drastic improvement can be seen. I have learned how to add weight to objects by adding more frames on the initial act of a movement and decreasing the number of frames in the point of action to create that sense of speed and weight.  

I have become a lot more confident using both TV paint and Photoshop. As someone whose preferred drawing method is on paper, I have truly surprised myself how just in a few weeks I have become custom to digital art. Prior I had only dabbled with Photoshop but now I can really say that Photoshop is an area which fully understand.

Character Design 

As mentioned on my dynamic’s evaluation, I have definitely become more confident drawing digitally this is something I’m proud of as did not have much practice prior to the course. I also learned in more depth how to research and what to look out for when creating characters, this is going to be so valuable to me as character creation is a huge part of animation. For example, when I struggled making my cast not only look like animals but also stand and have the personalities of animals, I went back to week one’s character research when we talked as a group what makes a character and you have to strip them down to their core. So, looking at references of real animals is the best template I can have.

I feel like speed let me down, as much confidence as I have obtained drawing digitally, I still take a lot of time to finish a piece. This may not be necessarily a bad thing, however in unit 1 it let me down as I spent too long on it which lead to me being behind in other tasks. If I were to do it again, I would probably set myself a time limit and actually colour in the character design sheet.  

I also wish I had more time to draw my cast in different scenarios and interacting with each other. I really did see them as a cast of a show however I’m not sure if was able to fully convey this through my work apart from small little sketches on the design sheet.

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Week 8: 12th November

Week eight was completely dedicated to the walk cycle, touching up unfinished work and the essay. The evaluation for the walk cycle is on the post below.

However if I had to evaluate week eight, I would definitely do it differently. I tried to cram in way too much work and underestimated the workload which resulted in multiple sleepless nights. However, I am still very proud of the work I done, more specifically the character design where i know I gave my all. 

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Character Walk Cycle

NOTE: I HAVE ADDED THE GIF IN CASE THE MP4 VIDEO DOES NOT WORK AS I HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING TO GET IT TO WORK 

Finally, I have finished my walk cycle, this was definitely the most challenging and time-consuming exercise, nonetheless I did expect this. I used every day of my last week to work on the walk cycle and struggled to fit time to do my essay during this week.

Initially when I began doing the rough frames for the walk cycle, I struggled to get the right bouncing motion I was trying to accomplish where his belly moved up and down in a rubber hose style. The guide lines were extremely helpful when drawing him at different heights. For example, when he is at the ‘UP’ he is the tallest, so it was easier to determine when to stretch and squash him. This gave my character the ‘up and down’ motion I was trying to achieve. The way in which I animated his fur moving on his face also helped to convey this. I was very pleased with the smooth motion of the legs as it was rather tricky to figure out which leg was in front since he is a black cat. However, I drew the lines within his body in white and it truly looked authentic.

On the other hand, if I had a chance to re-do the walk cycle, I would definitely focus on his arms, as I felt uninspired to do anything interesting with them, so I settled for just a slight up and down action. Overall this didn’t really affect the final outcome and I am still pleased with it.

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Week 7: 5th November

Despite the fact that this week has not given me an excessive amount of work, the work that I do have are very time consuming. This includes the final walk cycle, turnaround and the essay.

Week seven (and I imagine week eight will be as well) has been primarily dedicated to finishing my walk cycle and turn around. My turnaround has taken longer than expected but I still feel like I saved timed by doing it on Photoshop. However, patience was worth it as it resulted in a clean and smooth turnaround. I’m very happy with the final product considering I had not used Photoshop to animate before, but thanks to a very helpful tutorial by Alex Grigg I managed to get on with it rather smoothly. If I were to do it again I probably would re drew the arms as it doesn’t stay in a fixed position throughout. However, since I’m running out of time this is something I cannot focus on, aside from that the final product still delivered.

A for my essay I have looked more into the background of Apu and watched clips from the documentary “The Problem with Apu”. Still was helpful as I managed to create a small plan for it, which Lindsey has gone through and suggested I start with the for argument as my conclusion will be lenient towards against.

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Apu Essay Plan

As it stands I’m currently depending how to word my question: 

1. Is Apu just a stereotypical comedy relief, or is he an endearing character with values?  

OR

2. Is Apu a negative stereotype used for comic relief, and should he really be removed for The Simpsons?

Introduction

Overall summary of what the essay is trying to argue, a for and against writing whether Apu is a comedic stereotype or just plain racist

Paragraph one

What makes Apu endearing

Paragraph two

What makes Apu racist or a forced stereotype

Paragraph three

Against argument why Apu shouldn’t be removed from the Simpson’s cast and why he isn’t just a walking stereotype

Paragraph four

For argument justifying why Apu should be removed as he is just a two-dimensional walking stereotype

Conclusion

An overall closure to the essay giving a somewhat answer why Apu isn’t problematic without giving too much of my own personal opinion.

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Turnaround 

As a way to save time I used my model sheet heavily when creating the turnaround for my character. I had already drawn four poses for model sheet so used them on my turnaround file, however to make sure they were in correct proportions, I turned on the onion skin and re draw the feet and body so it was more consistent. This did end rather successfully, however the arms were something I did not take notice at the time. When it did come to my attention i did not have enough time to edit them. Aside from that the final product still delivers a successful model in my opinion.

This exercise took longer than expected but I still feel like I saved timed by doing it on Photoshop. Patience was worth it as it resulted in a clean and smooth turnaround. I’m very happy with the final product considering I had not used Photoshop to animate before, but thanks to a very helpful tutorial by Alex Grigg I managed to get on with it rather smoothly. 

Below is the tutorial I watched to get the hang of Photoshop animation.

https://vimeo.com/80851591

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Week 6: 29th October

This week I have a feeling will be the last where we are guided by the tutors as we barely had any workshops and had more freedom to start working on our final project. I also noticed myself coming to university a lot more on my spare time. I started to solidify my plans of doing my essay on Apu from The Simpsons, due to the fact he is currently a topical character and is form a show which was a huge part of my childhood. I have finished my dynamics work and may potentially go back to polish some up if I find the time. Overall, I pleased with them as it stands.

On the character design side, I have a lot of bits to do still so my goal next week is to finish all of the character design sheets and focus on my essay, turnaround and walk cycle is the last two weeks. Overall, I’m almost done with all the character sheet apart from the pose sheet, I have finished both the cast and model sheet and I could not be more pleased with them. Character Design is definitely my strong point in this unit and is something I plan to pursue in the future. The only downfall is that I take a very long time when I draw digitally because I have the ability to get every line just perfect, so I waste a lot of time going over lines that I probably should not need to re-do. I took a lot of inspiration from Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes when creating my cast as I personally think they are perfect examples of the sort of style I’m trying to create. Personally, I think my character have a lot of personally just by their shape and expression and I can really see them interacting with each other, which is something that I learned from research Top Cat’s cast. My opinion may be biased but I truly am in love with them.  

I have also slowly begun to work on my turnaround, initially I began working on TV paint but since I’m doing my walk cycle on TV paint, I decided to do the turnaround on Photoshop to show some variation in software and also, I feel like I’ll get it done faster since I’m more comfortable on Photoshop.

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ESSAY: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

have decided to write my essay on the Simpsons character Apu. He has been in the mainstream media for the past few weeks due to a documentary highlighting factors which make him a source of racism towards Indians. This also resulted in rumours that he will be removed from the Simpsons cast.

My essay will focus on both the for and against the removal of Apu and whether he is culturally insensitive. Hopefully i can come up with a somewhat unbiased conclusion towards the end. I will focus on archetypes and stereotypes.

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Turnaround concept on TV paint

This is my initial turnaround concept, however as i have not got a lot of time left i decided to carry on working on it on Photoshop as i’m more comfortable using that software. Also to show variation on my work and that i can animate on Photoshop as well as TV paint.

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Final Cast and Character Designs

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Character Design Sketches

CAST

This is my final sketch for my cast, I’m over the moon with how they look and can really see them interacting with one another.

Cheddar The Cat is passionate about two things cheese and catching his Frenemy Bill.

Skitz has a short temper and is a sleazy bear who is often trespassing into urban areas trying to sell goods from the zoo to the neighbourhood animals.

Anastasia is pet to rich in family in the neighbourhood and another interest of Cheddar. Cheddar often gets distracted by her when chasing Bill, however she doesn't have much time for for love affairs but still likes to toy with him.

Bill the Blue Tit likes to see Cheddar as his best friend and exclaims that Cheddar thinks the same but doesn't like to show it. ( I chose a Tit as Cheddar’s rat mouse relationship as blue tits are the most common bird chased by cats in real life).

MODEL

Going back to the uncanny valley issue and how my lead character looked to human. The way in which i fixed this was by having his arms positioned as a cat would on two legs. This feature doesn't necessary mean he wouldn’t be able to use his arms but he would just move more like a cat and stand out from the another anthropomorphic characters in the cast.

POSES

Working on this sheet was very helpful to visualise my character walking as it gave him much more personality. He is a lazy cat however he is passionate when it comes to cheese and catching his frenemy Bill The Blue Tit.

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Real Life Reference

Something that seems so obvious but I completely ignored was real life reference. These images were very helpful to create anthropomorphic characters, because when i was creating these animals I focused so much on the idea of making them look like humans that I forgot they were in fact animals. So to have them on the side of the screen helped me add certain features and pose them in certain ways which portrayed them in an animalistic way. 

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Character Design Reference

These two images helped me a lot when I began developing my characters. It was important to look at real cats so I can still portray my character is still a character with animalistic features or he may fall upon the uncanny valley.  

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Week # 5 – 22nd October

Week five has definitely been the most hectic of all weeks, we began the week by having our first character design session where we did a very fun task where the class were giving Rorschach tests and we had to draw characters from the multiple paint splatters on the page. It ended with everyone drawings each other’s favourite character and this was a way to see everyone’s style to gather inspiration. We also began working on our sketchbooks and also finished the week completing the sketchbook, which was filled with character ideas for our final walk cycle.

I did struggle to come up with a character design, personally for me it felt very rushed to come up with a design on the spot, so it resulted in me going and reflecting with many ideas. I knew since the start of the course I wanted to create something reminiscent of my childhood, which was cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny and other shows from the golden age of cartoons, which relayed on squash and stretch heavily. However, I did not want to go all out of the rubber hose style of animation as I find very limiting, on the other hand I wanted to focus more on the resurgence of this style through the 90’s with shows like Animaniacs, Bonkers and Ren & Stimpy. I have come up with some characters for my cast but I’m not overly happy with it, so I will have to carry on with different design ideas.

Contrastingly, our dynamics session has been very straight forward, I completed my TV paint induction which was surprisingly easy to navigate. However, I did not like the drawing aspect of TV paint as I thought it was lacking since I am used to photoshop when it comes to digital work. TV paint is far more superior to photoshop when it comes to the animation side of the software but the drawing side lacks, which may result in a less polished final walk cycle.

I managed to complete two animation exercise during that session, both a walk cycle and a ball bounce using TV paint.

I also completed a task which was set to us over the weekend, that a dynamic animation that emphasises impact. Since I will be focusing on a stretch and squash design for my character, I wanted to create an animation which was very cartoony. It was a figure being squashed by a huge block and once the block is lifted up the figure has the body of an accordion, similar to Wiley Coyotes falls in the Looney Tunes shows. I was satisfied with the animation as the up and down bounce of the figure was smooth and did replicate the same general motion of an accordion. However, the fall of the block seemed too sudden and I tried to do this for a more comedic effect, but I feel like it still looks odd. However, since it is an animation based on the Looney Tunes, I think it’s almost unnatural nature fits the theme of the impact, and after peer evaluation many seemed to enjoy and did not seem to care for this flaw.

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Inspiration

During the end of the end I watched a lot of Tom and Jerry and Woody Wood Pecker and this particular image of an old school Woody wood Pecker episode has really helped me solidify some ideas for my cast. This should really help me go into next week when I start creating my model sheets 

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Impact Animation Progress

This is just to show how i managed to create a sudden fall. It involved multiple frames at the start slowly falling a a huge cut to it being on the ground. This is something I did on my jump animation as well. 

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Dynamic Impact Animation

I also managed to complete the dynamic animation that emphasises impact. Since I will be focusing on a stretch and squash design for my character, I wanted to create an animation which was very cartoony. It was a figure being squashed by a huge block and once the block is lifted up the figure has the body of an accordion, similar to Wiley Coyotes falls in the Looney Tunes shows. I was satisfied with the animation as the up and down bounce of the figure was smooth and did replicate the same general motion of an accordion. However, the fall of the block seemed too sudden and I tried to do this for a more comedic effect, but I feel like it still looks odd. However, since it is an animation based on the Looney Tunes, I think it’s almost unnatural nature fits the theme of the impact, and after peer evaluation many seemed to enjoy and did not seem to care for this flaw.