[nemoartdiary-blog]

How highly regarded is the University you are attending in the animation world?

Hi! Sorry i didn't answer you sooner, I've only just checked my uni email so I haven't logged on in weeks. Honestly, when I came to the uni it was not that highly regarded. However, I'm a student ambassador in my 2nd year now, so I deal with prospective students and interviewees, and I've had people saying that other universities foundation courses are recommending our course. As far as I'm concerned, this is a good course if you are willing to do a lot of self-teaching. You'll learn a lot about becoming a professional and how to work in the industry, but don't expect to be taught everything you want, because you have to do that yourself. Something specific I will point out is a 3D modelling module we take in 2nd year, which is absolutely fantastic. I learnt invaluable skills on that module and it gave me some work that I will boost my portfolio appeal tenfold, simply because I am now trained in 3D modelling, and not just in character animation.

Myself and a group of friends started an Illustration Society this year because we wanted to see more things like gesture drawing and character design be more readily available to students, and we've had an awful lot of positive feedback from it, from both people that take our animation course and those that take completely different courses. 

If you're looking for somewhere that is friendly and enthusiastic about collaboration, then this is a good course. It's not required for you to collaborate, but honestly most of the good work we make is the stuff we as students decide to make together, because this course seems to attract friendly and team-orientated artists. Our tutors especially are enthusiastic about the collaborations students do together. Thank you for your question!

[nemoartdiary-blog]

Hey, I saw that you go to Coventry University, I've applied there for Creative Writing next year and was wondering if you could tell me what the uni is like. So far, I'm really liking it! Thanks!

Hello! I'm so sorry I didn't reply to this sooner, I honestly did not realise you had sent me this message because I haven't checked my uni email for weeks! My flatmate does the creative writing course and as far as I know she is liking it. You can join societies such as Creative Writing society or Coventry Words magazine, and recently students on the Creative Writing course had some of their poetry exhibited alongside the art in the Herbert Gallery in Coventry, so as far as I'm aware you get a lot of opportunities to showcase your work. In your 2nd year you write at a young childrens storybook (which I illustrated for my flatmate) and I think you write something for older readers as well. The nightlife is really good (Kasbah on a Friday has crackin' music), and everything that you need is within a ten minute walk of wherever your halls or house is, not even joking. The uni is a central part of the town, so they are basically a minutes walk down the road from each other. If you're going into halls, I would definitely recommend Singer Halls. It is cheap, but good for making friends, and a short walk to Kasbah and the uni!

I also took creative writing as an addvantage module in my first year and had a guy called Tim teaching me, and he was brilliant, had a lot of stories to tell. I hope you enjoy it at Cov, if you decide to come here! :)

[nemoartdiary-blog]

For my project in 259DVA I was given the go-ahead by John to create a trailer-type animation for a real-life inspired film about this girl here. Her name is Tippi Degré, and she was born and raised in Africa until the age of around 10. Her childhood is so unique and incredible, and the way she understands animals of Africa is uncanny. 

I'd really love to make the trailer about her, because she had so many brilliant experiences. I've emailed her website to see if I can get permission to create it, but I've decided if I don't get a reply I will go ahead and make a trailer about a fictional girl, but inspired by the stories that Tippi tells of her childhood. It's something I feel so strongly about. Glen Keane always says to study characters and people that have a burning passion in them, and I feel even though the trailer won't have a strong narrative running through, I really want to portray the wildness and wonder this little girl had at that age. There are a lot of powerful moments from her childhood that I would love to animate.

The way it would be viral is simply as a film trailer that is marketed for people to see. If people would be interested in seeing the film after the trailer, and telling their friends about it, then I have succeeded in making a viral video.

[directedbychuckjones]

"Sweeting is such part sorrow." Original layout drawing, graphite on 12 field animation paper, by Chuck Jones for his 1951 “Scent-imental Romeo” starring Pepe le Pew. 

[nemoartdiary-blog]

I just wanted to pop this on my PDP blog because of the simplicity of the line. The drawing and scene translate so well, not because of attention detail, but the opposite - attention to the overall. Each line in this drawing has a purpose. There are no extra scribbles (extra scribbles are lovely though), and you can see exactly what is going on in such a simplified way. I feel this shows a true strength in draftmanship and story understanding.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

I'm looking at the possiblity of animating some elephants in my animation for 259DVA and while doing some practice sketches I came across this beautiful piece of art.

[animationtidbits]

Andreas Deja’s Mushka - Trailer

[nemoartdiary-blog]

I've been thinking of the kind of animation I would like to produce for my 259DVA module, and I know that ideally I want to make everything with pencil and paper, and only touch a computer at the end when I'm putting it all together with some music.

The pencil part of the animation (aside from my lack of technical skill and animation knowledge) would be okay to deal with, it was the colouring part. For me just producing a pencil-test type animation would make me happy because it is what I always find most visually appealing, however I need to make something more finished that would appeal to a wider audience. That was when I thought of Andreas Deja's teaser trailer for his animation Mushka. The colouring is subtle, so as to stop the inevitable flickering of the lines detract from the overall effect, however it still transforms the animation from a simple pencil test to something that would appeal to a general audience. I will definitely be experimenting with colouring pencils, however rudimentary that seems, in my animation.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

259DVA

Last Thursday we had the first session for our 259DVA traditional animation module. We have been asked to create a viral video.

I use the internet a lot, particularly for Tumblr, Youtube and Facebook, and due to this I have ended up seeing so many viral videos, articles and photos. I had never considered before what it actually took to make something that went viral on the internet, but starting this module has made me think about it. 

From what I have gathered, in a most general sense, there are 4 main types in viral media (discounting material from the already famous, such as big musicians, big film companies etc) :

1) Something amusing (e.g. most memes such as lolcats, or the video How Animals Eat Their Food by the youtube channel 'MisterEpicMann)

2) A parody of something already popular (such as Seth Rogen and James Franco's parody music video of Kanye West's  song Bound 2)

3) A thing or person that gains sudden attention in an area of culture that/who went previously unnoticed (such as Psy's music video and dance routine for his song Gangnam Style)

4) Something that is drawn from real life and is emotional or out of the ordinary (such as flashmobs or Angelo Meredino's harrowing series of photographs documenting his wife's battle against cancer)

I've thought a lot about these four categories and wondered which path I should go down to create an idea for a viral video. I would really love to create an animation ideally for this project, because it is the area of art I am most interested in, and I feel like if I produced a good animation it could add to my portfolio and most importantly it would help me to develop my animation skills.

Our tutor Francis made it clear that our project should take up the entirety of the 8 weeks we have set, so for me that cancels out most videos I could possibly make from category one. A lot of amusing viral material is taken from those 'You've Been Framed' bits in life that you can only really capture from being in the right place at the right time, or made in a spur-of-the-moment attitude, so this of course would not work out in the 8 week timeline. Other amusing material requires a talent for being amusing in a certain way, such as Jenna Marbles and her quirky, bizarre (yet hilarious) sense of humour, and I unfortunately do not feel I possess enough of that kind of humour to make a video out of it.

The second section, creating a parody, is just simply not do-able because we have to create our own original material, that was part of the brief. As for the fourth section, I feel that it does not lend itself well to animation, or this brief in general. We have to create something, which would require me thinking up something that hasn't happened and/or won't happen, so the 'real' part of section four just would not work.

That leaves me with section 3, to create something that would hopefully gain attention from a certain area of culture. This means I can have complete creative freedom to make whatever I like as long as I think it will appeal to the area of culture that I am making it for.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

Chris Sasaki

Chris Sasaki is a character design artist at Pixar and he has worked on films like Finding Nemo and Monsters University. This is his website: here I'm a huge fan of his quirky designs and colourful characters so I emailed him regarding summer internships at Pixar.

I got a fantastic reply from him, saying that he would speak to a story artist who works with interns and get some portfolio examples sent to me. He responded again a few hours later with a list of portfolios from previous interns and current story artists at Pixar. This is one of my favourites: here. All the portfolios demonstrated a strong skill with life and figure drawing, and all had at least two sets of storyboards from their own original story ideas or another story that they had storyboarded themselves. Chris Sasaki also recommended that I start storyboarding from live-action films to get an idea about camera angles and cinematography. He also suggested storyboarding stories in different genres to show a range of understanding.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

hey! i just found your art diary and seriously it is amazing how much you describe stuff in your posts like what the art you do is for, why its that style, what influenced it...i'm going to read all the posts-then wait for more. <3 an aspiring animator~

Hi! I actually go into that much detail because this is a blog for my university work. I do think about my work in this detail, but because of my uni requirements, I just write down everything that I think. I'm glad you are enjoying it though! Thank you :)

[nemoartdiary-blog]

Over the past two weeks I have been building my cityscape in the programme Autodesk 3DS max. It has been such a challenge, but I can honestly say that I am so glad that I have learnt how to use this tool. It has helped me understand the world of 3D animation so much better, and once I know how to use the tools to their full extent I can create anything I put my mind to. 

This is the video of the animations I made in my underwater city scape. having been so inspired by the baroque flair and extraordinary colours in the paintings of Mary Blair, I built my city such that my viewers feel like they are travelling through one of her gouache paintings.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

My current project has been heavily influenced by the artist Mary Blair and her gouache paintings. In terms of colour, shape and texture, these images made by her are probably some of the ones that have informed the style of my underwater world the most. I really tried to stay away from the 'realistic' side of an underwater world 1) Because it was too time-consuming and very difficult for me and 2) Because it did not seem to suit the style of my world.

Mary Blair works in quite a flat, block-coloured kind of style yet her paintings still seem to have a dynamic perspective about some of them, and the colours are always absolutely outstanding. I tried to mimic her style quite heavily in my project, ultimately to see if I could create a '3D version' of one of her paintings.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

Up until this point in time I have never disliked a project so much as this one. Then this afternoon I made this image (after many frustrating hours of lighting experiments) and I realised that actually I could make good stuff with Autodesk 3ds max, but because of the time constraints and the lack of ability to use it I've really not enjoyed it at all. 

But now that I have some kind of grasp on how the tool works, even though I will never work as a 3D artist, it is amazing to see your work finally come to something you can be proud of. I have so much respect for 3D artists now, particularly when watching 3D animated films and realising just how much time and effort must have been put into making each frame.

I saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs the other day at the cinema with friends and it was such a visually stunning film. Not only were the character designs imaginative, inventive and appealing, the way the characters were animated was like nothing I had seen before. Most of them moved in a regular, human-like manner apart from one character (the 'villain') who seemed to limbs that could float and wiggle and twist, it was sort of like watching an old man body pop in mid air. That, to me, was a brilliant use of 3d animation. You could get those shapes with traditional animation, but it wouldn't look as smooth and refined.

But I still know I will always chose traditional over 3D.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

This video has always been important to me because it demonstrates some breathtaking pencil tests, but after watching it again more recently I've realised it has aspects about it that loosely apply to my own project.

In certain parts of the video, Tarzan is shown moving through what I now recognise to be a 3D wireframe environment. I remember watching those moments before and the modelling did not mean much to me, but now it means more. Tarzan is a fantastic film and a brilliant collaboration between 2D and 3D animation. Without 3D modelling it would not have the wonderful jungle environments that act as backdrops to some of the best animation Disney has ever seen, and we can see in this video that the 3D modelling acts as a guideline for Tarzan's more complicated animated scenes when he moves through the trees. It seems like a perfect way to blend the use of 3D and 2D together harmoniously.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

I led a session today in society teaching the wonders of Al Hirschfeld, who is absolutely positively in my top 3 favourite artists of all time. I myself didn't get much drawing done (not anything decent anyway) but these 3 beauties above (from the top) are what (in order) Pete, Danni and Yen produced from the session! Absolutely wonderful drawings! 

I first got our members to copy straight from Hirschfeld himself because I find that the best way to learn the style of a new artist, before you do anything, is to just copy their own work. It helps you understand the creative decisions they made and how you can bring the style into your own work.

James and I then posed alternately (with a volunteer at the end) - focusing on facial expression and the placement of hands - for a few minutes so our members could draw some poses. After showing everyone a slide of how Hirschfeld uses block colour in dynamic shapes in some of his work, I asked our members to chose their favourite sketches pose and then make their own more finished version using the ink and block colour technique. The bottom drawing is the finished one I did of Edwin (our volunteer) that we had at the end of the posing.

The main aim of this session was to encourage people to stop 'scribbling' lots of little lines together when they drew. To use big, swooping lines in their drawings through studying the great work of Hirschfeld. I had a lot of good feedback about how the session went so as a society we'll definitely look at other sessions in which we study other great artists. 

This is the second session I've lead (I lead a 'Drawing Cartoons 101 session with the help of Yen two weeks ago) and it's really helping me realise what I want in the future. I'm not particularly good at teaching/leading a session in drawing (having only done two in my life) but I actually do really enjoy doing the sessions. I know I do not want to specifically be a teacher in animation (or a teacher in anything), but if I could get the chance to direct an animated film, to talk to people about animation in a way that will inspire them to make the best art they can, that would just be the best thing I could do. To inspire people to see the beauty and merit in drawing and animation and the way a pencil can bring life to things that nothing else can, that is what I want to do.

[thejesusvegan]

A few storybook illustrations out of a series of 24 that I made for a Creative Writing student at university this week.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

Some of the storybook illustrations I made out of a series of 24 for my flatmate who was writing a children's book for her Creative Writing degree. Taking this project on was pretty massive; along with a lengthy Double Dagger submission I was working solidly on this for two weeks. I was happy to do it for my flatmate because it was good experience and portfolio work, but I have barely been able to work on my 262 DVA project because of all the time it has taken up.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

3D Animation

Over the past few days or so I've been feeling incredibly frustrated with the hole process of 3D animation. I consider myself to be a very traditional artist in terms of the materials I use, and when you have to actually learn to use a programme before you can even start creating any art, I feel like some of the point of art is lost.

Of course I can absolutely see the benefit of 3D animation and art, you're able to make things that you could never make in 2D without vast amounts of effort, time and money in comparison, and some things would just be impossible in 2D, such as console games.

But something about not seeing a mark appearing underneath the paintbrush or pencil in your hand, but on a line on a screen. I see my pencil as an extension of my brain and something about using a computer just takes that whole part of making art away. I was trying to figure out what that was, when I found a quote from my favourite artist Glen Keane that made me understand exactly what I had been feeling about computers in comparison to traditional art; 'The computer fights against anything organic and a sensuous kind of feel rhythm, expression, tilt, flexibility.'

He's absolutely right. You can make three identical strokes with your computer paintbrush or make three identical spheres on 3DS, but in traditional artmaking, no paint stroke or pencil mark is the same as another. You can feel the paper and movement of the pencil underneath your hand. You just do not get the same thing when creating on the computer.

I'm happy to learn about 3DS so I know about 3D animation and the way it works; it's an extremely useful and important thing to be learning about. But I have also learnt that there will not be any point in my life in which someone is paying me to animate something on a 3D programme.

[nemoartdiary-blog]

After struggling to find my way through the Autodesk 3DS programme, I'm amazed by almost every 3D animation I see now. This game was released in 2007, yet even the simplest thing like the texture at the bottom of the ocean impresses me an awful lot. I can see how things have been constructed, how lights have been put in - and moved around and animated! I'm finding that the more I learn about Autodesk 3DS, the more I realise how difficult 3D animation in general really is.