Mars

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Animation Finale - How I learnt to stop being so amazing

The least ambitious thing I could think of contains too much colour that changes depending on how the light source reflects off of it, and an alternate version that looks as though it was naturally painted. Perhaps I should have left out the painted background, the dynamic colours or the complicated movements, but by doing so, I would have missed out on all I have learned over the period of the project, how to move and blend a background, looping an animation, and the importance of time constraints- but the one, ultimate thing I have learned that is probably the most valuable thing I have learned over my entire life which I will keep with me until the day I die: Never do animation ever again.

The first frame I coloured

A frame showing properly how the dynamic lighting works to reflect across the ship as it begins to tilt over to it’s right.

An experiment in blending the colour of the ship and getting rid of the linework (which was, admittedly, always terrible). There was going to be a separate version with every frame painted like this.

lesson learnt. I’m too amazing for my own good.

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Why Kitbash?

Kitbashing allows makers to design models with highly detailed features as quickly as possible, but it can also be used in a way that can create something derivative of concepts known into something new.

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Event Horizon - Gothic Sci-Fi

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H. R Giger - Derelict Alien Ship

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Ron Cobb and Chris Fobb - Nostromo (Alien)

During the production of Alien, two artists Ron Cobb and Chris Fobb were tasked with desigining the Earth ship Nostromo , Ron with the interior and Chris with the exterior. It seemed as though Chris’s nearly endless inspiration and creativity made it difficult for the production designer to settle on one of his designs and Ron found it difficult to design the interior of a ship without having an exterior to accomodate for it, so, he began to design an exterior to help him create that interior. Eventually the special effects director got so sick of the waiting he stormed into the art department, grabbed all of their sketches and left with them to decide for a design himself. What he also took was Ron, the interior designer’s exterior work and chose one of his designs by coincidence, the original sketch being “Nostromo A”. It was found by the Director Ridley Scott that the yellow colour was too garish so it was changed to the grey you see in the movie and the picture dubbed “Nostromo B”.

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Adam Savage Building Techniques

Savage uses something in order to keep the size of the model in perspective. In this case it’s a little Admiral Ackbar. The model he is using here is mostly made in styrene but does involve kitbashing.

What he is using here is the bottom of a drink can that he can fill with acrylic and use to brush on to his model. He does this because of how much easier it is in smaller and lighter builds compared to brushing straight from the acrylic can.

These are tiny pieces of styrene dubbed “Greeblies” apparently by George Lucas. They are tiny pieces that add texture to the model and are put uniformily anywhere the model seems too blank.

Two model kits he is using- The Eagle Transporter is used in almost every  Star Wars model (the cockpit looks very Millenium Falcon) and the Anzio Annie which contains what is called the Universal Greeblie which is a very small dome-shaped part which is literally in every single Star Wars model you have seen. I honestly think I remember seeing it myself once or twice

The reason this part is so special is because it is so small and it’s dome-shaped, meaning it can be put anywhere to relfect light which draws the attention of the viewer to certain parts of the model.

Finally, Savage finishes off with some spraypaint and fits Ackbar quite comfortably inside, seeing the scale working perfectly.

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Ralph McQuarrie - Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind

“Imperial City” Star Wars concept art that eventually became Cloud City.

Mothership concept art from Close Encounters.

I noticed that when creating large-scale space stations like the two above, McQuarrie likes to portay scale through his use of very tiny and cluttered detail, like small sets of plating, wires and tiny little lights; I suppose this would give the indication that people are living here, and that the station is brimming with life, like a cityscape at night.

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Star Wars Spaceship Concept Art

Concept art for spaceships use a lot of perspective in order to portray the kind of ships they are.

Smaller, speedier ships are drawn with speed lines behind them to indicate their purpose, large capital ships and Imperial Star Destroyers are drawn floating around outside of planets and transport ships are drawn with people standing around them to indicate it’s size in comparison to a person. I suppose this is to give the idea of what the ship is supposed to be like just from looking at the art.

There are some pieces of concept art that never saw the light of day. Including this one. Which looks like a bad attempt at a Thunderbirds fanfiction.

Concept artists and model makers for Star Wars includes Ralph McQuarrie, Colin Cantwell and Joe Johnston.

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Adam Savage

Adam Savage is a model maker and Mythbuster with quite a lot of money, so he he has the kind of resources to be able to kitbash with a lot of detail and quality, along with his years of experience.

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Kayte Sabicer

Kyrstie told me to do this

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Animation - Techniques Used

Background:

In the background of my animation is a set of clouds and a blue sky as the spaceship passes by it. What it really is, is a long picture of clouds that I painted in another photoshop file which I then dragged along slightly in each frame to give the impression the ship was moving across a plane. The background itself was only about 3 frames long but I left either side of it quite blank and lacking in detail so I could merge a copy of it onto the end if i needed more background.

(I had to downscale this to 50% quality because Tumblr is a terrible site. I hope it doesn’t look crap.)

Animation Loops:

I made this one animation able to loop so that I could loop it a few times to make the animation seem longer- effectively I want to waste time so people don’t think my animation is too short. The animation below is just the same 8 frames that seem to loop pretty well. I’m honestly quite proud of it.

Reused Frames:

In order to recreate the same movements I may have used in the first few frames, I simply reused some frames that I used earlier on in the animation later on. For example, the position of the ship in frame 4 is used again in frame 19 because I needed that kind of movement and perspective

Altered Frames:

Many of the first frames that I have used have been small changes from one original frame showing one perspective of the ship. The kinds of changes that I have given them have been things such as slightly enlarging one side of the ship and making the other side smaller to indicate that it is tilting from side to side.

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This is just part of the work in progress, but it is good enough for me to explain some of the techniques I used as I didn’t take many screenshots during the making. A breakdown of said techniques will come in another post.

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Animation - Sketching

First I wanted to sketch out the basic shape of each movement of the ship before going over it in better linework, this is to get the idea of what is happening exactly in each frame in mind before I begin the actual animation, also this would limit the amount of frames that I knew needed to be used to portray the movement I wanted as time was of the essence. In the below screenshot you have the original sketch below the new, proper linework.

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Animation - Storyboards and Finalising the design

I began to finalise the design and make a few more sketches. The only actual change I made was with the design of the jets which now look like more functional jets that can apply propulsion from either side, I’m starting to get very particular about that honestly. 

This is a very basic storyboard. I was planning on leaving colouring and the background for when I started animating. The idea is to have as much interesting movement as simply as possible. I’m not a good drawer, so making it do impossible stunts would be extremely difficult for me to do and if I tried it would probably end up terrible because I have no past experience with animating. The impossible stunts will come later.

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Animation - Design Phase

My original idea was a 1980s-inspired sci-fi anime which became far too intricate as my ideas progressed. It would’ve contained a massive overarching plot, detailed backdrops, fight scenes, monsters, etc. before I realised that, by nature, I’m too ambitious. All that came out of this idea is the sketch below of a soldier. The helmet is designed after Mandalorian Clone Trooper helmets from the Star Wars prequels (WHICH WERE GOOD) and the armour was a combination between RoboCop and Solid Snake’s sneaking suit from Metal Gear Solid, the first game in particular. What did carry on is the idea of an old-school style of sci-fi, old sci-fi anime and other such content which is indicated by the list of films and TV shows I should look into next to the design which I wrote down on instruction by Josh. In total I watched RoboCop (which was terrible), the original Ghost in the shell anime movie (which was also terrible), Back to the Future which is one of my favourite film series of all time and also an anime called Cowboy Bebop that was surprisingly good because I usually hate anime. In retrospect I should have probably looked into Mobile Suit Gundam, though, maybe some other time. Too much inspirational material can be difficult to work with.

Eventually I came up with the idea of a simple loop of a spaceship flying about, which would’ve been far more achievable with my current animation and drawing skills which are both awful. In total it would’ve lasted a few seconds.

I began looking into ships in media I’ve seen before, like in Star Wars and Cowboy Bebop. Star Wars generally has a pretty dated looking design when it comes to spaceships due to the general age of the movies, but I decided to go with more of a simplistic and streamlined look to ease out on detail when I finally get to start drawing frames.

What I wanted to do was take the simplicity and streamlined look of the Naboo Starfighter and the J-type 327 Nubian Royal Starship (the chrome one) from Phantom Menace along with the seemingly practical design of ships from Cowboy Bebop which often have features such as construction cranes and propulsion in all 6 directions for 3 Dimensional movement because in space there is no wind resistance or air for things like wings to carry the ship on, just forward momentum that doesn’t stop unless the ship is equally propelled in the opposite direction.

Naboo Starfighter

The Hammerhead

J-type 327 Nubian Royal Starship

The Swordfish (kind of my favourite)

The first sketch. The design is simple and has no wings (Why the hell do spaceships like x-wings need wings?! Jesus...) the balls on each side are meant to be jets which can move in a circular direction like a ball joint, this way the ship can move in 3 Dimensions in 0 Gravity. I like to say it looks simple enough to look good.

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Who Framed Rodger Rabbit

Who Framed Rodger Rabbit is a film that combines features of both live action and animated enviroments and characters, this was done by directly applying animation cells straight over frame live action footage. By today’s standards this would seem inefficient and obsolete through the use of modern technology, but in 1983, it was cutting edge.

Original cellular animations below from 1983, very different from the final production released in 1988.

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Big Hero 6

Any film that has a character saying “I will always be with you” before dying just for that moment to be completely swept under the rug because the character is now magically alive is by no means anywhere close to rightfully obtaining the title of “Best Animated Film Of The Year”

About ninety animators worked on the film at one point or another, some worked on the project for as long as two years until it’s final release. The design of the world, art style and in-universe culture is based on combining parts of Eastern animation methods and styles with Western styles.