Tom Mumford BA1a

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This is the colour map/scheme that I used for my main character Fugal in al of my character sheets.

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Rough Character Design

This is a rough draft for my character design sheet with a variety of different poses.  I tried to get Fugal’s personality across with these poses showing that he is a shy, gentle & kind character.

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Dynamic Exercise Reference

For my dynamic exercise, I went home and recorded footage of Henry the hoover moving in the way that I wanted him to move in my animation with help from some family members.  This will help me when it comes to making my animation on TV paint as I can get the right proportions of Henry and get a sense of how everything moves. 

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Rough Walk Cycle

Here is a rough walk cycle animation I also created on TV paint which contains the key frames for the walk starting with the contact and includes the passing point and breakdowns.  I am happy with the first attempt but talking to Jon, he has given me some feedback and thinks that the frames where the front foot lands on the ground could be exaggerated and the legs could bend more.  Also, he thought the head looked a bit stiff and could move back and forth a little so I will try to improve on these parts before completing the final walk cycle.

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Rough Turnaround

Here is a rough turnaround I created on TV paint for my character Fugal.  After reviewing, I have realised that the width of his body is wider than I would like and compared to the character model sheet so before I do the final linework for this turnaround, I will alter the proportions to make his body thinner.

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Rough Character Model

This is a rough character model sheet I drew out on Photoshop for one of my main characters, Fugal.  He’s a very shy, anxious person which I tried to emphasise and express by not giving him a mouth.  He is also very kind and selfless which I think will make him really likeable to audiences.

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Rough Cast Model

After going home and analysing casts and filling in my sketchbook I then drew out rough outlines for the cast I want to use for this character design project using Photoshop.  I decided to make a comedy/adventure tv show aimed at teenagers called F & L.  It follows the two main characters, Fugal and Lento, on their daily adventures against an evil villain called Victor and his less intelligent minion Jeff.  Fugal’s head is based off a roasting fork in my kitchen and Lento’s head is based off an upside down PlayStation controller.

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Rough Character Sheets

Having missed the first week of character design sessions, I didn’t have a sketchbook full of primary research or character ideas so I started fresh and made some small silhouettes for my cast.  I then used these silhouettes to create a cast model draft as well as the character model, character design and walk cycle.  This task helped me to know how the character design sheets will look like but I wasn’t happy with the characters I quickly came up with so I took the A6 sketchbook home and started doing some research and sketching some character ideas so I could create the characters I want to use for my final character sheets..

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Week 8 Summary: 12th - 16th November 2018

Submission Week!

For Dynamics, I started and completed my dynamic exercise using my drawn out storyboards and video reference to hep me plan.  I first drew out the key frames in rough on TV paint before doing the final linework for the final product.

For Character Design, I completed my character walk cycle and turnaround doing the clean, finished lines and colouring the walk cycle frames.  I also began the character design sheet sketching ideas for poses before I drew them out completely.

For Character Research, I received feedback on my first draft of my essay then responded to it and improved the quality by reading through it a few times and showing family members to make sure there are no mistakes I missed.

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Week 7 Summary: 5th - 9th November 2018

This week in character design we had a go at character turnarounds and walk cycles for our final project sheets using TV paint.  After doing some cast research and doing some personal research by filling in the sketchbook, I had come up with a hero character that I was happy with and have used him for these sheets.  I created the turnaround in rough which I realised after isn’t proportionally right as he is too wide so I will have to redo the rough versions to get the proportions right before I do the linework and colour.  I was quite pleased with the rough walk cycle as I feel it really shows what type of character he is but after receiving feedback, I am going to tweak the frame where his front foot touches the ground to exaggerate the bend even more to make the step more impactful.

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Analysis of casts

Mario games are designed to be played by young children as well as adults so the characters are brightly coloured, nicely rounded and the shapes aren’t too sharp to make it easy for the human brain to understand.  The main characters like Mario, Luigi and Yoshi all have very circular shapes making them look friendly and flowing whereas Bowser (the villain) has lots of pointy edges to emphasise his villainous character.  Looking at the silhouettes it is clear and easy to establish the different characters meaning there is a good variety and there is lots of asymmetry making the characters more exciting and less dull.

Up is a Disney film so it designed to be seen by families with older and younger people so the form of the characters are quite simple and easy to read.  Carl is very square making him seem solid and heavy whereas Russell and Dug are circular/oval shaped making them soft and harmless.  Kevin the bird is very different from the others as he is nearly double their heights and is very pointy. Again, their silhouettes are different in shapes so it is clear to label each character and they are all asymmetric making them intriguing and more relatable.

Winnie the Pooh is aimed at a young audience so the characters all have a variety of colours and simple shapes.  A lot of the characters are very circular like Winnie, Tigger, Kanga and Piglet making them safe and friendly unlike Eeyore and Owl who are very square coming across as heavy like a rock.  Looking at the silhouettes, they are all asymmetric and all different shapes and sizes making them more interesting and appealing for the audience.

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Week 6 Summary: 29th October - 2nd November 2018

This week in Character Design we drafted out some sheets of a cast, character model, character poses and a walk cycle.  Having missed last week, I didn’t have any research or previous character ideas to base mine off so I had to create a cast off the top of my head using a little knowledge of shape theory starting with silhouettes and then developing them further in more detail.  I was quite happy with a couple of the character’s that I roughly sketched but I definitely will do a lot of research before I come up with a cast that I'm happy with.

I also joined a life drawing session that was a repeat of the session I missed last week.  We did some more quick 2/1 min drawings before moving on to black paper where we focused on drawing the highlights of the body with white chalk instead of drawing black lines representing shadows.  Finally we used brown paper which was the mid point between black and white and used white chalk to do highlights and pencil for the shadows.  I can already see an improvement in my drawing since my first session so I am pleased with that.  However, I kept getting the legs too short in my drawings and the head was very large on my last drawing so I will try to keep working on improving my proportions.

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Week 5 Summary: 22nd - 26th October 2018

This week I was absent on holiday so I am now catching up with the work that I missed.

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Week 4 Summary: 15th - 19th October 2018

In Dynamics, we created a jumping animation that looked at anticipation and follow through.  My first attempt was okay and did the basics of a jump but it wasn't very exciting and looked very stiff.  To make it more believable, I created more of an anticipation as he winds up to jump and created more exaggerated extremes to really show the follow through principle in the jump.

In Character Research we looked at anthropomorphism and how it can help the audience relate and empathize to animals and objects more if they have human characteristics.

Finally, we started planning out our dynamic animation by storyboarding 3 ideas very roughly.  We then shared and commented on each others ideas before picking which one we choose to do.  I decided to do an animation of 'Henry' the hoover and I drew some key frames out to briefly show the main frames of the animation.

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Anthropomorphism

In our research session, we looked at anthropomorphism which is the attribution of human characteristics to animals or objects.  This was done to make the audience feel more empathy towards these animal characters and make us relate to them more.  Especially as animal characters were very popular in the early days of Disney as they didn't think the audience would engage as much with human characters. 

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Jump animation

On Monday, we used the line testers again to create a jumping animation.  This incorporated principles such as anticipation and follow through.  My first one turned out okay but the extreme frames weren't very 'extreme' and I didn't feel they were exaggerated enough on the taking off and landing.  There also wasn't a lot of anticipation and the character seemed to stay in the air a bit too long.

I then made some more exaggerated extremes and created more of an anticipation of the jump to improve the final animation. It still feels a bit too stiff which I think is because of his legs always being next to each other and they need to bend a bit more.

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Week 3 Summary: 8th - 12th October 2018

In Dynamics we created one of the fundamentals of animation, a walk cycle.  We started out making the main poses or contact positions, then the passing point, the two breakdowns before and after the passing point and finally the in-betweens.  After making this one step, we then created the other step to make one full cycle and then added the arms to finish off.  I felt like mine went pretty well, reading the animator's survival kit really helped with this.  However I repeated one of the contact frames by accident when creating the second step so the transition from the first step to second step was choppy.  I now know for next time, not to make frame 1 again when making the second step.

In character design we looked at archetypes and stereotypes which was very useful for our character essays.  We used Christopher Vogler's theory of the 8 character archetypes and Joseph Campbell's theory of the hero's journey.  I think I will use one or maybe both of these theories in my essay.

We also had our first life drawing session this week which was a fascinating new experience.  At first we had a 10 minute window to create a drawing without much guidance and I wasn't overly happy with my outcome, especially seeing everyone's drawings around me as they were very talented at drawing.  We then received some advice and criticism which vastly helped and improved my work before we began doing small drawings with only 2/1 minutes and even 30 seconds.  These definitely helped me learn more about the human anatomy and the basic shapes of the human body.  Then finally we finished with a 20 minute drawing which I was more pleased about than my first one so there is already improvement but I feel it still wasn't as good as I had hoped and there is still a long way to go.