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Primary Research
Greg McLeod talked to us about animation and showed us a lot of his work and even gave us an example of how he worked. I noticed when he talked about the animation Marfa, one of his mock up clips which was the one where they got pulled over, he used a lot of exaggeration for that to make the animation a lot more interesting. The exaggeration was him going through a police chase and then blowing up the police car with an RPG. I liked how it made it more appealing to watch even if he didn't actually use it in the final. He finds ways around animation to make it easier so it doesn't take as long, and I think his style is simple too which makes things a lot more laid back. I like how he was giving us advice on how to connect with bigger companies, and to just put your work out there since anyone can see it and refer you towards these things. One thing I found hard to read was his example of making an animation, he's skilled at what he does but it was difficult to understand what was going on at times or what he did to get to that stage.
Overall I'm happy with what I got from this lecture, he's a talented animator and inspiring. What I'm taking from it is the simplicity, he got far by having really basic animations generally but the sound design and final products really give it a lot of character. It is good to know that you can get far without having to do some insane piece of art each frame to be noticed by bigger companies. Another thing I like is how he develops ideas over time, like Mee and Burd kept developing over time and now it has a lot more characters along with a story.
Animation Styles
3D CGI - This animation adds an extra dimension to the story telling. It uses computer generated 3D models and can create things that 2D cannot. This style of animation is a lot more immersive and realistic. CGI is a huge thing now in modern day. I have a comparison below of newer CGI compared to old. Jurassic Park used CGI to create their dinosaurs.
Traditional 2D/2D Animation - This is where everything was hand drawn before computers were big for animating. This was the foundation for animation where things were drawn fluently and you can kind of tell that by the style. Studio Ghibli , who made some of the most popular animated films , also used this hand drawn technique. A lot of old Disney movies are 2D animated.
Stop motion - This form of animation is very delicate as you move things slightly to get an animation out of it. This process can take ages and can be easily messed up. They do this by capturing a photo every time they move the characters. This animation correlates with Claymation.
Claymation - Wallace and Gromit is one of the most recognised Claymation movies ever. This form of animation takes a long time and a lot of accuracy. This category can also come under stop motion animation as they both include moving things slightly and being able to animate that way. Tim Burton is a famous one for Claymation movies.
Anime - Anime is made by being hand drawn and then it is transferred and animated through a computer. They do each frame so this process can take ages hence why a lot of animes take 2-3 years for the next season. This is how they make everything pop out. Anime is originally manga (sometimes) and the stories will be based off of the books so the animators already have an idea of what they're doing.
Flipbook - You draw each frame on a different page and then flip through, this form of animation is really simple but you don't see it a lot in media as it's not a common way to animate a movie or show. I would say that this animation type is more of a fun way to do it if you're bored.
Mixed Animation - Movies like the spiderverse include almost all forms of animation in it, these movies have taken a very long time to make and release due to this lengthy process of adding in everything. I think that adding in a lot of things into one can be really creative and also make for a really fun movie. If you look hard enough during these movies too you can see the different forms.
The 12 Principles of Animation
Squash and Stretch - This is where you give life to an object, making it funky and flexible. This may not apply so much in realistic animation but if you're going for a cartoon feel then it's a very useful rule. You usually can exaggerate this and make it comical for the audience.
Anticipation - This is where you prepare the people watching for an action that the thing in your animation is doing. For example if your character is about to kick a football then you need to build up the kick in your drawing. This can also be applied to less physical actions.
Staging - This is where you're keeping what is relevant in the picture and focusing on it so that the audience sees it clearly as important for the animation. It's essentially like a key part in the story you want to focus on. This can be done in many ways like expressions, personality changes or mood.
Straight ahead action and pose to pose - People use these together a lot, they are both two different approaches to drawing. Straight ahead is where your scenes are animated frame by frame meanwhile pose to pose is starting off with drawing keyframes and then filling in the intervals later. Straight ahead creates more fluent movement and better for realistic outcomes. Pose to pose is better for more dramatic scenarios.
Follow through and overlapping action - This is how you render movement more realistically and helps show that the characters are following the law of physics. 'Follow through' means that the loosely tied parts of a body should follow after the character has stopped. 'Overlapping' is for the tendency of parts of the body to move at different rates. That is where the arm will move a different time to the head etc. Exaggerated use of these effects can be very comical.
Slow in and slow out - Objects, people, animals etc. need time to accelerate and slow back down. More pictures are drawn at the start and end of these actions to emphasize what the animation is trying to do. Sometimes you could use this in the middle of the action to try show speeding up or slowing down midway.
Arc - Most natural actions follow an arc, so this is to help the movements be smooth and look correct. This could be for moving a leg or arm, rotating joints or performing any action that involves your limbs bending. This will help your animation look fluent.
Secondary action - These secondary actions can help your main action seem a lot more lively and give your scene more emphasis. An example of a secondary action would be a cat frantically meowing as it is walking or a person walking with their hands in their pockets. Your animation can seem very boring if there isn't life going on all around.
Timing - This is where you time your actions correctly to make sure that the animation is obeying the law of physics. As an example, weight is one factor you have to think about if you're dropping an object, will it go fast or slow based on how heavy it is. It can also be used on people to determine their mood or emotions.
Exaggeration - This aspect is very self explanatory, it is emphasizing your animation. If it looks dull or boring, you add something fun to it to exaggerate that scene and make it better. It is essentially presenting your creation in a more extreme form to give it character. You shouldn't exaggerate everything though else it gets overwhelming for the viewer so it is okay to have some duller parts.
Solid drawing - This is where the artist takes into account: anatomy, shapes, weight, balance, light, shadow and everything else that makes your art look correct. You need to understand the basics of these to have a 'solid' drawing as it's important to have these factors in your art.
Appeal - This is how you make your characters seem appealing. You want to make sure you present your character how you want people to perceive them, although everyone has different opinions on what they like so you may have a wide range of people who like and dislike your characters. Audiences can be straightforward and you can guess what type of character would be appealing for them. As an example, a character with a cute face and nice hair would be appealing for an audience since they're basic and nice to look at visually.
The Brothers McLeod
Their animations are very unique and have a simple and fun art style. I wouldn't say I personally enjoy their style too much but I can recognize that they put a lot of thought into what they're producing.
I like this animation off of their youtube channel, the style is so simple and stupid (positive). You can clearly tell the difference between personalities of the characters and also see how each one has been thought out visually.
This film is based on our project, one second animations. I like this because you can do a lot in one second.
Social Media
This persons animations are very repetitive in character, which shows that they have that character fully developed in personality, emotions and the way they act.
I love their art style the most, it's very consistent and simple which makes the animating easy. From the views on their account too you can tell they're popular. This character also catches your eye because she is cute, so visuals are important for appeal.
For this animator, I like how simple the colouring and lineart is. The style of this feels very easy on the eyes while also having vibrant colours to make it pop.
I love the detail they put into the backgrounds and plants, it gives the scene a lot more life rather than the characters.
I think the character in this has nice facial expressions, you can tell what she is feeling from the expression and the actions she is doing in the images. I'm a fan of the simple art as well, it feels a lot more realistic than the other two character wise and I like that about it.
Reflective Journal for week 1 of this rotation
This week we did research into different types of animation, looked at the rules of animation and also met a professional animator via online meeting. I'm already interested in animation so I was aware of all the different styles Also during this time I did learn more about some forms of animating than I already knew, which was fun. This week I set out to achieve the goal of getting all my research and planning down, I was absent for the planning so next week I plan to finish that up quickly. That week I achieved my goals, and I think my barriers were finding the Instagram accounts as references. I wanted to find stuff that I could take inspiration from. I did end up achieving that. In the future I would like to try be a little more extensive with my research but I am not really worried about that since these are short rotations.
Planning
I had three rough ideas in my head prior to my mind map, so this was relatively simple to do. The only thing I had a hard time with was figuring out a superpower that could be deemed awful.
Storyboards
Production
I started off this way but then I did change the layout of how things looked.
These are my brush settings for the drawings, I don't change the size of the pen at all during production, I like the consistent.
This is what I ended up starting off with, and then I started my animating from there. I did the wall using perspective since I wanted the cat to get smaller as it travelled.
I had the cat splat into the wall as I planned, and then make it droop down. I had also coloured my stuff at this point so you can see what is going on.
These are all the layers I used, I made use of them all correctly.
I added in a wall lastly, I didn't originally have it but I had some extra time so I put it in for detail.
This is how the animation turned out, the red is meant to represent a brick wall which I may go back to if I have time. - 14/10 I did have time.
I find it hard to see what's going on in one second to me, but I think it looks good for what it is.
Reflective Journal - 13th Oct
Today I finished my planning and started on my production. I achieved my 3 rough ideas for my animation and I liked them and made them simple so I kept them. I may change the storyboarding if I get any new ideas during production. I had no barriers for planning, I ran with whatever I got and liked it. I aim to achieve all three ideas completed in my production, and just keep them simply drawn. Production I found okay, adobe animate is a new software so I have some barriers, main one being I have no idea what anything does other than the basics. Today I did finish my first animation, I kept it simple and easy and I don't think it's amazing but I want to improve as I keep doing my others, that is what I aim to achieve for the next few days.
I started off by using onion skinning and plotting out my cookie, I did this but just placing circles the way I wanted him to go.
I wanted to add in secondary actions and I tried to with the hat wobbling through each keyframe as he was running but it's very hard to notice as the animation is 1s long.
To show he knows what's coming and he's sad about it, I changed his expression at the end.
To indicate he's crumbling, I used onion skin to make the holes in him worse as time went on. This worked well, I also added his leg and arm falling off.
And lastly for this animation, I coloured it in a little just to make it more visually appealing. In addition I did make the hat full black too.
I made him go super fast around the screen to show his power and then made him crumble at the end to indicate he crumbles from running fast. I do like this animation but my only issue is how choppy it feels at the end. I would make it smoother if I had to do it again.
Reflective Journal - 14th Oct
Today I started my second animation and my goal was to finish the animation. I achieved this goal and I'm happy with how consistent I was with my animation today, and I'm starting to get the hang of adobe animate as well. I also wanted to try finish up some of my written work for my previous animation, and I managed to fit that in too. I'm happy with what I achieved today. I plan tomorrow to try finish up my site and add in some things that are missing. I had no barriers today.
I changed up what was going to happen a bit, but it's overall the same as my storyboard. and this is what I started with. I did a bit of copy and pasting for the head.
I wanted to make my villain expressive, so I exaggerated his eyes and mouth. This helped show the shock/fear in his face.
I did redo my line art, and I made the plant man thicker accidentally but it doesn't look awful in the animation so I kept it. I made the villain expressive in each frame too.
I liked the idea of a closeup of the leaves failing to wound the villain, and have the villain looking distraught and confused.
After all my line work was done, I decided I wanted this animation to feel colourful, so I coloured in a bunch of frames.
I am fine with how this turned out, it was probably the hardest one to do since I had to think more about how to make it more interesting. I think I could've worked on the pacing a lot more. It was also difficult to make it look like the petals are spinning due to how fast the animation goes.
Reflective Journal - 15th Oct
I finished my production today, I have created 3 one second animations. My goals for today were to finish my final animation, and finish up some written work. I achieved both of these goals and I am happy with what I have done. My barriers today were the animation itself, I kept making mistakes and accidentally drawing on the wrong layer and I kept having a hard time with the line art of the plant. I managed to get the hang of it after a while though, it was just misclicks. Tomorrow I aim to achieve finishing up everything else that needs to get done. One thing I need to do better in the future is make sure I take more screenshots, I get carried away and forget.
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