Life Drawing

I'm actually shocked at how much I'm enjoying life drawings at the moment, even though I haven't gone into much detail I am just happy with my overall shapes. These life drawings are going so much better than I expected and I'm starting to feel a little more confident now.

Storyboard - Spirit Bear

 

My storyboard so far. It's not great and my storyboarding skills are quite poor as I am relatively new to this but I have loved using the wacom tablet to do this and I'm just starting to get used to photoshop so, yeah. I'm quite looking forward to making an animatic of this after christmas! Hopefully I'll get this storyboard finished by friday, what busy week!!

Storyboard - The Spirit Bear

   This is the first frame of my storyboard for 'The Spirit Bear'. My first time doing a storyboard using the Wacom tablet so for my first go, I'm chuffed! I feel my character designs could be a little stronger but the overall scene looks good and I'm actually surprised at how 'okay' the pile of leaves looks, I thought I would struggle with that. I have 4 days left to complete this. 1 frame down....29+ to go - I can do this!!!

2D Squirrel Jump

Animating a Walk

Today, I animated a walk and it was great. It was difficult at first because I was introduced to so many new controls so it was all really new to me but I really enjoyed it and I'm pelased with how it turned out. Definitely needs some improvements but considering it was my first go, it's not that bad! Before doing this I didn't understand actually how much work gets put into animating a walk, I thought it would be easy but there is so much to think about, like the movements of the feet and the whole body, it's all very complex but overtime I will get the hang of it, I'm sure:)

Turning Hand

 

At first, I found doing this very difficult because i couldn't get the hang of the software but i eventually got the hang of it and I really loved it because there was a mixture of hand and computer work and I particularly liked being able to portray my actual drawings through the computer. I added a bit of colour just to make it look more presentable but i have to say I am very pleased with this as my first attempt at using the Wacom tablet and toonboom!

2D Flash Jumping Square Revised

After getting feedback from Nick on my first attempt of the jumping cube, I went away and improved it. I was told to remove some key frames to make the landing faster and that the shape is too uniform at the top of the jump. To improve, I have changed the shape slightly at the top of the arch and removed any necessary key frames. I also played around with the background a bit to make it more interesting. I think it looks a lot better than before - still not perfect, but much better. Over time I will improve my Flash skills and will do more experimenting with it.

2D Flash Jumping Square

 

   Flash is a programme that I've never used before so it was really hard to get the hang of it. I must admit, I struggled with this task because it's the first time using the software and getting the shapes right on each keyframe was difficult but I think that overtime with a lot of practice and experimenting, my Flash animating skills will improve. I will probably do this again after being given feedback from Nick. I don't really like what i have done here but I do quite like the squash and stretch at the beginning.

3D Animation Principles - Animating a Fox

    This here is the outcome of a task I was given as part of this module. the basic form was already provided for us and we had to animate it and make it jump up the steps. This definitely needs some (well, a lot of) work but I am pleased with the progress I've made. It was hard to animate the tail so that it flips up during a jump but I think I did okay with this considering it was my first go at animating a complicated shape. I added my own little bit to this character by making him look either side before he jumps onto the first step and to the front  at the end of the clip, I think this makes him look more believable. I can't wait to develop this more!

Fragile - Final Piece

My reason for posting my previous work on my Animation blog is that some of my work this year and next year, even the year after could be influenced by work that I've done in the past as I think some of my pieces have a lot of potential in terms of ideas of stories and backgrounds etc. Here is the final piece which stems from the theme, Fragile. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

Above: Work in Progress!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Voila! My final piece all done! I feel that this gives a great representation of the incredible world we live in. Despite the negative aspect of life with regards to war, poverty, conflict and other social and political issues, if you sit back and look at your surroundings, you come to realise that the world is actually a pretty amazing place. I wanted to portray this beauty in my final piece and I think that I successfully did this.

Alphonse Mucha

   Found this video on YouTube and love how someone has used Mucha's work to create a lovely animation this has really interested me. I fell in love with his work as soon as I found out about him at the beginning of my GCSE Art and Design course. I feel like I can relate to him because I find his work quite illustrative and I believe that my work (when not being influenced by Mucha's) is quite similar. This Art Nouveau artist influences my work a lot and I might possibly experiment and do some of my own animations inspired by Mucha's work. Here are some examples of his work:

Previous Work

These are just a few examples of the many pieces and sketchbook work I have done over the last few years showing my range of skills and range of media used - these were done as part of my Fine Art A-Level course where I was given a theme and had to tell a story and work towards a final piece.

 

    Left: This is one of my favourite final pieces - done in acrylic. Before painting this final piece, I was used to working in fine liner and didn't do much painting but I thought I would challenge myself and I'm glad I did. The theme was Faces and because life drawing was weakness of mine, I had to consider other ideas of the theme such as the faces of nature and faces of animals etc. I researched these aspects of the theme and ended up putting all of my research together to create this final composition. I feel that this could have potential to become animated for a short clip. For example, robin flying, human figure moving etc. There is a lot I could do to improve this piece but if I had to choose one, I would most likely work on the facial features a bit more. However, as this was done a while ago, I feel I may have improved my life drawing skills since then. I was influenced by the work of Alphonse Mucha who is a favourite of mine, as well as William Morris, Walter Crane and Joseph Stella.

This was my final piece for my mock exam. Similar to the "Faces" final piece, the drawing of the face is very weak but this was done a while ago too. I was influenced again by Alphonse Mucha and William Morris, I feel that their work combined together gives a very good effect and feel to the composition. This was done in fine liner because I felt that using this medium, it would allow me to include more detail in my work.

 

 

 

 

 

Theme: Closely Observing. I "closely observed" numerous things throughout my research but I couldn't decide which path I wanted to take so I decided to include elements of it all in my work. For example, fruit, animals, landscape. The mountain scene in the background was influenced by the late artist, Bob Ross.

 

Theme: Woodland - Fine Liner Pen, trilogy of drawings inspired by nature and artists Gustav Klimt, Angie Lewin and William Morris.

 

Above: A page out of one of my sketchbooks, thought I would be adventurous and add an ancient feel to the page, I wanted to post this on here to show my love for Alphonse Mucha's work. In fact, perhaps I'll make a separate post to talk about his work and why it inspires me.

 

 

  

 

 

 

Life Drawing..again

   This is probably my favourite sketch of the session, we were not allowed to look at the paper at all whilst sketching, we were only allowed to look at the model in front of us the whole time hence why my lines are so messy which actually looks quite effective. Even though it's not a very accurate drawing, it was not meant to be perfect, it's all about observing which is very important. Can't wait till the next session!

More Life Drawing

   I have mixed feelings about this sketch. One one hand, I feel that I observed quite well and the form is a lot more accurate than I would have thought. However, I'm not too sure about the lighting and how I have portrayed it, It was difficult as there wasn't much shadow given that we only had access to natural light coming from the window so I struggled to see the light and darker areas more than usual. For a first attempt using this technique and on this paper, I guess I did pretty good!

Life Drawing 1 - 2 Minute sketches

  
I have to say, I was really nervous about my first life drawing class because I didn't know what to expect and I'd probably say that life drawing is a weakness of mine, we didn't really look much into it in my A-Level Art lessons so I practically came into the first life drawing class with no experience whatsoever. These are very quick, unfinished 1 minute sketches which I did using charcoal. I hardly use charcoal but when I do, I really enjoy it as it glides so easily onto the paper. There are countless improvements I could make but I did so much better than I expected and I am really pleased with it. I can't believe I'm saying this but I actually can't wait until the next life drawing session! I also did a couple of other drawings which I will show on a separate post.

3D Bouncing Ball with "squash and stretch" technique.

 

   This is my bouncing ball that I created using Autodesk Maya 2016. The two videos show the same ball but bouncing at different angles. I am a perfectionist so I was quite stressed out at first because I felt that I couldn't get anything right especially because I am new to Maya but I didn't give up and finally I finished it. I feel that the "squash and stretch" technique here really adds to the ball's character and therefore makes the animation overall more believable. Although working in 3D is difficult for me at the moment I am up for the challenge and can't wait to do some more 3D work soon!

Reindeer Fun!!

   I thought I'd practice and experiment a bit so I did some of my own animation. You can guarantee that this use this reindeer for Christmas cards, competitions and posters every year, I used to love drawing him. I used Dragonframe to do this and it took a lot of patience because I had to draw a bit, key a frame, draw another bit, key another frame and so on. It turned out pretty well considering I am new to this software, although I probably could have zoomed in a bit more!

2D Animation Principles - Bouncing Ball Task

 

   My first task in this module was to animate a bouncing ball in 2D. I used a lightbox to draw each frame and used stop motion software, Dragonframe to put it all together and create a video. It was all very new to me because I've had no previous experience with lightboxes or Dragonframe so I learnt as I went along. It was hard at first to understand the numbering of frames on each piece of paper but as I progressed I started to get the hang of it and this was the outcome. For my first go I am very pleased with it - next I just need to try the "squash and stretch" technique to make my bouncing ball believable and give it a little character.