The Artist's Toolkit: Animation & Character - Final Submission

Showreel

Facemorph Animation

Blob in Dragon

Zeotrope Video

Taste Animation

Tweens & Motion Paths

Bouncing Ball Character

Quick Flash Animation & Line Animation

Pixelation Animations

Charcoal Morph Animation

Final Zeotrope - Planning

Zeotrope Planning - Inital Ideas

Praxinoscope Animation

CG Artist's Toolkit: Revised Showreel

Updated Showreel

As my initial showreel had copyrighted content in it, I had to make a new one. This is a lot simpler than the first one, and is, in my opinion, much less exciting. The tune is still quite catchy and it's fast pace suits the video well.

But because, however, I am still happy with the initial showreel, and prefer this one despite the copyright content, I have uploaded it below. This is obviously not the one I'll show tomorrow.

Initial Showreel

CG Artist's Toolkit: Face-morph Animation

This our face morph animation that we made earlier in the year. I really liked doing this and it was quite a fun way to meet new people, as at the stage when we made it I didn't know many people and so this helped me in that sense. It's quite a funny thing to watch seeing other people draw you and then everyone's drawing mixing together. 

CG Artist's Toolkit: Blob in Dragon

This is the bouncing ball that we made in Dragon. This was split into 3 sessions, I think. We had to first animate it coming into screen, then we had to have it jump over an object and land after, if at all. The overall quality is a bit blurry, but the actual animation works well and the ball has a fun and interesting character.

CG Artist's Toolkit: Zeotrope Video

This is the video of the zeotrope in action. I am quite pleased with this as it worked in the way I hoped it would, although it may be a little too fast. However, I really liked making the zeotrope and I liked the freedom of being able to chose what we wanted to base it on.

CG Artist's Toolkit: Taste Animation

In today's session with Meg, we had to make an animation in Flash that reflected what we imagined the taste of a food or drink would look like. I based my animation on the energy drink that I was having while doing it. It has a sharp, sour taste at the start, and then all the fruit flavours mix together. The flavour goes, but it leaves a slight twist/after taste at the end. I think my animation demonstrates that well, but it could be a bit slower.

CG Artist's Toolkit: Tweens and Motion Paths

In today's session with Meg, we continued working on flash. This week we were introduced to Tweens and motion paths, as they are an alternative, and faster, method. I had a bit of trouble using each and so my results are too great. However, I did learn about them and now know more ways to use flash, which is obviously a good thing.

Using Tweens

Using a Motion Path

CG Artist's Toolkit - Bouncing Ball/Character

This is the bouncing ball character that we made in Flash. It is a bit obscure in places, but the actual movement of the ball works well.

CG Artist's Toolkit - Flash Animation

Today in our Artist's toolkit session with Meg, we began by doing a random animation based on anything. I did a dancing man, who got hit by a car. His blood pours onto the road and then a man runs up to his body, and points and laughs. Considering it was only done within 20 minutes, or so, I quite like this, as it is very consistent and everything stays the same size, except for when the body is on the floor. 

We were then asked to an animation of a line that has a character. I chose a brush that would create a strip of silk look, and I made it have a very curious character. I showed the curiosity by having it whiz around the screen and by having it stop and look round a couple of times. I didn't add much of an entrance, but apart from that I think the character appears very curious.

Quick Flash Animation

"Line" Animation

CG Artist Toolkit: Pixelation Animations

Taken a while to upload, but here the pixelation animations we did. It was surprising how long it would take to do one part, but in the animation it would be over in a couple of seconds. It was still fun to do, despite my little dance and poor driving.

CG Artist Toolkit: Charcoal Morph Animation

Taken a long while to upload, but here is the charcoal morph animation that we did. It was a lot of fun to do, and was relatively easy to do, despite how little each frame had to be compared to the next.

CG Artist Toolkit: Final Zeotrope

Final Idea

I decided to continue with the "Breaking Bad" Zeotrope idea. I felt that the "Breaking Bad" and "Batman" zeotrope ideas were the best, but I couldn't quite work out how I'd be able to do the Bat-signal, so I opted for this idea.

I created this by drawing an RV on Photoshop. I drew it by continuously looking at images of the RV on google, and was trying to get as much detail in as possible, but was trying to still get the cartoony look that I wanted. I then printed out about 30 of them, just in case some printed badly or broke. I then cut each of them out and stuck them down, once I finished the background.

RV I made on Photoshop

I made the background by drawing similar hills that I did in my own Breaking Bad drawing, and used water colour paints to give them a wash like effect as I wanted the background to look a little blurry and not have any clear detail to them. The background has a cartoony feel to it with it's bright colours and lack of tone/detail, especially in the sky as it's just the same shade of blue.

My own Breaking Bad drawing

As I had finished this 2 weeks ago, I was able to test it last Friday, for the first time, which was a bit of a risky move as it might have looked awful. Fortunately the fast sped of the RV and background movement actually looks quite good and with the main characters in Breaking Bad being criminals, it looks like the speeding away from something and so the fast speed of the animation makes sense, even though I didn't create the background correctly.

This isn't a very festive idea, but as I am a fan of Breaking Bad, I felt it would get me more excited about making the zeotrope.

Apologies for the poor picture quality.

CG Artist Toolkit: Zeotrope Planning

Here my original ideas that I thought of for my zeotrope:

My thinking behind this one was that the footballer was volley the ball, it would hit the bar, go over the goal and it would fall to the player like how it did originally. Although I think it would work as animation, it would be quite difficult to animate the player's body movements and for there to still be enough frames for the rest of the animation. Also, it wouldn't make sense in the real world, unless it's a very long pitch that they're on.

The idea behind this one was that the UFO would drop the person off, fly away, then come back and pick him back up again. Like the first one. I think it would have worked quite well, but I felt it needed a bit more to it and was quite simple.

My final two ideas are the same with regards as to how they'd look. The car would be in every frame and the background would be the thing that would change.

The one above is based on Breaking Bad, as it has the signature RV and have the desert landscape of Albuquerque in the background. I think that as the RV is the main thing in the animation, it would have to be more detailed than the background, which the drawing shows. The background would need to be framed correctly, otherwise it may go too fast.

The one below is based on Batman, with the Bat-mobile, the skyscrapers in the background and the bat signal. The Bat signal is the only real difference between these two ideas, and  it would make it a lot harder to create as it would need to move around slightly in the air.

CG Artist's Toolkit: Animation & Character - Mini Zeotrope

During our first Animation & Character lesson, we were asked to get into pairs and make a quick animation, using a 10 frame disk and a zeotrope. A zeotrope is spun round and reflects the frames on the disk, and at a certain speed, it looks like an amination. I started off the frames. I did a small house and changed it a little each time, and in one frame I included a little character, then it was Marion's turn. It was quite fun making these and discovering another quick method of creating a quick animation.