Personal animations

At the start of this term I did some personal animation tests. The first one I did was a finger point, its a bit rough and the timing could be better but i think it works ok :)

I also did a a test of Jack Skellington (in 2D) to see if i could try and capture his personality. However i only managed to do a quick movement before i had to move on to my uni course work. i think i might try and animate him some more over summer.

in my sketchbooks from the christmas project i used fabric dye to stain my pages and on some of them i used a straw to blow it across the page. My tutor really liked his and thought it would be a good idea to try it in animation. So i did.

Here are the 1st few tests just to see how well it would work [sorry for the quality, the camera on the line tester was playing up :( ]

I really liked how it turned out and they made me think of a haunted/cursed forest that might come alive and try to attack you or hide some weird creatures. So I added some creatures to the dye.

Power Mum

We have just completed our animation of Audrey! We had to animate a 40sec sequence from a stationary viewpoint, each key framing 10 seconds and in-betweening another's keys within the group.

As part of this brief we had to complete our animation using story boards, animatics, dope sheets and charting. 

This is our animatic

I key framed the las 10 secs and in-betweened the 2nd last 10 secs. 

Key frames

inbetweens

full group animation 

Digital sketchbook

some digital doodles :)

Personal sketchbook

This is just some random doodles, drawings and paintings from my personal sketchbooks. 

3D modelling

As well as doing 2D animation we have to learn Maya. This semester we have been taught how to model and how to rig a skeleton. For our assessment we had to have a room completely modelled, rendered, textured, uv mapped and lit.

In our rooms we needed to have a minimum of a table, a chair, a bottle and a glass

this is my room.

I also tried putting in fire but it didn't turn out quite right.

Genetically Modified Foods Project

As part of our course we had to participate in an interdisciplinary project where we worked with other students from different disciplines in animation, graphic design and illustration.

In my group there were two graphic designers, an illustrator and me, the animator. We were given a topic of genetically modified food and we had to produce a research poster, a map or journey of GM food, and another outcome of our choice.

Here is our research poster

We chose do do our map in the form of the board game snakes and ladders, where instead of snakes and ladder we used earthworms and DNA strands. It is called Generic Ups and Downs. As well as  the board game we made the box, instruction leaflet and counters for the game.  We also decided to make GM snap cards as the second part of our project.

We got the chance to Exhibit our work in one of the university's galleries and both games were well received.

I really enjoyed this project and my group worked really well together.

Discovering Audrey

Before we could design Audrey we had to investigate her character. To do this we started with a dream writing class which was to help us open up to writing and to allow a stream of consciousness  to form.  During this class my group discussed Audrey and how she as a character would act within her environment. this was a helpful exercise as we established that we all had the same understanding of Audrey and we were able to develop her character fully.

Audrey

Audrey is an extreme mum. She is extreme in the sense that she loves dangerous and thrilling activities such as sky diving, swimming with sharks and bungee jumping. She has recently been through a divorce where her ex husband said she was boring which is the reason she has become an adrenaline junky.

She has 3 children who she loves fiercely and would do anything to protect however she has a tendency to pull her kids out of school to go on a wild adventure which could lead to danger.

This was a brief history for our character, developed within the dream writing class.

We also had to come up with a storyline for Audrey during this class. Our story was about ho Audrey decided to take her kids out on a picnic. But being Audrey it was no ordinary picnic, she decided to take them to the safari park for a picnic. They broke into the safari and set up their picnic, but she had their map the wrong way round and instead of being in beside the gazelles and zebras, they were in the lion pen.

The lions attracted by the food and the commotion of the family's picnic attacked. Cornered by the lions Audrey used the picnic basket to fight off the lions and protect her children from the lions.


to finish off our Dream writing class we did a dream drawing session of our characters. This was my drawing of Audrey with the picnic basket.

We were then given our brief for our animation which was to develop a script based on a scenario to do with food that would show Audrey's personality. We decided to have her cooking dinner for her children, which goes wrong when a stew monster appears from the pot. Audrey then has to battle the monster to b able to feed her children.

here is the script for our animation.

Power mum

Script

Action               Dialogue                                       Sound

Audrey walks in carrying photo frame of her children.

Heels clicking

She stops just past the shelf, turns and puts the frame on the shelf. 

Small thud  as frame is put down

She then taps the frame lovingly before, turning and moving towards the counter

Heels clicking

She reaches for a spoon and stirs the pot 2 times. 

Hear spoon in pot

Audrey then reaches for the tub of spice on the shelf behind the cooker and the monster pops up without her realizing 

Hear pot starting to bubble

She puts the spice in the pot, shaking it twice and as She puts the spice back and the pot begins to bubble. 

Bot bubbles loudly

The monster bursts out of the pot, giving Audrey a fright. She leans back in shock. She takes a step back.

Gurgling of monster

Gasp

She quickly recovers and ‘rolls’ up her sleeves in preparation for battle with the monster. 

Gurgling of monster 

Audrey then grabs her weapon, a ladle, and leans back to hit the monster, baseball swing style and scuffs the photo frame.

Scraping of ladle

Gurgling of monster 

Gloopy sound as its hit

She swings too hard at the monster and is forced to stumble back to correct herself, dropping the ladle.

Gloopy sound as monster hits ladle

Clang as ladle hits ground

Her facial expression goes from fear to determined as she whips out 3 plates from behind her back to continue her battle with the monster.

Sound of plates rattling 

Gurgling of monster

She frisbee throws the plates at the monster, who now towers above her, and it eats the plates. As she throws the plates she steps back. 

Gurgling of monster 

Woosh noises 

Gulp noises as monster eats plates 

The monster grows bigger and Audrey is forced to lean back. She bumps her head on the shelf and knocks the photo frame off.

Gurgling as monster grows

Thud as Audrey bumps head,   Rattling of frame?

She then lunges to catch it and places it gently on the shelf. A she does this she:

"GRRR's" 

at the monster causing it to shrink back. 

Thud as her foot lands

Small thud as photo frame is put back

She moves quickly towards the counter and grabs the pot lid from behind the pot. 

Clicking of feet

Scraping of pot lid

Audrey then jumps up with the pot lid and then slams it down on top of the monster whilst doing the splits in the air. 

Slamming of lid

Gurgling of monster

She lands on the top of the pot with force before turning and swinging her legs forward so she can sit on the pot. Using her big booty to great effect.

Thud as she lands on pot

Thump noises as she moves around on pot

After a pause she then jumps off and lands before turning and whipping out plates from behind her back. 

Thud as she lands from jump

Noise of plates touching/bumping

The plates land on her arm and she turns to frisbee throw the lid out of scene before picking up a label from behind the pot. 

Sound of lid  scraping,   Then landing off screen

Ladle  on counter

She then reaches into the pot with the ladle and she scoops out some of the food

Label scraping pot

Sound of gloopy-ness?

She turns again to put the food on the plates, she does this in one continuous movement. 

Gloppy noises as food falls on plate

After a pause the monster pops up on the plate. She looks at it and becomes angry again. 

Gurgling noises as monster pops up

Audrey then hits it with the ladle and goes back to standing happy with her self

Smushy noises as she hits monster 

Gurgly scream? 

Screen fades to black 

"DINNER"

Character design

Following our research into memorable characters we had to come up with our own and pitch them to our class. My character was a cantankerous old woman called Maggie (aka mad maggie) who walked hunched over and had a dodgy knee. she carried a cane which she liked to use to hit or trip unsuspecting people up and she was always complaining about "kids these days."  She thought of herself as a bit of a prankster but she didn't like being the butt of the joke.

The class was asked to pick seven characters for us to work in groups for and unfortunately my character was not one of the ones chosen. The seven were: an extreme mum called Audrey; an alien called Patrick; a crazy pet called microwave; hobo joe; a robot called mu, a superhero called Tastyman; and a rag doll called Raggy.  I chose to work on Audrey, the extreme mum.

Each group got 4 members who had to come up with designs for Audrey, here are my designs.

 Again we had to pitch our design to the class and my one wasn't chosen. This was the character design that was chosen for Audrey.