Further Foley for the Animated Scene

Here are further sounds that I recorded for the WALL-E animated scene:

Visual Narrative 3D

Today we were shown how to use Maya to block out story scenes. This is key to showing layout concepts which will need to be done in the Pitch Bible.

In this first scene we had to practice using the modelling tools on Maya to create a rough shape of a Chicken:

The next task was to make a witches cauldron. Here are some screenshots of my work, shown from different angles:

Experimenting with Foley for an animated scene:

Here are the sounds recorded for the animated scene from WALL-E:

Narrative Film Screening 1

Today I watched the short film 'Bobs Birthday'. It is a 2D animation looking at the life of a Dentist called Bob who questions his lifestyle and whether or not he should have an affair with the dental nurse. He doesn't but then his wife throws him a surprise party, inviting friends around. Bob arrives home and talks badly about each guest, not knowing they are there, waiting to jump up. The animation ends where all of the guests are left in the house and Bob and his wife go out for a meal.

The scenes are very good in showing what the characters are focusing on meaning we can insinuate what they are thinking. This just goes to show that words are not necessarily needed to communicate with the audience within an animation.

Additionally today, we watched an animation called 'Mary and Max'. This is a stop-motion animation which focuses on the relationship between an 8 year old girl called Mary who lives in Australia and her Pen Pal Max who is a 44 year old man with Asperger's syndrome living in New York. This film tells an emotional tale, as Mary and Max both seek friendship which they find in each other. The colour scheme throughout this film is key to showing the mood of the characters. It starts off with very dull, brown colours as shown below:

However as the story continues, more colour is brought into each of the characters lives:

Mary and Max never have the chance to meet and experience a few bumps in their relationship along the way, but when Mary finally goes to meet Max, she is too late. She finds Max dead on his couch staring up at the ceiling. When she looks up though, she finds that Max truly valued their friendship as he spent his dying moments staring at the years worth of letters Mary had sent him, which he had stuck onto his ceiling.

Research into Paper Cut out Animations

1)  Stop Motion Animation - A haunted house by the 'Bowling Green State University Graphic Design Division':

2) Stop Motion Animation - The Brothers Grimm story 'Little Red Cap' represented through paper cut animation by Hazel O'Brien:

3) 3D Animation for the National Geographic raising awareness of wildlife conservation. It is entitled 'The Miniature World of Animated Paper Wild Life' by Directors Dávid Ringeisen & László Ruska:

Study Task 4 - Creative Making - Diorama Scene

Here are some photographs of my Diorama Scene:

My inspiration for this scene came from my 'Day 11 - Inktober' drawing!

My Clay Sculpt Character 360 degree view!

Clay Sculpt Character:

Study Task 4 - Character Walk Cycle

Here is my latest version of my Character Walk cycle:

Study Task 3 - Final Walk Cycle

Here is my finished 2D Walk Cycle: 

Study Task 3 - Stop Motion - Armatures

The Action of Batting a Ball:

Batting a Ball work on Timing:

Action of Kicking a Ball:

Kicking a Ball work on Timing:

Study Task 4 - Stop motion - Armature Walk Cycles

Today I worked on the blocking for the Armature Walk Cycle and the Variation of a walk - Sneaking. Here are the results:

Walk Cycle:

Sneaking:

Reference Footage for Sneaking - Study Task 4

Here is a video of me attempting to sneak as a variation of walking for this Study Task:

Study Task 2 - 2D - Elf Head Turn

Here is a final version of my Elf Character Head Turn:

Paper Cut Out Creation - Castle with Knights:

For this study task we had to create something using paper and only paper. Once again I found my inspiration in my Inktober drawing for 'Day 13' which was based around the word 'Guarded' as you will be able to see in my previous posts. I really enjoyed this task and the learning that came with it, as I found that I was able to use one sheet of paper to create the main structure of the castle, without actually separating the piece of paper. Here are my results:

This photograph is great in showing how each element of the main structure of the castle is taken from the same white piece of A5 paper.

I found it really interesting to photograph my creation using different angles of lighting as it worked very well to help produce some beautiful shadows!

Reference Footage for 3D Walk Cycle

Manchester Animation Festival 2018

Today I attended the Manchester Animation Festival for the first time, at the Home cinema in Manchester. The screenings that I watched were called 'Short Films 2', 'Student Films 2' and 'Tito and the Birds'. I finally attended a talk called '40 Years of Barry Purves' who is a professional Stop Motion animator, celebrating 40 years of being an animator.

I really enjoyed watching the different films and seeing some of the work of other Animation Students. I think that I particularly enjoyed 'Tito and the Birds' as it surpassed my expectations and it had a deep meaningful lesson, that we should never let our fears take control of our lives, however we shouldn't aim to get rid of them completely as our fears help us to survive and give us key instincts that we may sometimes take for granted.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the Festival and I can't wait until the next one. I have to say that it was great to listen to the life of Barry Purves and learn about his career as well as some of his most favoured experiences. A key quote he said is that "A puppet is like having a good piano, you can’t play anything without a good piano!” and my favourite quote from the event was that “Bringing a puppet to life in your hands is fantastic!” as i think that this is so true. It is also one of the main things that I really like about stop motion animation. 

Study Task 4 - 3D - 'Walk the Line'

In the 3D animation session today, I was given the final Study Task of making the character provided do a walk cycle. Today we were given time to get used to the character controls and I made this short play blast video to show my work from today.

Stepped Video:

Unstepped Video:

I will start the walk cycle properly once I have shot some footage of myself walking which I can then use for reference footage on Maya.

Study Task 3 - Character Walk Cycle

Here is my accountant character walk cycle before and after I made improvements:

Before:

After, in which I realised that I needed to align his legs:

The Bone Tool

Today we were shown how to use the Bone Tool to make an arm wave:

Life Drawing Final Session Part 2

Finally today we had to draw 12 poses of the model, which showed the action of bending down to pick up an item and then releasing it, here are my sequential drawings:

An additional part of this task was to then photograph each drawing and put them together into a flowing video to show the action: