Royzy's Art and Design Blog Roll

First Christmas deadline is over, with two more coming up quickly before we break up. It is a shame this project ended first, because it was the most enjoyable to date. For those unaware, the project was to draw instances of character brought out through conversation or interaction. The goal set was about 50 drawings (or at least 1 a day). My personal goal was to fill a sketchbook, which resulted in 32 pages of sketches.

It was up to us to choose reference material, whether it be from life or photos/magazines/internet/stills from films. The majority of my reference material was photographs. I searched on Flickr a lot, simply because it is a gold mine for excellent photography. I have credited a few people at the end of this post for their work that I have used as reference.

My first almost entirely filled sketchbook. Now to start on another…

Reference sources:

Carlo Nicora
Mazda6 (Tor)
Anton Kawasaki
Sir Realist
Tin Green
Thomas Lottermoser
JT Karanka

Big thanks to the talented photographers above. There are possibly more, whom I have not credited. If you believe I have used one of your photos, let me know which one and I will add you to the list!

Thanks again.

November 28th, 2009 | Tags: Drawing, sketchbooks | Category: Complete Sketchbooks, Drawing | Comments (5)

As we venture nearer to deadline time, it seems now is the most important time to use efficiently. Unfortunately, it is also the time I decided to move house. Juggling time.

It is always a bit of a challenge for someone like myself to be at all organised when it comes to time-management. I have got better with it over the summer, so throwing in a week of house moving is a nice little test. OK so far, although I have got a little behind on my drawings for Kathy. I still think I can fill this sketchbook from front to back with sketches though, before our hand in.

Below are just four more of the pages from this ‘Conversations’ sketchbook I have started.

Click here to see the completed sketchbook

Hopefully the more studio-like feel of my new room will help me with my sketching. Also with a great fellow sketcher upstairs, maybe we could get a bit competitive with it.

November 9th, 2009 | Tags: conversations, Drawing, sketchbooks | Category: Drawing | Comments (2)

This is our third animation principles exercise in as many weeks, the last before our main unit task. The aim was convey two different emotions and the transition between them. Again, I decided to work in 3D, so I could play a little.

We were asked to concentrate on certain qualities for this, to give the character its own thought process. It took me ages to decide on two emotions and a cause. I didn’t want to add in props, because they would require animating too. I already knew people were going to approach theirs with seeing/overhearing something off-screen, so I wanted to have him affected by something a bit different.

That’s basically when I thought, ‘what might the character be able to see near himself, but I cannot?’. Then I thought about how ridiculous people look when trying to deflect a fly or a wasp.

I instantly knew there was potential for the animation to look misleading though.

Sure enough, the result can be quite misleading. It does indeed look like he is wafting a fart, at least at the beginning. I decided I wasn’t too worried about this, after laughing at my screen during a playblast.

Critical feedback – I didn’t really receive any when we presented them all on the Monday morning. Aside from the heckles and sniggering, the actual feedback on the animation was quite positive. I’d say problems it has include some of the slow-down during wafts. Although contrasting speeds are good, it looks a bit unnatural in mine towards the end.

Video Reference – it helps.

After last weeks exercise, I had decided working with video reference was a good idea. I tried to over-act a little with it, although I only performed a single take. Some of the tips which I learnt in the our Acting Workshop today could of been pretty useful here. Oh, and ignore the fancy dress costume.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Next Week

Our next exercise is the main one for this unit. It involves animating to a short sound clip for this month’s 11 Second Club competition. Although we are allowed to use last month’s sound clip if we wish, it cannot be entered into the competition. More on that next week.

November 4th, 2009 | Tags: conveying emotion, Digital Animation, wasp attack, weekly exercises | Category: Animation Principles, Digital Animation | Comments (1)

This week we were assigned another short exercise, this time to animate a character lifting up an object. Once again I decided to work in 3D, just so I have the option to play around with ease, as I mentioned in my post for last week’s exercise.

Lifting Animation

The aim was to animate a character lifting an object, keeping in mind the principles we have learnt up to now. These include:

• Weight
• Timing (this is what I probably struggle with most)
• Anticipation
• Balance
• Line of Action
• Silhouette
• Believability

There were a few recommended ways to approach this, such as getting into the character yourself and having someone record it. This makes sense and I probably should have made the effort to do that, although I did make sure to test out actions as I came to animating them.

The first mistake I noticed is the change in the box’s weight. In my build-up, the box appears heavier than in the actual lifting stage. I was trying to imagine it as a box of t shirts from work (a standard sized full box is usually about 23kg), which I think the initial weight was closer to. I certainly don’t lift the boxes quite as casually as my animation demonstrates.

Something else which wasn’t particularly successful, was my silhouette. Due to the large size of the box, a lot of the character was obscured from most angles during the lift. Towards the end, the box is shifted in one direction in order for my character to quickly get his hand underneath to support it. Since you can’t see the movements he makes with the other arm, it doesn’t really work.

You can see the animation below.

With this exercise, I started by putting in the key frames first, then adjusting the timing, then the in-betweens. I wasn’t sure if this was a good approach, so I didn’t push it too hard. Turns out this is a recommended approach to use, so I will continue to do so.

Our exercise for next week is to animate a ’shift of mood’. This is without facial expressions; purely posture and body language. I need to decide on two emotions to convey. I’m thinking upset to angry. Or maybe excitement to embarrassment. Possibilities are endless.

October 26th, 2009 | Tags: Animation Principles, Digital Animation, weekly exercises | Category: Animation Principles, Digital Animation | Comments (1)

Last week’s task was to re-familiarise ourselves with the principles of animation, by creating another walk cycle. I have also been continuing  with my sketchbook work for the Conversations project.

Walk Cycle

Despite slowly building disdain for 3D (creating it, not watching it), I decided to animate my walk with it. I find 3D much more flexible and less frustrating on a small deadline, particularly since the model is provided for us. Although I enjoy drawing, it is very annoying and time-consuming to put all your frames together, inevitably find that you did a shit job, then have to redraw frames. With 3D, it allows for easy tweaking.

I really should of kept the animation principles in mind, since that was the purpose of the exercise. I realised upon re-watching the animation, that I had only really thought about the key poses within the walk cycle, not the little things inbetween. The result is a bit lifeless and robotic. Something else really bugged me, which I came to realise was the hips. They don’t rotate.

You can see the cycle below.

Our next animation exercise is to make our character lift up an object, so expect overzealous straining postures and people falling over backwards.

Sketchbook Update

Here are a few bits added to my sketchbook project, mostly based on reference photos, found using various related search terms on Flickr. If you search around there is plenty of great material to sketch from. It was also suggested that we used movies for reference. We gave a few films ago in our last group session, pausing during key shots and putting down some quick sketches.

Click here to see the completed sketchbook

Below are a couple of very quick movie references. One quick sketch from Spaced, others from Some Like It Hot. I was late to the session so I didn’t get to catch many poses.

I have never seen Some Like It Hot all the way through, but it is used in a video for one of my favourite songs. So therefore I love it. More film sketches likely to follow over the next month.

October 22nd, 2009 | Tags: 3D walk cycle, Digital Animation, Drawing, walk cycle | Category: Animation Principles, Digital Animation, Drawing | Leave a comment

Character has a lot of meanings depending on the context, but in this case we are talking about character in animation principles. It’s about what builds strong character and creates something believable.

Character is all those little things we take for granted every day, it is built on the way we move, the way we interact. It can range from talking with hand gestures, to how you hold a pen. Emotions have an great effect on a person’s character. In fact, it is usually these influenced changes in character which may lead to someone asking you this question. Are you ok?

We all have very different characteristics to one another, whether they be subtle or exaggerated. Myself, for example, have an apparently distinctive walking stride. I also tend to relax in very uncomfortable looking arm positions. These sort of things you may not even notice yourself, but it is what other people will identify you by.

In narrative of almost any sort, not just animation, providing well-rounded and complex characterization is what gives the audience a sense of realism. The traits which your character show are what makes them believable. If they are weak and underdeveloped, the results will be flat and uninspiring.

Giving character is a huge task for any animator and requires a great deal of development and understanding of the character. Remember, it isn’t about the way they look: at the end of the day, you should be able to transfer that character’s mind into any human (or inhuman) shell and still be able to recognise them by their actions.

October 18th, 2009 | Tags: character, Digital Animation | Category: Animation Principles, Digital Animation | Comments (1)