[Inspiration] The Big Names

I can't really avoid making this, a blog entry about animators I have been following for years and aspire to be better than or just as good as, however I have avoided talking about them because almost everyone aspires to be like them or to be better than. In a earlier post I talked about two big named animators, Max Gilardi and Edd Gould. These two animators are among the best and most followed animators in the Flash animation community, though unfortunately Edd Gould passed away earlier this year. These two animators do inspire my work alot, however there are other animators who are just as big, if not bigger on the internet that I would like to talk about or atleast mention, though I wish I had done so earlier. I will again talk about Edd Gould and Max Gilardi and go in more detail about why I like them and about them in general. I think I will start out with the biggest name of them all, Arin Hanson Aka. Egoraptor.

Egoraptor:

Arin Hanson is among the greatest animators on the internet in my personal opinion, nothing can compare to animations like his, everything is near perfection; the voice acting, the character design, the art style, the humor and the way he presents his animations. Arin is one of the animation pioneers of the internet dating back to 2006 when he first started his Awesome series. He has improved massively since then, creating animations reaching over 700,000 subscribers on Youtube alone. Though with a famous animator, there are people who don't only use him as an inspiration, but pretty much copy the entire art style, humor style and even character style, examples of people like this is Spazzkidd and Twisted4000, animators with a style near identical to Arin Hanson's.

Arin will always be someone to inspire my work, though I do love his style I don't intend to copy his style or his unique sense of humor. He will always be someone I watch and gain the inspiration to animate from, below is an example of his work:

Eddsworld:

Edd Gould, again is one of the first inspirations I had when it comes to animation, and one could argue that he was one of the main reasons I got into Flash animation. Until he passed away during March 2012, he animated a series called Eddsworld, a series widely popular on the internet and due to its simplicity and popularity it spawned alot of clones, by this I mean drawings by other people with a style near identical to Edds, such as Derricksworld, and various others. What inspires me the most is how much he has improved, and I think this goes for alot of people, one of his first animations was one called Breakfast, by no means a work of art, then a few years later he improved to create an animation called 25ft Under the Seat, and finally before his death got half way to creating an animation called Space Face. Watching those 3 animation's you wouldn't believe that it was the same person animating, but just goes to show that practice pays off well.

Like stated before, Edd Gould is a huge inspiration to me, and proved that hard work in the end will pay off, it is sad to know that such an inspiration died so young, and I will try my best to be a great animator like him, below is an example of his work:

Harrypartridge:

Harry Partridge amazes me with his animations, never before have I seen such a animator animate something so smoothly and beautifully. His animation's are near enough perfect, using frame by frame to animate he does this incredibly well and possibly the best I have ever seen. His animation style is unique on the internet, instantly recognizable by the Flash animation fanbase. His character designs are always different, they vary in shape and size and he is a great example of someone who creates characters well. His sense of humor is dark, which works well for his animation style, examples of this are Michael the Terrible Boyfriend and Chuck's New Tux, two of Harry's most popular animations.

Harry is one of those animators whose animations will blow me away every time, though I very rarely use frame by frame animation his work inspires me to keep animating so I can maybe one day surpass him. Below is an example of his work:

Ukinojoe:

Jonathan Gran only recently caught my attention earlier this year after being shown an animation he did, and I was increadibly amused by it. Jonathan's animations aren't really what inspires me, but more of his humor and sense of humor. He creates 1 minute animations with a punchline at the end, or jokes all the way through it. Usually internet humor, such as with the Youtube Commenters animation and the Brony animation he created. I call this internet humor because it is humorous to someone who spends time on the internet and understands certain things that happen on it, his humor is based towards people who spend time on the internet and knows how to reach them. He usually does parodies of games, tv shows and movies, rarely does he make something original, though this again is reaching his target audience, creating something that people will look at and react like "Oh I have seen/played that, I might watch it". 

Jonathan is defiantly a favourite humor wise, he has such a unique sense of humor which makes him stand out in my eyes, though like said before his animation style isn't anything amazing, but it is made up with his comedic sense of humor. Below is an example of his work:

Hotdiggetydemon:

Max Gilardi, again is an inspiration to my work sue to the fact that we have a similar art style, and by this I mean we both use model animation. Max usually works on one series at a time, first being the Jerry series, second being the Wacky Game Jokez 4 Kidz series, and now he is working on the .Mov series. His style has never been different, using models and then manipulating the models mid animation. He has a very dark sense of humor, similar to Harrypartridges animations, though has recently boarded the Brony bandwagon and started creating My Little Pony shorts (The .Mov series). He is by no means my favourite animator, but I always look forward to see what he will release next.

As stated before, Max's work is similar to my work and I consider him someone I will hopefully one day be better than. He isn't my favourite animator but is defiantly up there on my list. Below is an example of his work:

Psychicpebbles:

Zach Hadel is an animator who took my attention in late 2011, though I have started to sway away from him recently. He usually parodies current pop culture phenomenons or creates his own sketches up, I only really started to watch his stuff in early 2012 when he uploaded a video parodying the internet phenomenon at the time, which was the Arrow to the Knee jokes. He parodied it incredibly well and in my personal opinion I think it was this that made his name on the internet. His animation style is similar to another animator, well known on the interent but doesn't inspire my work at all, OneyNG. They are both working together now to work on a new series oddly enough. I really like his animation style, though it isn't the most original style in the world, it is clean and easy to follow. In which I mean it doesn't have too much going on, his sense of humor works well, though similar to Ukinojoe he targets his animations to people on the internet and uses recent events to reach them, I like his humor and animation, though since the release of KONY2012 I have yet to see an animation to really catch my eye.

Zach is an odd animator to talk about, I really like his style and humor, though since March I have yet to see anything from him that is worth talking about, or even to inspire my work. Below is an example of his work:

[Animation Practice] 30/10/12 - Animation Preproduction

During today's lesson we watched a few animations we brought in, however before that we had a discussion about Storyboarding, types of camera shots, type of pans ect.

We touched upon every aspect in film and animation making, we started off with the basic one though; Storytelling. We talked about the three act structure again and the 3 meanings; the beginning, the middle and the end.

After we discussed storyboarding, we were informed that storyboarding goes through 3 different stages; A very rough design, a first pass of the shot and then finally a tidied up shot with key information about said shot. The storyboard is a very important process in animating, as it helps visualize the project and shows stage direction.

After this, we were told briefly a few key points about pre-production, this includes;

The Aspect Ratio;

1.33:1 - 4x3
1.78:1 - 16x9
2.35:1 - Cinemascope

The TV Cutoff guide;

Title safe, the green area. (See link above)

Action safe, the yellow area.
Cut off zone, the red area.

The Composition;

Composing with light
Selective focus
On a surface
Depth
Asymmetrical form
In line
In colour
Geometric shapes

Rule of Thirds

Type of Shots;

Extreme long shot
Long shot
Medium Long shot
Medium shot
Close up
Extreme close up

Camera Angles/Movement;

Horizontal/eye level
Down shot
Up shot
Tilt shot
Tracking in/out shot
Pan
Zoom
Zip pan
The shake
The tilt

180 Rule;

This keeps the character on one side, as to not confuse the audience on where to look when one person is talking.

Direction;

The Animatic;

Bar Sheet
Pipeline

This is just a quick run down of what we studied in the first half of the lesson, after we began to watch a few more shorts.

The first short we watched was one made by fellow class mate and close friend, Anthony Price called Oddball Omnibus, below is the animation:

The thing that I love about this animation, is that I watched each step throughout the year of the animation take place, I watched how it progressed through each scene, how the animation style improves slowly through the animation and the fact that I helped write the final few scenes... yaaaay! We watched it and talked about what we liked and didn't like about it, there wasn't much that people didn't like, it was mostly Anthony looking back at his work and realizing how much he has improved since creating this, everything else was positive feedback! After this we went to watch my other class mate and close friend's animation, Emma Pinder's Flow animation. Below is the animation:

We watched this animation and talked about what we liked and what we didn't like, pretty much good feedback, though we didn't talk that much about the animation though we discussed whether it is easy to follow or not, in which after a discussion about the animation we concluded that it was after you realize what is actually happening on screen. The other animation we watched was one that our tutor Rossie showed us, The Sandman... Because you know, Halloween and such! Below is the animation:

As much as I hate to admit this, and this gave me ALOT of dirty looking in lesson when I admitted this, I don't really like this type of animation, nor do I like Tim Burton movies. Before anyone gets on my case, I know this isn't created by Tim Burton, however Paul Berry after creating this then went to work with Tim Burton on the Nightmare before Christmas animation. I am not that much of a fan of puppet animation at all, manly because I have a slight Pupaphobia, nor am I a fan of clay animation, though I can tolerate it better than puppet animation. This animation is one HUGE reason why I have a strong disliking to puppets, they are freaky as hell! In this animation we discussed the use of light and camera shots used, which I did like fortunately about the animation. 

[Personal] Recent Backgrounds

Here are a few examples of some recent backgrounds I have created, either for university related stuff, commissions or just for the fun of it:

I drew this just to see how it would turn out, it wasn't originally going to be anything at all, it was literally me drawing a load of lines, to which I thought looked like some form of plants, then it slowly started to shape form until It became a road side. The sky was purely from inspiration from this picture which I have mentioned before in the background inspiration post. I created the sky in Photoshop then added effects to it, the sky didn't really turn out like I wanted it to, it turned into some form of alienated sky rather than a sunset, however I do in fact still like it and I got good feedback from my peers!

The following backgrounds are for a commission I am doing with Anthony Price, which he may have mentioned in his blog. The animation is a My Little Pony parody for a voice actor called Solrac, well known by the My Little Pony fandom community. Anthony asked me if I would help him with the animation by being the background artist for the animation, I was looking to gain some practice and the more practice with background styles the better! So I took up his offer. All the backgrounds in the animation are being taken care of by me, a great honor I have to say! Whereas the actual animation is being taken care of by Anthony, which is something I am completely fine with.

Some more concept art I whipped up last night for the Royal Amories project, this being the blacksmith's station. Though the background is incomplete without all the equipment such as the forge, the work bench ect. I really liked the background so far, in the near future I will work on all the background for the Royal Armories project and improve them by adding torches in area's between the wiring (You may notice this in the mineshaft background that there are wires in the roof for no reason, this is why).

I'll most likely end up doing more backgrounds shortly, so keep up to date and i'll show you what I have been working on recently.

[Drawing Lesson] 25/10/12 - Walk Cycle?

During todays lesson, we actually didn't have our old model Steve, instead we had a new model, whose name I can't remember. This lesson was incredibly different than what we have ever done before in drawing, we did movement. Last lesson we did a small bit of movement, but nothing much, this lesson was purely dedicated to movement and looking at walking cycles, a very useful thing indeed.

During this lesson I produced what I think is my favourite piece of work, there isn't a drawing on here that I dislike. I drew from the bottom up, until reaching the clothed model at the top. The first set of drawings were approximation 20 seconds long each, we had to draw the shape of the model in as less detail as possible. The second set of drawings was 30 seconds, similar to the other set, we drew with as little detail as possible. After those two, we drew the model in 2 minute poses in minor detail, instead of just the skeletal outline we drew the actual body outline, I think it turned out well!
Our final set was before our break, we were told to draw the model wearing a dressing gown in different positions, each pose was 3 minutes long and we had to draw as much detail as possible, getting each crease in the dressing gown accurately done.

After the break, we were told to quickly draw the model in 2 positions, the first position was a standing one, this drawing stressed me incredibly as I could not get the upper body right at all. After the 15 minutes was up, we were told to redraw the drawing next to it, and see if we made the same mistakes again, unfortunately I did make the same mistakes again and again, until finally settling on what I drew.
The second drawings at the bottom were alot easier, exactly the same situation as before, 15 minute drawings, after drawing it then redrawing it clearing up each mistake.

[Animation Practice] 23/10/12 - Animation or Film

Today we watched a few more shorts, though due to technical difficulties we could only watch a few due to the internet not loading the videos. We mainly talked about whether an animation should be animated or be filmed. We watched the following animated shorts; Alma and Ark.

Alma is an animated short about a little girl who finds a doll shop, enters and then herself gets turned into a doll, below is the animation:

After watching we talked about why the director chose to do the film as an animation instead of a fully recorded film. We also talked about how animators strive to make an animation seem as real as possible and if this statement is true. By which I mean, do you think animators want to have their animations seem realistic as possible, or do you think animators are fine with having it unrealistic and cartoony. We talk about one aspect in this animation that makes the character seem real and alive, which is the eyes. This is a key thing in the animation and shows you what is alive and what isn't, as shown when the main character is transformed into a doll.

The second animation we watched was the animated short Ark, an animation about a man who appears to be on a boat about to commit suicide, when after everything we find out he is actually in a hospital and its just his imagination. Below is the animation:

The animation is really well animation, however still raises the question of whether it should have been animated or filmed, one answer to why it may have been animated is to soften the blow of the animation. By which I mean the ending, you realize the hardship of the animation about a elderly man with cancer imagining himself killing himself. The animation makes this not make you feel as emotional as you would if it was filmed.

Next week we'll be watching a few more shorts, and talking about them.

[Drawing Lesson] 18/10/12 - Life Drawing starts again

During today's lesson we were all introduced to our life model for the day, Ricky. We each chose a place in the room to stand and draw and then we stared our first drawing, simply a standing pose. As the lesson went on we then started changing medium, paper, drawing length, drawing size ect. We roughly got around 10 drawings done, here is the first drawing:

We did a standard pose so our tutor Tom could see how well we draw life models. The pose was roughly 15 minutes to draw and I drew it using pencils. After drawing we were told to write down what we thought was positiveness and negative about the drawing. Here is what I put for positive:

1. Shading
2. Body proportions
3. Left arm

I had a strong fond for the shading in the picture, as I think I honestly got a fairly good accuracy on how much shadow was on the model. The body proportions is really good, though I am sticking to my old habit of drawing things off the paper which is what my old drawing tutor, Andrew told me. Also I think I captured the left arm on the model perfectly, it is in right proportion to the body and looks well, though the watch looks pretty tacky. Here is what I put for negative:

1. Feet cut off
2. Head too small
3. Right arm

As you saw above, I don't like the fact that I cut the feet off and is an old habit that I need to get rid of. The head is really mis-proportioned and i think looks too big, you may notice that I do this alot in my drawings, as when I draw my cartoon characters you'll notice the heads are rather big in comparison to the body's, something I should work on in the future. The right arm to me looks really off, nothing much more to say about that, I just really don't like it.

The next few drawings were experimental drawings, using different styles of drawing, I think I did this well in a sense, though you can't really say you've drawn something well when you are drawing with your wrong hand. Below is the drawing:

As you can see, it is very abstract with a different medium than before, pen. Each drawing was 5 minutes each so we had little time to go overly into detail. Below I go into detail about the drawings:

The top left drawing is purely in pen, I usually draw my characters in pen so I didn't find this as challenging as you would have thought. The top right is drawn with my left hand (wrong hand), I found this rather difficult to do as I am really bad with my left hand. This made me focus on the model alot more so I didn't loose track on what I was drawing, essentially making it a fairly accurate drawing. The middle left is drawn with my fingers at the bottom on the pen nib pointing directly down, this was incredibly challenging as you couldn't see where you was drawing, this made the model look very off in my opinion but gave him a strange character, by which I mean gives him some form of cartoonic personality. The middle right is drawn with my finger and thumb at the very top of the pen, essentially an incredibly hard task to do, honestly I think the drawing..... could be better. It is incredibly abstract and very unlike the model, let alone an actual person. The very bottom drawing is pretty much not letting the pen let go of the paper, we have done a similar task like this last year but in pencil, doing it in pen is hard enough as you can't erase or ease any mistakes.

For the final few drawings we used mixed media, chalk to be precise. Below are the drawings:

We drew the model in chalk, and then after we created a large chalk section and drew the model using an eraser, however after transporting the drawings from class the drawing got overly smudged and you cannot see them. Just before the lesson finished we drew the model in a sequence of drawings, I chose the draw him very basically for this task as we had roughly 30 seconds per drawing.

Overall I think the first life drawing lesson went really well, I really liked the lesson and it got me into the swing of life drawing again. Next week we'll have our old life model in again, Steve... Oh the memories.

[Animation Practice] 16/10/12 - Showing Shorts

During today's lesson, we all sat down and talked about budgeting animations. Because most of the class got a budget after the Royal Armories pitch we all had to sit down and learn how to properly budget in animation, though budgeting in animation isn't much different than budgeting a live action film. Most of the stuff we learn't was common sense; Budget for every little thing, make sure you give yourself a little extra so you don't run out of money and such, however we did learn that we can't budget for outside help, such as we can't pay for actors, musicians and voice actors, as it is encouraging us to use people in the uni.

After talking about budgeting, we all sat down and watched a few shorts that people had; Sarah showed us the opening from Creepshow's Fathers day, and we talked about how it's rotoscoped to make it look like the comic book the short originated from. After, Huw showed a short CGI animation called Burp, we discussed how this film is really good in CGI as most of the shots would be difficult or wouldn't have the same feel if it was in 2D. Below is the short:

Soon after, I wanted to show a short animation called Little Quentin by Paco Vink, I have been interested by this animator and I wanted to show this as I think the animation is brilliant because it's smoothly done and could be compared to something Quentin Tarantino would make, if he did animations. Why you ask? Well its a type of animation that makes you think twice after watching it. After showing it, it was received well and people enjoyed it. Rossie our tutor, said it was a good example as it shows that the animation takes inspiration from films and the noir genre. Below is the animation:

Today was a fun lesson and we got to see a few great films, next week we will watch a few that other people want to show, so look for that next week.

-----EXTRA-----

After lesson we all went to our Animation Theory lesson with the Film Course where we discussed about animation's from Japan. Including this we also received our first assignment, so that will be something I will start working on shortly!

[Showcase] Various Images #1

Though these aren't drawn by anyone in particular that I am influenced by, these are drawings that I really like, or inspire my work. They are the type of drawings that I want to be able to create, one's that don't really focus on the characters, but mostly on the background and stuff in the background, I thought i'd share them to show you what drawings are the type that interest me the most.

The drawings are all focusing on the backgrounds and feature 1 or 2 characters. The main reason I love these images is because they speak so much, there is so much going on you can see a story or you can think of a story from the picture alone without knowing what is happening. The images vary from interior to exterior, either a city, field or a bedroom you can see so much from the drawings. Something I want to create one day and have tried but failed to do in the past.

I think the main reason I really like images like this is because the area's tell so much about something, the rooms are messy and very clustered to show they are very busy and messy people, usually the people in the picture are on a computer or drawing something which shows they are very creative people. Apart from that the other thing I look at on pictures like these is the sky and far background, they will usually be incredibly beautiful and speak volume.

Drawings like this could be compared to something that Kazuo Oga would create, the background artist for the Studio Ghibli animations. This is because the backgrounds are incredibly well done and could even be compared to a real photograph, such as the top picture with the sunset and the girl sat on the stairs. Though some of the backgrounds are far more cartoony than others such as the girl in her room drawing and the girl in space playing a computer game.

Soon I will try to draw drawings like this, focusing on a large background with lots to speak for, and a person inhabiting the area. It is something I have wanted to do for a while now and I think it will look really well when I do it, I just need to think of a premise for the background.

[Inspiration] Lilo & Stitch and Studio Ghibli Backgrounds

As said earlier in the Blog about my backgrounds, I have found a new love for backgrounds, and with this new love comes new inspirations! Though I am influenced by different people, I aspire to be as good as or if not better than the artists who did the background art for Lilo and Stitch, and the Studio Ghibli Films. If you have ever watched Lilo and Stitch or any Studio Ghibli films, then you'll know my reasoning why. They have the most beautiful backgrounds I have ever seen in an animated film, breathtaking if you will. Though they are made using paint and water colours instead of digital methods which is what I use, they are still something I want to work at, though perhaps something in the future.

The film Lilo and Stitch uses water colours to make some of the most beautiful backgrounds I have ever seen and are among the best that Disney has ever created. It captures the beauty, lush and charm of an Hawaiian Island with its beautifully created landscapes and use of colour, truly a work of art. Though lots of earlier Disney films use painted backgrounds such as The Jungle book and the Lion King, Lilo and Stitch has the best painted backgrounds and is possibly the last traditional film to have such breathtaking backgrounds in Disney animations. Even when they aren't on the Hawaiian island and are on the Spaceship during the opening scene the backgrounds are still really detailed, though it doesn't compare to the scene after the ship where Lilo is running through the Hawaiian forest to reach her class, showing off the landscape on the Hawaiian island.

"Looking at the lush pan background, it's hard to imagine it as the background for alien induced bombings and explosions! (The only giveaways are the yellow pieces of house timber and the pink chunk of corrugated tin roofing in the midst of the greenery.) Also notice, on the right side, the power of the explosion blows the trees and flowers to the left (the direction in which the characters are propelled). Where Lilo finally lands (in front of the corrugated tin) looks calm. It's a very clever fusion of story line into the background art - one of the best examples I've ever seen." - Richards, R. (2008). LILO AND STITCH: Pan Background. Available: http://animationbackgrounds.blogspot.co.uk

Studio Ghibli's backgrounds are very unique, you can tell it is created by Studio Ghibli. Its incredibly beautiful and by far one of the best examples of beautiful landscape in an animation. The artist known as Kazuo Oga was the one who painted most of the backgrounds by Studio Ghibli's most successful animation, Ponyo. 

Oga is one of the most influential men in the background business, truly a man to look up too. His backgrounds in the Studio Ghibli animations are some of the most recognizable backgrounds ever and have often been mistaken for Photographs, though he has worked on lots of Ghibli animations such as My Neighbour Totoro, and Spirited Away, Ponyo will always be my favourite animation he did the backgrounds for. The backgrounds art used is beautifully rendered, especially the scenes after the flooding, one of my favourite scenes in animation is Ponyo and Sosuke riding the boat looking at the scenery under the water.

“Kazuo Oga is one of those inconspicuously famous men. His work has been distributed globally, yet if the average citizen were asked who he is they probably wouldn’t know him. If you phrase the question a little differently and ask if they know My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away, a look of recognition would instantly cross their face. “Oh yeah, I know those,” they would say. And the next response would be, “He was the one who drew the backgrounds.”" - Lee, M. (2007). Kazuo Oga – The Man Who Drew Totoro’s Forest.Available: http://www.tokyoartbeat.com

"Backgrounds are a subtle thing. Without them, films would not have the same desired effect." this is possibly the best quote I have heard, and I agree completely with what it states. Backgrounds aren't the main thing in the film, and are often overlooked, but sometimes a backgrounds can make an animation a breathtaking animation, one day I hope I will be able to make background art as beautiful as these, I will have to practice with watercolours one day soon.

[Extra] Script Writing Class

On the 12th of October, I attended a Script writing class with Will, Gary and Luke, to help improve our script writing skills and to improve our current script for the Royal Armories project. When we entered the class we each spoke about our scripts, there were a few people from the Film and Moving image production course who were also in the lesson to talk about their scripts for the Royal Armories. Each person talked about his/her/their script, with a response and feedback from the tutor, me and Will talked about the script for the Royal Armories and after we read the plot Will responded with something along the lines of "After the feedback from everyone else, I am starting to not like our plot." Which honestly, I can agree with him on that. The tutor gave us a few pointers towards what we should do with the script, it doesn't really need a rewrite, but a few ideas need to be tweaked.

If the lesson did one thing, it made us realize how dry our idea is, there is no main protagonist, no 3 act structure and no clear motive. Though the original idea was for it to be a quick short explaining the creation of the helmet, and to show it in an epic way. Before we start the actual production we'll possibly rethink the idea or stick with it and tweak some of the plot.

[Drawing Lesson] - 11/10/92 In the Armories

During today's lesson we met up at the Royal Armories, a museum featuring arms and armor, swords and guns and other weaponry. We got there for 10am and once everyone arrived we were told to draw a few things in the armory, the purpose of this is to gather a range of armor and equipment to use during out life drawing lesson which will start in a few weeks. We'd draw the life model and then add helmets, gauntlets and swords to him/her.

To start of, typically me, Anthony and Will set off the find our favourite helmet, the mustached helmet. We drew it from a few angles and then after, I went my separate way. I found myself in the Japanese arms and armor section of the museum, and decided to draw a Ni Mai do Gusoku and a Zunari Kabuto. Later I was wandering around and drawing a few random objects, such as; a Nato Model Gas Mask, English Cavalry (1550 - 1600) Helmet, a pair of Gauntlets (1480), a Boar Sword and a Cavalry Officers Armor. Below are the drawings:



I will be using these drawings to help me with the Life drawing next week or in the next few weeks, today was a fun day with everyone and it made a change from drawing cartoons every week, a good lesson indeed.

-----EXTRA-----

I should add, after the armories me and a few people from my course went to the Leeds Market, and I bought a crab as a pet instead of eating it, it died after owning it for 3 or 4 hours. I will most likely make a short animation or a drawing featuring him, so if you are wondering why I am suddenly drawing crabs, this is why. This was its life during that time:

[Project Related] Pitching for the First time

As you may have read previously in the blog, I am working on a project for the Royal Armories with Anthony and Will. However, part of this project is to pitch your idea to the client if you are looking for a budget. We would like to pay for a few things during the animation process so we decided to pitch our idea directly to the clients at the Royal Armories, for me, this is a big step in my life, as I have never pitched an idea to a client before, an experience I wont soon forget.

We had two weeks to prepare for the pitch, this would include some preproduction for the animation, an animatic, a script and then a power point with it all in it, including rehearsals for what we are going to say. I'll go more in depth later when I talk about the Royal Armories project, however i'll touch on what we did before the pitch. Me and Will both wrote a script, I did the draft for it and then Will re-worded and added stuff to it. Anthony was incharge of the power point, Will was incharge of budgeting and the animatic, whereas I was incharge of doing background concept art as well as deciding the style of animation we'd do. The day before the pitch, we had finished the power point, and all that was left was the learn what we was going to say, below is the power point:

The big day came, and we had a drawing class before the pitch. After class we went into our animation room and practiced what we were going to say, before we knew it the time had come and we were walking upstairs to the room where we would be pitching.

The room had roughly seven people in it, all with paper in front of them like judges, we spoke to them and introduced ourselves as we set up the laptop, and before we knew it, we was pitching our idea. Will was confident and spoke well, as did Anthony. I didn't have much to say, and the worst thing that could happened occoured; I lost my train of thought. During my spoken part of the presentation, my mind wandered after over thinking what I was supposed to say, and I stopped dead in the presentation. After 5 seconds of silence I took a deep breath and started again, saying everything correctly this time. The clients seemed to like our idea and were very intrigued by the art style, a job well done all in all. We left the room and could finally relax.

We found out later that we got green lit and acquired a budget, everything went well! I learn't something from this experience, that is if you do forget what you are saying, don't give up, just start again. That and learn what you are going to say a few days in advanced and not the night before.. oh well!

[Animation Practice] 09/10/12 - Introducing Rossie

Today was our first real Animation Practice lesson where we actually did something productive, what a grand achievement! The last 3 have been a "if you need help with the Royal Armories project then ask us", today we was finally introduced to the tutor replacing Tony Garth, Rossie. Rossie has been in the animation industry for a while, working across country on animations, shorts and idents for TV channels. She explained her career to date, to show what kind of experience she has had in animation so far.

To start the lesson off we were re-introduced to the history of animation, watching and talking about Gertie the Dinosaur, a Walt Disney short and two abstract animations. If you have read my blog previously you'll know I am well acquainted with the History of animation with a post entirely about it, that and I wrote an essay about it during college. We discussed why some people may or may not like older cartoons, an example of this is when we touched upon how it is before our time so repeated frames in animations such as Gertie the Dinosaur will annoy some of us with its blatant laziness in animation, though we may think that the budget for the animation wouldn't have been that much so they'd have had to work with what they have. For those unfamiliar with Gertie the Dinosaur, here is the clip we watched today:

As you can see, repeated frames are noticeable, but as stated above it will most likely be a budget problem. After Gertie we watched a short from Walk Disney and discussed how most if not all cartoons were originally intended for adults, after discussing that the Disney short will have been aired at a cinema with a bunch of other stuff, due to lack of TV's and such. We discussed what other animated cartoons were originally intended for Adults but turned into a kids show, such as Spongebob Squarepants, and the opposite a kids show turned unto an adults show, such as Ren and Stimpy. Below is the Walt Disney short we watched:

After discussing this, we then watched a few abstract animated shorts, though I didn't have much input to these videos. Though I really like how they are thought out and created, I honestly have a strong disliking to abstract animation. We discussed why people may not like it, one reason was that because it has no set plot or main character, everything is just everywhere and it is hard to follow. I prefer it when an animation doesn't give me a headache to understand, and doesn't have crazy music in the background to top it all off, it just isn't my cup of tea. Below are the animations:



That is pretty much everything we discussed in today's lesson, next week we were told to bring a film of our choice in to watch, or a few shorts, so next week shall be a fun day indeed!

[Inspiration] Anime Influences #1

You may or may not know this, but I love anime. Anime is one of my favourite things to watch and am influenced greatly by it. Though each anime has a different drawing style, humor style, genre and setting, there is something about it that inspires me to make stuff like it. You may have seen in a previous blog post when I talked about the anime Panty and Stocking: with Garterbelt, that I loved the drawing style, which is incredibly true. Although Panty and Stocking may have been drawn in Japan, the artsit Atsushi Nishigori however, uses a western drawing style in the show, not a traditional anime style that is usually the case in anime.

“ A few years ago I along with other Gainax staffers at an american convention were watching the American tv animation “drawn together” and we couldn’t believe they were showing such explicit things on tv….. I thought…why don’t we do that!” - (Wakabayashi, H. (2011). Gainax at Pixar. Available: http://grantalexander.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/gainax-at-pixar.html.) 

“…the fans were upset at the quality of animation, but it was completely intentional on the part of Imaishi (series director). He wanted to parody the common occurance, in many productions of the past, to have huge dips in quality during the course of a shows tv production.” - (Wakabayashi, H. (2011). Gainax at Pixar. Available: http://grantalexander.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/gainax-at-pixar.html.)

Although in life, I by no means want to be an anime creator, mangaka, or anything like that. Partially because everyone and their aunt mary who likes anime and manga want to do this, that and honestly I can't draw manga for hell. Please no more "How to draw Manga" books for Christmas now mum okay?

What inspires me then? Well sometimes it's the little things, such as facial expressions, other times its the style in humor. I'll touch upon the two anime that do this to most in my eye. The first one would be the Fantasy Parody known as Macademi Wasshoi. Its a little known anime featuring only a few episiodes, though I think it is increadibly brilliant, humor and drawing wise! Below is a clip from the show:

I'll be frank, I am a sucker for ridiculous anime. Anime that makes you think "what the hell am I watching", this certainly is one of those anime's, especially this episode. If you watched it, particularly near the end you'll notice the facial expressions change from a anime style, to a more cartoony style. Character reaction can make an anime funny, I could watch this anime without subtitles and still laugh, purely on reaction alone. This is something I want to be able to master, and it is something that is becoming popular in internet animation lately. Most internet animation is focusing on facial expressions and relying on them to make an animation funny, and not in the comedy itself. An animation shouldn't rely on facial expressions to carry the comedy, using facial expressions wisely is very important, and people on the internet are starting to use them willy nilly. This is a good example of over used facial expressions in an animation, (Like every 13 year old animator, it has alot of d*ck jokes, be warned)

Subtlety is the key, and this animator does not know it. As said before, an animation cannot solely rest on how funny a face looks at a certain time, though it can be funny, you can't base all the humor around it.

The second anime I want to talk about is the ridiculous comedy called Nichijou, well known for its ridiculous humor it took off quite well in Japan and has been green lit for a second season, though it was licensed for released to region 1 DVD it was cancelled and reverted back to their original licencors.

"However, all releases after February 2012 have been cancelled. Three series that were announced last year, including Turn A Gundam, My Ordinary Life (Nichijō) and Gosick, will not be released and their rights will revert back to their licensors." - (Sevakis, J & Macdonald, C. (2012). Ken Iyadomi on Bandai Entertainment's Downsizing.Available: http://www.animenewsnetwork.co.uk/feature/bandai_downsizing_ken_iyadomi_interview. )

 Below is a clip from the show:

As stated with Macademi Wasshoi, I love ridiculous anime, and this anime is as ridiculous as it gets. As with Macademi Wasshoi they use facial expressions well and at appropriate times, this makes a humorous atmosphere, as well as the jokes that happen along side. Though unless you know Japanese you can't understand the jokes in the clip, however with actions alone you can get a good laugh (See 3:50). The facial expression, the reaction, action, build up and music makes this a hilarious scene, without any knowledge of what they are saying. This to me, makes an incredibly funny show, jokes are one thing, however actions can be just as funny as the jokes people say, this is what these two anime's do well.

[Personal] A New Love for Backgrounds

Backgrounds, you can't have an animation with out one.... yes you can. I have had a fond love for drawing backgrounds even since I was little, i'd draw cities, islands and other various landmarks and just keep adding on to it resulting in sellotaping paper together just to make the area bigger! Recently I have rekindled my love for backgrounds which you may have noticed after my more recent animation's where I have worked in a team with people, I have been the background artist. Below are examples from (Unfortunately) Party Quest:

And more recently, the project I am currently working on for the Royal Armories with Will and Anthony. Though these backgrounds are very different than the ones for Party Quest, as I took inspiration from the video game Limbo, as you may have read previously in the post about Tony Garth. I love the art style in Limbo and felt it would work incredibly well with the animation we are working on now. Below are examples:

As of now, I am trying to variety my backgrounds. Earlier in the week I produced a very colourful background using a colour pallet from the TV show Adventure Time. I was inspired to do this background after looking at someones Facebook Cover when he had a simple yet effective background from the show as his cover. I want to improve on this drawing style greatly and will almost certainly try to use it in an animation shortly! The drawing should be the background for the blog, however if it isn't then it's here:

[Drawing Lesson] 04/10/12 - Character fit for Poland

The city needs to be populated! During today's lesson we were told the city needs people to live in it,everyone's creative juices were flowing as character ideas poured out of our heads. I decided that because of the giant panda located in the back of the city, I would create a panda character to live there, Enrique the Panda. Below is Enrique:

Once the character had been drawn, my fellow class mate Anthony had created a corn dealer and a rivalry was on its way between the Panda and Corn dealer. We thought it'd be funny to give our characters back stories and so me and Anthony thought it'd be clever to have the two hate each other. Then for the second part of the lesson, we were told to place the character in the city and have him look at the city from his point of view, I had my character looking at the Corn Dealer while vise-versa for him. Below is the outcome: 

It was defiantly a fun lesson, and I have now got a fond love for Enrique the panda and our imaginations are flowing alot better than last year! I think its safe to say this year has gotten of to a good start creative wise!

[Drawing Lesson] 27/09/12 - Welcome to Poland

During today's lesson we were told to name a good few objects and other things you find in a city; from Post Boxes to Police stations, Lamp Posts to Fountains we named a fair few things. Then we were told to choose one of the objects and then draw it, seemed like a simple enough task! Little did I know the chaos that was laying ahead of us all.

I started out easy, and drew a lamp post. Then we were told to change seats, resulting us with someone else's work. We were told to add on to this work, and sure enough, rinse and repeat, a city was formed. During the process of changing places the city got more chaotic and crazy until finally the city was a massive city populated by nothing but fire, aliens, corn, pandas and a giant spaghetti monster. Truly paradise!

We joined each piece of paper together to make one huge drawing, then with chalk we added lighting and shading to the picture, finalizing the chaotic city. Anthony added something before adding the chalk however, a sign in the corner saying "Welcome to Poland". I don't think there is a more fitting name for this city, and thus Poland was created! Below is the City:

INSERT CITY BRO

[Inspiration] Paul Robertson

I have been inspired by many people, as you may have read in the previous post about my inspirations, however there are people who inspire me when they do not do the same type of animation as me; be that 3D, sprite, stop motion, pixel ect.

Paul Robertson is an example of this, he is a sprite animation who animates his own sprites that he has created. Sprite animation was the first form of internet animation that I watched and enjoyed, the first ever sprite animation I remember watching was called Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom, animated by the late Randy Solem. It was animated using sprites from Super Mario games, not his own sprites, however this is the case with alot of internet sprite animators. Thus far, Paul Robertson is the only sprite animator who creates his own sprites and backgrounds. An example of Paul's work:

Devil Eyes:

King's Power of 4 Billion%:

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As you can see, the style of the sprites in the animation are very recognizable and rememberable. Different from older game sprites such as Mario and Sonic, these sprites fit in well with the 2D, side scroller, beat em up game genre, however have a Japanese anime look to them. I am familiar with Robert's work and anyone who is a fan of indie games will recognize that Robert is the sprite animator for the Scott Pilgrim vs the World: the Video Game, a personal favourite game of mine.

The thing about Robert's animating style that makes me be inspired by him is that the characters he create are full of energy and personality. They are all well drawn and animated, and are unique though they will have all originated from the same model. All the scenes are bursting with colour and imagination which makes a great short film.

I am not going to run off and create a sprite animation, though that doesn't mean I haven't attempted at making my own sprites in the past; during college I was asked to draw my tutors, so instead I took the sprites from Scott Pilgrim and using them as models I created my own sprites:

Apart from this, I haven't really been too interested in doing sprite animation as such. Though it does appeal to me entertainment wise, however I thought I would share my interest in this animator and what he does and creates.

[Drawing Lesson] 20/09/12 - Fun with Ink

Summer is over, and its time to start lessons again, we we're introduced to to our new Drawing Lesson tutor, Tom. Due to this lessons are going to be very different now, sue to the difference in styles, ways of teaching and knowledge in drawing. During our first lesson we dove straight in to drawing by going back to basics and pouring ink on paper and trying to find drawings with it. Some turned out better than others, we were given sticks and straws to manipulate the ink and create something from nothing. Below is the outcome:

As you can see, I created a few characters with this technique. Soon after, me and fellow class mate Emma Pinder were put together in a team to try and collaborate something from nothing. It turned out to be a fun mess. Below is that outcome:

This lesson made me think of drawing in a whole new way, I don't have to sit down and stare at a piece of paper until an idea comes to mind. I can just as easily make a mess and find idea's from nothing, this can include characters, scenery and objects. The possibilities are endless!

[Personal] September with Tony Garth

As I may have written previously in the blog, I work closely with Tony Garth during University as until his departure in the beginning of October he taught our Animation classes. During the beginning of the second Semester we found out our original tutor Andrew had left the animation team to continue his classes with the Graphic's design course, because of this we were given Tony Garth to teach us, unfortunately he was offered an animation job so he can no longer teach us. As you may know he worked on a few big animations such as Danger Mouse, Alias the Jester and Microscopic Milton, so it is a great opportunity to get feedback and creative ideas from such a person.

He helped us when we were pitching our animation idea to the Royal Armories  he told me how to present what I was going to present and how to answer their questions. Along with this he gave me feedback on some of the backgrounds I was working on for the Royal Armories project, when I had a problem with them he told me how to solve it and gave me advice on what I should do, for instance: I created a background which was greatly inspired by the game Limbo, however when I posted the background on my Facebook to get an opinion everyone asked me if I was copying Limbo. I asked Tony how to solve this and he told me that there was nothing to solve, if I am inspired by something then I am not copying it. The client doesn't need to know where I got the idea from the background from, and as long as I am happy with them I shouldn't change them, so I didn't and the clients at the Royal Armories really liked my backgrounds.

[Commission] Party Quest

This was a project outside of Uni that both me and Anthony worked on together, unfortunately to say it didn't turn out the way we had hoped. If you have read his blog you should know which animation I am talking about, it is none other than Party Quest. We both worked on this project along side with out University work and both took the role as animators, though I only did the backgrounds and the inbetween animation. I thought the last client was bad, I didn't know bad until this guy. Below is the video of the animation before its finalization:

This animation could have been good, it had potential, however the script was awful, the characters the client told Anthony to animate were worse and the client thought it was the best idea ever.... even though the plot has been done before. Basically the plot was about 4 characters who are in a role playing game who have adventures, this seems familiar: Example, example and example. They are all different animations however the plot is still the same, an animation like this won't make it as a series, let alone a well paid series. The client 's original plan was to make 3 episodes of this, send it to a sponsor to get a sponsorship and then get the money back he uses to pay us with each episode. In the end he couldn't get a sponsor and tried putting the animation on a kickstarter page so he could get money for the animation series to be produced, the money he was asking for was £70,000... that's right he wanted £70,000 for a animated show with a poorly written plot that has been done hundreds of times before, featuring annoying characters and animated using models. This plan backfired and when everyone saw the animation and the money he wanted for said animation they spammed hateful comments on the video leaving the client no choice but to take the original video down leaving the project over.

The client was alot more understanding and much nicer than the last, giving us time to do our university work, actually paying us to do it and keeping in contact with us. I communicated with him through Anthony and those two messaged each other about the work. Once the project was released I didn't speak to him and Anthony had to deal with the client asking him for advice and such. Though the client was nice there was something very funny about what he was asking us to do, he was telling us to insert characters taking off other characters, for instance he was very insistent of inserting a character representing a character from the TV show My Little Pony who goes by the name of Derpy Hooves. After this Anthony was asked to create a logo for the animation, the example he gave us was clearly ripping off the logo from the TV show Adventure Time.

I don't have much to say as Anthony was the one who communicated with the client the most, however I did take one thing away from this experience: If a client wants to hire you for something, be sure to check what it is before you accept, who knows what cat people with annoying voices he'll have you animating. 

[Commission] The Kangaroo Animation

This project was given to us as work experience, it wasn't mandatory but was said to "look good on a CV", the client wanted people experienced in animation to work with him, so myself, Will Padgett and Anthony Price took the work. This work was not paid and we was offering our services to him for free, however we did not finish the project as we all quit halfway through the animating process for our reasons. Though we gave him what we had done and told him he can finish the rest himself. Below is the outcome:

As you can see, the animation looks very incomplete and more like an animatic, we were told to tween the animation with models, he provided us with a kangaroo hop cycle (Though I recently found a tutorial which I think he may have used to create the kangaroo with located here) and then we were to animate the other models ourselves, I created the wallaby and the rest of the team created the other animals. The main reason why it turned out so bad was the fact that he had me, Anthony and Will animating different scenes, and not giving us separate roles. Each of us animate very differently, giving off a very look to the animation, to fix this he should have given us roles such as Lead animator, secondary animator, clean up animator ect.

The reason behind us quitting was because of the lack of information given at each meeting, the poor way we were treated in the meeting and because he was telling us to do things that we didn't how how to or felt uncomfortable doing. In the first meeting he gave us a shot list and a shot to name list, using these he'd choose 3 out of our lists for us to animate, however it seems like he tried to evenly give us a bit to animate in each scene each, which would and did cause continuity errors. Because of this we were abit uneasy on how it'd end up and we weren't feeling it, so we each discussed leaving the team, however we decided to stick to it a while longer until we finished the animation. During the last few weeks of us being there though, our client started to treat us incredibly rudely, telling us to do most of the scenes again, insulting us, ordering us around and then having the cheek to tell us we have to give him £25 each so we can pay for an after party to show off the animation. Because of these reasons we sent him an email and told him he can do it himself, we gave him all the scenes, the models and the resources he'd need to finish it off, we just wanted nothing to do with it.

The animation is roughly 3:16 minutes long, and took us from the end of January until we quit in April to do half the scenes. We could have done the animation alot faster and with little hassle if it was alot more organised. Considering the animation was almost all tweened, me, Anthony and Will could have done the animation together in roughly a month. We weren't given a script of any kind, we only received instructions on what to animate at each given time, the shot list could be considered a script however even from that I didn't know what was going on in the animation until I actually watched the finished thing.

Overall I did take away something from this experience, the knowledge on when to quit a team when we are treated as badly as we were. I didn't gain any animation experience, however I did gain the experience of what it is like to work under a bad client. No client should as for money from people he came to for help, insult us and give us little to no information about what he wants doing, then blame it on us when we haven't done what he wants, especially when we were doing it out of the goodness of out hearts.