The Flip books.

At the beginning of the year we made some really fun little flip books, that experimented with some of the principles of animation. I really enjoyed making these,  and enjoyed experimenting with different characters. 

I found that making these where a really good way to begin animation, and really helped me settle into the rhythm of making animation. 

Evaluation of Animate it.

To begin this evaluation, I’d like to talk about my ability to organise my time, or lack of it. For this project I feel I didn’t do a very good job of managing how much time I had to create this animation, I feel that I have rushed it more than I would have liked too. I would have liked to add sound and to add colour to the final animation, but I ran out of time and now the animation is in black, white and grey, without sound. I found the process of making the animation to be very enjoyable, I particularly enjoyed using the computers to create the animation, especially using the cintiq’s, as I’d never used one properly before, and found using them to be much easier than I was expecting. I found that at first I was stuck between which of the topics to choose, but I thought lateness would be a good topic, as I have a lot of experience in that department.  I made the decision that I didn’t want the typical being late for school, an appointment or work etc.. So I went with the idea of it being late in the morning.

I’m relatively happy with the animation, I feel that the animated yawn I’ve created is the best part as I feel it has a lot of movement and humour. I wanted the yawn to be the most prominent part of the animation but didn’t want it to be overly theatrical, as I wanted it to be a much more natural movement keeping the emphasis while still maintaining the yawns prominence with in the animation, and feel that is what I have achieved. I felt that it would really capture the point of how tired the character was. I also feel I have paid attention to detail, as I have hidden some iconic posters into the background of the animation, and am happy with the rooms. I am also relatively happy with the way I have shown the development of time, I feel I’ve incorporated the moments where the time is needed to be seen, but I’m not happy with the way I executed it, I feel I could have done better In the animating process.

Looking back I would have maybe done more research into how to properly animate the quick changes needed to show the time on the clock changing. I would also have liked to learn more about how to properly add colour to the animation, as I am not 100% sure how to do it yet. I would have liked to add sound to really make the animation pop a little more, for example having the sound of the character actually yawning, or the sounds of the clicks of the mouse and typing on to the keyboard.  On reflection I would also have liked to be more detailed and prepared in my storyboard work, before committing myself to the animation process, and will endeavour to do this in future preparation.

Group Critique

We recently got to view each others take on the animate project, and the give and receive constructive criticism. I really enjoyed this, I found that hearing other people opinions on my animation to be really helpful, as I now know how I can better myself with my animation in the future. A lot of the advise I was given was to slow my animations down, as a lot happened in a very short amount of time, and people would like to see more of the backgrounds and character its self. Personally I agree with their advise and plan to keep that in mind in future animations. 
I also found seeing other peoples take on the brief was really interesting, I enjoyed seeing how other members of the class had different styles and ideas. 

Animate some inspiration.

I took inspiration for the character design for my animate it project from the popular animated tv show Miraculous ladybug. I love the designs on the show and took inspiration from one of the main protagonists Adrian Agreste. I wanted a similar style for my character, even if my animation is in 2D and not in 3D animation. I liked the way this characters hair fly's outwards, and wanted my character to have a similar look to it. I also liked his relatively basic design, and wanted the same for my own character, I did want my character to seam older and much more tiered and to have a much more refined square jaw.

Humpty Dumpty.

I feel that I need to put more information into making the humpty dumpty board, as I didn't really explain much about how the whole process of making the story board went. I began by choosing a nursery rhyme, and after being torn between several rhymes I finally decided to go in the direction of Humpty dumpty, but instead of having a traditional egg, I wanted it to be more character based, and to have the rhyme be centred around a couple braking up. I think that going with something a little different might be an interesting turn on a classic story. I feel that this did work, even if the plot was a little lacking. I decided to create the storyboard out of silhouettes, I wanted to add some form of mystery as too what the characters actually look like.   

I took inspiration to create this storyboards from an animation I found, the animation added really life silhouette of people with animation incorporated into it. The backgrounds are drawn in, we're as real people are featured as the silhouettes.

I love the use of real life and animation, and the serial atmosphere of this animation. 

There's even a behind the scenes explaining how the animation has been made. I found this really interesting, to see how the whole story had been created, really inspired me.