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I found the dissertation to be enjoyable and relaxing to talk about. Due to my love for film making, horror films take that love as well as that fascination of the thrill of being scared and explore deeper into more of an explanation and explore my own interests with the hopes of a newer outlook once the dissertation was finished. When I look at horror films, due to my interests leading me to do Animation at university I’m more than familiar with the film making process and how while I do enjoy myself when I watch a film due to my familiarity I do get taken out of fully letting the film suck me into the worlds they’re building, instead I focus on the camera angles and how the shot looks as well as being impressed with designs of monsters or wondering how the animators/ special effects departments managed to pull of the more action pact scenes. This just means that it takes a special type of movie to really get me lose my guard, which is both a blessing and a curse. Since if any writer has the same mindset as I have it would be important to remember how to create fear, if you are not scared then how can you be sure your audience will be scared. Sometimes it is a leap of faith that your vision of what your fears will be seen by others as scary, since not everyone fears the same things. During my research I was surprised to see just how different a horror film can be, with what I had grown up with knowing as a kid, that horror films were nothing but blood and guts, deaths round every corner and monsters straight from your nightmares. As much as a lot of these are somewhat true, there was far more subtext and nuance to the story’s being told that I had not properly understood till now. Looking further into these types of tropes horror is so well known for doing was fun and really got me to branch off from what horror normally was to me. not to mention just how many complex choices a horror film must choose before the final product. From learning more about the fear of the unknown and the knowledge of the familiar and just how vast and complex these fears are, it is not just a one answer question, there are sub answers and more questions that come from those. The complex answers that can be given to both the familiar and the unknown when it comes to horror was a fun topic to try and dissect and I am happy with my final thoughts on both being an important part to the horror film, but there must be a common balance to both for the Film to properly function. What this has done for me has really got me interested in focusing my attentions onto watching more horror content, through books, comics, manga, tv shows. To experience new horror creators as well as dip my foot into reviewing more films, take more of a critique view of the content I am watching. I love what I have done with my dissertation and I am hoping to be able to continue this love of filmmaking further not only into my professional career but also into my casual life.

This Download is a Power point presentation of what i wanted to do for my self led work.

Before L6 Notes (Self-Led-Project)
The past two years ive noticed that my animations tend to lean towards weirdly looking creatures, with my Double act animation i feel being a really great for me Character design wise and i want to persue more character designs.
With this i also want to dive into the world of horror, from the monster designs to the cinimatography and the storys that can be told i feel would be an amazing step forward to work in.
As well as my love for both 2D and Stopmotion i want to murge both my animation loves together within this animation.

Monster Definition

1.A legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination.
2.Any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people.
3.Any animal or human grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behaviour or character.
4.A person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc
5.Any animal or thing huge in size.

Change of Plans

So after The Group Presentations i was told i needed to focus my range a bit, since my idea of having three seperate animations tackling three different forms of horror, from Paranormal, Human like and Creature based horror that i should focus it down into one film.
With that in mind im going to take a more literal focus and think about what i Find Scary. What is my horror?

What am i scared of?
Normally with me i dont find horror films that scary, due to me knowing im not going to be harmed. I know its just a film and im not in this world.
Im more interested in what the monsters would look like and if they’re cool, are the characters we’re following idiots and get killed in stupid ways? and are the kills or “horror” worth it.

What i am afraid of is a tad bit selfish but easily understandable. Its more of the fear of things happening to me. Its a form of compassion, feeling sorry for someone in a horror film, squinting at the sight of something hurting them or chasing them and feeling fear from what if that was you in that situation is terrifying.

Another thing i am scared of is myself, through depression, anxiety and the feeling of unimportance within the bigger picture. Its not just the fact that im me and i can only have a certain amount of time to do what i want in my life. but what if i fail? what if what im doing results in nothing? what if i dont manage to acheive what i want in life? what if i do and im still not happy? alot of what ifs and thoughts on my past, present and future. And the link to depression is something not only i go through and would be a good topic to dive into and explore.

What is Depression?
Depression is a demon. Depression is a feeling of emptyness, a feeling of numbness, neather happy nor Sad.
Depression waits for you at your low points and makes you feel lower you can hide depression from others but never yourself, you tell yourself that others wouldnt understand
you tell yourself youre fine but depression makes you feel hopeless, depression is tireing.
Depression attacks you whenever it wants, no matter where you are, no matter if youre alone or with people you care about, it will turn a good situation bad.

You want to open up with how you feel, But you also dont want to bother others with your problems, so you stay quite.
Trapped in your own mind.

Character designing (MOSTER)

when it came to coming up with what i wanted from the monster is i wanted to take something familiar and currupt it to become something unatural and offputting. reason for this is the more you push something away from what we would call normal the more unsettling and offputing that thing becomes.
An example of this can be seen in Phantom of the opera. where the Pantom is seen with a mask throught the play, we as the audiance are intriged as to what is behind it so it keeps our interest. and once the mask is taken off and we see the phantoms disfigurement, something unusual to what a normal human face would look like we end up being unsettled and uncomfortable with the view of the phantom.

The drawings i did focus on in the face i wanted to take out as much humanity as i could from the creature, only barely resembling a living person with the bare basic similaritys. i did this by trying to enlarge the mouth (give off a fear that it can eat you in one gulp) or remove the nose (lose the humanity) to shrink the eye size and make the eye socket distinct ( the eye is the window to the soul, making the creature feel souless and evil).

While designing the Monster i wanted to try out adding bandages to the creature. The reason for this is as humans we are naturally curious creatures, we want to know everything. So the idea of having the monster covered in bandages around its face and body was to see if people would be interested into seeing what exactly was underneath these obstucting items.
Example. In Predator the alien is mostly shown invisable as well as wearing a mask, its not until near the end of the film does this creature finally take off its Mask to reveal something even worse. With the reveal it not only gives us satifaction on what it looks like but also we’re now more intreaged in seeing more.

I soon decided to scrap the idea of bandages due to me feeling the monsters face should be on full display, no hiding the horrors but putting it right infront of the watchers face. My new idea was to show off the idea of “Basterdisation of Perfection”. The idea behind this was how everyone has there own insecuritys and fears about themselves, such as there appearance and how they see themselves in the mirror, am i ugly? why do i look this way? maybe i can fix this with botox or plastic surgery.
These things all lead into trying to perfect something that can infact course even worse effects and permanant damage to your own body. Things like stapling your skin to reduce wrinkles, unnaturally smooth and thin skin due to constant meddeling. Showing off to much gums with teeth due to trying to “fix” what wasnt broken.

My next phase was to choose the body shape and design and i went through many diverent veriants of having ether a skinny build or a big build. this was a bit tricky since to make the monster creey it has to as well be feared. which both body types can achieve put through different means. With body horror especially the more painful and damaged the human body looks the more offputting it feels for the audiance.

Final design and why i like it.

For the final design i decided to focus on both types of the body, with having a fat upper section with large skinny arms, with massive creepy long hands and fingers, in an almost dress like bottom. Reason for this is to me i find this massive creature with long arms being able to more easily reach out and grab you, with its bonelike fingers to be exactly the type of thing id call scary.

Character Design (Main character)

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For the main character they’re ment to be a substitute for myself. What this means is when it came to designing the character i decided to focus on the face and to add some sort of cover to it. Reason for this is because the idea is to have mask be a visual signal that the character is ether hiding something or is preventing others to look at the real them. This can be due to anxiety and preventing others from seeing the depression behind the smile. Which is why i desided to use the box design. Due to Both its simplistic look and how its very recogniseable and visually interesting.

I really enjoy the box design, having tested out on a body type simmilar to me im starting to get used to the design. The character may not be able to show much emotions due to the mask coving it up, but through body language i feel it will become more easy to understand.

Here are some small scene testers i made to test out what scenes i can make within a bedroom, most of these items are found in my own student room, from a bed to a desk to a mirror. All different ways of how to express what i want. Like if my character is sitting at his desk or the character is lying down im just needed to find a visually appealing way to show off these scenes.

First Storyboard prototype

For my first attempt im happy with how the story goes.
The story is how its been apart of my life for the couple of months, with the character being trapped inside while going through a depressive episode and how they ignore it till it becomes to much and it starts taking over, this is represented by the monster that will gradually get more and more impactful for the character.

These are some extra scenes i wanted to test out since the original i found some of the scenes to not look that great so tried out diffternt angles. While the second image is a new scene i was experimenting with which was having the charcter take off there mask but in its place we see a jumpled up mess of random face parts show up due to the character not liking the way they look.

Storyboarding First Attempt

With the first storyboard i added a repeat of the clock scene. the reason for this was because i wanted it to be shown that this was a new day each time, every time a depressive episode happened the day would end and an almost repeated day happens.

One added thing i was told to change was to add more exaggeration and shots to the scenes since they after a while ended up feeling the same and could be improved.

StoryBoarding Second Attempt

After the feedback i made this storyboard where i changed some of the angles as well as added some extra scenes with the monster since i wanted his presence to be shown more than the previous storybords. One of my Favorite shots i made was having the monster rap around the characters arm before a longshot of the monster forming into its body.

500 word (So Far)
In the Viva Meeting I got the responses that maybe i should change the 2D character to 3D since the character is seen most throughout the animation, it helps keep with the model and would help lend itself way more with lighting for the scenes. While having the 3D character become 2d for more outlandish shots.
This is something to consider since stop motion has the level of realism that would lend itself nicely within the real story of Depression I am trying to tell.
But on the other hand, stop motion also hands itself very well within horror, having the Monster be stopmo with the lighting being dark with only glimpses of light would make the creature stand out against the 2D backdrops.
Another argument was I was expecting to have the objects such as the desk, Bed and clock all be 2D, but if I Change the 3D character to 2D do I then also change the 2D objects to 3D or just leave them as it is.
Definitely something I should think about. Possibly after I have finished my Storyboards so I am aware on what i need and what i should change.
Another comment I am going to talk to heart and investigate more is to delve deeper into Depression, such as medical information, others accounts on the topic and even see into organisations and charities, this is due to me only focusing on my own thoughts and experiences and as well and good that is, it’s also important to check out wider viewpoints and with this added knowledge it would help out my understanding on what i want to create for my animation.

Final StoryBoard

For the final storyboard i edited the phone scenes because i was told that looking at phones or a computer and other tecnology that tends to look boring, so with that i changed the scenes slightly to add more interesting looking scenes.
I also edited the ending a bit to look more dooming for the character leaving the story on a more sad end, since most endings within films and tvshows are happy ones and id prefer to deviate from that.

Animatic

Animation styles and Inspirations

While in the meeting i was asked about working within 2D and 3D during the time i thought i would be able to work from home doing 3D work, this unfortunatly wasnt something i could have done.
So with the knowladge i would be focusing on 2D i looked at films, animations and scenes i loved that would influence my work.

With films i looked at old horror films such as Psycho (1960) and Frankenstein (1931) due to there use of camera angles and the use of darkness adds mystory to the films.
Im also a big fan of the simple gray colour sceme, makes the whole films seem washed of life and adds more to the spooky tone of the films, whas that a monster of just a shadow?

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while with Animation i looked at and found love were by a youtuber named Mamamax who made these simple but really stylized animations where he would talk about a topic in a melancholy and sad way which really added to the videos he was making. With titles of Ugly, Lonliness, Depression et cetera, you can see he dives into some hard topics which im a fan of viewing.

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The other Animation that hits home for me was the animator Don Hertzfeldt. Now ive known about him for most of my life due to his REGECTED sort which dived very heavily into Dark Comedy. While id like to take a look at his more serious work with the film its such a Beatuiful Day. In this film it talks about depression, loniness and the ever present longing and hopelessness of the universe, lets just say i was hooked throught the film.
From the animation making everything seem claustrophobic to the simple black and white colour scheme before hitting you with something important fully in colour is very visually pleasing.

Thoughts so far.

So Far im Pleased with how i am doing and im happy with how my animation is coming along. But to take things back a bit with all that is happening due to lockdown and covid everything started to feel exactly how i was doing in my animation. I felt this mind numming fog loom over me constantly and with no one to really talk to in person it really had a negative effect on my mental health. This is why i wanted to make this animation to in a way, put what im feeling to some sort of understanding, maybe some closure, but mostly to be able to show and express my feelings out to everyone else. Doesnt matter if no one else understands or even knows what im talking about. Just the fact im putting this small bit of myself out there is more than satifactory for myself.

Final Animation

Final thoughts

With the animation done im happy with how its turned out. I enjoyed using fifferent shades of white, black and gry to create a dismal, unhappy setting. I thing think the small uses of colour adds alot to the scenes they are in really emphasising that these are important.
Finally while animating i decided i really disliked the ending. I know i said previously about wanting a more bad ending, but then i realised that within horror its always best to leave things up to the imagination. So by the half way point i dropped the ending, and left it more at a cliff hanger. leaving it up to the audiance to decide how the story will end.

The three different groups i feel interested in working with would have to be Ash Wales, CANU and Games Design.
All three would help me improve my 2D animation skills as well as help me learn more about Rigging and animating a skeleton, essecially in CANU, being linked with S4C having a company like that being put on a CV would be amazing to have. While working with ASH wales having the freedom to create my own animation with small inputs here and there to refine the work for the company would also be freeing, unlike CANU which would be more teamwork based and less creative and more straight forward animating a pre existing template.
Witht the Game design work im interested in it because i normally do play a ton of videogames, grom shooters, to horror, to fighting and platforming games, having the knowledge of games would help create sprites or work alongside game designers to create a more visually interesting video game.

New Thoughts

After chatting with each company and group ive desided to go forward with working with CANU and ASH Wales. Both are going to help me improve my 2D animation skills while CANU will help me more with Rigging and working within a group.
I desidend however i will not take things forward with The Game Design group, this is due to me mostly being stuck making concept art for the characters or monsters they want me to make. This isnt a bad thing however since working on concept art would have helped my skills. but i feel i wouldnt be able to fully take advantage of being able to animate for companys if i dont animate and improve my animation skills.

Ash work 

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When it comes to The Ash work i wanted to keep things visually interesting and different. Instead of focusing on a single storyline i wanted to keep with the info Ash gave us. I wrote down a suitable order that would work for a consistant timeline for different impacts a Cigarette butt can have on the enviroment.
I then created some designs and visual look i wanted to create for the ad. I desided to take an idea from my last project which i used crayons to create a childlike looking designs. with this in mind i desided to make the animation appear like a chalkboard while the designs appear very cartoony and use a chalk style which i beleive felt unique and distinct looking for an advert.

CANU work

For the CANU Work we were given, Scripts, audio and Animatic Photos to be put into Adobe Premiere Pro and editited together to create a working animatic to be sent off and reviewed.
My animatic was Episode 4 , Aderyn Melyn which had 3 different birds, yellow, green and orange, while a different tree was shown alongside the bird, Banana, cucumber and Spagetti.
Matching the audio with the pictures reminded me of when i worked on my Visual music project and being able to link up the animatic while reading through a script was really interesting and i enjoyed being able to read through and understand how the script wanted for each scene.

Working From Home = WFH. 
So After word about the Corona Virus being announced and we being unable to work in uni most of what ill write about is the amount of work i can acheive at home.

ASH (WFH) 

Luckily with the Ash animation i had managed to get a Copy of TVpaint from Morgan which could last for 30 days. In that time i managed to spend all my time animating as much as i could for ASH.
I had managed to get every single scene done as well as keep with the designs and theme of a Calkboard alive.
But unfortunatly i was unable to fully finish the work. due to being unable to add Text to the animation and fix a small flicker in animation i was unable to spot while i was animating.

CANU
Unfortunatly i was unable to really continue animating the animatics that were given to me due to my tec at home being unable to properly download or use the software due to my home interent and my computer power.
What i was able to do however was help with the shot and panel numbers to the animatic. Due to my own computer it felt like each time i tried to do this for CANU another problem would happen. From 1/3rd of the last part of the animatic wouldnt load properly so i had to readd the scenes. to the audio glitching out and me having to replace it. as well as it not being able to save properly. But that can all be placed on my computers power as well as my home interent not being able to achieve what was needed for this project.
Luckily however i finally managed to finish and ass the Shots and Panel numbers into the animatic so even after all with what could have gone wrong did go wrong im lucky that it managed to happen now, so i can remember this for next time and know what to do when something like this happens again.

ShowReel

Conclusion (500 words)

Throughout this Project there has both been ups and downs with both Projects as well as an unexpected virus changing up plans and how i was able to compleate my work and how i managed to adapt to acheieve the work i had achieved was an interesting adventure.
Im happy with my choices with working alongside ASH Wales for the freedom to achieve what i wanted while sticking to the ideals that ASH Wales want to advertise. While CANU was great to work more inline with a company and being able to read through scripts and create animatics with audio and images given to us was a great expirience to learn within a company setting.
But with all the good i think the improvements that need to be adressed is my equipment at home. I was able to use tvpaint for a short time but after the time limit i was practically useless when it came to finishing the ash work. The same with me being unable to use CELaction for CANU so me being stuck doing animatic work.
With this i decided i need to focus my efforts in working on software i am not used to so im able to at least keep busy and learn to work with more softwares that companies could be looking for. I have been learning how to work within Blender and Adobe Animate, since both animation software are able to run well on my computer and are two software companys are also seen to be using.

What this means for L6 is with the subject being my own work i wanted to dive more into my love for Horror, after doing my Dissertation prep on what makes horror films inflict fear for an audiance it really makes me ready to create something within the Horror Genre. This at the moment would be concept art, me looking into popular and cult classic horror films, games, books and researching what in those specific mediums make the monsters scary. This could then lead to me creating character designs, small walk/running cycles of the creatures  and just brushing up my 2D animation skills within Adobe animate and Blender.
This can then lead off to me creating a short animation story with the monster, possibly working on script work and animatics for a sort horror story. when we go back to university i can work in stopmotion and create my 2D monsters i like into a 3D creature, due to my understanding that Stopmotion monsters, appear much more terrifying than CGI or any other form of animation. Which would work beutifully with my Horror monster creation idea.

ANIMATION BREAKDOWN. 18.02.20.
STATE OF THE NATION…… Animators dealing with contemporary issues.

Before I start, I want to push my views on the videos we have seen but for some I will talk more about their messages, animation techniques or things I agreed or disagreed with their messaging.

Marcus Armitage – My Dad

Armitage’s work within this animation is chaotic and vibrant with colour. The use of sound within these scenes gives life to the world he is creating, music being played, people chatting, cars beeping. He creates this world full of life and people together. Then he flips back and forth when he talks about his dad, every time he talks about his dad or something his dad has said to him, you see nothing but black or white. He talks about immigrants and jobs being taken. This to me is trying to show that the views of the dad are black and white, very right way or the wrong way. And the use of the newspaper ripping apart all the colour from the kids’ point of view is a representation of the kid starting to believe what his dad was talking about and making him just as negative about the world as his dad is. I really enjoyed the use of colour and sound within these scenes. I believe these were of a representation of how if we cut out groups of people or cultures that are not our own, we lose more of that colour and sound we could be experiencing. And the use of it slowly disappearing when more and more newspapers keep making things black and white creates a cold and colourless world to live in.

Lisa LaBracio – The Opposites Game

While the animation is basically just doing exactly what the story is talking about, I feel that it takes that and makes it as creative as possible. Reason I say this is how they use stop motion for the book while they use hand drawn animation for everything else. The use of cutting the paper, rolling them up into balls to represent kids fighting, puppetry. The full amount of uses the book could give is being used to its advantage. The story I feel is an interesting take on how people view things differently. What is the opposite of a gun? No matter what answers they gave, each one could be right, but due to others believing in something differently they call those answers stupid. Each one thinking they were right results in them separating and going into their own groups, they become an echo chamber to themselves, never being able to discuss or conclude together. Reminds me of other topic where it becomes a laughable shouting match between people thinking there right and fighting anyone who would disagree with them. Religion, politics, personal interests and ideals each one could be used as an example of the message this animation is trying to show.

Donato Sansone – Journal Anime

The use of colouring on a news paper reminds me so much of school and my childhood. Anytime we had a lesson with books we’d turn to a page and see graffiti all over the school owned books. funny messages added extras that didn’t make sense. Random drawing that mean nothing and was only there because the drawer liked it. Sansone’s work reminds me of Marcus Armitage’s Previously talked about animation, My Dad.
The use of creativity while this person is bored drawing random things that don’t make sense for the scene like tentacles on a building or the Simpsons being put in a burnt down house. Its sporadic in nature due to how crazy this guys mind works, the more he see’s the more you see his mind goes to when he sees those images. Sometimes you’ll notice these small moments where when he does care about those topics its dark and scary imagery being shown, from people in balaclavas holding a knife, politicians with big stacks of money and Hitler becoming a millennial teen. While we see when he’s not interested it reverts to something silly such as ghosts being arrested, and astronauts being eaten by the moon. We’re essentially looking into the mind of this man; we can agree and disagree with if his views are right or wrong and if he should care more about certain topics more than others, its his opinions, and I feel the way Donato Sansone showed us the way a mind would work to be exactly how id imagen a mind coming to conclusions or just random thoughts.

Beth David and Esteban Bravo – In A Heartbeat

Now this animation is very reminiscing of Pixar level quality within its animation. For a short college film this is exceptional. From the lighting and colour schemes being bright and vibrant in pinks and purples compliment this short very well. Even the character designs are simple but are easily recognisable from each other.
But in my opinion the story feels done to death. A character loves another but can’t find the will power to do it. Then something happens that brings those characters together (this being the boy’s heart) and then by the end those feeling are resolved. Does this make the animation bad? No not at all, but the story does feel like its been done before.
Now what the film does have that changes things a bit would be the inclusion of the main characters being gay. This was a big draw for many people who watched it. Getting it wide acclaim and recognition from millions of people. But I don’t agree that just by adding an LGBT character immediately warrants praise. It’s important that representation is shown, but the idea that a film is only good solely on that representation I feel is shallow. That to me isn’t the films fault. This could possibly be due to, at the time, how uncommon gay characters where shown in animated films. For me I feel that having a character who is LGBT shouldn’t be taken as highly praised as it should, if you want people to have LGBT characters in films become normal and treated the same as every other relationship, don’t treat it like a spectacle when it is shown. Otherwise it won’t become normalised. But again, that’s not the films fault, it’s the people who look to deeply into this type of issue.

Animation Breakdown. 25/02/20

Manivald. Chintis Lundgren. 2017.

I really enjoyed this animation. If I had to pinpoint, why I liked this animation compared to the others that were shown. it would have to be due to the use of awkward silence. Throughout the animation we’d be met with these perfectly timed awkward silences. Normally these silences would be used sparingly and mostly used only at the most awkward moments. Manivald however uses the act of awkward silence throughout.
The reason for this I believe is because of the Mother and Manivald. It is shown early on that she is shown to be very possessive of Manivald, thus making Manivald more introverted as well as unable to stand up for himself. This is shown near the beginning when Manivald is playing on his piano and sees a parade playing. He then copies them before immediately stopping once his mother stops him, showing a clear fear and influence his mother has on him.
I noticed a clear use of music was very prominent as a distinguishing factor with this animation.
Whenever its just him and his mother its silent and quiet, leading to the awkward silences. But once he’s alone or with someone other than his mother, suddenly there’s music. This is especially shown twice within the animation. Once with the Plummer while they’re in Manivald’s room away from his mother and the second time is when he’s left her and starts playing happily with the Parade band. On another note, when he is playing with the Parade band he first starts playing the song his Mother wanted him to play, so its starts off sad and upsetting, before he suddenly switches into a more joyous version of the song, showing he is now free and on his own away from his mother. While the last time we see his mother she is alone, without music and has an awkward silence with a moose. Showing how She is now miserable without Manivald.

 

I found the museum experience to be really enjoyable. Being able to get out of the classroom and being somewhere completely new and full of so much cool interesting items was a delight on the senses.

While we were all walking through the painting section and looking at all the old portraits I for some reason cared more about how extravagant some of the frames that were used for the Paintings. It felt as if the frame was just as much a part of the paintings as the actual work of art. Which is why when I took the photos I made sure to focus on the frames more than the paintings.

I really enjoyed looking at the old fossils and skulls, it really gives me the appreciation of how complex and detailed every single creature is as well as see all the details we would never have seen while they were alive. A bit morbid I know, but seeing each bone fit in place and being able to see how those animals would walk or move just from there bone structure is always something that intrigues me.

Dinosaurs for me are one of the most interesting things to know about. Almost mythical in nature it’s amazing that creatures like this actually exist. The mystery behind them as well is so intriguing, how did they die? What did they look like? Do they a have feathers? All questions that keep getting brought up due to how interesting and still unknown these creatures are.

 

 

I enjoyed this little exercise, since I haven’t worked with animating on paper in awhile it was nice to get back to basics and see how far I’ve come from last year.
Each had their own little problems that I had to overcome and figure out the best method of animating them.
The first animation having it move was really fun to see it come to life, but the struggle of the lighting continuously changing while I’m drawing made me get all the information down as fast as I could. Which was a fun exercise.
The second animation was of a still fossil so I had to use different drawing styles to show off the look of the fossil that couldn’t move. I found this one to be the hardest since I had to make the same image without moving the fossil while also keeping in mind each page had to look different.
The Third animation was merging to exabits together which was a real fun time seeing my first few pages morph into the other was a real fun exercise I never really did before and id love to do more with that.

What I want to pursue and what ideas do I have?

When it comes to what I felt more emotional towards while I was in the Museum, I would have to say it would have been the Dinosaur exhibits. Millions of years, evolution and research have gone into learning more about these almost Mythical creatures. Something like that really makes me want to pursue more about these dinosaurs.

As an animator my first line of thinking is to create an animation based on those dinosaurs. Using some of the dinosaurs that were seen in the museum, like the Draco Raptor or the T-Rex.

The ideas I had for animating these would be things like gaining toys from toy stores, my childhood toy’s or asking for my nephew’s toy dinosaurs and animate them living there day to day life.

Another idea would be for me to continue my interest in Stop motion. Grab some clay and create Dinosaurs and create an animation of them realistically moving, running and walking.

Research

I really love the character designs of these dinosaurs. They’re simple with their colour schemes and their designs are recognisable as well as the simple clean story telling makes this animation really stand out. Plus, for me the little added bits of comedy really help this little animation give off something you’d see on a Saturday morning children’s show.

 

Both animations to me are so charming and cute. The level of detail on how the dinosaurs move and act brings so enchanting wonders for me, seeing these cute tiny clay models of dinosaurs, even if they’re not necessarily realistic. Just the fact they look close enough to a dinosaur, with added noises to push that further, really makes me enjoy them even more.

While I took those ideas to our first meeting and I explained my ideas. This led on to people giving me ideas, since I focused quite a bit on how when I was a kid, I really liked dinosaurs. These ideas led onto me thinking on focusing more on the fact that kids tend to almost instinctually be interested in Dinosaurs. So, me focusing on both dinosaurs and how to be able to target kids and their interests.

My first idea was to create sock puppets of dinosaurs, this was fun to design and come up with different ideas, felt like I was creating my own Muppets. Coming up with if I wanted them to be furry or how to represent their eyes or teeth through things like Ping-Pong balls or cardboard.
I decided however against this since I don’t feel confidant enough to have properly produced these creations, since I’m not at all confidant enough to stitch or sew.

My Second idea was of how kids’ drawings were essentially there starting point at creativity and art. Plus the knowledge that they love dinosaurs was something I really wanted to explore. So, my idea was to create childish drawings as similar as possible to what kids would normally draw. I had a lot of fun messing around with shapes and colours but unintentionally I was creative while I was doing it.

My third idea was having cartoon dinosaur characters while I create a small animation of shorts. The idea for this was how kids love to watch cartoons so having a cartoon about dinosaurs would be something they would love to watch.

My Proposals

Proposal 1

Overview
Creating stick puppets and then creating a short film with a basic story about Dinosaurs.
Items Needed

• Paper – Could use book paper or Card.
• Sticks – Wilko
• Glue – Pritt stick or Tap
• Colouring Pencils

What Has To be made/Collected

• Pre Created Dinosaur designs
• Background
• Camera and Camera stand

Final

I create my own Dinosaurs that appear to look like childrens drawings. I then create a simple story using those puppets.

Proposal 2

Overview
Gather all the equipment needed to have kids create there own Dinosaurs and then take those designs to create puppets. We then film their results.

Items Needed

• Paper/Card
• Sticks – Wilko
• Glue/Pritt Stick/ Tape
• Pencils and Colouring Pencils

What has to be made/collected by me

• Background
• Camera and Camera Stand

Final
I give kids the equipment needed to create there own Dinosaurs and create there own puppets. I record them making their own storys in groups with their designs.

Proposal 3

Overview
I create a short animation using Dinosaur designs that kids would love to watch. Like a saturday morning cartoon shows.

Items possibly needed 

• TV Paint
• Paper
• Coloured Pencils
• Clay
• Camera
• Lights
• Background

Final
I create A really simple animation of Dinosaurs but in the style of kids drawings.
This would look crude but have a childish, almost charming look to it.

What Proposal i have Chosen

I have decided to focus my efforts on Proposal 1. The reason for this is because I have already practiced creating characters while pretending, I was a child, drawing. I feel that this idea of making my own puppets both take my sock puppet idea and my child drawings idea and organically place them together. Since I’m unable to use the idea of proposal 2 to be able to get actual children to create the drawings for me, since I don’t have the resources or skills necessary to do this. Which is why I feel my First Proposal would be the best choice of action to continue with.

These were my final ideas for my dinosaurs.
I found it difficult to keep a balance of childlike drawings and keeping my own artistic skills supriessed to not make them feel unchildlike. But by the end of it i feel ive been able to have a good balance to show a childlike drawing style with just a hint of my own knowladge to at least keep the designs recogniseable as well as make them distinct from one another.

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While i had finished the designs i still had to come up with what colours i would use. While designing the colours however i had to stick to how kids would normally go about colouring a picture. The answer to that is that they would both do it randomly as well as inconsistant. Maybe they’ll get bored colouring and leave massive gaps of uncoloured dinosaur, they’d go out the lines, something me and other artists have now been prone to avoid. They also would have little to no understanding on colours and just use whatever colour they want, even if those colours dont work together or are typically assosiated with that dinosaur.

While colouring i had a lot of fun, not caring about all the basic fundamentals ive learnt from designing and colouring characters. It was like i was going back to when i first started off my life drwing. It was a plesent expirience and i was suprised how much i got invested at just colouring randomly.

Unfortunatly however while i was colouring these i realised that colouring them on Photoshop with a crayon texture i realised it didnt feel real to me. It felt more manufactured and fake than if i had done it with actual Crayons.

This is why i went out and bought actual Crayons to fully make my colouring feel as real as possible while coming up with what my Dinosaurs would look like.

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I feel that actually having the dinosaurs in crayon really shows off a more natural look for the designs for them. Each mistake, harsh colours and randomness put together i feel brings the whole piece together.

 

Final Thoughts
Throughout this project I feel like I was reliving a part of me I haven’t felt like for a while. The excitement of seeing all the different fossils and skeletons as well as having a newly appreciation for everything within the exhibits as an adult show both my growth as a person and how far my interests have changed and developed.
For my work I realised a great interest in the idea of having more interactivity within a museum space. The reason for this is how on the first week spending time in the museum I noticed a lot of kids running around the Dinosaur exhibits and trying to touch the fossils, even trying to clime over barriers to get to them before there teachers could stop them.
I liked the idea of gathering the items that kids could use to express there own creativity through creative and interactive methods.
When you’re young you tend to be told not to do that or this is the “proper” way to do something. Over time that becomes normal and you normally don’t go outside that line of “proper”.
Which is why while I was designing the dinosaurs and colouring them, I had to go back to the beginning of my creativity. Through going back to my artistic beginnings, I realised just how much creativity we tend to lose due to being brought up being taught how to do certain actions. From colour schemes and what goes better with what, to staying in the lines when drawing a character. In a way we try to improve and get better at drawing things perfectly that in fact, just ends up as us becoming less creative and more prone to sticking into our own line of thinking due to our upbringing and how we were taught at a young age. Which stops us expressing true creativity.

 

Reflection

Before starting Figurative Modelling, I wanted to be able to improve my knowledge on the human body. Plus, with there being able to attend regular life drawing lessons I was really looking forward to improving my skills within the human form.
Using clay was something I haven’t done since comprehensive school but I managed to get back into the groove with it, and with my new found skills within art I feel like I have improved my skills within Clay again.
This has given me some ideas within animation, especially when we created the clay hand, I can make an animation based on something along those lines, since I had a lot of fun making the clay hand as well as how much a hand can be animated.
If I had to say one thing that I think as an experience Sewing was something, I was hesitant to do since I was worried if I ruined it id must restart from the beginning. So, I feel like sewing isn’t something id be interested in perusing.
for the final group project, I was really pleased with how it turned out,
I liked being able to work in a group as well as bouncing ideas off one another, seeing different viewpoints, and coming up with the best final product.
Overall, I feel that Figurative Modelling has helped me gain a better fuller understanding on the human body, especially with Life Drawing. The constant rough sketches I feel helped me not care about the final product but helped me gain a better understanding on how to get the most important and basic parts of the human body.

Mark Making 

 

 

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I really enjoyed creating different textures with clay, pens, pencils and Paint. noticing little details you wouldnt have if you didnt focus on looking for those textures was fun for me to notice.
One of those textures that i noticed would have to be the unintentional marks from the clay that would stain the paper we used. I noticed those stains and it made me think of it as we always leave our mark on people even if it was unintended, how you acted and what you did with them leaves a mark.

Sewing Arm

For a first time effort with sewing i felt that i did a pretty good job with it. being able to use a sewing machine was complex but fun to learn how to use. this was then filled with plaster. I found that adding the plaster was both fun but a tad stressful since i wasnt quite used to using that type of material and the timeframe to make sure it doesnt harden before i could finish. 

Sewing Foot

 

 

Just like the Arm im happy with how ive sort of got the hang of sewing, especially now since i tried to create a more 3D foot.

Head

Firstly i wish i took more photos of before i got around to the general head shape i made.
But other than that i am happy with what i have created. getting the head to appear humanesque as well as putting in the facial features correctly but somehow makes the head appear not as human as i wanted and more like something trying to replicate a human and doing a horrible job in doing so.

Clay Hand

Honesty i cant even beleive how well i managed to create a hand. Normally when i draw hands i cant seems to make them look like them, but with clay somehow it was way easier. For a first attempt i think i hit it out of the ball park. if i can replicate this in my animation work id love to make an animation with clay hands.

Slab and Slip Mug

 

 

The slap work i found to be a bit too abstract for my liking. i felt that it was a little confusing and that putting them all together a little randomly made the object look like a bit of a mess. But the positives i found when doing this was working in a team and talking to each other about what to add and where to add our different slabs. as much as it is nice to work alone on my own artistic works its also a wonderful to just chat with and gain ideas from others and was a nice change.

Final (Bringing Objects Together)

 

 

The final group work i found to be really fun, being able to work as a group and use our items that we made throughout out time in feild was an interesting exorsise.
One of my favourites was the Black glove i noticed from the start and i thought to myself “i have to dunk that” so after i went ahead and dunked the glove into the mix and i hung it up it gave off a really nice patchy effect, like a rorschach test on an arm. Plus having all the white be mostly located on the lower part of the arm while the top being black its like a juxtaposition of heaven and hell where we’ve always thought up being light while down being dark.

Life Drawings

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