The Animation Blog

Thoughts and ideas

What do i want in my story that would incorporate a metamorphosis?

 Changing body

Changing into a different being.

• Is it an object or another animal
• Is it a real creature/mythical/made up
• What are the characteristics of said object/animal (How does it move)

Is the transformation slow or fast?

• Will the change be painful and gruesome?
• Or will it be sudden and unexpected?
• Will some parts be faster than others and if so how will it be shown. Will it make sense?

What objects and animals are interesting to transform into?

• Spiders, Easily scary on their own adding the gruesome of a human turning into one would be even more frightening.
• Crow, Sparrows, Pigeons, all are different and present themselves differently through their movements, how they fly and how they interact with items.
• Bugs/insects, there’s such variety with insects that it would be fun testing out ideas with them. Will my character grow wings? How many legs will they have? What about teeth?

Changing mind

Will it be an internal struggle?

• How will I show off their mood?
• Their stance, how they walk, how they dress?

Is it something out of the characters control?

• Are they being bullied, mental illness, depression
• Has someone in their life died and they try to overcome the tragedy?
• Has it got to do with Love? Falling in love but getting rejected
• How will I show the emotional pain?

Environment

Location change

• Will it take place on land, sea, space, nowhere?
• Will it link to my story? If my character changes into an animal will that animal be able to survive where it appears?
• How will I change the scene to show a change in the environment
• Do I need to change the environment?

 

Mood Board 

Story Boards

 

 

Two Synopsis

 First Synopsis

I want to be able to turn a human looking figure into an animal/object (haven’t finalised what it will be yet) But the main Point I want to get across is how Painful the transformation would actually Feel like. Things like how bones would bend, snap and crack while being moved. How the skin would stretch, peel off the new body, or would it start spreading fur.  This is hopefully going to end with the creature moving around the environment giving it freedom to wreak havoc within the animation.

Second Synopsis

I want to try and show emotions through masks. When we went to the Oxford museum I got the idea from looking at the mask exhibit they had. Each having their own value and impact.
Using masks seem interesting to me since they don’t really show emotion.

Final Synopsis

I have settled on using the second idea because this gives me more variety of ideas to work with.
My idea is to create a blob creature that shows its emotion through a mask.
This would be useful to us since the blob wouldn’t show any emotion, only the mask would represent what the blob is thinking.

 

Final Video

Thoughts?

I had the best time with this animation.
I enjoy coming up with stories and using the idea Metamorphosis to create a story from that initial idea was something i love to do.
I went above and beyond with creating not one but 2 initial ideas.
Having the freedom to not just stick to one script and to experiment with my other thoughts and  idea was enjoyable.

What would i improve?

If i had to i would really love to clean some of the line work, just to make it look more professional. id also would have likes some more time with colouring my creation. I managed to get the animation down but adding the colour to my creature was the only thing i wished i could have done.

Whats going on?
Creating a short 30 second looping animation. This can be in any style i wish, from 2D to 3D but it has to be able to loop on itself. This can then be used again to see if i can create the same idea but with a different technique. Example: If i created an animation in 2D how would i go around creating the same idea in a 3D environment, what would be different?.

Group work video

This video was a great start on how to incorporate colour within my work as well as changing shapes and creating a basic story which can be looped simply.

Week 1

So far i have been coming up with 3 ideas.

The first consists of basic shapes with squares and circles, the idea is having one ball bouncing within a square, then having more balls bouncing within other squares before the camera pulls back to reveal tons of bouncing balls and squares.
I haven’t decided if each square and ball with have its own unique colour or if every time the balls land on the ground they both change colour adding more colourful variety.

My second idea is simplistic but simple. The idea is having a character carrying a bag, he then discovers a light switch and they pull it. once they do they’ll morph and change shape and appear as a Rabbit. The rabbit would then start to hop away before being shot by a hunter, who places it in the same bag from earlier and walk away, before it repeats on its self. Given the dark humour i have added into this one i’m pleased with how simple it is, simplistic and with a shocking revelations are things i love within a story. Compared to my first idea this one seems a lot more manageable, considering the first has a lot more movement and colours my second idea is more minimalist, which to be honest doesn’t push me to try something new and experiment with more outlandish ideas.

My third idea is to create a clay character and have him clap. this sounds simple but with a twist. Every time he claps the background and himself will change colour. This is the best of both worlds for me, this is because i get to create many different coloured versions of my clay character as well as ether create backgrounds with clay which will be placed behind him or i could cut him out of all the scenes and use TV paint to draw in the backgrounds. This is the best of both worlds i get to use claymation and Digital but i can also mix both techniques seamlessly with each other since the character changes every time he claps i could easily and effortlessly add each animation technique with each clap.

So far with my ideas i have i’m more confident with my third idea, this is due to how simple the idea is but it can get complex with how i’m adding colour within the animation.  While they second animation i feel to be a bit to simple, even though the story is interesting and i’m a fan on how it could work, i dont see it challenging me compared to the other two. while the first animation is a little to complex to start off with in my opinion.

Week 2

This week was to start creating the looping animation.
I decided to start off with creating it in Stop motion because i wanted to get more acquaint with using that type of animation.

I also decided to mix two of my ideas.
My first idea with the bouncing balls and the character clapping.
Why did i pick these two? more movement honestly.
I was going to go with only the clapping character but that to me showed little to no movement. That’s why adding the bouncing balls adds a constant flow of movement that it takes away from the still movements my clay character would be repeating.

The new idea was every time the character claps they would change colour, but the previous colour the character was escapes from them and becomes 4 bouncing balls. This would continue until most of the screen is covered with bouncing balls, a constant flow of movement.
Then the character would return to its default colour and the balls would be sucked back into the character and the cycle would then repeat.

Planning for next week

So my plan is to possibly make the same basic idea of clapping and colour changing in a new medium, maybe in TVpaint i could create a simple animation of hands clapping, maybe have them be different colours so when a different coloured hand claps the background changes to that colour. or maybe create something in after effects, like a ball bouncing and every time it hits the floor the colour changes or there is a beat of music that makes the colours change within the animation.

Week 3

For my animation on TV paint i decided to create a eye blinking. Every time the eye blinked it would change colour and repeat. I used blue, red and yellow since they are distinct from one another when they change its very noticeable and shocking when it happens.

After that i had to create a way to link both the animations together seamlessly. First by taking my clay character and transforming it into an eyeball which would then blink into they second animation. While the eye would break apart and start to morph into my clay character again.

 

Final Thoughts 

I’ve enjoyed this Brief. Having to create whatever i wished was super relaxing and was nice to try out. Also having the goal of looping the animation was a cool test to see how i’d manage to get from point A to point B. Being able to use 2 different animation styles with stop motion and digital 2D work will always be a plus for me. Love both concepts of animation equally and can be used wonderfully if done correctly.

 

This video is to help me see how different types of balls bounce.

 

STOP MOTION

Bouncing ball

The arks are clear and fluent. Its pleasing to the eye.

Squash and Stretch

Shows off speed nicely as well as keeping its volume.

Heavy Ball

Since the ball came in at such velocity its natural for the heavy ball to have bounced as high as it has to then slid on the floor before stopping.

Mind of its own

being able to change the size of the balls was amazing to try out. Having every ball coloured was intentional to make sure when the blue ball leaves the screen near the end and reappears you know that’s the same ball just bigger.

PAPER

Bouncing Ball

I feel that the final sequence seems to show a tiny size decrease.

Heavy ball

Short sweet and the timing is good.

Squash and Stretch

Very cartoony but still keeps its volume.

Mind of its own

I wanted to merge all different types of balls together, thought it would be a cool idea. But I’m not entirely sure if changing the balls size at the end works or not. It acts like a sudden surprise if anything.

Computer Drawn

Bouncing Ball

I absolutely love this one. The arks decrease naturally, the ball bounces fine and the added detail of the tennis ball completes it.

Heavy Ball

simple and straight to the point.

Squash and Stretch

Acts like it’s made of cartoony jelly, has a wavy feeling to it.

Mind of its own

I really enjoyed creating this one, having all three balls merge together to create a recognisable image and having them all have different properties as balls worked well.

 

I really enjoyed this project, being able to try out different methods was wonderful to experience. I think out of the 3, the paper drawn animations are my least favourite to do. This is because I disliked not being able to properly see how fast or slow my animations would have been and being able to instantly see my animations move from stop motion and Computer drawn animations, paper seems very lacking. That however doesn’t mean i wont try out paper animation again to help me get more acquainted to the process.

 

Past, Present and Future.

Before I arrived at Cardiff Met I had the sense of wanting to gain more knowledge with how to create more fluent and realistic animated characters. I feel more comfortable with hand drawn animation with my tablet since the process is easy to pick up and with enough practice is a wonderful way to create life within the movement in hand drawn animation.

I’ve used the book “The Animators Survival Kit” as a base start with in my work to understand and practice the use of hand drawn animation. His walk cycle tutorials were the perfect starting off point, giving me knowledge with timing and spacing. I still need more practice with this technique since I feel I need to practice with different body types as well as different types of animals to really understand movement within animation.

After reviewing and collecting my drawings I completed for the summer product I’ve noticed an ever-growing interest in stop motion. This new love for this type of animation would be due to how perfect it blends into the horror genre creating a discomforting and unpleasant scenario whenever it is used.

This image is from an animation created by Suzie Templeton with the simple title of “Dog”, the animation dives straight into being uncomfortable, due to the almost but not quite realistic characters she uses, which makes the animation feel more grounded. This helps make whatever the characters do within the story more impactful thanks to the realistic story Suzie is telling.

Both hand drawn and stop-motion would be amazing to dive right into and see how I can improve with them both. On one hand, hand drawn animation gives me the visual freedom needed so I’m able to deform and exaggerate their expressions giving a more cartoonish but more variety within their performances.
While stop motion works far better within more realistic movements, creating a more discomforting experience due to its link to being uncanny.
Both types of animation have gained my interest and I would like to experiment with both types of styles, maybe even blend the two types together with simplistic and more inviting hand drawn animation mixing with the uncanny and unpleasant movements stop motion can offer could lead to an interesting visual spectacle if done correctly.