Finished Showreel

After spending a short while looking at showreels on Youtube, to get an idea of what I should be making. I finally finished my showreel. I tried to time most of the animation pieces with the music, which is just a simple instrumental.

Showreel Intro

After realising that my showreel would need an introduction with my name and email address on, I decided to animate something do go at the start of my showreel. Only having about a day left before I wanted to compile my showreel, I kept the animation simple.

I animated a little creature (a kappa) running on screen, waving his magic sceptre and bringing colour to the board with my name and details on. I've had practice with run cycles and turn around this year so I supposed this would be the easiest type of thing for me to do.

I'm quite happy with how smooth the skid and turnaround came out with. I animated this piece on Photoshop and think I prefer and work a lot better on this rather than Flash (I'm not too fond of the vector-y line quality on Flash). The kappa was originally going to gain colour as the board did, but I though it would make more sense for it to be in colour all along, so I added colour to the frames with the kappa on.

Horse 2

I've continued my horse and king animation. I animated the horse spitting out the grass, and also the king walking over towards the horse. I'm not too pleased with his walk cycle - I think he stretches his legs out too much, but with little time left I want to move on from this animation now and do a quick introduction for my showreel.

-video-

Old Work

Here are a couple of bits of animation or relevant work I've done in my spare time:

Turnaround In Colour

I coloured in the turnaround, basing it on the colours I agreed with, with my coursemate. As I get more into my third year film I may alter the colours, but for now I think they're okay.

I also added a simple background on with a circle for the man to stand on, as I've seen this done on other turnarounds.

Animated Turnaround

I added in several more frames to the turnaround and animated it. There are a few things that bother me such as the feet and the shoulders but I think turnarounds will come more naturally to me after more practice.

Horse

I sketched up a few random character designs and decided to use the first and the last for a quick animation.

The animation was mostly straight ahead but I still had to start off with a storyboard. The horse would be chewing some grass when the fat king walks on screen. The horse, knowing that it would soon have to support the weight of the king, spits out the grass in surprise. If I have time I will extend the story and animate the king actually climbing onto the horse, who will almost buckle under his weight.

Turnaround

Using the character design that Shaz made for me as a reference (http://2dshaz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/helping-on-another-film.html), I created a turn-around.

I will add in more frames and animate this a bit later on.

Hippo Cleanup

Finally I've cleaned up the animation of the hippo and the turtle. With this one, even though there isn't a background I've tried to create the illusion of water with ripples and splashes. I think it works rather well; when you watch it the character's don't look like they're floating in random space.

I added in a bit of stretch in the turtle's face as I cleaned this one up - one of the principles I need to remember to use a lot more.

Cat Pouncing Animation

I did a little animation test with my cat character, eyeing a dot (probably from a lazer pointer) and then pouncing on it.

Rabbit

I wanted to have a go at a transformation animation so I decided to sketch out two characters quickly and animate one transforming into the other.

Something I did differently with this animation test was that I used different angles and shots. I think this is rather necessary with a fast-paced action scene, especially with transformation as then you can focus in on different body parts.

I'm rather happy with how this one came out, even if it's just in a sketch form.

Surprise Cleanup

I cleaned up the surprise animation, adding in his ears and hair waving at the start to lengthen it out a bit, as it was rather short.

Running Man Cleanup

I added structure to the running man, not changing much with the animation as I was rather satisfied with how the body moved. Finally, I roughly sketched on a quick background, just to give it a bit more detail.

Three Rough Animations

Wanting to get back into animation I did a few rough sketches. I didn't spend too long on each - about an hour each for the first two and then ten minutes for the third one. I wanted to just rough out some animation instead of worrying over details and being a perfectionist.

Third Year Film Character Designs

I designed the cat for my film, basing it on a Russian Blue (though rather over-exaggerated with the fur colour). I've tried to keep the style rather cartoony and western, as I would like my film to be a kind of homage to old cartoons.

I started off by sketching out a few styles. I decided that I preferred the bottom-left cat and so added the body and coloured it. I may come back and edit the design a bit later after planning my potential film out some more.

My coursemate who I designed the squirrel for designed the man for my third year film, which you can see here- http://2dshaz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/helping-on-another-film.html

Third Year Film Idea

I came up with a concept of a potential third year film. I would like to go about planning this and if it becomes too much work I will simplify the idea.

The two characters are a man and his cat, and the film is about the man trying to take his cats to the vets. The problem arises when the cat refuses to get inside the cat carrier, and so the man repeatedly comes up with crazier and crazier ideas to get the cat into the carrier so that it can be taken to the vets. 

The good thing about this idea, I think, is that I can vary the amount of methods the man uses to try and get the cat into the carrier. If I find there's too much work I can just take one of the scenes out.

I want to do some of the planning before summer (mostly character design and starting the storyboarding) but plan on doing a big chunk of the work over the summer. I want to have at least some of the animation done before I come back to University.

Squirrel Turnaround

Finally, I drew a turnaround for the squirrel character.

Character Design

I am planning on animating a squirrel in Shaz's 3rd year film so I sketched out a few squirrel designs for her in different styles.

Here's the final squirrel design in the tentative style of the 3rd year film.

Layout Sketches

I started painting some layouts. I started with thumbnail sketches before blocking out the basic shapes and setting my colour-schemes.

Lip-Sync 2 Storyboard

I don't plan on animating this one as I want to push forward with different types of animation, not just lip-syncs (though I might revisit it at the end if I have time).

I designed the two characters after finding my voice clip, deciding to base them on pigeons. I wanted to have a go at drawing wings as hands, as it's something I've never done before.

This first one is based on a stereotypical Mafia boss: old and big-chinned with a very confident but cool demeanour.

The second one, as an underling, I tried to make look rather thin and straggly. 

I had them sitting down (as there is the sound of a chair scrape in the audio) and so focused on facial expressions and hand movements. 

More Animation

I finished animating my lip-sync animation. There are a few things that need editing such as in the middle, getting rid of the pause and how the male rodent does not react when the female talks to him. I will come back to this later as I want to get a few more smaller animation pieces done.

Adding Detail Back

I started to add the detail back in, and also the lipsync (which needs retiming slightly). I hope to have everything completed by next week.

There is a black squiggle in the middle of the animation that does not appear on the work surface, only on the exported file - I will sort this out shortly.

Sketch Animation

Realising I was drawing in too much detail I took a step back and animated everything in sketch form. I'm much happier with the animation now.


I've realised that when you animate you shouldn't dive straight into the detail as you won't focus on the actual movements and animation. From now on I will start off my animations much more simpler, with sketches rather than finished pictures.

Next I plan on sketching in the lip-syncing and then adding the detail back on.

Inbetweening

I started inbetweening so I would understand more how the characters were moving.

I took out the part where the male rodent was grabbing his ears as it stopped the animation flowly smoothly.

Animatic 2

I decided to change the characters to something smaller so I could include their whole bodies but not distract attention away from their faces.

I also made it so that the mother was reacting more to her son, rather than just watching him.

Animatic

A few weeks back I found a sound clip with emotion (as I love animating emotion) and drew some characters to match. I kept them from the waist-up so you could focus on their hands and face. I included a tie on one of the characters to add extra movement to the animation.

Proposal

Career Intentions


I enjoy quite a few different directions you could take with Animation: character design, layout design, digital painting, 2D character animation and storyboarding. I generally like anything that is to do with digital drawing or painting. For now however I think I would like to focus myself on 2D character animation as I think it is the career path I am most compatible with. I love bringing characters to life and in particular, dealing with emotions.  After leaving University I would like to start out in a small company to gain experience in a working environment before moving onto freelance after maybe a few years of work, or even joining up with a larger studio.

Skills


I possess knowledge of Photoshop, Painter, Flash, and After Effects. I am comfortable with designing and working to a commissioners brief as I currently work as a part-time illustrator, dealing with a variety of clients. I think the areas I need to gain a little more confidence in are animation and human/animal anatomy so I will spend plenty of time this year refining those skills.

Pipeline


I plan on making a series of short character animations; some with humans and some with animals. I will do a bit of planning for my third year film as well but will mainly focus on animation tests, as my third year film is something I would like to work on over the summer. As I work primarily by drawing, all of my animations will be in 2D on either Flash or Photoshop. I will finish the year with a showreel of hopefully between 1 and 2 minutes. I will be able to constantly edit this showreel over the summer and next year to improve it and make it good enough to send off to potential studios.

Introduction

My name is Jade and I'm currently in my second year of animation. For this project we have to create a show reel, demonstrating our skills in whatever specialism we chose.

I prefer 2D animation, layouts, painting backgrounds and storyboarding. 

This blog will document my progress in making the show reel.