THE SHOW REEL!

a little bit of me..

I decided to make the reel slightly more personal then it already is,this is a side profile and small smile from Kira,one of my many character from stories i have created since i was 12 years old, i thought if i put her towards the end of my reel people might understand more as to why shes in the reel, as the song is a feel good' tune,i thought i'd make Kira react to what shes feeling from the music, the lyrics "you know how i feel" is why i thought to place her in, her character is very difficult to understand so it is shown by a sad but happy smile.

the main attraction! ..

The main characters LipSync,to the beggining of the song Feeling Good' by Muse, i wasnt having much luck advancing in getting his body structure right so from the early rougher sketches of his head i tidied and lined his facial features better and added a mouth,the lip sync was extremely difficult i found it hard to get the timing right on many of the words in this 30 second scene, i didnt realise just how long the introduction to the song was until i began animating,i went over 700 frames in order to reach 30 seconds. this will be the main attraction for my reel, at adviced by peter, show your best work first!

the real deal..

This is my favorite animation for my second year show reel,it best shows off my hidden talent and love for animals,i used a few refferences such as stop motion,big cat locomotion etc as i struggled to understand a real cats body structure,in some places the animation is stiff but not to wooden, as my main character is a big cat i thought it would be a good connection for my reel to have a realistic cat run cycle.

back to the structure of things...

I created this forward run of the main character and slightly simplified his body structure down so i could see the front and back structure of his body better, i wanted to test myself, i attempt a forward run on 1st year and it was far from successful,there is room for improvement here,but im happy with my procress,his form looks less child-like now.

the slow sprint man..

i wanted to test a more muscly version of my main characters body whilst he was sprinting,this was by far the hardest and longest time i spend trying to get the movement right,i am very proud of the way i expressed a action movement because this was the first time i managed to get a run or walk cycle to move across a page successfully.

very rough indeed..the cat throw..

i tested the limits of body structure even more with this single cat throw,the rough plan was introduce a action shot to my reel,i beleive this action could be better if it had more exaggeration on the swoosh and stretch,i noticed with this scene and my second attempt of the dancing man my animations are becoming less wooden which im very pleased about.

the rough cat run

after struggling to do my main characters body perfectly in a walk cycle i decided to do a rough run cycle of a much more simply body structure to see if it wod be easier to draw,i found it looked more child like then i expected and i was thinking more along the lines of  a 'bad boy' appearence and action whilst running...

the danicing man two! improvement

this is my second attempt of the dancing man,i changed alot from the first attempt,i added more free will to his arms and legs,hes expressing hes enjoying himself,i might put this animation in my reel as i like the movement and i believe it will go well with my chosen song, Muse Feeling Good.

the dancing man attempt!

My first attempt of making a figure dance,its a very messy animation with alot of room for improvement,i think i will need to put alot more movement into the arms and legs so he doesnt look as wooden as hes a rocking chair and allow him to express a certain feeling when he dances.

tidy up of head:- ready for lip sync

i began firstly tidying up my main characters head and features to prepare me for the lip syncs at the beginning of my show/demo reel,i used flash and its brush tool.

Bird

i started animating a bird flight cycle,it needs alot of work,i need to add a body bob along with a more arched motion in the wing,it isn't to bad for a first pass tho. ;)

start of walk cycle fixed issue-

i decided to add the side view of the character sketch in because i noticed the feet started to rise higher,and so i fixed this issue per frame,whilst completing  this walk cycle i will start other animation scenes!

start of walk cycle

start of walk cycle,i used flash and two animation layers,for the body,and legs,i'm attempting to get the initail foot down right, i wanted the weight of his body and head to show effectively when his foot hits the ground.

main character-pose sheet two

I fixed the right leg on my character, it now looks like hes not falling over! i will have to also create a 3/4 view at some point in the future....

main character-pose sheet one

I started sketching out in flash the pose sheet for my main character,i use 1 layer,he's a non anatomically correct humanistic caracal (type of big cat). i used refferences such as 'sonic the hedgehog' for the large head and small frame body with large feet,i noticed straight away on the side view the right leg was way to far out to the right so i have to correct that,i understand that i have a difficult design on my hands, so it might become a challenge to animate him :( but i'll give it a try :)

Song i have chosen for my reel

I used this song because it was one of my favorites as a child,i always felt power and meaning from its lyrics. I will pick out the most important parts in the song to create my animation from.
from its lyrics i picked out what to possibly animate:-
birds flying
sun in the sky
fish in the sea
dragonfly
butterflies

My rough plan

The narrative of my show reel will connect greatly to me on a personal level, I’m inspired deeply by the power of music, the feeling you get from the rhythm and lyrics you hear creates images and narrative in my mind and allows me to construct characters, sets and actions.  I found that music for myself is the best method for flinging me straight in to a creative mood.

In my view music is a drug and I am eager to show this opinion within my reel by choosing 1 song, listening to it and then from what I hear, create animations to fit the music, I will create a main character for my reel and practice his or hers movement, e.g. - walk, run and dance cycles, this will require understanding the basis of movement. I will also be including lip sync that will hopefully sing to certain lyrics of my chosen song, other animations will be connections to the content of the song.

Characters wise I will be using mostly non anatomically correct characters as that’s what my personal style consists of, some animation may be more realistic depending on what they are. I have a love for animals and will include animal locomotion as well as humanistic locomotion. I understand that my plan might change in parts throughout the module.

Proposal

PROPOSAL  

My Intension:-

From starting this Animation course I felt it was clear in my mind I wanted to pursue traditional 2D animation ,I gave 3D animation a good attempt to no avail, I personally found the subject bewildering and unclear. I was succeeding further in my skills in 2D animation other than 3D. As a career I would like to find a 2D based animation studio or to excel in freelance work, although I have also been interested in animation story writing and character design which Is also a possibility for the future.

The Skills needed:-

I consider the skills needed for this module are a good sense of timing and composition, story boarding, an understanding of motion, knowledge of perspective and ratio, drawing and observational abilities, an understanding of animation principles such as stretch, squash, personality, and anticipation, also exaggerated to an ordinary sense of movement. Work and character must have a good appeal both visually and personally. If faced with working in a group one needs directive skills in place.

Hardware needed:-

windows (what I personally use)

A mac computer system.

A memory stick or hard drive to save and back up work.

A scanner to scan in traditional draftsman ship.

A graphics tablet for digital 2d work, drawing enhancer

Software needed:-

The software I intend to use will be partly hand drawn work that I will scan into adobe flash and party digitally drawn images from using my graphics tablet, my skills on the graphics tablet are not yet perfected to the level I want to be at so I aim to possibly hand draw the key frames of the animation movements and import them into frames in flash, then in-between them.

I plan to use the programs Illustrator or Photoshop to tidy up, colour and texture the animation frames. For my final render of my animation scenes to create my show reel I will use After Affects or Premier Pro, otherwise both to place together the components of my reel successfully without any mistakes in-between scenes.

For my sound software I am possibly aiming to use sound effects pro though it means skipping from windows to mac which could cause difficulties, unless I save my files as both mac and windows which might cause confusion.  I intend to remain a windows user for this project, though I may need to change. I have a program called Audacity on my laptop so I might consider using this granting if it’s easier.

Production Pipeline:-

Story

Character

Art Direction:-Character development

Story boarding

Track recording, sound effects, music, vocal tracks and voice recording

Story Reel/Animatic reel

Layout, colour styles

Starting Production:-

Key Framing the breakdown animation and in-betweening

Animation tests and clean-up

Final layout and background

Digital Inking and Painting

Rendering:-

Use Adobe after Effects or Premier Pro -  Final render of show reel.