I have two main ideas at the moment the first being a choreographed fight as such I have been looking into choreographed fights, especially ones that are simple to follow like Star Wars. The lightsabers lend themselves quite well as the colour of the blades keeps people informed of who is fighting and is very visible at all times. If I proceed down this route I think it's worth taking something like a lightsaber into account.
My other idea is doing a piece to some music. I have asked my friend if he can make a music clip for me and he says he can, as soon as he has the time. In the mean time I have been looking at music videos to get some ideas.
One idea that I want to look further into is animating to a piece of writing, possibly similar to Edgar Allen Poe's style. I will write the piece myself, of course. in the mean time I am currently looking up writing styles.
We presented our favourite 3 characters. I didn't do very well at presenting 2 of mine so I will go back and redo them maybe changing them to make sense. Emily pointed out main traits of characters that were linked between them or stood out. I forgot what she said for mine and will check back with her as soon as I can.
We then looked at a character description and how it let us know everything about the character without having to be shown the character at all. This showed how being able to make a good character is more than just how they look it's about how you get the feel for them, and how that's done.
We looked at the work of Lotte Reineger and how it was a variation of sorts on shadow puppets called silhouette animation. She uses cutouts and moves them in a similar way to stop motion animation. It's a crude style but a rather interesting one there's a lot of freedom within it in how characters are cut out and shaped in a way they can move and flow which is certainly interesting, but seems very fiddly.
We were then given the script to the play Peter the Wolf, which we read and were then tasked with making it in the style of Lotte Reineger.
I like this piece of animation as it has a nice weight to the fighting. It feels fluid and impactful where needed. As well as just pleasing to the eye. I enjoy the choreography behind the fight, how it's almost like a dance. It's easy to follow, while being quick and feeling true to a fight. I also like the designs behind the characters so they stick in your mind, people may not recognise the characters for who they actually are but there's something memorable about each of them.
I like this animation it's easy to follow yet feels like there's a lot of depth in it. There's subtlety as well as big moments in such a small piece which is just enjoyable to watch.
With this I was initially drawn in by the name thinking it may be a bit humourous yet I was pleasantly surprised. The voice over goes over key points while the animation while somewhat reflecting what is being said strays away from that and shows it's own story of sorts. The styles and techniques are quite interesting and how it swaps between multiple of each.
These are the original pictures we took for our first piece of innovative animation. I never got around to putting them into an animation I may do that at some point. These were taken on my phone so they have a shakey quality to them which I liked and thought it fit the style more than just putting a camera on a tripod.
This task was a bit difficult for me I don't have a huge range of favourite characters. There's a lot that I'm fond of but not many that really stand out, while I was thinking about my favourites it also occurred to me that a lot of them have similar traits.
Dick Grayson (Nightwing)
Dick Grayson has always been my favourite character, he has a strong sense of justice. He's cocky, quick thinking and at some point brash, but it helps him come to life. He is arguable one of the most relatable heroes ever created. He has no powers, he relys on his wit and his strong bond with friends and family. Often described as Batman lite as he is never as dark but is almost as good as Batman. He uses his humour to ease tension where he can but is not afraid to stand up for anything that he or his friends believe in, this makes him one of the most reliable of all characters I know.
Guan Yu (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
Guan Yu has only really become a favourite of mine recently. He has become a Chinese Saint of War, though he was a real person during the Han Dynasty where he was a general. Most information and character basis for him now comes from the book 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms'. He is a strong and loyal general. Often portrayed as one of if not the strongest of fighters, until his untimely demise comes. He is often looked to for leadership during battle as well as not letting anyone allies fall. A very skilled man with a weapon and a glorious beard to match. One of his greatest feats was charging through an army just to get at the leader, and living afterwards.
Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo (Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo)
Bobobo is arguable a character that has influenced me the most. He is very out there, for lack of a better term. While remaining the key figure of good in his story, he is prone to going off course. He lacks a boundary often resorting to throwing friends as attacks instead of doing it himself. People still look to him for what to do but it makes sense in his wacky land. He uses humour as a weapon, all of it seemingly pulled out of thin air just for the sake of it being funny. Ultimately it still leads him to his goal while he still somehow has friends that put up with him. I always found him to break the norm of a lot of Anime that became popular over here, in some ways he openly parodies and mocks them. I found it to him to be a breath of fresh air, in an arguably stale style.
In this module we will be covering how to create believable characters and the processes that go with it. We started by listening to 'A Well Respected Man' by The Kinks and discussed what image the lyrics made us think of.
I thought the character would be something like a 1960's suited gangster that was very smug and full of himself. Though as we heard other people's versions of the character and how they were different it showed that everyone gets a different idea from the same piece.
We then split into groups and designed a character based on an image. We cam up with the Idea of a Bear who was a Mafia boss, and wanted to be a chef. It all got convoluted and was hard to follow the feedback we got was there was some good ideas but ultimately it just didn't mesh we needed to be more streamlined in our ideas and not so out there.
Another Idea we had but we didn't present was a trans gendered girl that struggles with who they are and seeks recognition for who they are. I felt like the idea made sense there was conflict it wasn't to far out there it meshed together but the group wasn't as sure on it as me so we didn't use it.
I started by drawing random people in public and trying to get some mannerisms. I saw someone who his a lot behind their fringe and seemed to be quite shy. So I got a couple of quick sketches. Also I need to work on quick sketches, and be less precious about my lines I take way to long and it loses energy and commitment. I will stick to using pens in my sketchbook when I'm out and about so I can't just erase lines I don't like and hopefully that will capture the energy I need.
After I got those sketches I started to combine it with how I imagined shy girls to dress. Wrapped up not showing much, possibly quite baggy clothes. I used a friend back home who is quite shy as a basis for the clothes worn. most extremities would be covered unless absolutely necessary, I tried to stick as close to that as I could.
The character I created is called Kim. She is fairly shy and rather introverted. She would prefer to speak through her hand and avoid eye contact over anything else. most of her hands are cover by her sleeves as she is fairly short. She has brightly coloured hair, but it's mainly covered up as she has her hood up most of the time. Almost always wears a hoody if she can so she can hide it in if she gets embarrassed, which happens a lot. She also covers her face often, which generally results in her pushing her glasses into her face. She speaks softly almost to a point of a whisper so no one picks up on what she says so she doesn't have to worry about an outcome.
This week we looked at Blu, a graffiti artist, who turns his graffiti into animation. He incorporates not just his art into the animation but the area in which it is done as well. He doesn't limit himself to one location either and can change area as he sees fit. His work seems energetic in how it is done as you can see some of the previous line work while the animation plays. Below is a link to his website which shows his work.
After we looked at Blu's work we were then split into groups, we were the largest group with 5 people as such we had a few plans, we stuck to the one of doing a circle. We felt that this was the best way to capture Blu's style and his way of morphing one thing into another.
We ended up elaborating on our circle idea turning into the world being hit by a comet. I feel like there is a bit of humour to the piece which isn't far fetched for the style we were going for. I think it would have been fairly easy to expand upon our work if we wanted, as the hardest part was making sure the group could gather to all play a part in the making of the piece. I found this type of animation interesting because it's not typical. I had never even thought of surface animation until I saw Blu's work, I will have to look into it more in the future.
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