BA1a: Dynamic Animation | Week 8: Final

Dynamics is fundamental to understand about movement and how to create life and personality in animation. When animating in Dragonframe my animations had some inconsistency between the frames however, I think the quality of them has increased. I fell that I didn't had a lot of problems fulfilling the tasks that were asked.

I was confused about what we should submit to assessment and that made me feel a little behind schedule, I just wanted to make the three animations the fastest as possible. But overall both walking cycles are good and consistent, despite that in the disappointed walking cycle I had some problems with the movement and position of the arms in the beginning. 

I decided to make the worm being squashed because it looked funnier to make, watch and exaggerate. So I looked for videos of a worm crawling so that I could observe their movement. I also wanted to exaggerate the squash and explosion but in a way that we could actually see the the body of the worm blowing and see what comes out so I did the squash slower. 

I think my performance was good, however I have to improve my research on the blog because I didn't research a lot, but I am excited to start the next project.

BA1a: Character Design | Week 8: Final

Character Design is a part of animation that I found very interesting, funny and important. Despite that in the beginning I was not very enthusiastic with the project, but after doing this first task, Character Design is definitely something that I like. However, I started making the submission tasks very close to the end and I think that my project could have been better. My time management of  time was not the best and I think that is reflected in my character’s look and his walking cycle. I also believe that my character is not very flexible and dynamic, and since I had problems managing my time in the last two weeks, I found hard to explore more about his movement and expressions. I should have tried to draw the character in other styles and explore more of his forms. 
One of the things that I liked the most was the simple plasticine model of our character. Creating physically characters is something that I really like and would like to explore in the future. Using softwares like Photoshop and TVPaint, and also hardware like the Wacom tablet was very exciting and fun because it was my first time using that kind of tools to animate, create and colour.
Managing time is something that I should have done better  and also my research blog could be better, but I think my character sheets are good. In overall it was very interesting and fun to create and bring to life a character designed by me. I am looking forward to the next Character Design project. 

BA1a: Life Drawing | Week 7

This week we had to draw hands however, it didn't went very well because I was very tired. The first sketch we had two and half minutes to draw each pose. In the second sketch we had a little bit more time.

BA1a: Character Design | Character Sheets

BA1a: Character Design | Walking Cycle

Since I had an old character that uses a stick to help him walk I had to make one of the steps quicker than the other so that he looked like he hobble. I had trouble aligning the movement of the arms with the movement of the legs and he doesn't show much effort when walking. However I am satisfied with the movement of the legs but not so much with his arms. I should have done his arm or the stick bigger. 

BA1a: Dynamic Animation | Walking Cycles

We had to do two walking cycles for submission, one standard and other showing an emotion, so I decided to make the character look sad/disappointed. I also  tried to exaggerate the movement in both animations and made it very simple so that I could do it quickly and try to don't have much inconsistency between the frames.

BA1a: Dynamic Animation | Dynamic Animation Exercice

This is my Animation where I applied the stretch and squash principles. I believe that the animation shows the principles in a very simple but good way. When doing this animation I also wanted to exaggerate the stretch and squash so I made the ball not going very fast so that we can truly see the principles working. 

BA1a: Dynamic Animation | Walking Cycles

This video explain very well how to make a walking cycle and since we are going to do more walking cycles in the future I think this video is very helpful.

BA1a: Character Design | Walking Search

I also try to find old animated characters walking like Carl or Abe Simpson to help me make my character walking cycle.

BA1a: Character Research | Week 7

I have started writing my essay and selecting pictures to insert on the project. I think that I started in a good date because I have some difficulties writing and organising my thoughts in a text, but I am moving one and I am almost done. However, I am having some problems with the quotations and how to identify them so I watch Lynsey presentation again.

BA1a: Dynamic Animation | Week 7

At this point I am working in the three animations that we have to do. I decided to do it digitally so that I could try to make them more consistent.I am almost finishing all animations and I fell that I moving in a good  rhythm. I had some problems with the arms of the disappointed walking cycle but despite that everything went well.

BA1a: Character Design | Character Sheets Search

I looked for some model and design sheets in order to help me make my own sheets and  I obviously looked  for the design and models sheets o Carl from Up, but also other characters such as Hades and Jasmine.

BA1a: Character Design | Old People Walking

Since my character is an old guy I watch some videos to analyse their movement and adapt to my character.

BA1a: Dynamic Animation | Dynamic Animation Exercices

Since I decided that I was going to animate a worm I looked for videos of worms crawling on YouTube. It was very helpful to understand the way they move and to realise that in fact they don't bend their bodies in the middle when they push forward.

BA1a: Dynamic Animation | Dynamic Animation Exercices Ideas

This are my ideas for the animation that we have to do and where we have to apply some of the principles of animation. The first one is a worm pushing a ball, the second is a woodlouse ruling in some hills, the third is a worm being squashed and the last one is a worm kicking a ball into a wall that then hits her face. I decided to make the stretch and squash because I think I can exaggerate more than the other making the principles more evident.

BA1a: Character Research | Bill Cipher

Triangles are also very dynamic, and that is reflected in Bill’s personality and in his physic. He has the ability to change his size and colour, manipulate molecules, levitate, possess people, shoot lasers and others. Having all this powers makes him a dynamic, unpredictable, amusing and entertained character. 

BA1a: Character Research | Bill Cipher

Yellow is associated with enlightenment, creativity and optimism, adjectives that are related with Bill since he has more knowledge than any other character, and is very optimism talking about his goal, but as Anne Varichon says “Yellow may also be the most paradoxical of colours”, so yellow represents betrayal and madness, which are also two main characteristics of Bill’s personality.

Varichon, A. and Ballas, T. (2006) Colors :what they mean and how to make them.New York: Abrams.

BA1a: Character Research | Bill Cipher

Bill is a yellow triangle with a single large eye with pointy edges, which is different from any other character’s eye in the show. Those shapes show this character is dangerous, sinister and suspicious, “Triangles easily lend themselves to more sinister, suspicious types and usually represent the bad guy” (Bancroft,T. 2016, ). So villains are designed using triangles or at least containing triangles, for example characters such as Jafar (Aladdin) or Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty).

BA1a: Character Research | Bill Cipher

Bill is an abstract character because he has a very simple design, that shows a lot about his personality and feelings, however he has a strong visual impact due to its shape and ability to change its, colour and movement. Characters such as Wallace and Gromit or the characters from South Park are consider abstract.

BA1a: Life Drawing | Week 5

This week we did a sketch for one hour of the model's face using graphite and white chalk.