Introduction to Observational Drawing

The Main purpose of this week's task was for to get use to the idea of sketching basic marks, holding the pencil in a different way etc. This was to be the foundation of the artist's creative skills using a number of medians other than a pencil which is considered to be one of the eight deadly sins.

The first exercise that the artist was allocated was to create a row of continuous lines going from the left to the right , right to the left etc. The artist felt that this was a bizarre exercise but interesting as it allowed him to try new aspects of drawing. All of the exercises on the first day were known as the basic marks in observational drawing
  

The main topics of observational Drawing that  was introduced to  were the following ( Line, Shape , Mass ,  colour Value , texture , space then finally time & motion) . 

The very first task that the artist was set by his lecturer was to create a number of lines/dots in neat squares to see which method suited him best for future reference. As well as creating lines the artist had to practise drawing circles clockwise & anti clockwise .

After drawing circles the artist was given an opportunity to move onto creating lines going from the right corner to the left corner , from the left corner to the right corner ( Visa Versa ).After all of the starter activates the artist was given some strong advice about the technique of constructing lines . This would be the basic stepping stone when you have to work on any subject.

After getting use to the sketching technique the artist had to move onto the main theme of the lab which was to translate a life size 3D cube onto his A3 sketch book using a  graphite stick. The had a lot of fun with this subject as theyhad a feeling that it give him a better insight in terms of exploring the different types of drawing styles to use throughout the first semester & future career  . 

One tip that the lecturer gave to the whole class was to use the Thumb Method which is simply taking a pencil or any other preferred median in your hand then close one eye .Then extend your arm to level your eye with your pencil to measure one edge of the cube to the other edge. Then measure the total length against your pencil / other median to construct your recreation of the cube onto your A3 sketch pad to make sure that you translate the information from life to 2D space correctly.

After the lecturer gave the advice they were given two important pieces of information to do before the sketching takes place.The first piece of advice was to sketch lightly that way if you made a mistake then you could easily rectify it by putting the corrections into place leaving the errors as it shows your journey when constructing any work of art. The same goes for constructing lines when you are work on a figure drawing or a life drawing.

The artist was informed that all of the previous construction lines make the sketch appear to be more professional & innovative to everyone as they can witness the journey that the artist took to reach the final stage of their journey.

So in summary the artist began with a number of implied lines so that it made it easier for him to construct the correct lines .The best part of any sketch is the final stage where all of the construction lines are made visible by the outlines any object which is a bonus for the artist.

                                                        

  

Conventions of Animation - The Project.

For the final Conventions of Animation blog post the animator wants to take you through the thought process & final conclusion. The concept of the animation originated from this storyboard which was inspired by the animator's favourite programme as a child Power Rangers. The animator originally wanted to combine the words PIXAR to make a robot. But the animator may have spend more time animating the words PIXAR & may have neglected their own name which was suppose to be the main centre of attraction.

Below the concept art for the first part of the Conventions of animation project you will see the first part of the animation which is the transformation of the letters coming together to form a massive robot. From this animation you can see that the animation is in the early stages of production so it may look far from production. The difficult part was sorting out the best composition for the animation to take place. Originally the animator wanted to anime the letters coming together from a  number of angle. But it may have proven difficult given the time frame they had until their hand in date.

The animator wanted to give the word PIXAR some character in order to make it the main attraction. As the animator planned to incorporate a dog which will be walking by the letters as they transform into a robot . The primary action in this scene is the transformation of the PIXAR as well as the name of the animator. The secondary action would be the movement of the eye as the dog jumps up at eye level with the robot. 

The dog walking by has it's own primary / secondary action within the animation. The primary action of the dog would be the key poses across the ground as it makes it's way towards the robot. The secondary action for the dog would be the head moving up & down as each key pose . This prove to fairly difficult as there were not many specific materials on Youtube. However the animator did manage to find one clip which proved to be fairly useful .

 

The final part of the animation reminded the animator of the famous animation known as Aliens Versus Monsters. As the Big robot in the animation stares down as the president of the united states as he finished playing the beverly hills cops theme song with an electronic piano. However in the Conventions of animation projects the eye of the robot stares down at the dog trying to scare it or to see how it reacts to confrontation.

                                        

The Conventions of Animation project was successful due to the characterisation of the letters which gave the overall animation a certain ambience. However there may be a slight issue of timing in certain parts of the animation as the letters are slowly coming together to form the robot structure. The name of the animator may have taken to much attention away from the PIXAR Robot but that was due to the fact that the animator failed to get the brief late as they were recovering from an injury which cost him some valuable time. But looking at the work produced the animator has not done badly at all. The animator hopes that you enjoyed his work & would really appreciate your feedback . 

Conventions of animation Week 9 _ Straight ahead action & Poses to Pose.

  The objective for this week was to understand & explain the differences between straight ahead action / pose to pose action. The writer of this blog has found out that the concept of straight ahead action can be perceived as a constant movement through the entire animation in other words stop motion animation.Where as pose to pose animations would have key frames with no frames in between & this would weaken any animation  as they would appear to be rather jumpy , unprofessional.

In order to understand the difference between the two conventions you will have to observe them from a visual perspective .When we look at the first animation we get a basic understanding of the story portrayed to us which is a lamp attempting to sneak up to a wall as it is curious to see what is on the other side. In order to achieve an accurate picture of the overall animation the animator is using the same principles used in Adobe Flash where onion skinning is present . This method allows the animator to see the last movement in order to create the next movement for the primary action/ secondary action of the animation for an example walk cycle.

This exercise was a treat as it allowed the animator to use their creativity & imagination . The object resembled the lamp from Disney's PIXAR studio . The brief was to come up with a funny idea the object could do as it meets the wall which is the second most important element in this animation.
The hardest part of the animation was creating the sneaky walk as the animator had to mimc the movements of a person who is sneaking up to see what is going on behind those closed doors. The other difficult part was to figure out how to the next movement using the straight ahead action which is similar to stop motion animation. Stop motion animation is when you key one movement then use it as a reference point for the next key frame.

The next animation had the same concept but the only aspect that changed was the fact that they focus on key poses . This animator decided to plan out every single stage for the character this way if his animation appears to be odd then he can go through his key frames to see where he went wrong . The first animation used Pose to Pose techniques in the first animation walk cycles as they enabled the animator to plot the key parts of the story down then focus on the in betweens later.

The second animation was a very unique experiment as it was time consuming making little adjustment to the objects in every single frame during the animation process. After the animator finished this method of animating he found some advantages / dis advantages with the straight ahead actions. The main disadvantages has been mentioned already however the advantage is that if you were to make a very detailed animation for a client. Then you would be able to exaggerate certain elements with creative licenses.


When we look at Professional examples of straight ahead action / pose to pose action then the first animation that would automatically come to our minds would be the dreams works animation introduction scene.

There many classic examples which display this convention but the animator chose to mention one of the scenes from the classic animation known a Pinky & The Brain. In this scene Pose to pose would be Pinky standing clueless which is evident in his body language, shrugged shoulders, lost expression in his eyes. Brain always has a strong dominate pose where ever he is within the environment giving pinky orders. Once the animator knows the nature of the character as well as their roles in the story it is easier for them to create the straight ahead actions for the rest of the animations.

Conventions of animation - The Beginning

For the first part of the conventions of animation blog post this student wanted to start by creating a contract for the duration of his time at the University of Bradford. The contract states the following:

1) The student promised that he would  try his best to get the work done on time .

2) The student also promised that he would ask for help if he ever get stuck on any particular task .

3) The student is going to make sure that he attends all of the lectures .

4) The student also promised that he would try to get as much research done as he possibly can to the best of his abilities.

5) The student also promised that he would remain patient with the lecturer when they get back to him with his feedback . 

After this student made these promises he focused on the next task which was to look at the theory behind the Flick book. To put the theory into practise this student was given the opportunity to either make a flick using sticky notes or the online version on the internet.

You can find the online version of the flick book where this student made two versions of bouncing balls .

The first version of the bouncing ball was the exaggerated version which would belong to a cartoon whereas the second would belong to a 3D animation as it requires more physics based simulation. 

When the animation student mentioned physics based simulation he was talking about two or three elements which he learnt assisted the movements of the two bouncing ( balls weight , balance , gravity ).

Here is the hyperlink which allows you to observe the animation student's previous attempts of making a flick book online. If you wanted to check out this animation basic flick book animation then please follow this hyper link below .

http://www.benettonplay.com/toys/flipbookdeluxe/player.php?id=497076

For the final part of the introduction to the Conventions of Animation blog post the student managed to find a video tutorial of a graph editor. He hoped that it would prove to be useful to you when it comes to your animation projects. 

The graph editor will prove to be a great asset when you reach the pre production / post production stages of your animation as timing will be the key element.

For your benefit here is a You tube video tutorial which goes through the basics of the graph editor in Autodesk Maya.

Conventions of Animation _ Arcs

This week's session was based on the principle of arcs within animation. In order to understand the theory side of the principle the writer of this blog animated two simple exercises using the 3D software known as Autodesk Maya which proved this theory to be very useful in all animations.

The writer of this blog concluded that the reason behind this statement is due to the fact that arcs allowed animation to have more time for production as well as creativity.After reading two pages from a book on the animation principles the animator found one statement to back up the advantages of arcs within animation .

This statement went on to say " The introduction of arcs were meant to give the objects , characters within animation life instead of unappealing rigid characters. This allowed more freedom for the animators to use their creativity to construct an exciting storyline for their animations". After analysing this statement the animator began to wonder as to why the animation would appear to be mechanical .Only with the skill of observations would allow the animator to create a reasonable animation.
                                     


One example of a professional animation that uses arcs in a very clever way is the animation called Dragon Ball Z. The reason that the animator chose this animation as a professional example was because arcs are used all the time when a battle occurs between two  supernatural beings. As everyone knows the most famous form of attack in Dragon Ball Z is the energy ball which is channelled from the upper body to the arms then a arcs is formed to release the energy ball.

Now moving onto real life the best way to witness arcs being used more obviously is by going to a sport where there is continuous movement displaying a number of arcs at key points.In Badminton the arc is formed throughout the match in order to gain more impact , power , thrust this way the player is guaranteed to win the match.           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

The first animation was a basic exercise which was engineered by the lecturer in order to make everyone understand the uses of arcs within animation as well as the benefit working in arcs instead of other less effective methods. The less effective methods tend to make animation seem more static where arcs give animation more freedom in terms of movement & expression.

The animation may benefit from the ball having more impact at the starting point & the ending point. The way that this aim could be improved is by maybe giving the sphere primitive more squash & stretch attributes . If the animator recognises these contributing factors then he will be able to create a better computer animation.

The second  animation was a creative task which involved a robot kicking a ball away into the distance.The animator felt that this particular task proved to be a challenge as he had to replicated the impact a person would have when they use an object hitting a smaller object. 

This is the major reason why the animator feels that there are a couple of flaws within the animation in regards to the weight of the golf stick as it moves to the ball at the beginning of the cycle. At the first few frames of the animation it appears as though the ball was being given a push in stead of being hit with a certain amount of force.

 But overall this animation turned out to be successful as it did have some form of anticipation at the start of the game. The second aspect of the animation that was executed in a good way was the head nodding which was meant to give am indication that the robot was simply having a good time. In the animator's point of view it was the head nodding which may have save his animation as it was a comedy element which was used to grab the target audience's undivided attention.

                                          

Here is a professional animation which was created by by a person called Ryan Woodward and this animation demonstrates arcs brilliantly. The reason behind this outcome was down to the way that the arcs were formed at every single stage of the performance. Every single action told one part of the story which had a deep connection with anyone who has lost their loved one or never found love.

Every single time the figure appeared it was nerve wreaking because every single time it appeared the posture of the character was going down further each time as if it had lost all hope in life. After this short analysis the animator concludes that a brilliant animation can give you some feelings if the story line is good enough & if you have some relation in your personal life. 

Conventions of Animation - Secondary Action

This week's session is regarding the subject of secondary action in animation . This principle may be regarding any extra movements that may contribute to the main action without taking the focus away from the main animation. So the animator has to be very careful that they do not over animate one action than the other action otherwise they will be overwhelmed by what they are viewing.

The writer of this blog post has read a book by the name of The Illusion of Life Disney animation which was written by Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston , Pages 63/64 , ISBN number  978-078686070-89 7870786 860708 to gain further insight into the principle of animation known as secondary action. 

The writer's finding stated that any secondary action must not conflict with the primary action as it could cause the viewer to lose interest in the animation. The other element that could save the secondary animation from domination that animation is the timing between the key frames of the animation itself. A secondary action must be something the would benefit the animation & ultimately connect the viewer with the characters on an emotional level.

As you can see the writer has tried his best to find some examples where good / bad secondary action could occur. The first animation that will be analysed is the cartoon known as biker mice from Mars as there is a fair amount of secondary action being used during the animation. For an example the secondary action could be the beginning where they are at battle with the other side .The secondary movement could occur when  one of the biker mice are under attack & their hat result in a bouncing movement.

 

The second animation from Disney's Mickey mouse Fantasia has been identified as one of the most useful videos by the writer as he felt that there is a more stronger sense of secondary action occurring in the movements of the Thauns , Cupids tails etc..

The secondary action in this scene of Basil the great mouse detective is the eye brows & the moustache of the side kick which constantly move all around in terror as if they are trying to get the undivided attention of Basil who is in a sense of denial . 

This exercise proved to be quite difficult as it was a challenge to capture the real life movements of a dog walking & waving it's tail as it hit the wall. The impact of the blow that the dog faced was a challenge as the animator struggled to figure out how much movement the tail would have as a result of the blow to the face. 

However the animator hopes to improve this by maybe adding some extra key frames for the tail to give it some life . This will enable the animator to create more of an uncanny animation. Moving onto the next animation which is a squirrel jumping up on a tree. 

The second animation proved to be the better animation to watch as it has a fair amount of flow as the first phase begins . In particular the tail has a great amount of flow as the squirrel begins it jump from the ground to the base. The part of this animation that proved to e difficult was the tail to look right at every single key frame of the animation .

The main action in this animation is the movement of the dog as it moves from one point of the room to the next room. The secondary action is the element which supports the main actions it gives an element of surprise , excitement . The secondary action is the movement of the tail as it moves quite abruptly due to the frustration which came from losing it's bone under the table. due to this event occurring it gives the animaion a nice comedy feeling as the dog is feeling very eager to obtain it's bone no matter what happens to the other items around him. 

     ,

Conventions of animation - Follow through & overlapping action.

 The task for this week in the conventions of animation module the objective was to gain a better understanding of the animation mechanic known as follow through & overlapping action. Looking through the book "The Alchemy of Animation making an animated film in the modern age by Don Han on pages 100/101". 

It was a quote from Tim Burton " Stop Motion is such a powerful tool you would be lost without it . The reason that I say this is because it enable me to bring my ideas to life, & this is the reason behind my reason for getting into animation in the first place.

From this statement we can determine that without knowing the original methods we cannot hope to create such fabulous animations. Without this knowledge we can not understand how the follow through & overlapping methods occur in animation.

                                          

If we were to analyse the first animation which is a hammer swinging from side to side then what would you say would be the follow through action & what would be the overlapping action?.Some might say that the follow through action in this case scenario is the antenna on the head of the hammer as it swings from side to side continuously.

The follow through action would be the hammer as it moves from one key pose to the next key pose.Once the key poses have been put into place you will notice an overlapping action as the key poses are close to each other in order to replicate the movements of an actual hammer in real life.

                                                

The second animation is essentially the same animation as the animation of the hammer swinging from side to side . However the only difference is that the object has been duplicated over a number of times at each key frame .The hard part was to adjust the key poses each time to create an overall effect of a follow through & overlapping effect. A classic animation example that come to mind is the  scene from the Beauty & the Beast where Belle is invited to the dinner hall & all of the enchanted servants put on a performance to welcome belle.

                                            

         

The last animation is a demonstration of the two principles put into one animation. This animation demonstrates the follow through action at the beginning as it is launched from the diving board to the ground .However the descent from the diving board appears to be without gravity & this may be due to the fact that the animator has failed to research by looking at some video references

Video references give animators a better idea of the weight of a swimmer displays at each stage of their run up to the diving board , jumping to the swimming pool . This may have been the major downfall of this particular task however the animation would appear to be okay as an exaggerated version of a swimming animation as it appears to be over exaggerated at key points.

The overlapping action in the video reference of the comedian Omid Djalili is the movement of his body as he moves from one point on the stage to the next point. For example when he wants to demonstrate a particular emotion he uses his whole body to show how the emotion is displayed. The follow through would be the gradual change from one subject to the next subject.

When Omid Djalili changes from one subject to the next subject he stops moving then introduces the subject which is soon lead by the same routine which is the body distribution from pose to pose showing the joke in a more visual way.