Character Design - Symphony

This character was designed with generally rather cute facial features. I wanted to go for a face that's cute but still very expressive, so that her facial animation can be entertaining to look at. I also really wanted more than just her face to be different but her general appearance to be unique to the other characters. Obviously, she automatically would look different to them, since she's... you know, a strawberry and all... but I wanted little details such as her stalk to have it's own idle position that differs from the rest, and the way in which her leaves are arranged to be different, also.

Animatic (Rough Anim)

Oli Animation

I discovered this animator on Youtube with a channel simply called "Oli". What he does is very similar to what I'm doing, putting 2D facial expressions in front of a 3D model. The way he does facial expressions is incredibly good, pulling off some spumco-esque facial expressions that really push them to the extreme. I started thinking about this more when drawing the storyboards and animatic, trying to push the expressions a lot more. I love exaggeration a lot so I'm glad this made me think about it even more, when working in this manner.

Summative Evaluation

This module introduced me to some very interesting ideas regarding key aspects of animation, such as collaboration and pitching, and these are aspects I had never even considered before. There is also the value of gaining exposure by doing outside briefs in my own time that I learned about through the work I’ve done here.

The work I managed to do for my individual practice was great for self-improvement, exposure, and other valuable aspects that could benefit me as an animator.  My Syfy brief, while I did decide not to submit it, I learned how to plan and create pitch boards, something I initially had a tough time understanding the importance of, and is one of the most useful skills to know in the long run. Upon being introduced to YCN briefs, like the Syfy one, I learned more about why those competition briefs are on YCN, since they are failing and need something creative and eye-catching to support themselves. This is a good method of gaining exposure, and adding to my portfolio, by following these types of briefs. This study task also made me consider how to respond to a target audience, as well as how to recognise genre signifiers through mise-en-scene and colour, and both of these are important elements to master, since I’m an aspiring storyteller as well as an animator.

I also managed to develop my skills at posing, character design, and illustration by doing a bunch of t-shirt designs for the website, Qwertee. I mainly made designs based on popular video games and cartoons, since fan-shirts are the most famous ones of all on that site and therefore more likely to win. I was able to experiment by using other people’s art styles and seeing how my style and method of drawing translates with professionally designed characters. I feel like my skills at drawing have increased because of that. The poses, specifically for the “Gravity Souls” Qwertee design, came out looking great. The character design skills developed even more, after drawing professionally designed cartoon characters, because I picked up how and why those designs worked in the first place.

I also looked at a website called Loop de Loop, which posts briefs in which I have to make animations that loop and relate to a given theme, in my case the theme was ‘Gravity’, for example, and they let people be as creative as possible with their themes. The theme of gravity was a rather tough one to look at, so I figured rather than plan ahead for it, I could just keep on animating and see what I come up with as I go, which did actually lead to a bunch of surprises. I made some very nice looking expressions that transitioned very fast yet smoothly between each other. If I had refined it a little more then it could have actually managed to be accepted for submission. I had to make something for 11-second club as well, though. I actually used some of the skills I learned from the Qwertee designs and a little bit from Loop de Loop as well, to make a little something just to get my mind back to animation for a bit. I actually think if I did any more animations for this website, then I could actually build up my portfolio a lot, as well promote myself.

As well as my individual practice, I was given the task of collaborating with someone. As an animator, teamwork and leadership is an important trait to have, and I believe my partner, and I, both worked well enough together to create some very decent work. We were both loyal and understanding enough towards each other to know each of our roles and responsibilities. I genuinely enjoyed working with her as well. We were both had the same thoughts and opinions on our work, and what we could gain out of it. I learned more about creating pitch boards and presentation, and we both managed to work like professionals with our work when we were presenting it. We also both tried a more darker and bleak approach to animation, something we both have not done before, that is to say, and I personally have not done something like that in a serious manner before. I actually did this because my partner recognised my rather dark imagination and wanted to work around that, so I’m glad I was able to respond to that.

Overall, while this module did give me a lot of opportunities to learn new things that could be applied to animation, I just wish I wasn’t forced to lessen my time spent on other modules in order to work on this, as the workload was crazy. It certainly wasn’t as engaging as the main subjects, and while I did make my work relate to animation, it was still more geared towards stepping away from that, since animation is such a long process it was often recommended against that. All that is especially considering all of these skills were much better handled in PPP and Applied Animation.

Project Report

Syfy Brief - The Final Pitch Boards

I took a lot of feedback to heart and made some necessary changes to these pitch boards. There were complaints that they weren't clear enough and that there were no mock-ups. Overall, people were generally quite positive towards this but felt they needed improving. So these are my final pitch boards, and I think they work great. I didn't submit them, however, because I was so focused on other things that these were kind of neglected. I also didn't have the money to submit them either. It was just one stressful thing after another. On the bright side, though, I am quite proud of how they turned out in the end. Plus I did learn a lot from this experience. I'm just glad it's over though.

Loop de Loop: 'Gravity'

The theme for Loop de Loop at February and March was 'Gravity', which I wasn't really all that sure about. Seemed like a rather vague theme for animation, honestly. But for the sake of the my little animator bug that's been slowly dying in my mind for the past few months, I had to at least go for it. I admit, I was kind of lacking in ideas for this. After a while, I decided to experiment, by opening Flash and just keep going as I went along, then see where it takes me. So I just drew a generic stick-figure and started animating. Pretty straight-forward. I was kind of surprised with the results actually. It ran quite smoothly, though that's not to say it wasn't difficult and time-consuming like animation usually is, and I had fun with the expressions of the character. It fit the theme and looped quite well too. It's not perfect though, and I guess that's why it wasn't accepted for submission.

So this was decent practice for character animation, and straight ahead animation, something I've never tried before. Maybe in the future I can try it and it'll make it in.

11 Second Club: March

So *sigh* this friggin' website sure led to a series of blunders for me. I was going to do November's but I started way into the month and couldn't finish it in time, then I tried again on January, but then I lost all my save data (and again, this was way into the month so I couldn't start again), then finally I got to do the one for March! This time I completed it though, and boy am I happy!

As I am highly interested in character animation, and wish to practice that (and not to mention we haven't actually animated in a while) this was a great opportunity to really develop my skills in that field a lot more. I didn't actually target an audience for this one, though it might stifle my creativity if I did. That's not really the idea behind 11 second club anyway. The art style was a lot more expressive here, and I wanted each pose to be really unique. I also wanted the poses and animations to be really exaggerated to make it more interesting and humourous. Enough talk though, here's the video!

It actually did really well! Surprisingly well, for a first time. It just about scraped the top 50, taking the 53/228. JEEZ. If I keep this up I could eventually make it to at least the top 10.

Qwertee Design: 'Artorias Time'

Another Dark Souls mashup, this time with Adventure Time. I really like Dark Souls okay? This was another idea I had in order to appeal to a larger fanbase. It's based on one of the many hidden details within Dark Soul's lore, in which a Knight named Artorias had a Wolf friend named Sif, until Artorias got consumed by the abyss (I'll stop there because now I sound crazy). I figured a mashup like this would grab people that know the lore of Dark Souls and would get what this is referencing. And of course they might even get the humour of it, taking what is a pretty depressing story and mashing it up with the one of most uplifting duos on TV. I actually got told by someone that they would wear this design if it was a shirt, so clearly I've improved quite a bit, ever since I started making Qwertee designs.

This is what I made:

I think I've learned more than I originally planned from doing Qwertee designs. They're certainly harder and more time-consuming to master than I initially thought! I might make more in the future. I'm pretty satisfied with what I've got, now back to animating (something I haven't done in far too long)!

Qwertee Design: 'Gravity Souls'

For this design, I figured I would try creating a mash-up of two franchises that I enjoy a lot, Dark Souls and Gravity Falls. This may be limiting the target audience to a very select group of people, folks that enjoy both Dark Souls and Gravity Falls together, and that might be a relatively small audience. I didn't mind, though. I just really enjoyed the idea. The cool thing about Qwertee is that they give you a lot of creative freedom with the designs; even if they might not get a lot of votes, they are still worth doing regardless of that. Anyway, I thought I'd create this to see if I could capture the art style of someone else, seeing how it translates with my style, and establishing scenarios in a single image, which I think is a really important method of practicing visual storytelling.

Here it is:

I actually really enjoyed making this! It was a good way to practice different poses, and I think I captured the character's emotions and personalities through body-language perfectly. The scenario presented is clear and, I think, portrays how it would go if it happened in Gravity Falls. I think the Black Knight is well stylised (though I wish I could have made him taller). I think where I fall flat is the background art, though. In case you can't tell, the setting is supposed to be a specific room in Dark Souls in a location called "Undead Burg", but it's not very clear, since I didn't do a great job at colouring it. I might go back to this and resubmit it in the future, since I think that is where the potential could lie. I just have to get good at drawing backgrounds... Oh and you can tell right away that I definitely spent more time on this than I did that crappy Psycho Mantis design.

Qwertee Design: 'Psycho Mantis Reads Your Memories'

For this design, I wanted to develop my new shading technique a lot more, and really wanted to base it on Metal Gear Solid, having only just played it for the first time ever, at the time. Although this time, I tried to work extra fast. Unlike the "Ren is Angry" design, this took a lot less planning and I basically spent an afternoon or less on it. The idea was to parody a rather notorious scene in the game in which the villain, Psycho Mantis, reads the memory card in the Playstation and talks about which games the player enjoys, only instead he's saying "you like Metal Gear Solid, don't you?".

Here's how it turned out:

It wasn't... terrible (I love how I drew the hands, actually), but it wasn't great either. As I said, I thought I could rush this design, assuming a t-shirt was basically something you could easily accomplish in less than a day, but as it turns out it still requires a decent amount of effort. It brought to mind my past errors of rushing a lot of my character designs and pre-development work, rather than actually spending time on them. Oh well, next time, I'll actually work much harder on them, like with my Ren is Angry design (I actually spent more time on that than I did with this).

Rule Britannia Ident Completion/Submission

After a slightly hellish week of doing nothing for this ident, due to my partner's unfortunate illness, we both managed to pull through and get this finished in time for submission. I had to spend a rather hectic weekend finishing the damn thing (as I had to spend time with my family the weekend it was due and I hadn't even started animating it, plus there was no audio! And it had to be done on After Effects, the most unstable glass cannon software on my computer) but I still managed. In order to create the audio, I basically sampled different pieces of the existing ident music (and it sounded pretty damn good when it was slowed down) and also used audio samples of the showreel they gave out. I had no means to create music, so I tried experimenting a little. It was a form of sampling inspired by the video game, Earthbound's soundtrack.

It turned out okay, not a complete mess, but I feel like the chaotic nature of the audio I created fit perfectly with the gritty tone of the ident.

I also took the characters Fiona drew and converted them puppets on After Effects. The process of converting them puppets and animating them actually went quite smoothly. A simple process on After Effects actually went smoothly! Shocking right? I also used some green-screening to add the showreel footage to the TV in the ident. Well, here's what was made in the end! 

Now, unfortunately, since I this finished a night before the deadline day, my partner had a pretty tough time submitting this because the website was lagging like crazy, as it usually does on deadline day. Makes me think: Are there other universities out there with the exact same module as us that stressed people out so much that they couldn't finish the work early maybe? Anyway, here's how the process went, as Fiona screen-grabbed it.

Starting out okay. Basically just wrote the summary that was on the pitch board.

And two hours later, she makes it to page two! 

After much heartache, she manages to upload it 101%!... Wait wut?

Okay that's better! Man, this site gets screwy when you submit it too late.

Okay, finally the thing is submitted and paid for! *exhausted exhale*

And that's it for that brief! It was a long and treacherous road, and we both learned a lot from this, but booooooooyyyyyy am I glad it's over.

Ident Presentation and Feedback

We recently made presentation pitch boards about the ident we're making for Vice, and a lot of people left some helpful feedback, and I'm currently going over the feedback people left and choosing which notes I will consider. Here are the pitch boards we showed, in no particular order:

We got a lot of interesting feedback regarding the ident itself. Sort of mixed overall though. Some people liked it overall whereas some were more critical. One person listed a few suggestions for animation style, and illustrations to look at. I'm open to a few of them, but others I'm not quite sure. For animation styles, they mentioned Ed, Edd, & Eddy, which I guess the show's constant movement is what they're referring to, and I think that could fit in. Joanna Quinn was also suggested, and after looking at her work, I really think it could work as an aesthetic influence but in terms of animation style, I think something like that could only be accomplished using hand-drawn animation, which I wasn't planning on doing. Terry Gilliam was mentioned to, and thinking about how I plan on animating it, I suppose it is very similar to Terry Gilliam's style, just less comedic.The Young Ones opening was suggested too, and I don't really know what to make of that, I mean it's not animated for one thing, it's not really that well-edited either and the style is inherently comedic, so I'm not really sure where they're coming from with that. Ralph Bakshi's animation is rather similar to Joanna Quinn's, with the gritty look. How the city and the backgrounds are drawn in his films could be incorporated into the ident, but again, as this won't be hand-drawn, the animation style couldn't possibly be accomplished.

For the illustrative style, we were compared to punk anarchist, in terms of character design, and I guess that's what Fiona was going for. I think it works, anyway. We were also compared to the Red Bull adverts, as well as Ralph Steadman (if I knew who said that I would totally shake the hell out of their hands!). We were also told to look at Raymond Brigg's Falklands (which I can't seem to find on Google, so I'm just going to assume it's alternate title to When the Wind Blows), which I think works as reference for more gritty tones in animation, but I don't think the imagery is quite that surreal enough to fit. They suggested the Silent Hill comics as well, and I'm not a big comic book fan, but it's interesting to see how the art style of the games translates to comic book form so I'll look into those... Unless they mean the bad Silent Hill comics, that go waaaayyy overboard with their bleak colour pallet.

Ugh... This looks worse than Silent Hill: Homecoming. I'll be sure to warn Fiona about these comics

Ronald Searle was suggested too, and it's a neat art style, but a tad comical, really. Someone mentioned GTA Vice City as a suggestion, and while I do love the graphic novel-esque illustrations, it's far too colourful to incorporate into the ident. But then again, I might try that look out for the Union Jack Sword man, since I'm kind of going for an uncanny valley feel with his design. Speaking of which, a lot of people didn't catch on at all that he was holding a knife. I didn't use a real knife for reference when I designed it so it's no wonder people were confused. It actually looks more like a club than a knife. I'm redesigning it based on a bowie hunting knife now, but still, how I even tried to pass that off as a knife to begin with is beyond me.

Lastly, the rest of the feedback was on the presentation, being filled with too much text, and I agree with that, it should definitely just go straight to the point and present it more visually. The feedback was pretty useful so far. I was going to add a mock-up to the boards as well.

Our Rule Britannia Ident Ideas

Me and my partner have looked at a lot of ideas for this ident. Since it had to be a well-researched and well-thought idea, we've been through enough research and brainstorming to come up with our final idea.

The first idea my partner came up with at first was an establishing shot of a street party with a bunch of British citizens eating dinner together. It was going to focus the group in the party individually and the idea was that these are the types of people you find in Britain.

It's a decent idea to start off with, but I don't think it would have portrayed Britain as realistically as Vice would have wanted.

The second idea was also thought of by my partner, and it was sort of working with the theme of the the first idea, that UK is a place of varying individuals. The idea would have been a digital painting of Buckingham Palace (presumably traced over a photo) with a bunch of Brits and subcultures climbing out of the windows, again symbolising the varying individuals in UK society. I kind of brushed this idea off to be honest, since I didn't really engage with it, plus it kind of painted a pretty picture of Britain when Vice wanted a realistic one.

While my partner was having a blast in Animex, I was still at home thinking about some ideas. I thought about how to incorporate realistic themes into the ident, as well as how bleak I can actually be. I watched the current Rule Britannia ident, and it was... pretty damn bleak. It was literally just an image of the British flag only wrecked. I guess they are fans bleakness and anti-British government imagery. Not only that but the guidelines did say the ident had to portray Britain realistically, so I wondered how I could possibly portray my views on the state of the country realistically. After all, I think I've experienced enough to describe it in my own imagery. I got to thinking about society and how it functions, then I thought about how to incorporate my thoughts into more bleak and surreal images, since my partner wanted to get a bit more gritty during our partnership, and one of the reasons Fiona decided to work with me was that I can be quite dark with my work. Granted, my style is usually more comedic but I can try and go for seriousness this time around.

I was heavily influenced by Silent Hill when I thought of my idea. I developed the idea from Fiona's idea of the dinner party, and I wondered how I could take that idea and make it bleaker. I then thought, "what if they were being watched by eye balls protruding outside the walls?", since I happen to love that type of imagery involving human-like eye balls. I then thought, "what if they weren't even brits but rather minorities, hence the government watching them constantly?". I then remembered that the constant watch minorities get is not just from the government but even most British citizens do it, so I added a much closer brit that is so mistrusting that he watches them with the intent to kill, and he represents the average brit and his ideals. Then I thought "what if they weren't having dinner but instead watching a British Flag on the TV that symbolises British ideals being forced into their minds through TV like propaganda?". At the time I thought this could be well-established with one still image, with some slight motion graphics thrown in.

We wrote a list of ideas on this page. 

I also did an animatic for it. The music used is just to get an idea on what the music would be like.

Fiona liked this idea but was able to improve it. Firstly, she didn't want the people in the video to all be minorities, since the connotations behind that might not be clear to people. She said they should be a group of subcultures/lower class citizens rather than just minorities. I agreed it was a little more appropriate, given the context of the conservative government and upper class brits looking down on lower class brits. They are also no longer watching British propaganda but instead Vice Britannia.

This was developed into a final idea, in which it's basically the same only the setting changed from a generic living room to a tunnel, based on the Las Vegas tunnels that homeless people live in. It would also contain more of a narrative, in which the characters are watching TV but then the man with the Union Jack knife enters, and they all attack him by throwing the TV at him. This has the same connotations as before, but the added ending is symbolic of revolution, the poor fighting back at the upper class for oppressing others.

I think this idea is way more refined, and while it may take more time than I initially hoped to spend on this, I'll still go for it, because I think it conveys the message a bit more, and it gives me and Fiona a chance to be creepy with our animation.

Vice "Rule Britannia" Ident Brief

The brief we chose to work on is Vice's Rule Britannia brief. They need a 10 - 15 second ident for their web series, Rule Britannia, that'll play before every video. It had to be one that reflects the reality of what goes on in the United Kingdom. It had to be well-researched, and effectively portraying the themes of the series. The ident also had to appeal to a demographic of 16-30 year olds. So the target audience is actually a very broad one, and it gives us enough creative freedom to work well with.

Applied Animation Collaborative Project

For the collaborative project, me and a friend (and possibly another friend, not 100% clear) are going to be making a claymation/2D music video about the benefits of eating five fruits and vegetables a day, by parodying the song "Wake me up Before You Go-Go". The target audience for this would be young people aged 11-16 (but that's open to change), and the tone is going to be more lighter and comedic and we really want to entertain as well as inform. I personally hate awareness campaigns, particularly the bleak ones, I'm just against people using art to push their views onto others through guilt. I think realistic themes should be incorporated and observed by art without actually enforcing the artist's view onto the audience. I think this is a good opportunity to educate children while still being fun and entertaining.

Collaborative Briefs: Which to Choose

Having chosen my partner now, we were looking at three different briefs from the website D&AD. There were a bunch to choose from, but we chose to look at these three, because they seemed to be the most likely to do given the time we have (plus it we HAD to because the tutors said we had to choose between three).

WWF: Open Brief to inspire young people to look after the planet:
This was suggested by my partner because she figured we might have more of a shot at this, seeing as it's an open brief and if we were to create an animation, as opposed to everybody else who would probably create a poster, or a web banner or something like that. I'd be up for that, although I do hate awareness campaigns, but this would be a good addition to our portfolios as it shows that we can create an animation for something beyond our comfort zone. The problem, however, is that the mandatory length of a video, if that's being submitted, is two minutes, and that would take way too much time to make.

wetransfer: Create an image of yourself in 10 years:
This is one I figured would be fun and easy to do. That's basically the gist of it, draw how you see yourself in ten years. I figured how this project would work is we'd help each other out with the illustrations and submit our images separately. If we decide to change our minds to this last-minute it actually wouldn't be much of a hassle too.

Vice UK: Create a 10 - 15 second ident for Vice Britannia:
I chose this one as well because it would be easy to make. I for one am not a big fan of Vice at all, but I am a fan of doing one ten - fifteen second animation! My partner agrees as well and thinks this would be a good brief to go for. I think it would be a great challenge to be creative, as a ten second animation can be challenging to be memorable. I'm thinking we could make something shocking and engaging.

Finding a Collaborative Partner

For my brief, I wanted to be picky with my partner. The one I had chosen already decided to work with someone else unfortunately so that left wondering who else I could work with. I wanted to pick someone who is well-organised, and is good at drawing and animating. It also had to be someone I like too, because while I would need to know how to work with someone that's not too close to me, I think when working in twos, it has to be someone I respect, can rely on, and enjoy their company. If I'm paired with a stranger who I risk hating then work simply can't be done efficiently. I'd like to learn, but I would much rather get work done effectively.

I think collaboration is very important for somebody working in animation, because animation is not something that can be done overnight alone, it has be a team of people generating ideas, and working simultaneously. A lot of people celebrate the idea of being more introverted, but that won't actually get you anywhere quickly. There's always something you need another person to help you with, or even do for you.

I wanted to work with a friend, as all as a talent at drawing and animation. I think highly of my own skills at animating, and feel that applying those skills alongside another talented person would result in great results. They would also have to be talented at an aspect that I'm not great at doing, such as painting or background art, I'm more of an inker and a character animator so backgrounds/landscapes/buildings are my enemies. I wanted a friend too because, as I said before, I don't like the idea of working with a stranger at this point in time, especially if I want to get work done and I know if the partner can be efficient. I'm not in the right position to be paired with a stranger at this point in my life.

I want to pick an animation brief. It's not really recommended because a lot of animators will be picking an animation brief, but I don't really care about winning. I'm doing this to learn so actually winning a competition brief is more on the back of my mind than anything else. It would be cool if I did win, but I'm not really bothered either way. Besides, I'm going to be animating with people in the future so I might as well develop the skills now.

Qwertee Design: Ren & Stimpy

I've been looking into doing some designs for Qwertee, to practice my character design, illustration skills, and m ability to reach an audience. Since I'm not a popular artist by any means, I wanted to see how well my designs could reach audiences, because I've always felt there was kind of a popularity contest in this environment; and Qwertee basically picks and chooses which new designs get featured, and they're always the designs that are likely to win. Otherwise, the only way to get enough votes to be printed on a shirt is if you were popular enough for people to vote for it if you asked them too. I figured I would still put a lot of effort into each one because while I am rather cynical towards the system of Qwertee being that the most noticed design wins, I still want to learn new skills, and I might actually get lucky for a change too.

My first design is based on a rather popular scene from The Ren & Stimpy Show, where Ren Hoek gets so mad at Stimpy that he very calmly, but angrily, describes in detail how he's going to kill him. It was a really funny scene that most fans of the show talk about when the series is brought up. I chose to design a shirt based on Ren & Stimpy because it seemed that there were no designs for that show, which was strange because it has enough of a following for people to buy shirts and there is quite a bit of potential for possible shirt designs. I guess it's one of those shows you have to be reminded of before realising you enjoy it. I figured this shirt would stand out, since it's the only design based on Ren & Stimpy, and I might make a few more based on this cartoon in the future.

I first wondered which part of the scene I chose I could develop into the design. It had to be a key part, with a quote that people would recognise. I decided, in the end, that it should be the moment Ren says "I'm so angry", because first of all, that line along with the keyframe summed up the whole scene perfectly; secondly, it has a very specific key frame for Ren as he's saying the line that stands out incredibly well and could work as the image used for the design.

This is how it turned out in the end, and for my first time designing a t-shirt, and being not the most confident about my illustration skills, I think it holds up extremely well. As you can probably tell, I took the frame I mentioned and traced over it, but added a lot more detail to it, since just drawing the same frame without adding anything would be kind of boring. I developed a rather neat shading technique from this, by using heavy black shadow giving it a very edgy look. I tried to make the imagery edgy and comedic to make this memorable and cool looking. I think this has convinced me to continue submitting Qwertee designs, among other designs for sites like this.

Understanding Characters - Bayonetta (Cereza) from... Bayonetta

Bayonetta is probably one of the most unique and coolest female characters in gaming today. The game, Bayonetta, is a part of a type of genre called "character-action", which is a sub-genre of hack 'n' slash/beat-'em-up games that focuses solely on the fast-paced action-oriented gameplay, and the main character, without much emphasis on story. Bayonetta has a pretty bogus story but awesome gameplay and characters, hence the genre (this is also a given seeing as the studio that made it, Platinum Games, is known for having pretty terrible stories in their games, with the exception of Wonderful 101). Bayonetta, the character, is very memorable for being a very strong, witty, and sexy character, three character traits that work very well together. I suppose her flaw is that she is rather cocky as well, which if you think about it is rather appropriate because the gameplay is meant to make the player feel pretty badass, I mean I'd be pretty cocky too if I could do sick air-combos and turn my clothes into giant monsters.

Anyway, probably the most prominent detail about Bayonetta as a character is that she is clearly sexualised, but she is still written with so much detail and effort that it doesn't come across as objectification; and that's an important distinction that a lot of people miss when designing female characters in games. A lot of female characters, when trying too hard not to be offensive, end up making the characters weaker and overly emotional, such as the ungodly trash that is Metroid: Other M, or when they want to desperately pander to the feminist audience, they'll make the character simply strong, with no existing traits other than that. The idea for Bayonetta was to have that perfect balance of sexuality, intelligence, emotion, and depth. She is quite shamelessly sexualised, but it is done in such a goofy fashion that it just feels appropriate for the game.

Overall, Bayonetta works very well as an action heroine because she cool in every aspect, which is not a common trait with female video game characters.

Understanding Characters - Ice King from Adventure Time

Ice King is probably the most fascinating character in Adventure Time, as he is probably the character that is the most connected to the lore of the series, and is basically the result of tragedy that occurred before the apocalypse that created the land of Ooo. It's interesting, though, because even though Ice King is quite a tragic character, he is still written as a funny character. That's normally the style of the show, being depressing and dark but still funny. Ice King is also interesting because he was originally only written as this insane wizard that would be a regular villain and general nuisance. As the show developed, though, they eventually thought of new ideas that made him into a deeper and sympathetic character, that actually worked well in the story. There was a lot of weight added to the series since they developed the lore over time, and Ice King going from a quirky villain to a deep character was one of those aspects that developed the series from what was originally just meant as a dumb kid's show to the much more intense series that it became today.

Mixing a Narrative Up

Now, just make this clear, I absolutely adore stories that are told in an unconventional manner. Just any way they do it, works for me. Movie's like Pacific Rim that introduce the conflict immediately in the opening sequence, rather than spending the first half hour setting it up (something far too many movies do these days, to the point where sometimes the conflict doesn't even begin until an hour and half in). Even the occasional non-linear narrative structure, which, as the name implies, doesn't tell the story in chronological order. It just makes the story all the more unique and engaging when it is able to surprise by using this structure. It can also inspire more creative ideas for the writer/director, by telling the story in such a manner that encourages them to add more elements along the way.

A good example of non-linear narrative is the anime, Baccano!, which follows several different characters and goes to and from different points in time, from the present set inside a train, to the events that occurred before then, and even far back into the past. It's a really interesting anime, hard to follow at first but becomes very engaging eventually.

I think a linear, three act narrative structure is a major sign of a lack of creativity. I tend to avoid those types of stories, because they are usually very samey and uninteresting. They aren't necessarily bad, just not very interesting because I can usually guess what happens right at the beginning. Hollywood romances (aka "chick flicks") are examples of this because they always have the same exact structure of, flawed male character meets woman, falls in love, she gets with jerk guy, realises she loves the main guy, they get together, the end. It's not interesting at all, you know he's going to get with the girl in the end, regardless of setting and characters. Wedding Crashers was no different to something like Shark Tale, technically speaking. The same exact things happen but in different settings. What if in a story like that, they don't get with the girl in the end because they mess up so much throughout the narrative that she basically hates him? Or what if there was a romance where they are together the whole time? There are so many directions to go with this genre that people just refuse to go.

Understanding Characters - Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Something I have always praised My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for is it's uncanny ability to create characters with quite a lot of layers of depth, while on the surface maintaining the girliness and obvious product placement the franchise is known for. The character, Pinkie Pie, is one of many characters in this show that are extremely well-written, and while not every episode nails her character perfectly, it is still clear that a lot of thought was put into her character from the start, when you look at her critically.

Primarily, she is generally a fun and happy character that always finds some excuse to throw a party, and is just generally a hyperactive character. The writers, storyboard artists, and animators really like to have fun with her hyperactive nature, essentially exaggerating her actions and using Loony Tunes-esque physics, which they sometimes do for other characters but none more-so than this one. I love this aspect to her character because I generally enjoy that style of animation when done well, and these animators nail it every time.

There are still times where this character isn't as bright and charismatic as she lets on. What's interesting is that she is also shows clear signs of social anxiety, which is not something you see that often with characters like this. There is one episode where she has a party that everyone refuses to go to, because secretly they're throwing one for her. She begins to suspect that they are ignoring her and eventually that they straight up don't want to be friends anymore. This literally drives her insane, as she is also nothing without her friends, and she becomes rather sociopathic, making up her own friends out of inanimate objects. This aspect of her character makes everything on the surface all the more interesting, because it adds an extra layer of depth to the overall nature of her, and makes it all the more hilarious when she does go mental.

Understanding Characters - Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks

Agent Cooper is the rather quirky FBI agent from David Lynch's TV series, whose most famous trait is his love for the town's coffee and cherry pie, his most famous line, regarding how he likes his coffee, being "black as midnight in a moonless night". He stands out to me as a character, because he is very unlike any interpretation of FBI agents. Usually they are rather samey; a gritty, edgy, grumpy, tough guy, that don't take nothing from nobody, nohow. Dale Cooper is a much deeper character than that. He is dedicated to his work but uses unconventional means, using evidence gathered from his dreams to solve the Laura Palmer case. The dreams are, of course, there for the audience too to figure out who the killer was, and Dale solving the puzzle from his dreams creates an interesting relationship with the audience. Originally they were never going to reveal the killer of Laura Palmer, and you were left to figure it out and solve the puzzle using the clues the show gave you. Then it would be open to interpretation, like pretty much most of David Lynch's work. I think this would have also maintained the audience and Cooper relationship, but it works fine after Laura Palmer's killer is revealed, because Dale Cooper is still an interesting character.

As a character, he is very quirky and well-written. Among the darkness he comes across in Twin Peaks, he still sees the lighter side of it all in the town's more warm and welcoming atmosphere. He uses quirky but effective methods to solve the case, trusting the puzzling nature of his dreams to help his instincts. He is lovable for being a friendly character, creating an uplifting vibe simply from his joy at doing his job, his love for little things like the food at the Twin Peaks diner, the service at the Great Northern Hotel, and the town's Douglas Firs. Even at the beginning of season 2 when (spoilers) he was shot and incapacitated, he still wasn't mad. Kyle MacLachlan's performance helps a lot too, because he really has an infectious smile and chipper attitude, which makes both the comedic moments and the serious moments more engaging. I think he is one of the main reasons why I love Twin Peaks so much. It's no exaggeration that the show takes a very serious dip in quality around the beginning of the second half of season 2, and Dale Cooper was basically what kept it going until the show picked up again. A more conventional FBI agent would have taken away from surreal tone of the narrative.

Final Crit: Feedback

There was actually quite a bit of positive feedback for my animation. I am proud of it, considering all the time I put into it.

The feedback was mainly regarding issues with audio, since you could barely hear my character, since he was whispering the whole time. There was also a problem with the scene where Moom breaks his arm with the chair. I thought it was quite clear that he was whacking the chair but it apparently wasn't. I was told to recolour the chair so that it stands out a bit, but that would take a lot of time to do, considering the method I used to make the animation. I basically made each shot into a separate document so that I could render each one faster.

The names are based on the panels on my storyboard. This is actually saved a bunch of time rendering, because I render each scene when I was finished with them. However, if I was to change the chair colour, I would have to recolour it in every file it is in, and that would take too much time. It stands out anyway, because it's got more texture than most of the other objects in the scene.

Instead, I will remove the white flash from that (which I think just threw people off) and instead add another visual 'smack' effect over the area he interacts with. The scene also begins with the camera panning out from the area where the chair is.

Other than that, I just simply need to boost the voice-over audio and I'm done. Simples.

CGI is Almost Impossible to Get Right in Live-Action Film

It is no secret that I find CGI to be the most tragically over-used trend in film today. I don't mean animated film, I mean Hollywood blockbuster films. I do think it can be done well if the CGI is animated well and couldn't have been presented better using any other method, like Pacific Rim and Godzilla, or if there's a perfect balance between practical effects and computer effects, such as Where the Wild Things Are and Attack the Block. Where movies fail these days is using CGI for basically everything.

I saw a talk by a representative for the studio, Double Negative, in which they described in detail how they designed and animated all the special effects. It was really quite daunting how much work they described that went into making the effects look "convincing". Seriously, like the audience was meant to believe that the effects for a giant wolf were real. I'm going to give an example of a situation they described and how they could have solved much quicker, cheaper, and easier. In one scene, in the movie Hercules, there was a scene where he gets attacked by a giant wolf. The wolf was biting his arm and he had to shake it off. How that scene was done, though, was they shook around a green object at the actor, and he had to just stand there pretending he was pulling his arm. He had to shake his torso a bit because his arm wasn't actually interacting with anything, instead they modelled a freaking CGI arm replica of the actor's arm! A good movie would have just used a real model of a wolf head and used that! Simple, more effective, and cheaper. Unfortunately, this is how most films today are made.

I think the heavy use of CGI in live-action cinema is very detrimental, because they instantly lose authenticity. So CGI is limited by the aesthetic quality a computer generated image tends to have, making a lot of time working and rendering completely worthless. I think if CGI was only used a little in live action film but mainly animation, it would fix a lot of the problems it causes with blockbuster films and more critical views on CGI in general.

Creating the Wheelchair for Moom

I made a design sheet for the chair Moom is interacting with in the animation. I had the idea of designing a wheelchair for him because I could have fun with it by making Moom mess around and go nuts on it. There were, surprisingly, a few design changes to this damn thing, though.

I basically just took an image online and drew that. I didn't trace it, though, I only needed the image for reference so that I could simplify it on paper before actually making the model.

This sheet, I made to get a better idea on how big the chair should be in conjunction to Moom. I can resize the model on Maya to match this design.

Lastly, I needed to focus specifically on the wheels and legs of the chair so that I can get the right level of detail.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stick to this complex a design. I had to remove the arms to save time, and so that I can properly use the only chairs available as reference (none of them had arms on them). Not only that but I completely messed up the model after finishing it using these design sheets, so I had completely remake it with a such simpler aesthetic. I removed one leg, and only used one wheel for each leg (rather than a set of two wheels and a pivot each).

This is how it turned out in the end:

A pretty great deal of compromise was made for this, but it works fine. Moom can still roll around and have fun on it just fine. I still the first model (which I deleted) hadn't have completely screwed up, since it looked much better.

Getting to Know Moom

Before I updated the storyboard, I wanted to get to know Moom a little more. Since I'm primarily working with storyboards, I had to have a good idea on how he would be drawn, so I made a couple of design sheets, just copying the already made 3D model. It was handy knowing the anatomy of the character, so that I could determine the size and scale of both the object I'll be making, and the room the animation is set in.

Storyboard/Animatic Change

These were the original storyboards for the animation. They were kind of rushed, since I wasn't entirely together that day, and was sort of last minute, but it was basic enough to get an idea of what my animation will entail.

Granted, these were made before I made that spreadsheet of all of Moom's faces, that I mentioned before, so I didn't quite know what I was capable of doing with Moom at the time. I think I went a little overboard, because quite a few of these poses and expressions wouldn't have been possible with Moom. So I decided to update this with the help of that spreadsheet and some more knowledge about Moom.

Here, I improved some of the more basic issues with the first one, such as the lack of detail on lighting and shadow, but I also changed the camera angles and the beginning leading up to where the audio begins. I figured the camera beginning straight away with a speeding camera that stops instantly would be a bit too disorienting. Plus, I felt like him writing on a piece of paper next to a stack of papers established quite well that he was a guy who had been working for too long, plus him gripping the pencil too hard and it breaking was funny symbolism of his mentality "snapping". I also wanted him to interact with the chair more so I added him moving across the room on it, and falling down on it in the end. Also, might I add, the arm he broke was also his writing hand, quite the definitive "I'm so done with work" action, since he can no longer work now. Oh yeah, and there's actually audio in the animatic now.