Captain Character - Design sheets (OUAN404)

On this design sheet I was trying to draught out my character in different dynamic poses so that I could have a better idea of how my character will look from different angles, gaining a better understanding of how the weight the character is holding falls.

Here is a character sheet that features a range of facial expressions for my character. This sheet will help me to reference from in the future when drawing this character, especially when showing perhaps a change from one expression to another.
I realize now how important having character sheets is in terms of maintaining professional practice throughout a project, they help to form a solid basis for a character, enabling somebody to draw up the character in a consistent style.

Captain Character - Design Sheets (OUAN404)

This is one of my character sheets whereby I was trying to refine the shape of my character by drafting out the shape of his head along with his bnody to assess the affect of gravity on my characters posture/frame.

It is important to get a good idea of the character's weight I feel, to understand how their clothes might hang and how that might look in different positions.

Here I decided on the final look of my character considering the world that he lives in and how that might make him act, have an affect on his attitude etc. My character Phil has a very apathetic attitude to his job and this is reflected through the stains on his shirt and his obesity reflects his job title as CCTV monitor/security guard. 

Animation: Process and production - understanding - Flip Books: Then & Now (OUAN405)

Flip books, patented in 1868 by John Barnes linnett were popular in the late 19th and through to early 20th century, it used the principle of persistence of vision to give the illusion that many still images are infact one moving image. This was a development on the then popular Zoetrope and phenakistoscope wch used a kind of cylindrical format. It was popular for flip books to feature a series of photographs that perhaps showed a gentleman walking down the street. As the format progressed the flip books became marketing tools for objects such as early automobiles, cigarettes etc.
Today flip books are considered a novelty, a toy, rather than something that could be used professionally and effectively in marketing. There are however people who have turned the creation flip books into a refined art form such as this example here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OoFUtoyr7i0

Animation: Process and Production - Understanding - Early 3D Animation Pixar (OUAN405)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XhNT501DsJI

The first computer generated animation was created in 1960, this animation was 30 seconds long and features a the perspective of a car traveling down a planned highway.
The first example of 3D animation at pixar/the beginnings of pixar however is an 30 second animation of a computer generated hand created by Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke in 1972
The process the two went through to create this animation involved digitising a cast of Catmull's hand by mapping out triangles and polygon shapes that were drawn onto the cast into a 3D animation program that Catmull himself wrote.
It was this animation that forged a basis for the animated film 'Toy Story' the first feature length 3D animated film and the emergence of the animation studios that produced it, Pixar.
Catmull went on to develop 3D animation softwares that animators use today.

Animation: Process & Production - Production - Line test 3 (OUAN405)

Here is another line test of the latter scenes of my animation, line work inked up. I am pleased with the effect that I have achieved with the fly peeling in two halves. The production value of these scenes however will decrease due to faster production due to time constraints.

Animation Process & Production - Understanding - Rotoscoping and Sound Synchronisation: Max and Dave Fleischer (OUAN405)

Max Fleischer was the inventor of the rotoscope, this invention was brought about after Fliescher wanted to simplify the animation process by drawing over the frames of a live action film, this process delivers a very life like believability to the subjects in the animation, this process was patented in 1915.
The use of sound in the Fleischers' animation started around 1924 with the use of the 'follow the bouncing ball' technique, a ball bouncing atop of the lyrics on screen to form a sing along format for the audience to follow.
The Fleischers then developed synchronised sound in their animations, featured in the animation 'My Kentucky Home' where by sound effects closely match the actions of the character on screen, this made for a much more believable production. The believability comes through in the animation due to the added depth that the synchronised sound produces, the character is interacting with its world and we  the viewers are experiencing the reality that the character faces.

Animation: Process & Production - understanding -Walter Ruttmann: "Lichtspiel Opus I" (OUAN405)

This piece of animation is an important piece of animation history as one of the first pieces of abstract animation, by creating this piece it showed how animation could be used as a creative tool as expressive as painting and other forms of art popular at the time. When this animation was created in 1921 it was around the time that the world of art took a new direction with the emergence of cubism, surrealism and  dada. Although the animation is of abstract nature there is a clear indication that the animation was not experimental as there is synchronous editing with the music to emote certain feelings in the viewer, so even though there appears to be no narrative to the film there is a definite emotional journey that the viewer undergoes whilst watching the animation.
As Ruttmann used oil paint on a glass frame to create each frame, perhaps this was to further the expressive qualities of the animation, although William Morritz suggests that the oil paint on glass process was used as it was easier for Ruttman to modify, add or remove the paint for each frame.
This process would have further enabled Ruttman to create an animation that would be easier for the musician to compose a piece of music to accompany the animation, due to its smooth and fluid movement.

Captain Character - Conceptual Development (OUAN404)

In my sketchbook i was imagining my character in different scenarios such as when he leaves work for the day and returns home to his family, and how his expressions might change accordingly.
I feel I need more practice drawing my character so that I am able to draw him in different dynamic poses/ positions and gain a better understanding of the character's size and and volume and the affect of gravity on his posture.

In this sketch I was trying to get into the head of my character and imagining what his working environment would look like. Looking back at this sketch I feel that if I perhaps add more clutter to the room it would make it seem as if the character is taking up a large amount of space in his office, cramped by filing cabinets, CCTV monitors, pieces of paper, mugs etc. I want to produce an image that shows the sense of misery that the character feels whilst he is at work.

Animation Process & Production - Understanding - The cameraman's Revenge (1912) (OUAN405)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fyhlFZotnQ

This piece of animation is an early form of stop motion animation, its creator Wlayslaw Starewicz used real insects in his films as the subjects. There was a history of stop motion animation however before 'The cameraman's revenge', George Melies used stop motion in the title cards of one of his films and Albert E. Smith is said to have created the first ever stop motion film titled 'The Humpty Dumpty Circus' (1898). It can be said that Starwicz created the first stop motion animation using animated puppets. I think people like Starwicz were developing stop motion animation as more of a story-telling medium as apposed to the more experimental stop motion of say somebody like Hans Richter.

Animation: Processes and Production - Line Test 2 (OUAN405)

Here is another line test of my animation, this time however the animation is rendered in pen & ink.
I have noticed that there are a few points in the animation that could do with extra frames to smooth them out, for example when the frame crops down to the eye and switches to the sword being swung at the fly - that whole sequence - I feel needs a series of whole frames blacked out in ink to smooth out the transition. There are other points in the animation that need improvement, but these points could be something to focus on in the pre-production phase.

Captain Character - Inspiration/Research (OUAN404)

A character that really inspired me in terms of personality was a character called roger that features in the B.P.R.D comic book series 'Plague of Frogs', Roger is a mean-looking humunculous with a childlike personality. It was this combination of having a tough looking character with a soft personality that I wanted to bring through into my own designs that kicked off the initial thought process behind my own character.

Visual Language - Captain Character - Initial Ideas (OUAN404)

Here are my initial ideas. The starting point for my character started out with something that is completely different to my final design which the sketches towards the end of this post will allure to. At first I started with a simple head shape similar to those used by Hannah Barberra, I experimented with the placement of the facial features around the shape of the head making the character take on different personalities/ expressions, e.g. intelligent, dopey etc.

I decided to identify the face that worked best and put a body, name and occupation to that face.

 Here was my attempt at putting the characters face to a body, i didn't feel that this character was strong enough and was not confident in creating a backstory for the character as I wanted to constantly change who he was.

In these sketches I wanted to come up with a character with a look that i could build a backstory around and real depth to his personality, however this was not my final attempt at doing this.

Here we have the emergence of the initial idea for my character - Phil, a security guard with three children and a wife, his family being his only respite from his mundane job as a security guard monitoring CCTV. As I felt comfortable with the initial design of the character I was able to quickly develop the character into something with more depth to it.

Animation: Processes and Production - Animatic (OUAN405)

Here Is my animatic for the 'other side' animation, it describes visually how I would like my animation to play out and what the soundscape to the animation will be. It also documents key pieces of audio similar to what I would like in my animation, and how they might interact with the visual aspects through timing. The animatic is a rough representation of how I would like my animation to look and feel, the images and audio in the animatic are not final/ indefinite.

Animation: Processes and Production - Line Test (OUAN405)

This is a line test of the transition from day to night in my animation, I have taken on board some of the feedback given to me by my peers and decided to show the sun and moon swivelling round rather quickly and comically. In addition to this movement I have included the movement of the character's shadow following the light emanating from the sun & moon.