LAUAN403 - Secondary Motion

For this task we needed to demonstrate our understanding of secondary motion and where/how to apply it by drawing over live action footage.

I think I did this rather well. The movement of the hair as I jump upwards is believable although I'm not too sure about how I did the movement of the hair as I go back down. Next time I will hopefully have better a understanding of Photoshop and I will be able to plan over the frames of the footage instead of going straight-ahead.

LAUAN403 - Follow Through and Overlapping Action

For this task, we needed to demonstrate our understanding of follow through and overlapping action as well as our knowledge of weight, gravity and the physics of certain objects and how they react to one-another.

I think that I executed this task very well. The boxes have a real feeling of weight and their movements are believable. However, the main issue with my work is that it ends too abruptly. The reason for this is because I ran out of paper (and time), so the video suffers from the action happening way too fast to properly analyse it and we don't even get to see the end of what is happening.

Next time I will animate this with cut-outs rather than doing it traditionally as it would be much easier and I wouldn't run the risk of running out of frames to work with.

LAUAN403 - Staging

This task asked us to demonstrate our understanding of staging by having us complete a six panel storyboard sequence based on a short nursery rhyme.

I am satisfied with how this turned out as I showcased an understanding of how to communicate camera movement along with character movement and action. The art also manages to strike a fair balance of being clear enough to read and being not overly detailed. I had to criticise this piece, it would be for it's simplicity; mainly in the way that half of the panels use the exact same shot. Different actions take place, sure, but I feel as if a more elaborate idea would have made for a more interesting storyboard, visual wise.

LAUAN403 - Anticipation

This task asked us to demonstrate our understanding of anticipation by creating a short sequence featuring a wind-up/build-up before an action.

I am very pleased with how my sequence turned out. It is on the short side, but the actual anticipation before the fox thrusts his arm into the tree hole is very good. I also like how the actual thrust of his arm turned out too. If I had more time I would have ironed out several things such as his tail and face drop at the end, but for demonstrating this particular principle I am more or less completely satisfied. However, a problem with this sequence that all my traditionally animated sequences share is the faint line work, which is, by no means invisible, but difficult to see unless viewing up close or in full screen.

LAUAN403 - Squash and Stretch

For this task, we had to create two pieces of animation to demonstrate our understanding of the principle of  squash and stretch. One had to be of a soft ball dropping to the ground, the other had to feature a similar ball travelling in a lateral motion.

I found this task quite easy, and I think I managed to animate the squashing and stretching of the ball appropriately. The animation of the character in the 2nd video could be improved but he wasn't the main focus of the clip so it doesn't really matter.

I also think I need to get better used to using both photoshop and graphic tablets in general as the line work is noticeably sketchy.

LAUAN403 - Exaggeration

I'll be honest, I didn't enjoy this task very much. Abstract animation has never been my thing and I was hoping that we'd by doing character animation for the exaggeration principle. But it doesn't hurt to try new things, I suppose.

When it comes to what I did, I am satisfied with how they came out, however I believe the pieces could have been more elaborate and complex (I'll justify the simplicity of the films by saying I didn't have a lot of time). I do personally think that my visualisations of the vague sounds were quite good and creative though, even if they weren't executed in the best way possible.

LAUAN403 - Arcs

To start with, I wasn't happy that it took me this long to get around to actually producing this animation as it stressed me out a little. I also aren't happy at how "scruffy" it turned out, since I insisted on redrawing each frame individually and I did it rather quickly. That being said, the actual motion came out fine, and I'd argue that it's the most important part.

For my pivot animation I decided to do a man dancing. Much like the pendulum, this one is incredibly rough around the edges and would have benefited to more time being put into it. And again, I think the movement turned out okay. It could have been timed better, I feel, but it had proper acceleration, acceleration and momentum. I'm also fond of the fact that I added in a few background characters to prevent the film from looking too lifeless and dull.

LAUAN403 - Easing

The work I did during the pose-to-pose task prepared me for this somewhat as key frames were a big element. I enjoyed this task as it was purely traditional and allowed me to practise an important principle of animation. I think however that I could have pushed myself to animate at 24fps instead of 12 as that was an option, I think it would benefit the film more. I also once again neglected to make my line work darker, resulting in the finished product somewhat tricky to see fully (I typically avoid doing this because I fear messing up and having to start over again).

However, I think that the motion was fluid enough and that the ball had believable weight. I'm also satisfied with the implementation of "personality" to the short film as it makes it more entertaining than just a bland featureless ball rolling down a slope.

LAUAN403 - Appeal

I was happy to be doing character model sheets this week. I enjoy drawing dynamic poses and I even had some model sheets in my portfolio when I got interviewed earlier this year. However, I did struggle greatly when it came to actually coming up with a character - I wouldn't say I have no imagination, but it's very rare for me to come up with something on the fly.

Regardless, I came up with a little alien character named Clonk.
His personality resulted in a character design that was fun to draw; he has lots of straight lines and narrow edges which, along with his dark colour pallet, indicate that he's not a friendly guy. He has a lot of good facial expressions, although I fear that I may have gone off-model in a few places. I also think I could have maybe added more poses to the model sheet, but overall, I am satisfied with how this came out.

Character Development Sheet

Model Sheet

Turnaround Sheet

LAUAN403 - Straight Ahead and Pose-to-Pose

- Straight Ahead Animation -

This short clip was done off the cuff with little planning before hand.
I think this came out well for what it is; there's a good morph transition from the ball to the character, which is all that it needed to "work", really. My only real regret is not drawing the backdrop smaller because you can only see the bottom half, but it doesn't matter. I also could have had the ball morph into a more complex figure but I think it works well enough as is.

- Pose-to-Pose Animation -

Before creating any of the frames you see on screen, I started this task by roughly sketching the key frames. Then, I drew the key frames properly and then drew the in-betweens so that the motion would be more fluid. I then cut them out and took pictures of each frame with Dragon Fire.

I also like how this one turned out. The big trip the character does especially was quite good as there's a noticeable acceleration and deceleration due to the implementation of additional frames. There's a real sense of weight and gravity in that moment. The morph was also something I think turned out pretty well. However, when the man is running at the beginning could have been executed a lot better as it looks sloppy and jittery.

LAUAN403 - Pixelation

- Timing -

My first pixelation didn't turn out as bad as I was expecting, but it was still pretty sub-par and could use a lot of work. However, I think the basic concept is delivered understandably, it's just that it could have done with more planning and preparation.

A problem I encountered was that the tripod we were using did not allow us to tilt the camera in the way I wanted, so I had to do most of the camera work by hand, which resulted in the framing being unstable. On the flip-side, this gave the film a chaotic feel to it, which matched the "narrative" of the sequence.

I learned during this task how important it is to carefully plan the amount of frames each action takes. The difficulty I found whilst making this also caught me off guard but it has prepared me for any future pixelation tasks and I will be prepare for the aforementioned problems better. That being said, the main thing I took from this task is that pixelation is not for me.