Home October 20th 2013

I was very unmotivated today, so I spent about 30 minutes sketching ideas for the next segment of bugs, but didn't actually work on the bug sequence at all.

Class October 17th 2013

During class I spent about 15 minutes turning the sunset images into movies for tests to see how well they played through.

Then for the majority of class we worked on making self portraits in three different cartoon styles : Adventure time, Regular show, and Bobs burgers. Lets just say mine need a lot of work.

At the end of class I spent about 15 minutes combining the logos I am working on into one file that I can work on at home.

Home October 16th 2013

It took me about 15 minutes to set up, but once I did I spent about an hour and forty five minutes working on finishing the sunset and then making it disappear.  After I finished that, I spent about three hours editing the rest of the dragonfly photos. Now I just need to get on merging them together.

Class October 15th 2013

In class I spent about an hour and 45 minutes editing the dragonfly photos. I lightened and color corrected them, as well as got rid of any weird spots or pencil marks.

I also had a discussion with my teacher about the project. During this time we discussed that I am going to need to do a lot of color correction for this project. We also talked about how
I need to do the tear effect at least one more time, other than that it will look jarring and out of place. He also mentioned working with stills and not just animations, which would save time.

I also asked for advice on how to make the sunset disappear. I was originally just going to play it backwards but he said that would look cheesy, so I had to erase or tear or something.

Home October 12th 2013

Today I worked more on the beach scene. It was actually coming out right today. I think I was just having an off day the last time and it just wasn't working. You can see from the first two sections on the right that it just wasn't working the other day, and that todays progress was a lot better.
I spent 2 hours and 50 minutes painting today, and almost finished but didn't get the last section done due to the school closing. I spent 35 minutes setting up and cleaning up my work station.

Class October 10th 2013

In class I still didn't feel like painting, so I continued to work on my logo. I did some sketches and then scanned them and worked on them digitally. I spent 1 hour and 35 minutes in class working on these. My teacher gave me so input on some of the designs, such as making things silhouettes.

Home October 9th 2013

Today was just a very unmotivated day.

I started with 30 minutes of sketching dragonflys, even though I was already done with the dragonfly. There is something about the body and the way it looks that I really like. After that I spent 25 minutes erasing the dragonfly for the next transition. Then I spent 30 minutes trying to mix the colors I was going to need to do the sun sequence. After finally figuring out my color pallet, I tried to paint but it was coming out horribly, so I eventually gave up on working on the senior project and went to work on my logos. I spent about 15 minutes trying to paint, was absolutely hating the way it was coming out, because I was personally not in the mood to be doing it at that point in time. Then I spent 2.5 hours on logos.

Class October 8th 2013

I spent an hour creating test videos of all the picture I had taken. This includes a test of the transition itself, a test of the dragonfly animation and a test of the trail-transition-dragonfly altogether.

Then I had a small critique of my project so far, which everyone loved. They gave me a few suggestions of where to go with the project now.

1. For the dragonfly, repeat the same animation I already have digitally to make the dragonfly move across the page. Don't make it so smooth though because of the way the animation is done. Make it come in and disappear 3-4 times and that is it.

2. For the next scene for the beach, do a geometric ripple again, doing vertical strips. For this do each strip a different time of day for the beach, aka first is sun rise, then midday, then evening, then sunset then night, etc. This will keep the colors from getting too muddy and will allow the geometric patterning to continue from the first scene.

After the critique my teacher showed me some things and helped me brainstorm some ideas for the logo. This is still in progress and nothing is really concrete yet.

The rest of class I worked on the blog, updating it and adding video progress and photos.

Home October 7th 2013

I spent about an hour and a half brainstorming what to do next. I was trying to figure out how to do what I wanted and how I could make it transition into the next big scene. In the end I just moved forward with making the bug, and then will figure out the transition to the next big scene after.

Then I ripped apart the last drawing to transition it into the next clean page for the next set of drawings.

The rest of the time was spent animating the dragonfly and making it move. I spent about half an hour doing research of how dragonflies fly. I spent about 3:40 hours animating (ripping apart and dragonfly).

Class October 3rd 2013

I put my self portrait together in a final cut pro document and exported it as an mov. Yesterday I created and shot it, but didn't have time to make the actual movie. This took 45 minutes, where I rendered a few different sizes and some with titles and some without.

Then I worked on putting what I had done on the senior project into an mov file so that the class could see it in motion instead of as stills. I started this 15 minutes before class started, altogether taking 30 minutes to complete.

The rest of class was  spent critiquing everyone's self portraits and productivity on the projects so far.

Self portrait:
1. looks like me enough to know it is me -good
2. "colors of the wind" was mentioned
3. Some find the flowing of the hair weird, while others were not bothered by it
4. Ties in perfectly into what I am doing aesthetically on my final project
5. Delete the sketch underlying the ink, sketch ruins the mystery and overall quality of the piece - mentioned starting with the final image and erasing and saving instead of having to erase so much on the photos I already have.

Project:
1.like slow start and then quick progression, like the change in pace
2. in the test - froze on the wrong frame for the second image
3. Make freeze frame wiggle like the rest of it, jarring to have stuff wiggle and then have a freeze frame.
4. likes the growing tree/trail the best, it is the strongest one
5. Good with the different ways of building and breaking down each scene - keeps it interesting
6. Do something short and simple next to keep the beauty of the big scenes
7. Need to lighten and color correct - need post production edits
8. Swap back and forth between really simple things and really elaborate things
9. nix the animals, keep to landscapes and bugs

Home October 2nd 2013

Not part of the project but part of the class was to do a self portrait animation. I did a realistic cartoon version of myself in the style of the project that I am currently working on.

Home October 1st 2013

Directly after class I stayed to work on the project more. I was in the lab all night, getting setting four and setting five done. Only one more to go for the sequence! Overall I am pleased with how this project is turning out, but there is going to be a lot of editing to do when I am finally done.

I spent an additional 4 hours and 54 minutes working on the project after class.

Class October 1st 2013

Today in class was a work day. After doing random things in class for half and hour, I finally got started with painting the fourth scene in the sequence. By the end of class I did not finish scene four, but I did get quite a ways through it. My paint time is getting faster, but that is probably because the image size is getting smaller.

Worked for 2 hours on the project in class.

Home September 30th 2013

During this time I worked on finishing the third background. I was hoping to get to the fourth but I didn't make it that far. I really like the way that the third one came out.

Worked for 4 hours and 40 minutes (with 20 minutes set up / clean up and a 30 minute break - so really 3 hours and 50 minutes).

Home September 28th 2013

During this time I worked on completing the second forest image, and then worked on transitioning it into the third forest image. Overall I am please with how all of this is going, and hope that it gets better and better as I go. The only discouraging part is how long it is taking to paint each scene. I was hoping to be done with the forest scenes already, but at the current time and only in the beginning stages. Hopefully this gets faster as the images get smaller.

Spent 3 hours and 50 minutes (15 of which is set up / clean up) working on the project today.

Class September 26th 2013

Today was a discussion class. We reviewed everyones' projects. We also had a discussion of portfolios and presentation, and what would be good for us to do.

Portfolios:
-have one on hand now so that way its prepared and ready to go when you need it, same for resumes
-get nice quality portfolios, either order one or make one. also think about having physical books made instead of just collections of papers
-have animations on a cd that is present with the book, aka make a sleeve in the book for the dvd
-keep images under 12
-think about the leave behinds - post cards, books, business cards, cd - need these to leave an impression
-print on demand
    -blurb
    -adorma.com
    -dick blick.com
    -gotprint.com
    -modern postcard
-get a book/portfolio that is 8.5x11 or smaller, although big looks nice small is easy to transport, easy to look at and easy to store
    -put a resume in the back of the portfolio!
-branding/logos - put it on EVERYTHING! - resume, postcards, websites, business cards, dvd, invoices, magnets, temporary tattoos, stickers, maybe think about a stamp pad or usb drives
-it is better to have stuff ready and on hand now so can go at any time than to have nothing and wait, get all the stuff and swap it out as work gets better.
-as far as our websites, make a main page for the portfolio for our animations, then make an archive page for all the animations we like but wouldn't necessarily use for a portfolio - makes them there to look at but wont hurt you by having too many.



Critique of my work:
Think about making the trees grow up at different rates - mix it up to make it more visually interesting. With this they like the fact that they grow, it makes it more nature like.

Also think about mixing up the pallets more, warm vs cold, for legibility purposes so one image doesn't get lost in the last one.

Vary transitions between scenes. Maybe for this next transition make it disappear from the trail

Next time start from scratch don't use a white page, maybe tint it.

For forest scene make it get darker as each image is painted, like the effect of morning to night. This would help with legibility. So play with different times of day, since the night time can also be just as beautiful.

Transitions from one cluttered page to a clean one: cross fade; fade from image to black to image; rip image apart from center to reveal a clean piece of paper.

Home September 25th 2013

Due to not being able to use my camera because I was at another even earlier in the night and the camera started overheating due to use, I didn't do anything on the project. I did a few small sketches of some of the bugs just to start getting into the forms and shapes of the objects hoping to get some ideas. Not much came of it and after about half an hour I stopped working on the project.

Class September 24th 2012

This class turned into a work in class day. I spent about half an hour talking to my teacher about the project and about other assignments. Then I went to work painting the next scene. I only got about half of the way into painting it before class ended. It is a slow process but it is getting there.

I spent about 2 hours of class today painting.

Home September 18-22, 2013

During this span I was at the Ottawa Film Festival in Canada, so pretty much no work got done on this project.

Monday night I started painting the next scene, but didn't get overly far since I was tired from the trip and feeling unmotivated. I spent about two hours painting but was very sluggish so got almost nothing done.

Class September 17th 2013

Today acted as a show and tell day where we showed what we had done and then discussed where we were going with it and other peoples suggestions of changes we could make. The problem with doing a project in this way is once you are showing it, it is already done, there is not making edits. This is what makes it so hard for me to just jump into it because of the fear of screwing it up and not being able to go back.

Some suggestions that were made in response:
1.Do different wipes or fades each time to the center so they don't all look the same. This will keep it interesting.
2. People really liked the idea of what I was doing and the geometric layout of it. They suggested playing with a sense of abstraction with nature instead of trying to make it all photo realistic. With this they also suggested looking at the geometric forms in nature and patterning, and playing off of this.
2A. As reference for the geometric forms they suggested looking at man made structures versus the organic forms of nature.
3.The idea of placing order into chaos.
In an overall consensus people like the geometric tunnel/layering effect. They liked that each image shares a similar vanishing point and color pallet, which connects all the images.
4. The idea of incorporating animals into these scenes instead of doing solo transitions of them. Maybe have an animal in one of the trails and have it reappear in a later one.
5. They mentioned making the project more about landscape and shape, and using the animals to give life to the scenes. I like this idea, but I do still want to stick with my original idea and have some generic transitions with them.

Home September 16th 2013

Spent three hours finishing the first forest scene. I finished painting it and then erased out the center. Then I spent 55 minutes putting all the images into final cut pro and exporting them as a mov to show the class my progress.

Home September 15th 2013

Spent three hours working on the project. Then spent 10 minutes cleaning up.

During this time I started painting the first forest scene. I didn't really run into problems other than the usual don't know where to start ones. As I worked there were some points where I jumped the coloring too much, but at this point it is too late to go back. Once it is done it is done. It doesn't look too bad but it does annoy me a little.

Class September 12th 2013

We started with a discussion of what is an animator, and why are we personally animators. Then we moved into a work period, where I started to sketch on the canvas what I'm going to paint. Then I worked on editing my tests to put on the blog (see in earlier post). I spent about an hour and fifteen minutes on the project today.

Home September 11 2013

Spent about an hour at the art store trying to select what materials/brands I wanted to use.

Then I spent 3 hours setting up my work space and doing tests. I set up the stand so that I can just animate, and then I messed with the camera settings to get the best image quality for the job. I took a few test shots to configure how I was going to put it all together once it was shot. Dragonframe can't do what I want, IStopMotion makes the image quality really bad. This left Final Cut Pro. I figured out that my camera shoots 16:9 ratio, so this will take a lot less time when putting it together because then I don't need to crop all the images. :)

With not enough time left to start the project, I figured out the exact size of my workspace, and then created a photoshop file with the images that I am going to use to figure out the size the images will be for the final design (that way I'm not trying to fudge it while painting).

Class September 10th 2013

Today was supposed to be a work in class day. It turned into a discussion, some work, some demoing and then some research.

I started to work more on my storyboard. One concept I was working on was making a tunnel of different forest scenes. To help conceptualize this and to plan out what size the images would have to be I put all the images in photoshop and worked on layering them. At the time that I had come to layering them all to see if the end image would even be legible, my teacher came over and started relaying some ideas to me.

My original intent was to make a tunnel using pieces of the images, but not the whole image itself. I also wasn't planning on having the previous image be shown while doing the next. It was supposed to be a smooth transition from one to the next while working with a camera zoom to make a tunneling effect. My teacher liked the way the layering looked, and the geometric feel it had. I also liked the way this looked, but I worried about its legibility, since the effect was only about and inch per image. We started throwing ideas back and forth at each other and ultimately decided on making the image appear, then have the middle fade, then have the next image appear and repeat. This would make it legible, but also in the end keep the geometric layering effect.

After discussing this I was told to stop planning things, stop storyboarding. I was told to just start, just throw myself into it and see where it goes. The problem with planning is if something doesn't transition right or if all the colors start to mud down, then I am screwed. So if I just start and go with it, it will be more legible and I can adjust my ideas as I go. I might also explore and find new ways of doing things that I wouldn't find by planning it all out.

My teacher then did a demo for me and gave me some ideas on materials that I should use for the project to get the best quality I could.

I spent the rest of class researching materials and where I could get them.

Storyboarding = 1 hour
Discussion = 20 minutes
Demo = 20 minutes
Research = 50 minutes

Home September 10th 2013

One hour and fifteen minutes spent beginning to cut up photos and rough storyboarding of concepts.

In continuation of what I was doing yesterday:

After rearranging the photos by season I began cutting and collaging the summer images and took notes and flow charts of how I could see this project going. I started working with how I could see the images flowing together. By cutting things up and putting them next to each other it allowed me to see how some forms could be transitioned into other ones. doing this actually helped a lot more than I thought it would.

Home September 9th 2013

Selection of primary photos for reference in animation.
Two hours spent sorting through photos.
One hour spent resizing and piecing photos together for printing.
One and a half hours spent trying to print.
Fifteen minutes spent cutting photos apart.
One hour spent organizing photos by season and brainstorming transitions.

In between classes I worked on narrowing down the photos to just the ones that I really wanted to use. Then I compiled them and reprinted them so I could work with them but still have the original copies. I had some issues with the printer, so all of the photos were in black and white, but this really got me to think about the forms and subjects instead of color, which would make the structure of the piece more solid.

I reorganized the photos by season, since that is how I would like to do the project, by season versus by topic.

Class September 5th 2013

Discussion of progress.

In class I started explaining some of the transitions and my thought processes and it was suggested that maybe I go through all the photos and then select the ones that I really wanted to use and then work at selecting what is most important and collaging them together.

They suggested relating subjects based on color, based on shape and based on similar qualities that could link them.

Basically I should make a concrete collage storyboard and not a digital animatic.

As far as subjects that I was looking at, they told me everything looks too calm and peaceful, which is nice but also boring. They mentioned maybe putting in some less optimal subjects, such as things dying, predator vs prey, and storms. They mentioned that there is beauty in things other than the things that are traditionally seen as "pretty."

Another suggestion was to play with soft vs harsh forms, which would cause some things to look more beautiful having that contrast.

They also mentioned the notion of how nature replenishes itself and is self sufficient. They opted that I think of circles of life.

Basically I need to look at varying my topics and figure out the hows and whys of what I think is beautiful. I just need to figure out what is really beautiful to me, whether it is the color, the patterns, the movement, etc.

Home September 4th 2013

Brainstorming based on photo references. Brainstormed ideas, traits and transitions of the animation components.

I have three binders of photos that I took as reference for this project. I started going through the binders and taking notes on what sprung into my head when I saw the images, such as if one image could link to another or a pattern of shapes that could connect very different subjects. I wrote the notes on sticky notes and went through all three binders.

30 minutes

Class September 3rd 2013

Reviewed the test animations and revised proposals.

The discussion of the class was based on optimal material use based off of the test animations.

It was agreed that watercolor would be the optimal material for its fluidity. It will allow for smooth beautiful animations.

The class also liked the look of the ghost images, so those will become a part of the animation, as far as aesthetics.

Other proposed ideas were layering things, making different transitions and actions going on at the same time. In addition they also mentioned maybe having a split screen and clearly seeing two different things at once.

They said the most important thing is to make sure that the animation is beautiful in itself. Aesthetically it needs to be jaw dropping.

They also mentioned making certain objects come together to form other objects, so not just transition to transition but abstracting it a little. There needs to be surprising transitions, that is what will make or break the piece. If they are all the same it gets boring very quickly. So the transitions need to change but also what is transitioning into what.

Home September 2nd 2013

Worked on animation tests for material discovery.

Test one was done with colored pencils and took two hours. The richness of the color was nice, but the coloring takes too long and colored pencil does not erase at all, which would make layering and readability nearly impossible.

Test two was done with watercolors and took one hour. It is fairly fast, pulls up off the paper fairly well and is pretty easy to work with.

Test three was done with acrylic and took one hour. Acrylic has a nice thickness to it, and is very easy to layer, but can get very shiny and glossy when it comes to lighting it. It also lacks a transparency, which is an aesthetic that I want at least slightly present in the work.

To do the tests I set up a tripod, my camera, and just made do with what I had.

Worked on revising the proposal, about 30 minutes. The revised proposal is the one present at the beginning of this blog.

Class August 29th 2013

Discussion of project ideas with class.

Some ideas that the class threw out there:
1. Maybe work on top of the photos that I had taken over the summer for research. They mentioned maybe incorporating the photos into the actual project. This sounds like a good idea for another project, but for this project I want to stay with traditional hand done media.
1A. They also mentioned using the photos for the animatic, just so that I could focus on transitions instead of drawing out the content.
2. They also mentioned working with certain color pallets per season so that it is easy to distinguish between the different seasons. This is again a good idea but not really what I am looking for with this project.
2A. Another idea was doing selective coloring, and only coloring the important parts, or what I find most beautiful about the image. Basically to think about making meaning in the color of the images.
3. It was also discussed the idea of working with different sized images, and playing with scale transitions.

Overall I need to work on transitions, panning out what's transitioning to what, how they are going to transition, and the materials I am going to use.

The Proposal

Nature and the Human Observation and Interaction with It

Art is a way of expressing yourself. You can show a large audience what you like and things you are passionate about. It is a way of showing people who you are, without necessarily having to say a word. Art is a way out of or further into reality, a way of doing the things you really want to do, but may not be able to do. It is a way to create and invent and be imaginative. This is why art is important to me. With animation, I can show what I think and how I feel through the movement of characters and the designs of backgrounds. I can share with everyone what I am passionate about. As an artist, I struggle with letting go of appearances, with loosening up and just letting the process happen. I struggle with letting the movement flow because I am so caught up with whether something looks right.

        So for the senior thesis, I would like to incorporate my struggles into my desires. Over the one-year seminar, I am going to create a traditional (hand drawn) animation that is at least two minutes in length. The focus of the animation is on the theme of nature and the human observation and interaction with it. The animation itself will be broken up into the different seasons. Nature is a beautiful thing and is full of so many wonders worth seeing. It is something most people no longer get to enjoy. I would like to bring this observation back to the people who view my animation. I would like the viewer as well as myself to get lost in the beauty of nature. To create this project, I will incorporate skills that I have learned in my previous classes, such as panning backgrounds in Pre-Production, traditional drawing and capturing in Dragonframe from 2D Character Animation and motion drawing in Kinetic Drawing. The animation is going to be at least partially in color. The materials are open to experimentation, and may change as the project is being done.

        Throughout college, I have always wanted to create a longer, well-crafted, smooth animation, but have never had the time to develop or execute one. So in this year long seminar, I will accomplish a piece that is just that. During the first semester of seminar, I want to do all the pre-production work (material experimentation, storyboarding/animatic/sequential planning), and get through a good portion of the final animation. During the second semester, I will finish up any animation that needs touching up, as well as do all the final edits and add sound. The exact plan for the semester will be determined fairly soon.

I am hoping, with seminar, to work out a well-rounded piece that I can be deeply proud of. I hope to learn to create smooth movements, which are easily legible, but have a sense of life and movement to them through the looser drawing style. I hope to learn a little more about process and a little less about how things look. I hope to discover more about traditional media, and plan to experiment with different media to create a unique piece. I think this project will help me develop good skills as an animator, and will allow me to pursue a topic that I want to do. I want to develop a style that is uniquely my own. I am ready to discover myself, and show it visually through my art.

In one sentence: I am going to create a traditional animation with a multitude of materials that is at least two minutes in length and focuses around the theme of nature and the human observation and interaction with it.