Just a quick update, iv got my queen of the flowers character sorted, and iv drawn most of the panels for it in my sketch book, they just need to be scanned edited then they can be animaticafied. Yes i just made that word up.

Heres a few pics of the queen of the flowers as a tomboy, wellie-boot wearing brat.

Heres a load more animations i love.


Watch Death Art Animation in Animation  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

I loved this because it seems experimental and original without being pretentious or tate moderny o_O

Also i think the characters themselves are really great to watch, they just look so... chunky. I imagine they were great fun to draw at the conceptule stage.



The student who made 'bath time' supposedly didnt bother with any of his assigned work for his entire academic year, instead focusing on this animation. While im not about to try the same, it certainly paid off for him as he then got hired by dreamworks. Im not surprised either. The negotiation (see ED HOOKS, ill write about him soon) is obvious and makes for a wonderfully simple scene in which the characters delightfully break the forth wall, repeatedly throwing the audience winks and lookin into the camera. We are made to expect a certain outcome, making the punchline all the better, and the animation seems perfect. I definetly find this guy an inspiration to what i want to achieve and be capable of.



This is just bizarre. But i laughed a lot, especially when the subtitle simply read ???????? as the singers words become unintelligable.
I quite like the use of subtitles, and in my final project last year i used them instead of recorded dialogue, i cant really put my fingure on why i thought it worked better, but i have to admit it was also nice to be able to change the words at anytime unlike recorded dialogue.



Finally the wonderfully titled 'balls' a simple mesh of bouncing ball excersize and a character reaction. This is essentially the style im goin for as the final animation for another of my modules in which im trying to go back to basics, perfect the priciples and just make sure i havent missed anything as i progress.

Rambles

Latetly iv been drawing far more then animating, but while absent mindedly doing nothing in particular iv been finding these appearing on my page, almost like when your writing, and dont think about what your writing and just let it flow. Any way i thought id put these up, feel free to comment if they make they make you think of anything

A bit of Me

Heres some of my work from my BA course, im putting this up because its my own base of which ill be judging my improvements and advances





Looking back im proud of what iv made. I dont feel this is arrogent, just a better outlook then just saying 'oh i hate it, its rubbish'. I know what i was capable of at the time, and i really pushed myself. To move on I have to accept that it was to the best of my ability at the time. The idea being to see what 'to the best of my ability' is now, and to see if im satified with the change.

Martin pointed me in the direction of biteycastle, a website full of some great flash animation, here i found the work of Adam Phillips, my favourite parts in particular were 'little foot' and 'the yuyu'



Little foot is full of great characterisations and you feel very differently about each character, theres an obvious bond between big and little foot and an really smug satisfaction to be had when bitey gets knocked down.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=n9QHEbU0cWY

Unfortunetly embedding was apparently disabled on this video, but if you follow the link its well worth a look. Though its less character based and more about the narrative of the pursuit, i found it visually stunning, i havnt seen a huge amount of flash animation but that really impressed me especially in his employment of basic principles to give the bitey character an inhuman speed that still seemed belivable.

What i like

Heres Animation Mentors showreel from last year, basically this shows the quality of movement i wish to work towards through practice, and the acting quality i want to acheive.

Group Task

So, i quite like this, just interpret the characeters how you imagine them. The first ones that popped to me included the penguin orc thing and vulture. But i think as a group we're gonna do the penguin and queen of flowers. Im currently getting together imagery for the queen, having pictured here as being some tomboy bratty girl, almost of a toddler age, ripping up flowers and throwing tantrums.

With the title being 'queen' of the flowers Queen Elizabeth in the sitcom 'Blackadder' immedietly came to mind. The character always came across as a crual child in an adults body. Always threatening to chop off peoples heads on a whim.

This lead to an image of a bratty tomgirl like princess, ripping up flowers and chopping off the 'heads' in mini guillitines. Sketches and concepts coming soon.

Gosh, now iv started, theres no stopping me is there!

Iv also been thinking about my final project for this year, and was thinking what could demonstrate character animation better then a peace about a relationship. Highs, lows, laughs and tears. Maybe its just from a recent relationship breakdown of my own but i feel ripe with ideas for something like this, and not big ideas, but subtle ones. Thoughtful ones. Could be good, but itll be on the backburner for a while until everything else is under control. Its been a crummy few weeks to be honest. Iv been ill for about three weeks, which has seriously affected my sleeping patterns. Hopefully a trip to the docs this week shall sort me out.

Sorry this is my blog not my mum. Any way back to work.

When discussing my choice of topic. I was throwing around words like empathy and we briefly discussed the source of the word going back to aristotle and his writings on rhetoric, i then went and found complete copies of his writings in online encyclopedias, and actually found it all amazingly interesting. He divides the means of persuasion into three types: Ethos Pathos and Logos, or the 'appeals'.

Pathos is the means of pursuading by appealing to the characters emotions, which its reasonable to assume is the sorce of the words empathy and sympathy having to do with understanding and sharing in someone elses emotions.

Iv always known empathy is highly important in character animation, a real corner stone. But perhaps understanding the word a little more then just 'stirring emotions' may turn up some useful revelations, so ill keep reading.

And finally why are there such massive gaps betweeen my paragraphs?

Hi there, this is my blog for my creative portfolio module in the University of Teessides MA in computer animation, though beyond that it may become a place for me to gather my creative thoughts.





For this module i have decided to take the direction of character animation. One of my main concerns is overlapping what other modules are requiring of me in this department. So i have decided to be more specific and attempt to look more at the acting part of character animation.





What makes us empathize with characters?





What is empathy?





And to what extent can traditional acting techniques be applied to 3d character animation?


These will be questions that drive my research. This research will hopefully result in approximatly 6 short animations focusing on character acting and animation above technically prowess.





Great examples of this sort of animation includes Graduate work from animation mentor, but also top schools such as he Vancouver film school and the french animation school Gobelins.








I will be linkin to animations which i feel work well in regards to acting or even just impact upon me in any significant way.

Ill also be using the works of Ed Hooks as reference. Ed Hooks has given lectures around the world at universities schools colleges and studios on the topic of acting for animators. After attending his workshop at animaex last year, I left feeling extremly positive about my choice of specialization. And his theories address the key issues of the difference between acting yourself and acting through a character. Namely one occurs in the present, acting on stage your performing 'live' so to speak whilst character animation is acting but through the character thinking about the performance as a whole. Ed hooks makes this a lot clearer and i will likely post my notes from his seminar as well as notes from his books i find particularly relevent.

Before christmas i will be concerned only with research and the assigned group project, after christmas i will begin producing the animations