This week was the final week of unit BA1a. Finished Character Design and Character Research.
CHARACTER DESIGN
For character design, this final week was simultaneously easy to get through, and very
difficult to get through. I did manage to get everything done, and the easy
part about that is that I already had the bulk of the work done, this week was
just finishing it. The difficult part of it was the overwhelming sense of “what
if it’s wrong” that I had a couple of times. I realise in past blog entries I
mention the development of not being afraid of failure, but this seemed too big
to not be intimidated of at times. But I did manage to get there in the end,
thank goodness. The walk cycle had arms added, and the head was fixed too.
Turnaround finished up with some slight adjustments to keep consistency, and
then that was it. I’m glad I kept on top of it the way I did, making sure to
keep an appropriate balance between work and personal time. Definitely going to
apply that to my next projects. Nothing really to improve on this week, since I’m
at the end of everything and trying to apply what I’d previously said I’d
improve on.
CHARACTER RESEARCH
And the essay is done! I sent off my first draft to our lecturer for
feedback, got some back, and managed to fix it up relatively quickly! This
helped me in a HUGE way; since I was told that once the changes were made I
needn’t send it back, I knew that I could rest easy (relatively speaking) after
the recommended changes were amended. I’m ultimately glad that I did the essay
in the end; those types of research skills will (probably) come in handy in the
future. It also helped me with getting to know characters in a deeper way. Learning every little thing
matters is something I really respect, and want to be able to put into my own
projects and characters in future. I think the only thing I’d change about the
process of making this is go QUICKER. 8 weeks was a good amount of time, but
for a few of those weeks, the essay felt more like an afterthought or something
that wasn’t AS important, thus taking longer. I want to be able to have essays
up front next time, alongside my actual animation tasks.
FINAL THOUGHTS / SUMMARY OF BA1a
Overall, I feel this unit went VERY well! I feel proud of everything I've made, and all the knowledge I've gained is all vital and important not just for future projects, but for my animation career in general. Learning all the principles, different exercises and character fundamentals in terms of both visual design and as functional characters was all so interesting and honestly enjoyable! I can't wait for the next project!
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
CHARACTER ESSAY - FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Publishing all my sources, used or not, from my essay. Just in case.
Box Office Mojo (2018) Lego Movies at the Box Office – Box Office
Mojo, available at https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=lego.htm
(accessed at November 6, 2018)
Farshtey, G (2013), LEGO Minifigure: Year By Year A Visual
History. London: Dorling Kindersley Limited
Kdlmd243 (2010) LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers
Trailer, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBROpeHvel0
(accessed: October 21, 2018)
LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers (2010) directed by H. Baker [Film] Universal City, Calif.:
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)
directed by C. McKay [Blu-Ray], Los Angeles, Calif.: Warner Bros. Inc.
LEGOClubTV (2012) The LEGO® Story, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdDU_BBJW9Y
(accessed at November 6, 2018)
The LEGO Group (2018) Hard Hat Emmet – LEGO Minifigures –
Characters and Minifigures – LEGO.com US, available at https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/minifigures/characters/hard-hat-emmet-28dfc1f274b048938f908ae73fdc1ab6
(accessed at October 13, 2018)
The LEGO Group (2016) The LEGO
Brand – Martin Vang Sandgaard Jensen, The
LEGO Group, 2018, available at https://www.lego.com/en-gb/aboutus/lego-group/the_lego_brand
(accessed at November 12, 2018)
The LEGO Movie (2014)
directed by C. Miller and P. Lord [Blu-Ray], Los Angeles, Calif.: Warner Bros.
Inc.
The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017)
directed by C. Bean, P. Fisher and B. Logan [Film], Los Angeles, Calif.: Warner
Bros. Inc.
Martell, N (2011), Standing Small: A Celebration of 30 Years of
the LEGO Minifigure. London: Dorling Kindersley Limited
Miller-Zarneke, T (2017) The LEGO® Batman Movie: the
Making of the Movie. London: Dorling
Kindersley Limited
Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu (2011 – present) directed by M. Hegner AND J. Murphy [TV
Series] Billund, Denmark: The LEGO Group
Warner Bros. Pictures (2016) The LEGO Batman Movie – Comic-Con
Trailer [HD], available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMdQXYQ_MD8
(accessed: October 21, 2018)
Warner Bros. Pictures (2013) The LEGO® Movie – Official Teaser Trailer [HD], available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPnY2NjSjrg
(accessed: October 21, 2018)
Warner Bros. Pictures (2015) The LEGO Movie – “Creating the Bricks” [HD],
available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po0dmHhgsxU
(accessed at November 6, 2018)
Warner Bros. Pictures (2018) The LEGO Movie 2:
The Second Part – Official Teaser Trailer [HD], available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZSYYiATFTI
(accessed: October 13, 2018)
Warner Bros. Pictures (2017) The LEGO NINJAGO Movie – Trailer 1 [HD], available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZSYYiATFTI
(accessed: October 21, 2018)
Vox (2017) How fan films shaped The Lego Movie,
available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVe5XPU10Zc
(accessed: November 6, 2018)
All alphabetised and checked.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
WEEK 7 SUMMARY
WEEK START - 5th of November
WEEK END - 12th of November
This week was mainly focused around TVPaint animations for our characters, and finetuning details of the essay.
MONDAY
Monday was when we started the animated turnaround of our chosen character. There were a few ways to go about it, including using the previously drawn turnaround. I decided to go from scratch for the turnaround itself, but using my sketchbook and digitally converted cast model as my references.
For more on this session, see this post.
WEDNESDAY
There was a group session held to catch up with our lecturer on our essays, seeing how we're getting on and as an opportunity to ask questions. This was quite helpful for me; while I had my plan and ideas in place, saying them out loud to the person most knowledgeable about what we're meant to be doing helped to validate everything. I was a lot more confident in what I was doing from that point onwards, and knew I was on the right track.
I'm going to email her my draft as soon as it's 100% complete, and hopefully get some feedback to improve it and call it "finished".
I'm going to email her my draft as soon as it's 100% complete, and hopefully get some feedback to improve it and call it "finished".
THURSDAY
Thursday was when people moved onto the walk cycle for their character, also done in TVPaint. I went straight ahead with trial and error methodologies, trying out a couple of ways to achieve the feel I wanted. The walk had to show the weight of the character, and it was quite tricky to do so. Eventually, after some guidance from lecturers and tutors, I managed to get a walk cycle I was happy with!
For more on this session, see this post.
SUMMARY
In short, this week was a lot more difficult than the others I've had so far. The TVPaint turnaround and walkcycles were more fidgety and tricky to work with than I originally thought they'd be. I put some of that onto TVPaint, but mostly inexperience with it was my downfall here. I've been so used to Adobe Animate and it's more forgiving nature, but TVPaint is more for the people who make more art-heavy animations, as opposed to my preferred cartoony, fun styles. I'm probably just going to have to learn to get used to it over time. Either that or I can try and work in Animate in future? We'll see.
The essay is starting to reach the end, and this week put my confidence and drive for it up by a significant amount. I have my sources gathered up and put into a separate bibliography (unalphabetised and unlinked to the essay at this point; will append when essay is 100% ready to go). I might try and find a few more sources though, just to make sure everything I'm trying to say is right and can't be contradicted by anything. I'm using the basic skeleton of my plan from this post, but maybe with a few more sources thrown in? All I know is, this time next week the essay will be done.
Thursday was when people moved onto the walk cycle for their character, also done in TVPaint. I went straight ahead with trial and error methodologies, trying out a couple of ways to achieve the feel I wanted. The walk had to show the weight of the character, and it was quite tricky to do so. Eventually, after some guidance from lecturers and tutors, I managed to get a walk cycle I was happy with!
For more on this session, see this post.
SUMMARY
In short, this week was a lot more difficult than the others I've had so far. The TVPaint turnaround and walkcycles were more fidgety and tricky to work with than I originally thought they'd be. I put some of that onto TVPaint, but mostly inexperience with it was my downfall here. I've been so used to Adobe Animate and it's more forgiving nature, but TVPaint is more for the people who make more art-heavy animations, as opposed to my preferred cartoony, fun styles. I'm probably just going to have to learn to get used to it over time. Either that or I can try and work in Animate in future? We'll see.
The essay is starting to reach the end, and this week put my confidence and drive for it up by a significant amount. I have my sources gathered up and put into a separate bibliography (unalphabetised and unlinked to the essay at this point; will append when essay is 100% ready to go). I might try and find a few more sources though, just to make sure everything I'm trying to say is right and can't be contradicted by anything. I'm using the basic skeleton of my plan from this post, but maybe with a few more sources thrown in? All I know is, this time next week the essay will be done.
Friday, November 9, 2018
DYNAMIC EXERCISE - FINAL ANIMATION
The Dynamic Exercise is done!
Last time (see this post), I had finished timing the exercise and started working on my inbetweens to make the animation run completely smoothly without any need for held frames or awkward timings.
The inbetweens were definitely the most labour-heavy section of this task. I had more inbetweens to do than keyframes (to be expected), but they took a lot longer than originally anticipated. At times I had to check my sheets of references and timings to make sure I wasn't doing too much, only to find out I had only just hit the halfway mark between to keyframes.
But once the inbetweens were done, I immediately went to linetest. And it came out really well! I tinkered a little bit with some held frames, but it just didn't work. With each frame being hand drawn over and over, it created a, for lack of a better term, sizzle. The lines were a little jaggedy, and it gave off a style I really liked. But when frames were held, it stuck out because the sizzle wasn't there. Because I wanted the animation to look good visually and stay consistent, I opted out of holding frames.
As mentioned in my previous post, I was thinking of changing the framerate from 24fps to 12fps. I did eventually go with that, since 24fps made everything so quick that it was difficult to read what was happening onscreen. But when I changed to 12fps, the animation ran incredibly smooth, and made it more obvious what was going on!
So here's the final animation!
I would change a couple of things for sure, if given the right amount of time. I would clean it up a lot more, going over with an ink pen to bolden the lines. The net also has a little bit of a fluctuation to it, where the right side goes in and out a little bit. It's only really noticeable if you're only focusing on the net, but if my animation was successful, then the net shouldn't be the focus point. But overall, very happy with this animation! It achieved the look and feel I was looking for. It blends my cartoony, more self taught art style with professional taught techniques, and I think they work very well together!
Last time (see this post), I had finished timing the exercise and started working on my inbetweens to make the animation run completely smoothly without any need for held frames or awkward timings.
The inbetweens were definitely the most labour-heavy section of this task. I had more inbetweens to do than keyframes (to be expected), but they took a lot longer than originally anticipated. At times I had to check my sheets of references and timings to make sure I wasn't doing too much, only to find out I had only just hit the halfway mark between to keyframes.
But once the inbetweens were done, I immediately went to linetest. And it came out really well! I tinkered a little bit with some held frames, but it just didn't work. With each frame being hand drawn over and over, it created a, for lack of a better term, sizzle. The lines were a little jaggedy, and it gave off a style I really liked. But when frames were held, it stuck out because the sizzle wasn't there. Because I wanted the animation to look good visually and stay consistent, I opted out of holding frames.
As mentioned in my previous post, I was thinking of changing the framerate from 24fps to 12fps. I did eventually go with that, since 24fps made everything so quick that it was difficult to read what was happening onscreen. But when I changed to 12fps, the animation ran incredibly smooth, and made it more obvious what was going on!
So here's the final animation!
I would change a couple of things for sure, if given the right amount of time. I would clean it up a lot more, going over with an ink pen to bolden the lines. The net also has a little bit of a fluctuation to it, where the right side goes in and out a little bit. It's only really noticeable if you're only focusing on the net, but if my animation was successful, then the net shouldn't be the focus point. But overall, very happy with this animation! It achieved the look and feel I was looking for. It blends my cartoony, more self taught art style with professional taught techniques, and I think they work very well together!
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
CHARACTER RESEARCH - ESSAY PLAN
Just a quick post to show my initial plan for my essay's question, structure and points, with sources to pair with them where I can add them.
QUESTION
DOES EMMET FROM THE LEGO MOVIE REPRESENT THE LEGO BRAND AND PRODUCT FAITHFULLY?
I feel quite confident in my chosen question, in that I feel familiar enough with the source material, and what it's based on, very well. This will involve looking at the history of the LEGO Group, their beliefs, and also looking at Emmet and how he acts throughout the film. Do the two meet in some kind of middle ground? Is there overlap? Does Emmet take some matters differently? All things worthy to think about.
INTRO
Introducing the movie, character and question. Just to give a bit of context to the film, so that the reader and I are on the same page as soon as the essay starts.
PARAGRAPH 1 - METAPHORICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE BRAND'S BELIEFS
This is mainly going to be driven by the characters personalities and actions in the film. Mostly going to discuss how Emmet goes from a regular construction worker who follows the instructions, doesn't disobey commands, etc., to becoming the prophesised hero. The person he becomes is representative of LEGO's belief of not having just one way to go with what you make or imagine, being able to build whatever you want.
Sources to use - "The LEGO Story", an official abridged telling of the LEGO Group and product's history.
PARAGRAPH 2 - ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF THE PRODUCT
Talking about how Emmet's movement don't exceed any of the actual limitations of the actual LEGO Minifigure; arms can only swivel around at the shoulder but can't go out, no bending knees, no tilting head, etc.
Sources to use - "Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu", an animated LEGO TV show which features LEGO Minifigure characters flexing and moving in ways actual minifigures can't.
PARAGRAPH 3 - CHARACTER DESIGN
Talking about how Emmet actually looks. He's a construction worker dressed in orange and blue, with a yellow face and brown hair. His looks is almost like a blueprint for other construction workers with very little variation, so it could be worth talking about how his visual design fits into the storytelling. The fact that he looks like everyone else is a big part of his journey.
Sources to use - the film itself
PARAGRAPH 4 - REALISM VS REALISTIC
Talking about something looking "real enough" vs "photo-realistic". Almost like the two main points bordering the uncanny valley. The LEGO Movie is photorealistic, going as far as to scan in real LEGO elements and create new software for adding smudges and scratches.
Sources to use - "The LEGO Movie - Creating the Bricks", and online featurette published by Warner Bros., showcasing interviews with the directors and other crew members as to how the film was made and animated.
PARAGRAPH 5 - ON THE OTHER HAND (COMPARISON / ANTITHESIS)
Making sure I can display both sides of the argument. Comparing it to a somewhat similar film, LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers. Both are LEGO feature length films, starring a minifigure living in a large LEGO City, who at some point showcase skills in building pseudo-professionally. Both use different animation styles, and even handle the source material differently.
Sources to use - "LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers", LEGO's first attempt at a film starring minifigure characters, and the theme of building & imagination.
PARAGRAPH 6 - WHO CHARACTERS REPRESENT
Emmet embodies the ideals of the kid imagining the entire plot of The LEGO Movie, Finn. Meanwhile the antagonist, Lord Business, represents Finn's dad who demands rule following and perfection. Emmet, and by extension Finn, demonstrate core beliefs of imagination overcoming everything else when it comes to LEGO, instead of just sitting on a table not doing anything.
Sources to use - The LEGO Group's official list of values, specifically relating to imagination.
CONCLUSION
The end point, where I wrap it all up. Don't introduce new arguments or points, just summarise what I thought about the case presented, and then give my final thought.
Initial plan right now, things can change though. Paragraph subjects, sources, ordering is all game for editing.
QUESTION
DOES EMMET FROM THE LEGO MOVIE REPRESENT THE LEGO BRAND AND PRODUCT FAITHFULLY?
I feel quite confident in my chosen question, in that I feel familiar enough with the source material, and what it's based on, very well. This will involve looking at the history of the LEGO Group, their beliefs, and also looking at Emmet and how he acts throughout the film. Do the two meet in some kind of middle ground? Is there overlap? Does Emmet take some matters differently? All things worthy to think about.
INTRO
Introducing the movie, character and question. Just to give a bit of context to the film, so that the reader and I are on the same page as soon as the essay starts.
PARAGRAPH 1 - METAPHORICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE BRAND'S BELIEFS
This is mainly going to be driven by the characters personalities and actions in the film. Mostly going to discuss how Emmet goes from a regular construction worker who follows the instructions, doesn't disobey commands, etc., to becoming the prophesised hero. The person he becomes is representative of LEGO's belief of not having just one way to go with what you make or imagine, being able to build whatever you want.
Sources to use - "The LEGO Story", an official abridged telling of the LEGO Group and product's history.
PARAGRAPH 2 - ACCURATE PORTRAYAL OF THE PRODUCT
Talking about how Emmet's movement don't exceed any of the actual limitations of the actual LEGO Minifigure; arms can only swivel around at the shoulder but can't go out, no bending knees, no tilting head, etc.
Sources to use - "Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu", an animated LEGO TV show which features LEGO Minifigure characters flexing and moving in ways actual minifigures can't.
PARAGRAPH 3 - CHARACTER DESIGN
Talking about how Emmet actually looks. He's a construction worker dressed in orange and blue, with a yellow face and brown hair. His looks is almost like a blueprint for other construction workers with very little variation, so it could be worth talking about how his visual design fits into the storytelling. The fact that he looks like everyone else is a big part of his journey.
Sources to use - the film itself
PARAGRAPH 4 - REALISM VS REALISTIC
Talking about something looking "real enough" vs "photo-realistic". Almost like the two main points bordering the uncanny valley. The LEGO Movie is photorealistic, going as far as to scan in real LEGO elements and create new software for adding smudges and scratches.
Sources to use - "The LEGO Movie - Creating the Bricks", and online featurette published by Warner Bros., showcasing interviews with the directors and other crew members as to how the film was made and animated.
PARAGRAPH 5 - ON THE OTHER HAND (COMPARISON / ANTITHESIS)
Making sure I can display both sides of the argument. Comparing it to a somewhat similar film, LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers. Both are LEGO feature length films, starring a minifigure living in a large LEGO City, who at some point showcase skills in building pseudo-professionally. Both use different animation styles, and even handle the source material differently.
Sources to use - "LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers", LEGO's first attempt at a film starring minifigure characters, and the theme of building & imagination.
PARAGRAPH 6 - WHO CHARACTERS REPRESENT
Emmet embodies the ideals of the kid imagining the entire plot of The LEGO Movie, Finn. Meanwhile the antagonist, Lord Business, represents Finn's dad who demands rule following and perfection. Emmet, and by extension Finn, demonstrate core beliefs of imagination overcoming everything else when it comes to LEGO, instead of just sitting on a table not doing anything.
Sources to use - The LEGO Group's official list of values, specifically relating to imagination.
CONCLUSION
The end point, where I wrap it all up. Don't introduce new arguments or points, just summarise what I thought about the case presented, and then give my final thought.
Initial plan right now, things can change though. Paragraph subjects, sources, ordering is all game for editing.
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