So before I get into my work towards LIAF, I want to take a quick second to cover Preproduction and Concept Art. Specifically looking at one of my favourite concept artists Matt Rhodes.
Firstly looking at his character design. One of the most important parts about a Character Animation course strangly is character. Matt mainly works as a video game concept artists but I think his exploration of shapes and colour is applicable to any media. His work really focuses on details and exploration of characterization, each outfit and drawing seen above tells us something different about the character. The smaller concepts defiantly give off this butch scavenger vibe, which we can see he’s made to look slightly more feminine in the final concept, using blues to really mellow out the over all concept despite still keeping the scavenger vibe. The first design is way more cult like and completely off for her Character but it’s useful to record the idea for later characters or to see the process of evolution and thought in his art. All ideas are useful but not all ideas and perfect fit for a certain project.
Now what I always loved so much about Matts style pieces, so how they feel like a snap shot of a story, they really capture an atmosphere. There is a wonderful online Lecture from Matt where he describes his process and says one quote that I love so much and try to implement into my own art.
I was assigned to work with Clo, who striaght away from looking through there blog I loved their artwork. I was able to get in contact with her quickly, and she sent me a PDF the next week with all the character design information she needed doing. I have so far only done characer sheets for her trying to simplify her style and make character turn arounds. I would love to keep working with her over Easter, try to do some background and animation work.
Did you complete the Work? What feedback did you recieve?
Unfortunatly Clo had some second guesses about her film which halted my work abit after the second character sheet. All of us tried to encourage her that her story was fun and really inspiring on her plans to use mixed medium. Not sure if I really got through to her about how excited I was to work on her project, but I know what ever she decides will be amazing and im fully avalible to keep workin on it.
What could you have improved on?
I’m pretty confident with my character designs and turn arounds since its something I’ve been doing for years professionally and for fun. I wish I could have done something alittle more out of my comfort zone but I understand i was there to support my second year and not demanmd certain roles from them. Over Easter I’ll be sure to ask for more complicated work or something very different. The only thing I could have really improved on was the speed at which I worked.
How does the Role you were given relate to the industry?
Pretty standard, she gave me quick and consise feedback about style and what she wanted and it actually felt alot easier than most commission work I’ve done.
Did you enjoy the experiance?
Absolutely I loved Clos film idea and style, I was so excited to start helpinh out on it and I hope she still wants help over Easter!
What was successful during the collabortation?
I’m honestly very nevrous talking to anyone, so I tend to deflect any situation with humor, or trying to make people laugh on first meeting me so there is less of a professional scary enviroment. I still don’t know if thats the correct way to approach a situation like this but, Clo definetly made me feel more confident in my abillities and how to collaberate with someone I’d never really met before.
What was challenging about the experiance?
The biggest challenge i think was Clo’s confidence if she does decided to changer her movie basically 1/3 of the work I did for her can’t be used. Of course that is nothing compared to the amount of work she will have to do if she changes her mind, but its still annoying haha.
What new skills/ techniques did you learn?
I was alittle worried I wasn’t going to be able to adapt to Clo’s style, but I did a better job than I thoguht and she seemed really happy with the outcome. I definitely learned to have a bit more faith im myself.
How did you utilize the skills you gave learned so far on this course?
This course has been amazing for me I’ve learned so much and improved so much in animation. I’m having the best time with the best people. That being said again character design is kind of my thing before this course, so other than the specific character design lectures that really forced me to push my character designs and think about details that show their personality.
What would you bring into your practice from this experiance?
Confidence! Also thinking about how i can designate work to others as well when we work in a group. I’m hopefully working ina group on the 48 hour animation competition and I’m just going to keep on trying to build my skills and confidence.
Messing around with shapes and trying to add a fun hand roll that I saw in a point and click murder mystery game called Tangle Tower. The animation in this game was stunning and it made me really want to think about little details and movements that can add to the personality of a character. So I tried to add in a little hand roll to show this guy thinks highly of himself pulse a huge reveal at the end. I put a lot of movement into this so I’ll try to make my next lip sync more simple. Over all though I’m so happy with the outcome of this piece, I worked really hard on the lip movements and making it feel like he was actually saying the words. Lip sync was the thing I was most scared about but I think it might be something I have found I’m best at. Other than that I do need to work on my shapes more, some parts still feel messy and could be smoothed with understanding base shapes more. Vanessa has a lecture on 3D forms coming up so I hope I can get some good advice on that.
So this was originally us attempting to get into the Barbican conservatory, but there was filming there when we arrived and it was closed to the public. I wonder what they were filming… Anyway we went for a wander around the Barbican and man it gave me such liminal energy. It was a pretty rainy day so no one was around, so it really felt like I was in a video game environment that was yet to populated, like I was a Beta tester.
After a bit of wandering we found the Museum of London. My girlfriend was still staying with me at the time, and she is a costume designer (just saying she has worked on Netflix series the Witcher and the `Welsh Millennium Centre) so I was getting a lot of good insight into costume design from here and how literally no one cares about historical accuracy because most of the time it looks stupid, so people pick and choose aesthetics. That’s probably why fantasy stuff appeals to me so much just it’s just the best bits.
My girlfriend came to visit and we managed to do quite a bit while she was down. We did the London dungeon, which I haven’t been to since I was about 12 and man I really love how much those actors have to get into it, I hope they are paid enough… but they probably aren’t. We also managed to make it to the London Zoo on the same days. I feel so basic that my favourite animals are always just goats. I want a pet goat. The gibbons also weren’t there so the goats had an automatic win that would have been given to the gibbons if they were about.
My sister came across from Wales to visit for a weekend. So a bunch of us went to the Wellcome Collection not fare from the uni. Always fun to see the weird shit this Henry Wellcome guy collected (cough cough definitely not stolen), Victorians were messed up. One of the best things about taking my sister here was her confusing reading all the plaques saying “Why does this guy Henry keep welcoming me”
A couple of us went to the V&A museum, after the first term. Seeing their whole exhibition on period costuming was stunning and all of us were talking about character design, and it was especially interesting to hear Luna’s opinion on historical accuracy, when her presentation had also been about it. I also have a real soft spot for classical art especially religious art. I love trying to decipher the story from a signal image, and the emotions of the characters. I think that’s why I first went into illustration to try and display just a scene of a story, and let the audience guess.
