Dominique’s Animation year 1 blog, BA1b Part 2

  Week 4 (Week 31) (11 th of May 2018) During mid-week I added my mystery box work to my show reel, I also tempted to make a moving logo stamp in after effects but was very not overly effective, however I was able to do some animated movement. However I finally completed it after Re saving my animated work and adding it in. Overall, I found this task easy, yet at the same time frustrating. I really enjoyed editing, and making the footage fit to the beat and making the quick cuts. I do wish I had personalised it more with logos, and practised further on my motion graphics skills in adobe after effects to further hence the personation, as standing out is important. I find it frustrating when logging back into premier pro because files keep going missing, which is rather upsetting because the programme decides not to work. I am also having issues with finding most of my animations, a lot of clips do not work with premier pro. When I redo this next year, I will prepare fo...

Week 10, (Week 31) (11th of May, 2018) This week was my final week to complete everything, as its deadline week. Luckily, I managed to complete all my work in time. Tuesday, I spent time working (in After Effects) on editing the   green screen out in my video, I found a useful tutorial on how to improve parts that became pixelated after keying. Wednesday, I finished editing my final sequence for the mystery box, adding in my drawn background, animating it to move with my armature when she walks. I also, using shape too (then editing) added lights that flickered to the street lamps in the background. I also experimented with the 'starburst effect', editing and animating it to explode from the box once its opened and disappear after its closed for a more dramatic effect. Additionally, I also added a rain effect, to fit the background scenery and give extra atmosphere. Thursday, I spent the day making my Experimental Reel, using Premier Pro. I show from the concept art, maque...

 This is my Show reel for the year, from September 2017- May 2018 I did have some animations go missing, that I was not able to add, and had to restart this last night on an much older version of Premier Pro (2015), but I was able to complete.

I have finally created my Experimental Reel for the stop motion Project. I have used Adobe Premier Pro, and all of my footage, pictures and drawings that I recorded during the making of my animation for 'The Mystery Box' brief.

My completed, edited scene of the Mystery Box Project. I have edited this to the best of my abilities, however I do feel this could be made much better. I am not happy with the pixel edges around the box, however after many failed attempts I was still not able to remove this. Perhaps after much more research, and practise I would have found a solution to this. I also wanted to add a glow effect to the box, but was not sure how to achieve the look I wanted. But with experimentation, I was able to get the effect (despite not perfected) for the lambs, seen in my animatic. Also, instead of the light/ glow effect, I experimented and found a different effect, despite not being what I originally wanted, I think its strange and effective. Overall the animation itself is not perfect, and the walk cycle failed as I was unable to balance my model (I believe I made her shoes to heavy and thick that the pins failed to keep stable inside them. As mentioned before, I had to use a sponge underne...

I decided to look for more inspiration for my show reel in tutorials.

I decided to look into more ways of animating an in intro, looking into logos to make my show reel more memorable and much more personalisation.

I thought I would personalise my show reel with motion graphic text to create an better impression, I am yet to attempt  this myself in Adobe After Effects, but the idea of animating text in Adobe After Effects and then exporting in Premier is a great idea. Even if I am not able to follow this tutorial directly, I can use my new skills animating in After Effects from the Lip Sync Project to aid me and experimentation to make cool text.

Week 3 (Week 30) (4 th of May 2018) This week I decided to research into how to make moving titles and logos in after effects for premiere Pro and other tutorials that may be helpful. I also added more to my show reel, However I am struggling to find my animation footage still, so currently not all work is there.

Week 3 (Week 30) (4 th of May 2018) This week I carried on drawing the mouths in Photoshop, and continuing research on the side. Once completing all of the layered drawings, I saved each face with the different mouth as an image and then edited it in Photoshop to make my very own mouth chart. Once I finished this, I began animating my lip sync till it was complete. I am happy how it came out, it was a quick process and I am now confident in animating in After Effects, however animating took a day and a half as a kept re editing it to fit the sounds perfectly, I which I used a longer sound track so I could further experiment with the facial expressions I could make.   

I finally finished my lip sync video; At first it took me a while to draw all of the lips, drawing them from scratch on photoshop with reference sheets from research online. When it came to animation it, the only time consuming part was refining it to perfectly hit the sound note and referencing my mouth chart. This was the quickest and smoothest animating, and this enabled me to become much more confident in animating in Adobe After Effects. I now know how to rotate, animate changing size, position and such. It was also very interesting learning how to Lip Sync, which was soon easy to grasp. I Look forward to using this technology in future projects. Personally I feel I could have done better design and drawn mouths, but as this was a quick project I only used my mouse instead of a drawing graphics tablet to get more refined details. I could also later aim to ad more expressive looks, to fit the words and moods being set, how ever we were limited to the sounds we could use, mine tha...

Week 9, (Week 30) (Friday the 4 th of May, 2018) Mystery Box This week was very hectic. I tried to make the heels once again out of milliput, this time making it directly onto the wire. However, it did not set in time, and whilst I tried to dry them out overnight, one of the shoes fell off. On Monday I had to cut off parts of my puppets legs off (The foam and skin), Brake off the Milliput and sand it down. I then formed the Legs wire into feet. Because of this, my puppet became greatly shorter and less like her original design. I then began making her feet again, (the fourth attempt) using Milliput. This time a much simpler design without heels. I left it to dry and collected the next day, (In an over 24 hour period of time) taking her feet to be drilled by the 3D workshop, enabling her feet to be pinned for balance when it comes to doing the stop motion. Once the hard part of the feet was done, I focused on sorting the head out. I repainted the front, painted the added w...

This is my stop motion footage, the unfinished version using DragonFrame (At 24F/P). I am yet to edit the green screen (keying it, and adding my background) and add effects using Adobe After Effects. Unfortunately I had issues in keeping my puppet balanced and stable. The pins would not hold her feet down. Especially when and after I tried to do a walk cycle. I found not have one foot even lightly in the air with only the use of the pins. I had to use what I could find, luckily there was a green sponge being used as a pin cushion, that I used to stable her. Although I knew it would making editing harder and also mess with the physical movement of her skirt, it was green enabling it to  be masked hopfully. Unfortunately, using the sponge gave much limits, and her walk cycle did not function. As she begins to walk it skips in time and gives a much unrelastic and failed walk, sadly.

http://tubularinsights.com/key-green-screen/ How-to Key Green Screen Footage with Adobe After Effects When I keyed my green screen background, I had pixelated edges, some parts of the box had gone opaque and some parts of the background was still there due to some rough batches in the green screen. Not sure how resolve this, I decided to do some researching. I found an article on how to make my screening much bolder and clearer, with an YouTube video as guidance. I learned how to use the effects after keying. This is the result after using keying and the effects.

http://daily-iowan.com/2018/03/06/shaw-incredibles-2-is-going-to-be-a-fantastic-feminist-film/ ‘Incredibles 2 should be praised for the appearance of a movement that is so important for young children to understand correctly.’ ‘Shaw: “Incredibles 2”  is going to be a fantastic feminist film’ ‘Elastigirl will be the hotshot hero in the film this time around. Although, from the looks of the trailer, there will still be a lot of focus on Mr. Incredible and his parenting. This showcases a great message to the youth of our world that gender roles are not cemented, they are rather flexible. In a healthy and strong relationship, spouses will work hard to support their significant others in their strides toward success.’ What I have learnt from this article;  These article debates that the new trailer showcasing incredible 2 shows an empowering messaging of feminism, that alters the traditional nuclear family rules. Where genders do not defy the rules each family mem...

Overall what I learnt from this website; a concept artist creates designs and visual experimental art for different aspects of a film, tv program, game etc. They can create art focused on lighting, colour, body language, envoirments, characters, objects and furniture. Bringing idea to life, and looking at different aspects and perspectives of design. The process begins with ‘thumbnailing rough drawings’, strong ideas are developed into ‘rendered’ ‘digitally painted’ pieces, which the art direct sees and makes comments, which the artist will work too until it’s perfect and able to be used as reference. - work is very competitive and limited. https://conceptartempire.com/what-is-concept-artist/ ‘A concept artist is a designer who visualizes & creates art for characters, creatures, vehicles, environments, and other creative assets. Concept art is used to visualize ideas so that modelers, animators, and VFX teams can make these ideas ready for production.’ ‘ Here’s a sample wo...

http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles_and_stories/job_roles/3072_concept_artist Information I have found from  this site; ➖ no qualifications needed or specific training.  However, ‘ To do this role, you will need to: have up-to-date knowledge of computer illustration software packages be skilled in film imagery understand what Directors, Directors of Photography and Editors require from a scene  have excellent illustration skills be a strong communicator visualise perspective and 3D space have a keen interest in design, architecture and film visually interpret other people's ideas be flexible and adapt to change when asked work as part of a team know about relevant health and safety legislation and procedures’ ➖ pre production work, ‘working up to six months before filming begins’ . ➖ concept artists work free lance. There job; ‘ Concept Artists work on big budget sci-fi, fantasy or historical films where visual and special effects create design spe...

Week 2 (Week 29) (27 th of April 2018) Show reel This week I had an introduction into Premier Pro and learnt some techniques; for example how to mute the sound track in one part (without slicing), how to resolve images that don’t fit (in a fun and upbeat way.) And other basic stuff such as saving, adding text ect. I made a experimental show reel as a test, and once I finished I began creating my own.

Week 2 (Week 29) (27 th of April 2018) This week, with my concept design as reference I began drawing the head and face in Photoshop using the pre made layers linked to after effects. As the drawings were supposed to be simple, I used a simple mouse instead of using a drawing graphic tablet. I also researched into mouth shapes, and then began drawing out my mouths.

 Week 8, (week 29) April the 27th Mystery box This weekend I searched Jarrold for another material for the feet. Once again, they did not sell sculpey. However, the staff recommended Fimo for professional modelling. Available was ‘soft’ sets, ‘effect’ and ‘professional’ (Which is suggested use for doll making) they had variety of colours, and luckily they had a maroon red that fitted well with the fabric colour I used for her dress and gloves. Which also meant I may not need to decorate the feet as much after. On Monday, I repainted the ball black, adding more coats of paint. After it dried I then applied a white circle on one side, to make the 8 ball detail for the back, decided it would look better then sticking on the painted paper. Whilst I waited for the paints to dry, I began sculpting and modelling the shoes. ‘Fimo’ was very hard, and took a while to soften after intense massaging in my palms. Once it was softened, I added layers to a tinfoil foot and then blended ...