Weekly Reflection - My Tradtional Work Review

Weekly Reflection - My Traditional Work Review

 After progressing from my first year in animation this year i decided to reflect and review some of my old traditional work and see how they make me feel about how i want to progress this year and what skills i want to improve and develop on. I've used many different types of mediums in my work however i do feel that i rely heavily on ink based mediums such as fine liners, markers and ink and brush. looking at my work from this angle i think i want to aim to improve and increase my use of paint. i do very little paint work except water colour however i don't use water straight from the pan and use watercolour pencils for maximum control. i feel i should remove this safety net of control over my work and do more experimental work with paint from tube and pan.

For my traditional media improvement i also want to learn how to use oils and acrylics as its the only mediums I've not used in my work at all in the past year. i feel that this will be done outside my course time and will be a personal development for me myself to achieve and not for my studies or course contribution. My work is very illustrative based with high amounts of detail, i feel that this is the reason i have not improved on or build upon my painting skills because i will be frustrated on losing the level of detail I'm used to until I've achieved a very high skill level in these areas. 

Although I've pointed out these areas of improvement I'm still very happy and confident in my abilities as a traditional illustrator ans know that when put to the task i can always produce a high level of work to complete a brief or commission set to me. i feel that by looking at my old traditional work i will be able to set my self targets to achieve from them in this year of my course and also combine them with future modules so that not only do i make personal achievements but also academic ones too. Although digital media is a prominent form of art today i think it's still important to cater to my traditional skills in case these skills are ever needed for future briefs where they request for non digital media outcomes. I'd rather be balanced in both forms of artwork rather then only being capable of producing one to a high standard and the other non at all.

After reflecting upon these issues and points at the end of this academic year i will review and evaluate my progression in traditional aspects and how they have helped me during this year and how i have advanced in my skill outset.

Weekly Reflection - My own Digital Work Review

Collection of my own digital works

Owned by me the artist Vouschtein 

Since starting my animation course in the past year i decided to reflect and review upon my progress made in my skills in digital  painting. I feel that this has been my greatest skill advancement as i have quickly learned many different skills, utilities and method and techniques that i can use to make my work achieve a higher level. I'm defiantly more confident in my digital media skills as i only knew how to make basic sketches and block coloured images previously. now i am highly adapted to using all of the tools to my availability and adding textures and layer effects to create what standard of work i want to and now feel confident that i can take on work and commissions to sell my artwork.

My areas of improvement lye in using masking tools and the pen tool more. i usually use the brush tool to line my artwork as i find the pen tool to be quite awkward and clumsy at times. however i know these are key areas to advance upon and are a must to complete my skill set and understanding of programs such as Photoshop. i have also advanced in cross program knowledge being able to use the full adobe creative suite which includes programs such as illustrator and flash. to keep on-top of my knowledge base I'm constantly researching new and upcoming programs so that i may beta test or trial them and see what new technological advancements have been achieved in program development.

Here i have created a short archive of my recent artwork made in the past year since before and after learning my new skill sets. i feel that there is a great contrast

 in some of my work ranging from highly illustrative comic based images to more abstract and realistic paintings.

after viewing and reviewing my digital artwork i feel that i have still much more to learn and that in this year i will work towards improving on my skills whilst maintaining the time to learn new skills in 3D modelling as i know some digital  painters combine the two to create artwork and my goal is to be able how to understand to do this for my own work.

Module 2 Evaluation - Final Loop Steps

Final loop process

For this module I have been tasked with the objective of animating my character through techniques and creating a loop of my character at the end. To complete this task I first looked at several different examples of contemporary animations. This helped me decide how I should use my character and how he should be animated. The examples that I found and researched showed me that some forms of animation are more suited to certain themes.

Firstly I scanned each frame of my rota-scoped animation loop into the computer. Then I loaded each image into photoshop making sure that they were all the same resolution and dimensions.

I compiled all of the images into one file on separate layers. This is so that when it comes to animating the images I can hide the layers to show the next frame.

After organizing and appropriately naming the layers for easier use I removed the white background from each layer. This is so that the color of the character can show through without having to overlay the line work. This is to avoid any inconsistencies that overlaying would cause the the coloration of the line work. I done this by using the want tool on the white area of the image and selected clear from the edit selections in the menu bar. By doing this I was left with a transparent background

I used a layer separate from all others as the bottom background white layer. After this is started colouring up each different line work paired with that frame. using my model sheets from the previous module I was able to accurately colour my character and keep him consistent throughout my work. After all of the layers had been coloured up I opened up photoshops motion workspace and began creating frames. In each frame I hid and showed the correct layers and colours so that when I selected playback the animation I had originally rota-scoped played as a digital animation. After the playback showed the animation working I began to work out the timing of each frame. I made the frames that ended in my character completing a movement longer and the flexing movements quicker to emulate realistic movements.

 

I kept track of my work by keeping all of my development pieces and a guide to how I done my work. For my final animation I created a kick cycle for my character that I learned to animate in photoshop. I had always had confidence animating my character on paper but I had only used photoshop for digital painting so it was interesting to learn how to finally animate in colour on photoshop.

I enjoyed looking at all the different types of animation. They helped me realise what I should do with my character and they he is more suited for a 2d animation style and technique. However I stuggled for a while animating him. I found it difficult to make my character do the actions and poses he was meant to while rota-scoping. I grew very frustrated with this because i couldn’t advance anywhere with my animations. I feel like I wasted a lot of time being stuck on this. If I could have changed anything I would have went back and realised quicker that I needed to take a step back and just research kick and punch sequences.

In this version of my final animation I added cell shaded aspects to my final loop. To do this I selected a frame and placed an overlay layer in-between the line work and the colour. This is so that the line work isn’t altered to prevent any inconsistencies in the line work as the animation plays. I think that it has worked very well and makes the animation a lot less flat.

Animation Possibilities - Research

Animation techniques

I have considered the following techniques to use for my character and listed reason why I would or would not and how they would be achieved and the problems that they may cause.

Rota-scoping

I think a rota-scoped animation for my character would look good because the model sheets that I created for him suited him really well and I would possibly like to transit that look over into this animation. The only problem that I see with it is getting the poses and loops to look perfect with his movements being really dynamic and action like. If I went for this option I would have to further research poses and different cycles.  

3D animation

3D animation would suit my character also. I had experience last year modelling an animal like character. I know that this would take a long time and that I may not get it finished because of the complexity of the character. If I was to go down this route id have to consider if Id even get it finished. Also id be doing the same as last year and not presenting anything different.

Puppet animation

I’ve never been able to build a puppet before so It did make me want to possibly make one for my final animation.  I think id have a lot of problems with my characters awkward proportions because he is heavier on his top half and it would just make the puppet fall over. I cant redesign my character to suit this either because its an important characteristic that influences who he is. 

silhouette animation

After looking at animations such as kungfu panda and Motomichi's music videos I was interested my silhouetted animations and thought it could work well with my character as he does martial arts and it would give that tone of Asian influences to it.

pixel animation

I thought of possibly creating a pixelated animation due to the relation with fighting games. Since my character is an expert in martial arts I thought it would be fun to demonstrate this through pixel animation as if it were a fighting game. The problem with this route would be the time consumption it would take and the fact I’m not experienced in that sort of art. It would be a good way to learn but I don’t think it would convey how emotional my character is also.