Showreel 2018

Loish is an artist I have always looked up to. I wanted to do animation course because of how inspired her work made me. I don’t know any other artist with a style like hers. Everything looks so effortless. I can only imagine how hard it actually is to make it seem like it is not. I just hope that one day I will be able to achieve the same results.

When we were told that we need to produce a showreel the first thing that came to my mind was this exact production that she had made years ago. I can’t even compare my showreel to hers ha I have a long way to get to her level.

Here it is! My baby!

Basically my year summed up in one video. Didn’t add even one video made in Maya. Still not friends with her. Maybe next year? You can see a lot of my work from Making of in this showreel, because I had enjoyed doing all the mini briefs for it. I have learned more about Photoshop because of them. Which I find to be a great thing. I have also become better at Stop motion animation. Slow clap for learning something new!

I am quite a slow learner so this is a big improvement for me. Might not seem like it but it is. I have also gotten used to drawing on cintiq which is making me happy.

 

 

 

The Paper set

Flop! Flop! Flop!!!

For my video essay I wanted to make a set and a little stop motion animation. I was mainly focused on making a set, but I had really wanted to make an animation as well. Sadly, I had not scheduled my time well enough for that to happen.  As I had previously stated in my blog posts – Illustrator is not my friend. My inspiration came from the couple Hari and Deepti that makes beautiful shadow boxes. All of their boxes were handmade.

I had wanted to use laser cutting machine for my project but that still required for me to cut everything myself in order to trace my work in Illustrator. In a way it was pointless, because I had already done all the job to make the light boxes. I would have needed expensive material to use the laser cutting machine and at that point I had already spent quite a lot of money on paper, foam boards, led lights and glue. So I dropped my initial idea and did my project by hand the same way as Hari and Deepti had.

I follow a lot of odd Instagram accounts and one of my favorite accounts is Hexenkult. He likes to post pictures from the pet cemeteries. I was inspired by his posts and I wanted to tell a story of a little boy who was missing his dog who had passed away recently. A little boy who had picked up flowers to put on his pets grave. Maybe if I had more time it would have been easier to tell what I was trying to get across.

I have to mention the led lights. I had bought cheap led light strips which were working fine, but once I had put them in my shadow box it was really hard to see them. I wish I had known how many led lights Hari and Deepti had used for their projects, because mine were just invisible. Maybe I had used paper that was a bit too thick? I had made prototypes with paper that wasn’t as thick as the paper that I had used for the final animation, but it would end up ripping apart from a gentle touch.

Although it was a bit of a flop, I did manage to do everything that I wanted to do. I just didn’t know how to make all the little details work together. I think my shadow boxes came out looking nice I just didn’t have the skill to make them work together. I liked this project. I would attempt to do it again. In my opinion, you could really make a great piece of work by following this technique. You just need to plan everything first.

 

Life drawing aka learning how to draw bodies

I really enjoyed our life drawing lecture. Finally, I got to do something that I can do and I understand.

I was studying fashion design in college and we would have life drawing classes every week. It’s quite fun. Even before I joined university I would attend and pay for life drawing classes just because I enjoy it so much. I find it to be quite relaxing.

Now that I am migrant worker I don’t have time to attend them anymore, but I would if the circumstances were different.

Learning camera angles

SO DO YOU WANT TO BE A STORYBOARD ARTIST? WELL GUESS WHAT IT IS TIME TO LEARN YOUR ANGLES MISSY.

 

Yet again, another subject that I haven’t paid that much attention to.

Long time ago I used to be into comic books and I would try drawing some comics myself – knowing the camera angles would definitely have made them more enjoyable to read and look at.

Before our lecture about camera angles I hadn’t even heard about ”dutch tilt”

Perspective, again

Shapes, vanishing points, horizon lines and brain power. 

I am still not great at perspective but I am learning.

I can admit that I do not pay a lot of attention to backgrounds. I enjoy drawing portraits, so I don’t ever really think about vanishing points or interior really.

To be honest it is not that hard to do a good perspective drawing, but I somehow haven’t managed to wrap my brain around it. Every time I try to draw interior it would take me a good half an hour to think about where each line has to go and then I can do a good drawing. Unfortunately I have to do that every time I try drawing one.

Floor Plan

Expectations vs reality

Doesn’t look like a nest does it? For my interior and exterior assignment I had made a home for little creatures that live in a nest. I did not know how to actually make that so I just created something very instead which was unrelated. Doesn’t really make sense but that is what I had done.

Besides me working on a different concept, floor planning is something that I want to get into because I think one could make a great set for stop-motion animation. Maybe one day I will be able to master it, but at the moment I am just a beginner.

I made a very simple house(as you can see in the pictures below) and tried to jazz it up a bit by adding some color to it. I think I could have tried adding some curtains and other little details to liven it up a bit though. Just something to keep in mind for the next project.

 

Making of: Statement of Intent for making video essay

 

What will you produce? ( a short explanation of the prototype you hope to create )

I am planning to produce a set made of paper inspired by light boxes for my short animation. Before I start working on my actual animation, I will work on my storyboards and experiment with different designs of different complexities and then I will know how complex should my design be.

The plan is to make different sets with contrasting lighting effects for various shots. I want to experiment with paper and see what type of shots I can come up with for the background.

Additionally, I want to create characters made of paper inspired by paper dolls. Paper doll characters will have a restrictive movement which could be advantage or disadvantage to my animation. The advantage of the paper doll would be that it would blend well into my environment. If the paper dolls will not work for the aesthetics that I am going for, then I will do my characters in 2D.

Rationale ( why this is of interest to you? )

I appreciate the effort that goes into this type of animation, also I find the end result aesthetically pleasing. In my opinion, this sort of animation resembles 2D animation and traditional art without it being one. I feel like I am capable of doing a good papercut animation. The paper doll joints also relate to 2D animation as 2D characters use rigs.

I have never tried making a set and characters out of paper, and I want to give it a go. I do not have much experience with stop motion either, it would be good to learn more about it.

 

Resources / Materials / Software needed
inc .Technician’s Time

For my production, I am planning to create 2 light boxes and various paper cut outs for the in between shots.

For the light boxes, I am planning to use paper cut outs, which will be separated with foam board strips. To bring my lightboxes to life, I want to use LED light strips that comes with a remote control which will help me to control the mood of the different shots. I am planning to spend quite a lot of time making the light boxes, because they are the most important part of my production.

I am not certain what will I do with characters just yet. I have to experiment with the paper dolls first to know if they will work for my animation. If the paper dolls will not work, I will make the characters in After Effects.

 

What is already known about the topic / background?

( history of the process / is there any pioneers or masters of this approach / technology , case studies  animations or practitioners that used the technique? If it is new and innovative – what does it enable you to do? )

When we were giving the assignment I already knew that I wanted to work with paper sets, so when I was doing my research on the subject I came across Hari & Deepti.

They are an artist duo that create masterpieces from paper and light.

 

Their work looks animated even though it isn’t. It looks fascinating.

 

After looking at Hari & Deepti’s Instagram I noticed that all of their papercuts are done by hand with scalpel. It is quite time consuming, so I am contemplating if I should try laser cutting instead. It will save me a lot of time and it will be more precise.

 

Laser Cutting

Laser cutting is technology that uses laser to cut different materials.

Once I found out that University of Salford afford students to try out laser cutting I was quite interested to give it a try myself. With laser cutting you can do various things such cutting, boring, and engraving material. I could already imagine myself trying to built a wooden set for stop motion or somehow try to include it into my projects.

Unfortunately the laser cutting workshop is on a different campus which makes it quite difficult for me to get to. That being said I still went to couple of the workshops and I found quite a lot about laser cutting. You have to be quite good at Illustrator to make your laser cutting projects. It’s all about the vectors. Personally I am not great at it therefor the whole laser cutting process scared me.When you use the machine you have to close the machine’s door because it produces toxic fumes which I guess would be logical, but it didn’t really occur to me before. You learn something new every day ha

We were shown different materials that you can use for the laser cutting. Which you can see in the pictures below.

Fable: Story boarding

Envisioning my fable coming to life

Camera angles