Meline Study

Inspired by the short film 'Meet Meline' by Virginie Goyons and Sebastien Laban I have created a short piece of practice-based research as part of my media tests. This time, I chose to look at facial animation. To capture the childish nature of Meline I decided to try and recreate the scene at 4 mins 50 seconds, as she frantically tries to get her torch to relight, there is a brief moment of shock followed by rationality and childish curiosity. This was one of the moments that stood out to me even from the first viewing and I was excited to try and recreate the essence of the character using the Andy Rig.
Again, this proved a difficult excercise. Fortunatley for me the rig that i have downloaded is equipped with a very useful facial rig, with clear control shapes and flawless parameters. As well as enjoying this, i also got to experiment a lot about subtleties and exaggeration in facial animation.

One thing i have just realised is the lack of retina animation - after the initial shock her eyes would be expected to dart around as she further inspects that which has shocked her.

Gentlemen Test

Based on my analysis of the characters in Blur Studio's 'A Gentlemen's Duel', i created a very short animated sequence in Maya with a the Andy rig that i downloaded from creativecrash.com. Using the same rig customisation, and textures, i created two instances of the same character. Through animation I believe i have differentiated between the two characters. The small scene i devised was inside a hospital waiting room, where the two gentlemen are waiting to be seen to after being beaten up during their duel. Without clearly stating, I wonder if i have managed to communicate personality through animation by showing how each character would act in this situation.

Practise-based research, i predict, will be a crucial part of my research. Even from this simple, short excercise i have learned a lot about how personality is communicated through performance in animation. For one, it was a quite difficult process, thinking about what makes each character tick, and imagining how they would act based on how they move in the original short film.






The character on the left is the French Marquee and the character on the right is the English Sir :)
Did you get it right?

Did I get it right?!
This is what I hope to build upon and develop my skills in.

Meet Meline Study

'Meet Meline' by Virginie Goyons and Sebastien Laban (2009)

“Meline is a little girl who spends most of her time in her grand-parents barn, drawing. One day, a scared furry little creature gets lost in the barn. All excited about this mysterious creature, Meline will now try as hard as she can to approach it and discover it.”

Because of Meline's age, her personality is naturally very curious, and also easily pleased and easily scared. She is clumsy, but innocent, which is shown through her disregard of knocking things over, and interested in the things around her. She sniffs the air as she begins to look around for the mysterious creature. There is no hesitation of following it, only pure curiosity. She gasps loudly, her whole body freezing, at a slightest little noise. Yet when it comes to facing a dark section of the barn, she relies on a half-working torch before she will consider slowly advancing. She looks around herself, head darting here and there, and makes small whimpers. Easily you can notice the change of her mood. The contrast between childish curiosity and terrified uncertainty. Really like the motion of her furiously trying to get the torch to turn itself back on and her facial animation as she first sees the creature close up. The morphing of her emotions is beautiful. She looks almost disappinted, confused as to what she is seeing, and this changes to shocked and pleased as she notices the creature's babies. The childish innocence is really well captured, as well as stunningly represented in 3D.

Gentlemen's Duel Study

Wow, just wow.

'Gentemen's Duel' by Blur Studio (2006)

Very high quality short animation with a simple story. Two aristocrats are competing for the affection of the same lady. The situation escalates and eventually gets blown completley out of proportion, to hilarious measures.
Firstly, the character designs are fantastic. Stereotypical English lord versus Pompus French lord fighting over unrealistically beautiful lady with enormous breasts. The costumes of the two men reflect directly aspects of their personality. The englishman is wearing a smart brown outfit composed of lapels and a tie. His hair is combed neatly and his moustache is long and thin. There is a huge amount of expression from his eyebrows, which are large and extruded, which shows a lot of how he is feeling through their exaggerated movements. The frenchman is dressed much more outrageously, in much brighter colours and style, with bright gold buttons. In contrast to the Englishman we can see that he spends his wealth differently, is perhaps a lot more excentric. His hair is long, tied back in a low ponytail, adding to the typical fairytale hero look. Facial wise, his nose is very large compared to the other characters', as well as his entire chin and jawline. Although this makes him look more tough, i'm sensing more that it adds to the pompus attribute. So although the two main characters are very different, in many ways they are the same. They both want the same thing, after all. Even the robots that they use to battle with are reflective of their personality. The englishman has a steampunk style industrial design whereas the frenchman has a medieval, knight-in-shining-armor look to it, with cushions.
Moving away from design and looking at character animation, we see the two sides to the men first start to show as they begin to argue over the lady. Both begin with very smart, regal auras, straightening ties, holding hand behind back as he walks. The englishman's movements quickly become very rushed and jerky as he begins to get jealous and try to fight back against the frenchman's superior charm. The frenchman never quite matches his level of speed, always staying the more calm of the two, with slower movements with larger arcs. Little things like the frenchman being able to realign his own moustache without touching it add to the humor of the story as well as the character depth.
What seems to interest me most about this animation is the differences and similarities in the two main characters. They are both lords of some wealth and power, and both desire the affection of the breasty lady, yet their designs and personalities are different enough for them to stand alone.

As an excercise, here is a list of unique traits that belong to each character:
Sir Dingleberry
Skinny - design, pointy
Fumbles - says the wrong words, corrects himself
Polite - kisses hand
Smart - attire, straightens tie, Dull - colours
Childish - insults nationality and mother
Jumpy - moves quickly, hardly any inbetweens
Weak - fails to remove his glove first time, is surprised
Irritated - Has a growl to himself
Language - simple, to the point, posh
Unable to come up with comebacks
Neat - wipes mouth after tea
Marquee de Manstrumpet
Built - design, rounded
Charismatic - spins chair, invites
Flashy - colours of attire
Smooth - moves in arcs, slowly, carefully
Persuasive - continues to woo lady ignoring insults for a while, eyes on her
Calm - watches as the glove is removed, barely winces at the slap
Proud - only begins to care when he notices that his moustache is affected
Language - suave, illustrated words, talks to his dog

Personality Traits

A list of various personality traits and attributes found at
http://www.gurusoftware.com/GuruNet/Personal/Factors.htm
of varying relevance and inspiration.

Here I will be able to refer to these describing words as both inspiration for original characters and aid in describing pre-existing characters.

Concept Development

How Do You Communicate/Interpret Ideas?

How Do You Define a Story and Experience Ideas?

How people interpret ideas differently. What we see may not be what you see, but then, it is up to the individual what they choose to take away from a piece of art. Everything means different things to different people, and nothing is truly random.

Animated Shorts

Les Dangereux - A Ninja Love Story

The character animation in this is what really excited me. Visually, the models, although sleek, are very simple, and the style is not hugely complicated, and so, i believe, achiveable. Because the characters' mouths are covered, all their facial animation comes from their eyes and you can tell even more about what they are thinking through their body language. Black Ninja is clearly very relaxed, perhaps even bored as he sips his drink in the chair. Only when he turns and sees Red Ninja do we see his eyes widen hugely and his posture shift forwards. Red Ninja is very well trained and her movements are very strong as she beats up Black Ninja. As she is holding his gaze and sees that he is merely offering her a flower, her eyebrows relax and she lets her arms fall down slightly. The shot of the two hands, one trembling with the rose, the other slowly taking it, hesitating in the middle is very sweet. As Black Ninja is accidentily catapulted into the distance, Red Ninja stares after him lovingly and shocked, only to relax herself and slouch into a sigh. Her eyes glance down to the side in disappointment. They then perk up as she sees the note falling from the sky. Not only does this film hold huge appeal but it is also a perfect example of really great character animation.

Animated by Daniel Klug in Maya 2009, Mental Ray and After Effects.

Bridge - 4 animals trying to cross a bridge

The comedic value of the story to this short is priceless. 'The moral behind this story revolves around how there are often disagreements on competing paths in life, and the possible results of pride, abstinance, and compromise.' The differences between the characters is easily distinguished not only by character design but also by their reactions to the conflicts involved in the story. What i really liked about this animation was how all the different characters are shown through their animation. The big moose is very lazy, he yawns and scratches his backside. The bear is very proud, he walks with bouncing strides and a smile on his face. Bear is initially angry at meeting Moose in the middle of the bridge, and is the first to try and squeeze past. He rolls his eyes and growls, showing his impatience. Moose cannot get past him and gradually becomes angered also. Both refuse to turn around and go back the way they came, Moose by folding his arms defiantly and fearlessly and Bear by shaking his head and preparing a huge roar. This is interrupted, of course, by the raccoon, who is politely tapping on the back of Bear. Raccoon waves hello, friendly as he is, and seems to ask nicely if he can get past. Bear, the big meanie, picks up Raccoon roughly, bonks him on the head twice and throws him away, adding salt to the wounds. Bear resorts to trying to push Moose backwards forcingly, which knocks him into the rabbit. Rabbit seems impatient and wants past, grumbling about them being in the way, but is quickly put in his place as Moose kicks him off the bridge. Moose and Bear have in common that they won't move, and Rabbit and Raccoon have in common that they are able to come to compromises.

Animated by Ting Chain Tey in Photoshop, Maya, Corel Painter, After Effects, Adobe Premier Pro, Adobe Flash.

Scotland Loves Animation

Last Friday I was fortunate enough to attend an animation festival hosted in Edinburgh in which I watched talks filled with useful advice about the industry i am interested in working in, as well as participating in a group excercise to get more used to the way that projects are created in the industry. The speakers were a freelancer artist, producer at axis animation and animation director at Aardman.This was a very worthwhile experience and I left feeling inspired and more knowledgeable. I was able to work on my skills in working with strangers, out of my comfort zone, as well as listening to people who were once where i am now and managed to be successful.

I really feel the animation industry is one i am destined to join, whether it be through film & animation or games. We were told to think about what we could offer a company that they don't already have with someone else, and I feel that my research project this year shall allow me to stand out as a really great animation practitioner.

Pitch Feedback

My feedback from my pitch presentation was quite well recieved. I feel it went relatively well considering how nervous i was for it. I was advised to concentrate less on design as a part of my aim and accept that it will fall into place as one of my objectives and i should concentrate more on how a character can progress in a short story, a smaller space of time than a feature film. It was suggested that i look at one character playing many different roles in acting, such as the films Multiplicity and Sleuth. I should also think more about performance and character archetypes.
Thinking about methodology and associated literature to support my work is the next step.

'Despicable Me' Study

On watching the directors commentary (Chris Renaud & Pierre Coffin) of the animated production Despicable Me (Universal Pictures), I felt there were more than a few things mentioned that would apply to my project and help me through my development of it.

The character designs were done by Carter Goodrich, who worked on some of the Pixar films, namely Ratatouillie, he has a very distinct approach to human characters which broke away from the regular CG style. The character of Gru was designed to be appealing but also to look like a villain. One thing they concentrated on was his scarf. His character is established at the start of the film as someone who is not very nice to children, when he pops the little boy's balloon, and this is set up to change at the end of the film. The design has a sort of John Cleese, Mr Bean, Peter Sellers essence to it. His movements show that he has joy in his villainy, he loves being evil. His little dances and smiles as he uses his freeze-ray are examples of this.

The girls were originally designed to be very realisting but the design did not translate welll into CG at all, and so they made them much more stylised. The inspiration came from the Peanuts characters, the Simpsons, they are very graphic designs.

The minions started off like typical stormtrooper characters, but then became more like drones, little cloned mole people. There are literally countless numbers of them. There are 3 different body shapes, 6 different haircuts and 2 different eyes, with all the different combinations. Their voices are high, very stereotypical, but very effective.

Gru's very unique voice adds character to him beyond physical design.
Miss Hattie was designed as a nice person who says terrible things.

One thing the directors looked at was contrasts. Contrasts between Gru and his mother during his flashbacks and encountersn with her, between Gru and his minions, between Gru and Vector, it all adds to the comedy of the story. Gru's childhood is shown as why the character perhaps made the choices in life to follow the path of evil.

Vector was designed originally as a rival hero, but they decided a rival villain would be much more interesting. It's amazing how much of the original pitch is still present in the final film, the various milestones and the core of the story remained much the same.

The banker was designed as a Larry Flynt character, a quintessential heavy.

The scene where the foreign scientists test the shrink ray was one of the earliest scenes to be produced as it featured no main characters. The scene which follows highlights the differences between Gru and Vector's technology.

The minons speak french :O They gradually became a bigger and bigger part of the movie.

The scene where Gru is trying to break into Vector's house is portrayed as a Warner Brothers Wyle E Coyote style, with sharks eating him and missiles exploding at him yet he is alright in the end, keeps it humorous and not as threatening.

The girls were once all the same kind of character, mostly like Agnes' cute innocent type, but it was decided to split them into 3 elements, the cute innocent, the boyish rebel and the informed sensible one, which really informed the design. Edith has a kind of husky distinct voice, with a curious element to her. She has these little physical movements and you have to make effort to understand how she feels.

The timing and the pacing of the film were a huge issue. How do you know when it feels just right?

Great animation is trying to do something unexpected but identifiable.

Character arcs include also the small minon, the floating minion, and kyle the dog. As the characters progress through the story and chance, the environments gradually change with them too, such as the girls' bedroom.

In the end, Gru has completley changed how he feels about these girls, and this is shown by him kissing each of them goodnight. The reactions of the girls show their surprise and happiness of this through simple smiles and the warm lighting. This is immediatley given comedic value as the minions then each ask for a kiss goodnight.


I think this was definately a worthwhile excercise. The character of Gru alone is worth studying for his progression in personality and performance throughout the story and i plan to go into more depth about him during my research. I have also learned a few things regarding pacing and composition that i never really considered difficult until hearing professionals detailing their struggles.

Scary, not so scary.

Great White Shark



Lenny (Shark Tale)





  



Crocodile

Louis (Princess and the Frog)

 



Grizzly Bear



Kenai (Brother Bear)







Why are certian characters designed as dangerous animals in a cute way, and vise versa?

Thinking about why this is effective and why the designers made the decisions that they did.

What makes these characters appealing?

Audience manipulation seems to be a strong point here.

1st-3rd Years Pitch

11th October, 12pm-1:10pm

As part of my Professional Practise module I was required to manage a group of students while they made their pitch presentations. In my group i had a balanced mix of first to third years and i feel we all got along well and got through their presentations with relative ease and speed.
Moderation of this group of students was very easy indeed, as i am well aware with most aspects and modules of my course from all years, and i have spoken with others through the years who have taken the modules i have not. So i found it easy to relate to the work that each student was doing, and was able to offer friendly advice about where to research, perhaps what to concentrate on and where to steer clear from. I also encouraged other students to take part in advice discussions, such as the previous second years (newly third years) offering first-hand advice to the current second years. It was all pretty casual and relaxed. They all seemed on track with their ideas, and where there were worries, i assured that they would have no trouble with continuing their work. Obviously there were certain students who had a lot more to show than the others from their stage, but i think this can only be helpful for those who didn't have as much, in order for them to learn what is expected of them, and how they should manage their time around the pitch and crit weeks.
Time management did not seem to be a problem at all, which was surprising considering my group was one of the larger ones, with 3 first years where some had none. Everyone spoke for around 10-15 minutes each and we managed to get through everyone within an hour and ten minutes, meaning that time didn't drag on and as far as i'm aware no one had a chance to get bored :) I tried to allow everyone the same amount of time for advice and comments etc, but obviously some had more to say than others, as is natural.
Providing my own critical feedback was surprisingly easy, also. Each of them had so many great ideas and development that it was easy to smile and nod, giving little indications that they were doing well with their pitch, as well as highlighting areas and chatting about particular aspects after they had finished speaking. Personally i find it easy to be honest with people, and i tried to remind everyone to be realistic while remaining as creative as they feel like.
As far as advice went, i tried to suggest media that could be helpful for their research in their various modules, as well as idea development techniques for those struggling with idea generation - something we have all gotten expertise in during the last few weeks!
Personally i think what i did well was making everyone feel relaxed, and happy with their work. I introduced myself to everyone, tried to get people to learn names and such. I provided someone to aim the pitch at, through eye contact and friendly reactions. Where i would need to improve would be my knowledge base, as i found i couldn't really think of many games/animations for specific people to look at for inspiration, as well as familiarising myself with the problems i came across at the certain points of the three years of the course in order to provide more advice for the module submissions.
Moderating these pitch groups is definatley a test in confidence, as well as people management skills, and for me this is what i feel i am developing.

Surprisingly i never witnessed a single powerpoint presentation, which was always something i stressed about having in earlier years, but hopefully one of two of them with have a more structured presentation to show by crit week, when they have much more to talk about ;)

Now to worry about my own pitch. Nae worries.

Pitch Week

It's that time of the year again. Except there seems to be a bit more added pressure on us this year. Got my little team of computer artists years 1-3 on tuesday to mentor as well as my own pitch to my peers and staff on Friday. Most of the work i am going to do at the moment is going to be preparing for this presentation.
At the moment i have been working on refining my aims and objectives, and looking into context and rationale as well as questions i would like to answer during my research. I have also started to look at appropriate books and websites for inspiration and guidance.

Project Aim
To explore the relationship between character design and performance in conveying a character's personality and to demonstrate how one can manipulate the audience's interpretation of characters through this relationship.

Objectives
Review and evaluate existing literature and other media concerning character design for animation and discuss the effect of 'successful' character design.

Compare and contrast examples of character animation in regards to performance, to discover the extent to which it shows the character's personality.

Conduct practice-based research, experimenting with a range of character designs to identify how the use of design can affect personality in performance. Create and analyze examples of differing personalities.

Create an animated sequence which shows an original character design and the development of performance through a personality arc. Convey findings from research and experiments.

Evaluate research and analyze the importance of the research aim with reference to the created artifact. Evaluate how well the artifact meets the aim, and if there is any further research required.

Context
Animations, Films, Books
Previous researchers' work.
Character designs.

Rationale
Character Design, Character personality and Character performance are all interlinked.
Characters can totally being an animation to life,
Memorable characters are often those with depth.

Stages of Enquiry
What makes successful character design?
How do characters with different personalities differ in performance in animation?
How can performance lead the audience to believe there's more to characters beyond appearance?
Why would a character feel they need to act a certain way?
How can two characters who look the same act differently?
How can a personality arc be shown through performance?
What sort of trigger or influence would cause a personality arc?
Can a character design be deceiving?
Have people's expectations of characters changed since the dawn of animation?
Do stereotypes have a role in character design?

Personal Statement

Inspiration and Interests

Discuss what it is that inspires and interests you, and what type of creative project you would like to undertake for your honours year. Consider the work of other computer artists, designers, and musicians, as well as creative works such as animations, films, games, interactive media etc. What type of product or performance would you like to show case at the end of the honours year? I am inspired by all forms of art, mostly film and animation, but also games, magazines and music. My specific interests are character design and animation for animated films and the product i hope to create would be a short animation showcasing a single character design with concentration on personality through movement. With this i would be able to showcase what i learned and discovered this year through showing my practise based research and its impact on my final animation project.

Career and Creative Aims

Discuss what type of career you would like to pursue, if any. For instance, you may be specifically interested in a role as a character animator or in the animation industry more broadly. I would definatley want to work towards becoming a Character Animator, or even a junior artist. I'm willing to work on anything that is needed of me until i can get to that position, if necessary. Although my aim is to end up working on films and animation, i would definitely not dismiss employment in the games industry, as I already have a huge interest in gaming and game art.

Current Skills and Abilities

List and describe your current skills and abilities. This can include traditional art, design, and musical skills, as well as skill levels with computer packages such as 3DS Max and Photoshop. Traditional Art and sketching, Digital Painting in photoshop, vector art in Illustrator, Concept design, 3D modelling in Autodesk Maya,  2D animation in Flash, hand-drawn animation, 3D animation

Skill Gaps

Following on from the previous section, list and describe the skills and abilities you would like to acquire and/or develop. I would love to develop my skills in Sculpting in Zbrush/mudbox, Texturing, Rigging and Skinning faster, as well getting my animation skills to the highest standard!

Animation in Process, by Andrew Selby

With 'Animation in Process', by Andrew Selby, i was able to look at a few artists work and how they went from character design to character animation in their productions.

Pages 46-51
Motomichi Nakamura created a 3 minute animation in 2006 for a music video called 'We Share Our Mother's Health'. The song is performed by the band The Knife.

What is your own personal definition of animation?
It's one more way for visual artists to communicate ideas.

Motomichi created this animation with influences from the meanings within the song. He felt anger and pain from it, so he used these emotions in his concepts. For this project, he took on the roles of character designer, animator and director, because of his huge interest in being a part of the different stages and roles in the process. He started by imagining the key frames of the animation, before developing characters. He was involved in every part of the animation, which was created in flash 8.

What inspired me about reading this interview was his inspiration to be a part of both the design and the animation process, which i myself feel torn between.


Pages 60-67
Jerome Dernoncourt, Corentin Laplatte and Samuel Deroubaix created 'an animated triumph' in 2006 called 'Once Upon a Time'. The animation features steam-powered transportation and unlikely heroes in a largely black and white western setting.

What is your own personal definition of animation?
For me, animation like every other form of art, must convey emotions. Animation is no different to live-action movies in many respects, although we have far more creative license! We can create universes that can be either singular or complex with fewer means.

The animation features modern 3D CGI as well as primitive cut paper animation, as well as elements of live-action. 'Our characters are swept along by the action more than they create it.' In preparation for creating this film, the team immersed themselves in the genre, with a supply of visual references in the form of film shots, backgrounds, soundtracks. They experimented with the blending of animation techniques , using a hands-on approach to their development. They created a 3D animatic in order to correctly work out the pacing of the animation.

The juxtaposition of so many different elements in one animation is what makes this project interesting. They are apart, yet they fit together so well.


Pages 106-109
Also in 2006, Smith & Foulkes created a feelgood film for 'Coca-Cola Videogame', a game showcasing the brand. The game seems like your typical Grand Theft Auto style, until the tough exterior of the main character is changed by the magic of coke. Oh yes.

What is your own personal definition of animation?
We started off editing together bits of live-action footage with graphic elements along with more traditional drawn animation. To us it's about how to get the idea across, no matter what the technique. Animation is more the composite of all these, used to tell a story. When we write a script, for example, we focus on the ideas first, then when that works we might say 'Why don't we make the main character a puppet?' or 'Can we reduce the environment down to a single sketchy line?' That's why each of our jobs tends to be different from each other.

The main idea behind the animation was visualising the difference between good and bad by the difference between a restricted colour palette and full colour, with the product acting as the trigger. To help with the choreography, they hired a professional, to help with the big dancing scene in the animation. Timing was crucial.

What i find inspiring is their attitude towards their work. "We are as much influenced by trash TV as by High Art. As far as the animation industry goes, there are lots of great people making reat work, more so now because the easier access to technology has democratized the industry. You just have to make sure that you are doing the work the way you want to do it, rather than be distracted by others... You also just need to do stuff over and over again until it looks just right - if you're directing then your main skill is knowing when it looks just right." As well as the visual awesomeness of their game they produced, of course.


Pages 126-131
Also in 2006, Bafta award-winning Suzie Templeton created a half-hour long animation adaption of Peter and the Wolf. The film has a strong visual ambience, as well as a strong orchestral soundtrack. Because the film was an adaptation of an original story, she was cautious at first about the project, but was quickly filled with creative desire. The film was made as a stop motion animation, with sculpture models yet the animatic was created in autodesk maya. This project was much larger than the others i have looked at, with a crew of almost 200 people, all speaking various different languages.

What i take away from studying how this animation was made is the visual style, the production design, and how everything fits into place. The characters and the environments match the dark, gritty style of the story perfectly.


Suggested Reading:

Beck, J. Animation Art. London: Flame Tree Publishing Co. 2004.
Beckerman, H. Animation; The Whole Story. New York: Allworth Press. 2004.
Brophy, P. (ed). Kaboom!: Explosive Animation from Japan and America. Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art. 1994.
Bryman, A. Disney and His Worlds. London and New York: Routledge. 1995.
Byrne, E. & McQuillan, M. Deconstructing Disney. London and Sterling: Pluto Press. 1999.
Canemaker, J. (ed). Storytelling in Animation. Los Angeles: AFI. 1988.
Hoffer, T. Animation: A Reference Guide. Westport, Conn: Greenwood. 1981.
Roberts, S. Character Animation in 3D. Boston & Oxford: Focal Press. 2004.
Segar, L. Creating Unforgettable Characters. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1990.

Web Links:

www.animationarchive.org
www.animateonline.org
www.pelleas.net/aniTOP
www.aec.at/en/index.asp
asfarastheeyecansee.blogspot.com
asita.net/
www.awn.com
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/animation
www.cartoonbrew.com
www.centerforvisualmusic.org/index.html
coldhardflash.com
www.dataisnature.com
www.directorsnotes.com
drawn.ca
www.experimenta.org
feed.stashmedia.tv
www.fousdanim.org
www.fpsmagazine.com/blog/index.php
hydrocephalicbunny.blogspot.com
infosthetics.com
www.iotacenter.org
www.isea-web.org/eng/index.html
www.iewub.com
www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/M/mesh
motionographer.com
www.neyral.it
www.neurastenia.blogger.com.br
www.nfb.ca/splash/splash.php
dekku.blogspot.com
www.sat.qc.ca
gertie.animationstudies.org
www.stopmotionanimation.com
animationpodcast.com
www.year01.com

Mind Maps & Idea Generation

A few mind maps completed both individually for Professional Practice and in groups, in Concept Development class.

 Animation - broad mind map

Character Design/Performance - more specific

 

What Inspires/Motivates/Intruiges you?

Artists/Companies you've looked at?

Design

Characters that act the opposite to their appearance and it's expectations.
A theme in the characters i have been looking at seems to be that most of them are animals. We all have certain animals we believe are the scariest/cutest in the animal kingdom, so to see those expectations reversed is quite a strong contrast.



Dim



Rajah



Louis



Yzma




Chuckles



Baloo & Bageera





Lotso



Gru



Fairy Godmother & Prince Charming



Kronk



Bruce





Megamind



Personality

Memorable characters and Companies that produce them.

Characters Which Show a significant change in personality through their progression of the story.

Walt Disney Studios



Stitch



Beast



Jack





Kuzko

 Pixar Animation Studios



Boo





Sulley





Woody



Buzz



Dreamworks Pictures



Shrek



Studio Ghibli



Chihiro



What do i want to achieve?

I want to work in animation.
I'm really interested in character animation and design.
I want to make a short animation showing my skills that i can exhibit.
I'd like to concentrate on 1 character, making their design and personality outstanding.
I'd like to involve a simple story, with a simple environment, that can show what i have been studying.

A character who acts one way, that isn't how they normally would, because they feel they have to?
A character who changes personality, or opinions of something, and showing this change through performance?
A character who looks one way but acts the opposite?




Refined Aim.

To examine the interplay between character design and animation in coveying the personality of a character, and to demonstrate how character animation can manipulate spectator interpretation of personality through a story arc.
-courtesy of Robin Sloan ;)

Project Aims and objectives

As things start to get a bit more serious we have been encouraged to think about specifying an aim for our project, as well as respective objectives and the methods we will use to carry out these objectives. I have decided that the kind of project i have been looking into would have 3-4 objectives, and an aim in two parts.

This research aims to explore, investigate ... and ... ...

Review and evaluate.

Character Design and character animation. Design and personality of existing characters and discuss associated literature. As a whole, looking at character animation in general and how a character's personality is conveyed through performance.

Investigate and explain.

How a contemporary/historic character design which displays a personality arc. How this change in personality is shown through performance in an animated narrative. Specify. Characters which look like they should act a certain way, but in fact they are the opposite, and this is shown through performance.

Conduct practise-based research.

Experiments with a range of character designs based on existing characters. Perhaps an original idea. Discuss, breakdown, analyse findings.

Create Artifact.

An animated sequence which shows the development of an original character with a contradictive design and personality  featuring a change of personality through various triggers and influences. Show what you have learned through research.


Methods.
Storyboarding, media test/practice.