Matt has asked, if we are to re-use our characters from last year, to try and redesign them slightly.
I decided to age Fifi by a few years. In my designs last year, I made her around the age of 11-13. This year, she is now around 16 years old.
I have also re-designed her head slightly. Last year, her head was an ‘oval’ turned on it’s side (resembling a rugby ball shape) I looked over some of these designs, and the head wasn’t matching coherently with the rest of the body-style. So now, I have designed her face to be a “portrait” ‘oval’ to compliment the body nicely.
I have also changed her hair slightly for a different “style”. It is still a ’bob’ haircut, but the hair can now have more “expression” and “flexibility” so it can be animated better to suit her new face-shape and style.
I also wanted to try drawing Fifi in different clothes too. I had a lot of fun designing outfits for Fifi to wear last year, and my main inspiration for outfits this year is from the blog “The Sartorialist”.
Here is the link to the blog:
http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
The fashion blog is updated constantly with photos of completely random people on the streets of big cities around the world. The people that are photographed are chosen based on their style and outfits. It showcases an incredible variety of people and their outfits and personal style as well as their personalities and is a very influential blog that covers “current” styles and outfits around the world. The photos are fantastic, and I adore the outfits and people shown.
On a page of designs for Fifi, I started to draw her with outfits shown on the blog. I found several posts where I particularly liked the outfit shown, and I the drew Fifi in it.
It’s a great source of reference for me when designing characters. I think it’s because I love trying to figure out what the people photographed are like. Where do they work? What do they sound like? What are their personalities? What are their backgrounds? The photographs always capture the essence of the person, and I love to study these photos and create them as characters on paper as well as in my head. They inspire me. I believe this source of inspiration is relevant to my intended direction in my course of animation, not only because I love drawing the outfits, but because I love to develop characters, and this blog is a great resource for me to fuel my inspiration for that.
I also started planning ideas for the first animation exercise.
The brief: “Animate your character trying to open something that refuses to open”
The first ideas - Fifi struggling to open
-a door (of some sort)
-a box of sweets/biscuits
-her chest of drawers/wardrobe
-a package of some kind
…etc…
I then decided to create a scene…I began to doodle some ideas for what she could be wearing. I drew her in a dressing-gown and pajamas. I then had an idea of creating a scene where she’d just come downstairs to have her breakfast (toast and jam) and having her struggling to open the jam jar. I decided to choose this idea, as I immediately stage it on paper with the kitchen work-surface being present with all her “ingredients” in the scene around her. I then drew some quicker sketches of little ‘reactions’ she could do when trying to open the jam jar.
I then went on to planning out the entire sequence roughly on paper.
I began by writing (down the left-hand side of the paper), the main “actions” at each stage of the sequence. I then went on to draw little rough thumbnails of the actions. These slightly differ to those written to the left-hand side of the page, as I was then “visualising” the sequence as I was drawing, and new ideas came into my head overriding the old ones. I also drew little arrows to identify specific actions and arcs I should be aware of when starting to animate. I will keep this page with me when animating to refer back to and make sure I keep on track and to make sure I’m pacing the actions correctly.
Next week I will begin animating the scene.
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3D: Stop motion session- Week 3
I attended the Stopmotion session again this week with Austin Charlesworth.
In this week’s session, her gave everyone a piece of plasticine that we were asked to mould into a character. He then asked everyone to animate their character “lifting a heavy object”. As I am only an observer to these sessions, I made sure I didn’t hinder anyone having a turn to animate before myself. Unfortunately, this meant I couldn’t animate anything again this week, though I will try and do something in a few weeks time perhaps. We have been told that a model-maker from Aardman Studios will be coming in soon to give some model-making tips which I will definitely attend.
In the session, we watched an episode of “Fireman Sam” which Austin had worked on. We had to watch it carefully and consider who the characters ‘interacted with objects’. From a character picking up a piece of paper, to a character holding a water-hose, we had to study the way weight was displayed successfully to help us in the task set.
Austin then talked to us about different materials, what they were called and how they were used in stop motion animation etc.
As we were on the subject of materials, Austin then started to talk about the differences stop motion had to the other mediums used in animation. He said that, above all the mediums, with all their advantages and disadvantages, stop motion animation can never be beaten in the display of ‘texture’. In that, no other form could texture really be shown in all it’s glory.
However good CGI is, it can never compare with real puppets and real materials in a real setting. There is something that is altogether more genuine and wholesome about stop motion that can never be artificially re-created in other mediums.
I totally understood and agreed with this statement, and I think it is this very point which most interests me with the stop motion form. I love to study the sets and environments in stop motion animated films. I love to see all the little tiny props lovingly and carefully made for the films, the characters included. It is an art form that goes so very unappreciated in modern society that it is almost cruel! The people who work, create and make these sets, these props and these characters are truly amazing! I think it is this point that is so important in my own thoughts and ideas for future work. If I am able to incorporate real texture and depth into any pieces of animation I create in my lifetime, I’ll consider myself lucky!
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