LAUAN 503 - Character and Narrative Week 6

Week six has been an exciting week as our animation began to move. Gabbi and Rhys began roughing the animations which so far look super effective. All three of us shot reference video to aid the process. The feed back from the Friday presentation was surprisingly positive- after big set backs that we experienced after changing the story and so being behind it was a real positive this week to receive some good feedback.
However, my personal progress on the project this week has been limited as I took the beginning of the week to complete the backlog of tasks that had built up. Due to this I only completed a few backgrounds this week. On the flip side, I will now have more available time to complete backgrounds and assets for AE and begin to animate.

One of the completed assets - the spaceship:

LAUAN 503 Study Task 3 - Research- Post 2

Aesthetic limitations of 2D Animation 

Working only in two planes can have some limitations. J.K Riki posts the idea that 2D to the viewer seems less relatable, when we quotes ''simply that 3D animation is more real'' (J.K Riki, 2015). Riki notes an interesting point, considering that animation is clearly not real life. It is a limitation of the medium then that perhaps the viewer is too disassociated with the visual to connect to the story or narrative. This relates to another limitation of 2D that perhaps Riki was touching on: that 2D can sometimes seem boring. Without that extra plane or the tactile qualities of stop motion, 2D can be less dynamic and visually satisfying, which arguably is true for the production process but too for the viewer. The popularity of 3D feature films compared to 2D in industry currently is a reflection of this. For example, the 2018 Oscars with three of the five nominated films for 'Best Animated Feature' were CGI, hinting towards the decline in its practice and favourability.

Quote source:

• https://www.animatorisland.com/why-should-2d-animation-be-abandoned-part-2-plus-why-not/?v=79cba1185463

LAUAN 503 Study Task 3 - Research- Post 1

Production Benefits of 2D Animation 

2D animation had an enormity of benefits. One of these is its simplicity in production and viewing, especially when compared to a medium such as 3D. Stephani Belota builds on this point and incorporates the topic of advertising when he notes ''...a clean design is often more effective in advertising, because it more clearly coneys the advertiser's message to the viewer''(Belota, 2015). As Belota noted, 2D is especially useful when time is not abundant and the story has to be communicated quickly and efficiently. Efficiency also translates over into production as there are fewer and more simple steps involved in producing a 2D animation. 

Quote source:

• https://ezinearticles.com/?Benefits-of-2D-Animation&id=9065542

LAUAN 503 Character and Narrative - Casting Workshop Four

In our final session of casting, we began by demolding our silicon two park mold from last session. This worked very well. There were no bubbles in the silion, the textures and shapes had been molded perfectly, there was some flashing as to be expected but cleaning up the cast was an easy task. Next, we painted the first layer of silicon onto each side of our molds. This was to accurately capture all the textures and shape in the mold as today's thicker sillion mix wouldn't do so itself. We then made a wire armature to run the inside of our mold and after mixing the thicker silicon, we then poured and pressed armature in and taped the mold together.

Demolding:
Demolding the silion was a success. Due to the shape of the mold and its extremely thin tips, the wire has moved slightly out of place and through the shape of the mold, which with practice would not happen again. However once more, the silicon was well mixed, there were no bubbles and after cutting down the flashing the cast was a success.

Summary :
I really enjoyed the casting work shops, the skills and mediums we have learned and experimented with are so translatable. I will almost definitely be returning to practice and utilise the facilities and skills we've been taught. Overall the casts and molds I have made have worked well, demonstrating that I understand and learned the processes.

LAUAN 503 Character and Narrative - Casting Workshop Three

Workshop three was not such a renowned success. Firstly, while demolding our two part mold, mine broke into aprox five pieces. However, this was to be expected as unknowingly I chose quite a fiddle object. The mold was still usable. After scraping the cray of to be recycled and soft soaping our molds, I taped mine back together for the wax mold.
On one hand my mold did work, the wax was contained very well and I demolded it at the right time as the wax had completely set. However, on the other hand, due to undercuts in my mold, demolding the wax was totally unsuccessful. It broke twice. Nonetheless, wax is a very brittle substance to work with and with such a fiddly mold, it was almost to be expected.
Next we learned about the ratio of silion to the bonding agent (1.1/10), mixed thoroughly and poured into our mold to set for next session. 

 

LAUAN 503 Character and Narrative - Casting Workshop Two

In our second casting workshop we began by de-molding the first half of our mold from the previous session. This involved scraping the clay of to be recycled and sanding down the edges of the plaster. We also repeated this process for the silicon skin mold. Once complete we glazed both molds with soft soap, which makes the final demolding much easier. After at least five coats, I poured the second part of the plaster mold onto the first.
I finished the texture plate by layering the silicon up by painting it on. This method was super simple and really effective. I also experimented with painting a wire armature into another silicon skin to create a skin that would hold a shape.
Today's session was a huge success, I was able to work quickly and learned fast. My texture plate was of good quality and I really enjoyed all the processes.

 

 

LAUAN 503 Character and Narrative - Week 5

Week five has been quite intense. I have been putting long hours into this project to catch up but as of yet, we are still behind. On Friday evening I completed the visual for the animatic. This was a huge win as during this week we changed the story twice. This meant that about half of the storyboards and animatic had to be reconstructed. As a result, after Fridays presentations I felt a huge loss of confidence in the animation. The beginning of next week, all being well, we should be ready to animate- aprox 26 seconds each.
WWW- the extensive story development has meant that the story and character are much more cohesive, the animatic visuals are complete, made one background which got some great feed back in the presentation.
EBI- Create background layouts ASAP is essential as they will be necessary to animate certain sections, catching up next week too would be great, working more quickly as a team is very necessary.

Animatic -without sound :

Background:

LAUAN 503 Character and Narrative - Week 4

Friday's presentation revealed that the character design and storyboards were still incomplete (Rhys and Gabbi's roles). This set us further back as a group. Due to MAF, I was away from working until Friday, which too proved an issue. Without my forward motion the group seemed to have stopped working on the project- which was disappointing. However, on returning on Friday we made some good progress. The character design is almost complete and the storyboards were complete but due to development on the story, they will have to be updated. I completed the animatic with all the available storyboards and included place holder sounds.
Next, my task will be to update the animatic with the new story inclusions, designate sections for us each to animate, start on the background lay outs and colouring and book a sound booth for sound design.

Due to the group being unproductive I have now found myself with more work to complete. I took the animatic into my own hands as I was expecting it to be well underway/ complete on my return from MAF. Personally, I will now have to work twice as hard to get back on task.

WWW- Productively used available time, moving forwards at a good pace, animatic looking promising, completed storyboards are great
EBI- Catch up on work, find time to do backgrounds, come together more as a group and work faster and more efficiently.

Animatic So Far:

LAUAN 503 Character and Narrative - Week 3

This week development continued. I began with logos, exploring space imagery and using secondary imagery for inspiration. The concept out comes of this exercise were really nice and will be reproached further down the line. Also, after being inspired on hearing that Disney produced 50 'ice castles' for Frozen, I undertook the self set task of drawing 50 rockets, 10 houses and filling an A2 page of development background layouts. This exercise was very useful and the design and final layout definitely became more refined. However it didn't necessarily take the project any closer to completion. By the end of the week the storyboards were roughed but incomplete, the character design was incomplete and the animatic was nonexistent. This left our group slightly behind target.

WWW- Good practice and development of style, storyboards exist, admin and organisation good on my behalf.

EBI- Pace is quite slow, slightly behind as a group, lacking drive and speed of working as a team.

Concept space logos designed this week: