I'm Matthew, I am doing a BA (hons) course In CG arts. The art that inspires me is surrealism, one day I would like to be a game concept designer or animator.
this is a mixed animation of the walk cycle and the bouncing ball (I found the walk cycle very hard to do and as same with the bouncing ball, I struggle with consistent drawing scales as u may see the scle of the ball gets smaller till the end and the mans legs also change scale)
I'm going to be doing my essay up on Hanna Barbera, the animator is of two, with this essay I will look at slight history behind them, I will structure my essay on this plan.
Part 1 – Brief History-
Background Hanna and Barbera
Who they were and where they came from, and history
How did they become a team and before they became a team. Who and what they worked with
Other animators at the time
Did they all work together at one stage
Part 2 – what was happening at the time in animation, polotics socially and other areias of the arts,
Part 3 - Tom and Jerry and how they came about and why are they distinctive
Tom and Jerry
The chemistry between them.
The interaction, between the mouse and the cat,
Part 4 - Story boards and developed it, and whether it was a competitive team.
Principles of animation to practice
Part 5 - Compare with another animators at the same time
Who what/techniques/ when/ where/ how and why
What there style of work is/ trademark, and how you know its them and not Disney
Part 6 -
Back ground
( the books that I will be looking at for this essay are:
Tom and Jerry Fifty Years of cat and mouse
Cartoon Modern Style and design in fifties animation
These other, designs are ide say silent character designs, they play the a role only in the beginning of the actual story; and whether the debate on they should be very detailed or not...
through tracing the finalized sketches into my sketch booking using the light box, I then coloured the toad stools in. I did try to colour the toadstools on some scan I did but the water soked the paper and the coloure didnt merge very well. By tracing the characters into the book, this then got rid of the guide lines, I created in the first place.
I chose to colour these in water colour pencils, instead of felts due to that I could place the colour easyer on the character, and light and darks.
I adopted alisons story boreds to create a consistant character design sheet, the paper was thin enough to trace through and work out the other angles of the toad stool
The lines in the midle where to keep the mushroom consistant in scale on all sides the dificulty of this drawing was getting the spots the same with each other in each side, so it would look sense and to place then correctly. I geus this has yet to be a finalized pure design sheet yet.
The toadstool is depressed amongst the mushrooms and the mushrooms are jolly and happy bouncing around. The toad stool is depressed as he is the totally the odd one out and is ostracized due to this, so he leaves, on his travels for a batter life, it finally ends up with him meeting up with another patch of mushroom, not realizing till the end that they are all the same kind (1 part unhappy, 2 part. leaving and walking through woods depressed, 3 part. him meeting his own kind) the part i'm struggling on is the angles and how to tell this story with out it being 3 main boards, i i feel i need to think through the idea of other boards more, unlike the mermaid project being more action, I feel this has a struggle in being Iver far too drawn out or far to short...
here is a scan of a quick story bored I created the other day I feel maybe here I have some bones to the story boarding, I geus I need to expand up on this more...
this is my first ever animation, I'm very proud of this animation, its is 91 frames in total and is very quick but i think is nice and sweet =) and heve enjoyed creating it and working it all out.
This film I always link with my dad watching it, but since watching this film, and seeing how technically good this film was back in its day. the main thing that got me was the ground breaking technicality of the skeleton fight, with Jason, though very stutterer at times, it was interesting to watch.
If they brought out this film in CG, I would beg the question on, would it be as much technical as break through as this film, or would it become, like another bog standard CGI film that people take for granted and go WOW at. (if people know what I mean, and how I mean by that).
this is a later version of Jason and the Argonauts 2000, I don't think this one seems as great as the origenal...
The Clash of the Titans movie trailer seems brilliant with hard hitting effects. my quarm is have they pulled it too far away from its original storyline . . .
this is a trailer from the original clash of the titans...
this image is my most favorite, i feel that this week I've improved on my drawings and I enjoyed it, though most of the other drawings, I have had me struggles. This drawing I think being most successful though if I carried it on to the legs i think the right leg would may of become to fat, but at the time I couldn't see the legs properly, and I find the waist and the legs are my difficulty. though the image above I'm proud of due to the shading, though also another problem I like to resolve is the face, though I think I maybe going too hard on my self in the image, as I found this image being my most successful. =)
this drawing I struggled on, I, firstly started it off of it being really small, but then was to re start and enlarge it. I'm glad I also that I changed the feet in this pose at the last moment, though I found it hard to get the feet right. In my pictures I find it hard to create large depths of shading and tone, and find my shading becoming scratchy.
this image was the first drawing, very blank as I found it hard to find an easel at the beginning and I came in late in the session.
this one again I find it hard to get large depths and to imagine dark tones on the figure, and to also find it hard to the light and dark textures. another thing that I'm finding hard is the hair, and on how to try and get the hair right when drawing it.
this image I really do like the shading up on this peace, though the foot at the end needs a bit more work on it, but in general I found this one a really good small drawing.
I am nervous blogging this due to that I'm scared that it looks like an instant fix, I wont use the sight, due to any feedback I may get, I'm throwing the site out there to see whether i should or shouldn't use it as a guide...
The time machine essay, I'm really struggling, today I finally worked out the contempory animation I'm going to work from with in the essay which is "Family Guy", (no this is not my excuse to watch episodes of family guy)
I chose it due to it is completely controversial to the beliefs and views of family back then.
but in general I feel I haven't seen the light to that essay yet, I feel queezy and stuck.
The animation Essay, I'm basing it up on Hanna and Barbera, they produced classic cartoons like: Smurfs, Tom and Gerry, Snorks, TOP CAT!, and many more.
This cartoon image shows all of who they created.
I have many books I have grabbed from the library that I still need to reference, in-which I will do so tomorrow.
King Kong, was actually a pretty cool film, if I was looking at it from back, then, I'd be impressed, and the actual, fight with the T-Rex was really funny. though I found the women did scream nearly all the way through the film, and the film didn't do women much justes either I found you could see that, the old personer of the "weak women" came through in this film due to the era, and also the racial stigma with in the film.
This film was actually really cool, i was amazed on how smooth the animations where at the time, in the back of my head I was thinking this could make a cool CG movie, though I saying that, I think that would wreck it, in a strange way.
The latest ideas I'm having for my toadstool idea is coming along better.
I'm trying different poses to try and get a 3D image in my head about what it looks like, and to also express, the depressed feeling with in the toadstools
Here I'm experimenting casting back to using the rim of the toadstool, as the eye brows. here is a quick study of another type of toad stool its self, I think it's too late in the day to start changing character designs.
This idea was suggestedby Allison, of using the spots of the toadstool to be the face, though my opinion I think this maybe turning it into a literal face again. Here I'm experimenting with the two mediums with water. (water colour pen and pen) most of the work on here was coloured by water colour pencils.
This is my most favorite pose, it was quite free, and nice to draw, I also liked the way in which we where allowed to draw it in any way. This was a nice image, But I have problems in getting the legs right, I found the legs being far too short, I ran out of time for when I went to correct them, I don't enjoy measuring the proportions of the body and I find my eyes start to itch and water, and my pencil moving around. these two pieces I enjoyed again quite free to how to draw them. In general I tend to not enjoy life drawing as I feel that I don't know how add in the shades and the textures of the skin, so things become flat, and I struggle on proportions. And I tend to generally get frustrated with my work.
the one on the far right seems to have a better look so far, though the ones on the left seem also nice to try and work with, though not sure yet, I still have tuns of concepts to create, and still have to scan my latest ideas in...
Edweard Muybridge (9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904) was one of the first ever film pioneers of his time. The revelations came about when someone challenged him to get a picture of a horse in mid flight. He did this by setting up cameras in a roe, as the horse ran past, the horse would trip the cameras to flash and take pictures.
Muybridges' work intrigued scientists on how the muscles worked so allot of his later works where of people jumping around and doing acrobats.
The development of chronophotography enhanced, film and photography.
This Is a slight off shoot from the project but very helpful to understand on how to act out and present your character, as I said in an earlier blog, the actor would have masks to hide their main facial expression, while the mask its self has the expression on, the actor had to use his body language to express the feeling of the mask.
When I came to do this in drama my self, we used masks with NO expression, I remember the teacher saying that the idea was to catch the eye of the audience. The experience was hard as you had to use your hole body, but fun.
(the masks and is quotes from http://www.theatrehistory.com/italian/commedia_dell_arte_001.html)
"In the course of the development of the Commedia dell'arte, there grew up certain traditions which held fast for many years. The rascally servant, the old man, the lady's maid, and the like--stock characters which appeared in every play--always wore a conventional dress, with masks. In general these masks may be classed under four or five groups: Pantalone and the Doctor, both old men; the Captain, a young man of adventure; the valet or jester, usually called Zanni; the hunchback Punchinello; and another old man, somewhat different from the first two."
with in these images I've used less expression, as the others, the others where full of obvious expression, with arms and mouths and faces, doing all the work, after talking to Phil the other day he mentioned not to have these areas to do all the work for the object, but to have the body to express the feeling, of what the toadstool is thinking.
I feel through every drawing, I do I'm getting closer to my final goal, and to finally be exceeding it and bring my final character Idea to the table. though I have used less expression with in these concepts and using the idea of Wallis and Grommet, and using the idea of the eye brows to hint the emotion.
after talking to Phil again he said to take out all the facial emotions all together. this reminds me of a french mime act, though immediately this also reminded me of a style of drama, I did school, I cant remember the name of the act but or genre of the type of drama. But I'm sure it was I'ver Greek or Italian, and was one of the first type of panto styled ways of acting. BUT the actors, wore blank masks to blank there facial emotions, and then act out all there emotions through their body actions.
(but this I must find out more about that style of drama it may become very beneficial)
Sadly some tutorials are still missing, in which is frustrating as I know that I did them
after a stressful day and at uni, I have finally got and learnt how to put my maya onto blogger, and have goten over my pain and struggle, I'm still uncertain on why the blasting wouldn't work at home, BIG NOTE TAKEN... ASK QUESTIONS EARLIER AND don't be scared
It is very hard to find and make out the difforence between what is a toadstool and a Mushroom. by searches, I think a toadstool is more slender than a mushroom being more fatter These are commonly visualized toadstools, the classic red top and white spots. These are the starts of my character designs. after what Phil said this morning, I wont be using faces and arms to emphasize, characterize, the Toadstools expression. I was also looking walk cycles as well during this and how maybe it would react if squished, to help me I used Colins, idea of points of movement from point A - B.
This is the Toadstool dance from fantasia I like the dance routine and the way they move.
Todays lecture feedback was I found was really good and Phil picked up some key personal points and traits that I'm sufferring from, though. I'm having problems with maya is an area where I, play blast, it keeps coming up unable to create file
I'm really not sure what is going wrong
anyhow I'm proud of my final story bored, I feel that it turned out better than I had expected.
The Biggest dumb thing I didn't do was get my CD ready but that will be defiantly ready for this coming Monday.
The next project is something that I'm highly looking forward to, I got:
THE MELANCHOLY, TOADSTOOL
I have a lot of character like images falling into my head already, so I really cant wait, when Phil said about bringing an inanimate object tolife, Iinstandtly though of beauty and the beast
being that my character is depressive I'm thinking of taking some reference of Malvin, the manickly depressed robot from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
