Experimental Self Portrait

Fantasy samurai animation - self assessment

This is an animation of a character I've been drawing recently, as character design practice and because it's fun having a consistent character or remnants of a narrative even in test animations.
The action is the character going from a standing position to drawing his weapon and being in a fighting stance. Before I went into this animation I looked up a video of a man unsheathing a samurai sword and went through it frame by frame to identify the storytelling key poses and I thumb nailed them on paper, this was helpful because I found nuances I wouldn't have thought of otherwise, like the small twist of the hand on the handle before he pulls the sword, or the position directly afterwards. Once I had some rough thumbnails I sketched how different parts of the body would move more specifically, like the arms moving the sword around so it's facing forward or how the legs drop into a crouching stance.
This was a useful exercise to do in preparation for this animation as it informed the movement and meant I wasn't going in blind, I also did some characters sketches in preparation so I would understand the anatomy of the character.
Obviously at the moment this is quite rough, it's mostly inbetweened but clearly missing some, I may take this further and clean it up but generally this was just a practice and I think I achieved what I set out to do, figured out a more informed process to creating real feeling animation.
I also focused on the timing as I think one of my weaknesses as an animator is having uniform timing creating boring movement, I think this animation has more interesting timing that gives it more of a sense of weight then maybe some of my older animation.
I think the character animation in this piece is quite weak however, it doesn't communicate much intent or emotion which could perhaps be improved with the facial animation, which took a backseat to the primary movement in this test.

Head turn animation self assessment

My goal with doing this animation was to see how I've progressed from this exercise in the first term, and I think I've improved on some things. From last term one of the my biggest goals was maintaining volume, so I drew a character with more rudimentary shapes that form it's design which I think worked quite well.
However one thing that suffered from this is I don't think there is a lot of character in the movement, it's a simple A to B movement without much flair or even body movement. In the future I want to be more creative with breakdowns to create a sense of character through body language because this is quite a bland head turn. Maybe if I started adding more context to these learning exercises it'd help me create more character, even if that's just in my head knowing why a character is turning their head so I could infuse some sort of emotional motivation into the movement rather than just an robotic action.
I am pleased with how the hair moves considering hair has been an issue for me in both my illustration and animation, and it looks fairly natural here, it doesn't look quite as jarring as my precious attempts anyway.

Using animation creatively to create a compelling scene - Samurai Jack scene analysis

The fight scene is a staple of the action genre, in both tv and film the spectacle of a fight is often as important narratively and thematically as the dialogue, and also very enjoyable to the audience to watch. Recently I went to see John Wick 2, a movie in which the uber stylized violence is it's main selling point, it's engaging because it presents these violent scenes in a creative and engaging way, breaking the mold of budget bourne flicks. It also made me start thinking about good fight scenes in tv and film in general, and it was interesting that this particular scene from Samurai Jack, a children's show, stood out to me. This is a scene that I last saw as a kid watching cartoon network, maybe ten years ago, and this one scene still came to the forefront of my mind when I started thinking about good action scenes. So naturally I wanted to come back to this scene to see exactly what it is that burnt it into my memory.
I really love this scene because it uses the medium so creatively, utilizing only black and white for the majority of the fight, creating a stark contrast between the two characters fighting and the environment in which they're occupying. It's also a very strong narrative choice, making the entire scene in black and white, including characters. It makes the fight really clear to the audience, the characters have relatively similar silhouettes but you know who's who by the color coding, not only does it make the scene very easy to read but it creates a good vs evil dynamic which makes it that much more compelling, there are no distractions and it just looks great.
Visually it's a very flat scene, the environment made up of columns and beams which don't really seem to occupy a 3d space, but the characters do move through 3d space, which definitely builds the tension of the fight, it gives a sense of disorientation, not being able to read the environment, which brings you into the fight as the characters disappear into their corresponding color, leaving the other guessing where they are, the audience being equally as confused. This makes the fight very engaging, bringing the audience into how the protagonist feels and consistently raising the stakes by having the sun setting, leaving less and less of the light which Jack can hide in, but just as the entire screen is filled with black Jack defeats the enemy, creating payoff to the tension and creating a very satisfying victory.
    

Style exploration

This is a short animation I did because I started to feel like I hadn't done any animation for myself in a while, so I did this in a style which I've always wanted to develop. I used this geometric, lineless style when I made a short film in sixth form to try to save time, as line boils are less of an issues because you aren't dealing with things like variable line weight, but the more I used it the more I found I really like how it looks in motion and I think with some more practice I can make it seem more professional and considered. Next time I do an animation in this style I think I'm going to try two things, a really big, dynamic motion, and a subtle character acting shot with facial expressions. I want to do this to try to push myself out of my comfort zone and make it seem really appealing. One issue with this shot is that the head shape is very inconsistent and morphs by the end of it, but overall I quite like it, I may try to push the details more like giving the hands fingers as a next step.

A digital painting study of Joseph Zbukvic's work

As part of the 2d background project we've been set we have to draw inspiration from an existing painter, I have chosen Joseph Zbukvic as my source of inspiration as I really like the sense of atmosphere in his work. I think it lends itself quite well to animation as he does a really good job of telling stories and conveying mood using color. For example the painting I attempted to replicate on the right conveys quite a miserable tone, this comes from the very drained color pallete, the only bright colors are the reflections in the water coming from various sources of light and the shops canvas. This stark contrast draws attention to the lack of color in other areas and pushes the dreary atmosphere by implying that the floor is wet with the lights. It's also interesting to note that the colors tend to merge together in a way, they're fairly close together which creates a link between the miserable weather and the population of the town. Speaking of the population, the people put into the painting all seem to be trying to get out of the cold, hunched over or holding an umbrella nobody is hanging around to chat, further pushing the mood of the piece.

I attempted to replicate the painting in photoshop, as I don't have any history with painting at all really, so I have some learning to do. I think looking back some glaring issues are the form, there are more clear edges or borders as there is in the original painting, and obviously I'm missing a lot of elements, like the people and cars, and detail on the buildings. Moving forward with digital painting I'm going to focus on tying down specific forms and shapes rather than general splashes of paint.

The merits of making terrible art, and accepting it

I have a lot of stories I want to tell, and I find that paradoxically the more I want to tell a story the less likely it is that I'll actually make it. I think every artist or film maker has a project or story they've wanted to make since a young age, their 'magnum opus', I know I do. But the trouble is I assign such great value to these projects that actually making the damn thing becomes an impossible, mammoth task which I will never consider myself good enough to do justice in my mind, because this is my perfect idea that's been brewing in my mind for years, it has to be great! So I end up just doing little designs and writing story arcs that I know aren't perfect so I put them aside for when I have the technical skill to improve them, but that's where the problem lies, being an artist is always progress and never perfection. So seeing these projects as the best I can possibly do naturally means that I'll never actually do it because I am always in a state of learning and improving. So I guess that's why I haven't actually made my best selling epic 500 page sci-fi graphic novel that I've been writing since I was 14.

My point is that worrying that I can always make something better is stopping me from making anything at all, I only seem to be productive when I let go of the idea that the quality of the final product is a reflection of me as a person, or artist. It's better to accept that anything I make will be imperfect, but it's better to have something finished, because even if I make something at what I consider the peak of my abilities after even a week I'll look back and see glaring errors. So for me this is where the value of experimenting, having fun, not worrying about the end result and just making SOMETHING. In the same way as a kid I would just slam paints onto the page and have a whale of a time and not spend 4 months trying to craft an insightful subtext. I think what I consider to be my best animations exemplify this, they are the stories I want to tell in their purest forms, from my mind to paper, even if they aren't really any good they say something about me.

Obviously I'm not saying that taking on ambitious projects is a bad thing, I still want to make these stories I've been holding onto my whole life, but for now I gain a whole load more from animating a dumb joke at 3am, because it's finished.  

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew (A reflection on my productivity and bad habits)

I'm currently writing this in my universities library under the pretense that I can't leave until I write a blog post, since I seem to have fallen behind in posting weekly, which I think quite nicely sets the scene for the subject of this post. I've been recently struggling to self motivate myself to work, which is odd considering that I really genuinely enjoy the work which I have to do, but I've just gotten myself stuck in a circle of preparing to work but never taking the plunge into becoming productive, and it doesn't help that no matter how much work I do it never feels significant enough to be considered 'enough' due to how much work I have set. I think part of the reason for this is that the stakes are quite high in terms of failing, dropping out, disappointing the people who supported me to get here, and potentially destroying my future career opportunities, if we're thinking catastrophically that is anyway. And of course this way of thinking is daft, letting my mind fall into the consequences of not doing work will only further increase the chances of me doing nothing that day but feeling dreadful for not doing any work, but it's a habit that I fall more into the more I fall behind (Obviously I am a model student though if you're reading this, Dad).

I think if I am to move forward in a more productive manner I need to overcome the initial hurdle of the intimidation, I think a good place to start with this is by setting myself smaller, more achievable targets for each day and each week. This is something I have started to do in some capacity already, I've started to assign myself tasks that I must complete in a day on a post-it note at the start of the day, this way my mind isn't trying to spread itself so thin trying to accomplish as much as possible resulting in achieving nothing. It's ticking boxes and feeling relaxed doing so because I have sorted my workload into chunks that create a parameter for a feeling of being 'productive' in which I can relax knowing that I have that goal to work towards.

I think by setting myself these smaller targets starting working is a much less daunting task, since it's realistic and achievable, and if I do this daily I keep myself productive in a way in which I can stay on top of a large set of projects without it feeling like I'm taking on an impossible task.

Experimental Self Portrait Project Brainstorming

I have been brainstorming my experimental project for a while since reading the brief, as I wasn't sure how to create a movie in self portrait, what aspect of myself to focus on and how to portray that in a creative way. My first idea was to have my life experiences as individual playing cards, and making animations on actual playing cards portraying moments of my life that have formed who I am today. The idea being all the cards in the deck go in the box, and that is me, but I don't really like that idea because I don't have much personal connection to the object, playing cards, and I don't think it fully made much sense to be honest.
I ended up settling on the idea of photography, as when I think back photography has always had some significant presence in my life and a lot of my most important memories. And I think photography in general is quite closely linked to the idea of memories, capturing a moment in time and looking back on it is what we do not only when we take a photograph but when we make memories.

So I have decided to base my experimental self portrait film in a dark room, being a metaphor for my mind and the drying photographs representing my memories, significant events, places, people that have informed who I am today. And the images in the chemicals represent memories forming, coming from the outside world, through the camera and developed as a still shot of a moment in time, set up to dry in the dark room with the other images. Since the dark room is essentially my mind I won't be drawing an explicit representation of me, but rather a silhouette that processes the images as I process memories. I want the piece to look roughly like the image above, the only way you can see the figure is by the lights highlighting the edges, like a uv light in a dark room. I also like the idea of having the look of degraded film over the entire movie but I'm not sure how to achieve that affect, I'll have to look into it.
My current plan in terms of the animation is to first animate it in tv paint, then print out the frames, cut them out, and animate it physically using actual red lights to create the affect I want, I'm not entirely sure what method I want to use currently however so I'll have to do some animation tests and try to find out what best creates the tone and mood which I want.
In terms of 'narrative' I don't think I want to follow a conventional narrative, but rather just an exploration of the metaphor, and my personal experience with memories and the significant points in my life, good and bad, which form how I am today. It's more of a reflection than a story.  

Wild west town moodboard/visual research

The seeds of a personal project

The following pieces of artwork all belong to a small film project which I am working on, it follows the protagonist (the fellow in the blue jacket next to the policeman) and his experiences with the stress of life and lack of identity.

 The idea is that his life feels like chaos and he has lost control, feeling like a stranger in his own city and paranoid that his every action will fall under the judgment of the seemingly all seeing police, as if he is going to be prosecuted for the fact that the screen on his face doesn't display a color like every other citizen, but rather just white noise, this is a narrative device to represent the characters anxiety and paranoia in a place he doesn't feel he belongs.




(left) This is a piece of concept art depicting the style I want the film to be in, color is an important theme of the movie so I think this style will accentuate those elements more than a lined style.

(left) This is simply me playing with shots that I have visualized in my head, trying to get a better grasp of the visual storytelling and composition which I want to implement. This particular image is a young citizen being harassed (possibly violently) by a police officer, this is not a happy place to live.

(left) Again, me visualizing potential shots, this one being overtly inspired by a sequence in 'Taxi Driver', That movie depicts loneliness very well so I am studying it's storytelling methods, particularly with how it uses the camera to isolate the protagonist in the sequence this shot is inspired by.

More personal animations

A loop of a person jogging a marathon, I think the timing needs some adjustment on this one

Animatic/keyframes of a frog knight stealing a piece of fruit, I like this character I might do some more animation around this