Character Design

Character Design - Muzzle & Beak

This semester in Character Design we got back to animals! For our first assignment, we had to design a character with a muzzle, and a character with a beak (only real animals). These characters will be used in a later animation lip sync assignment. I chose to design a desert mouse and an ostrich. This was slightly influenced by the dialogue clip I intend to animate to, as I wanted the character designs to fit the voices. See the full assignment after the break.

Lip Sync

Animation - Lip Sync

 

 

 

The first animation assignment of this semester is a lip sync. Of the provided track selections, I chose this one from Dazed and Confused. I chose it because it was a pretty rapid-fire line of dialogue and I thought I could get a lot of dramatic mouth shapes out if it. In hindsight, I wish I'd chosen one with slower dialogue so the animation could look smoother (it's on 2's, to help us learn the 'approximation factor' of lip sync). I like how the individual frames turned out, in part because I cleaned it up with soft pitt oil pencils which I recently, finally, got ahold of and fell in love with.

Leica Reel

Not Again! - Leica Reel

The last step in the assignment was to choose a scratch track and sound effects, and time the storyboards out into a leica reel. This is the culmination of the assignment, and the last work from last semester. My leica was one of those chosen to run on the in-school televisions, so if you stare at them long enough, you'll see it eventually.

The next posts will be work from the current semester, and as it's just begun updates won't be regular, but rather as I complete assignments. I'll still try to keep updates on Sundays and Wednesdays though.

Colour Keys

Not Again! - Colour Keys

A related assignment in painting class was to take four storyboard panels (which approximately tell the full story) and paint them. I decided to take the opportunity to create colour keys for my still in-progress Leica Reel. After the break, see the original storyboards, digital colour keys, and final gouache colour keys.

Storyboards

Not Again! - Storyboards

The next step in the process was to actually create the storyboard. Simple! Except I had a bit too much fun with this one and it ended up a bit longer than expected. Then at the turnover session, suggestions actually lengthened it. So, see the full storyboard after the break.

Beat Boards

Not Again! - Beat Boards

Our final assignment from last semester's storyboarding class was a lengthy and cumulative one. It began with a class discussion to choose a topic, and our class came up with a theme of 'Not Again!' It was a loose launching point from which we all developed our own story ideas for a short animation. From there we developed our beat boards and character lineups, which went through one pitch and review before these final boards.

Character Line-Up

Animal Life Drawing

Animal Life Drawing - ROM Skeletons

One of our field trips last semester was to the Royal Ontario Museum, where we had a 'life' drawing assignment - drawing animal skeletons, and later superimposing (from research) the flesh contours and at least three muscles onto the skeleton. The original drawings were about an hour in length. See all three that I completed after the break.