Animation Practise Work
In groups we had to come up with our own animation idea that was 15 seconds long and it had to be funny. In my group we looked up some funny little animations on youtube for inspirtation help.
We looked at videos like these
I particually liked the first one with the wilder beast. We decided we wanted to create somerthing simple with no talking. We wanted to have a character who was trying to do something and the audience is expecting a certain out come then it has a twist.
We came up with this clumsy knight idea. He wants to slay a dragon but you think hes so clumsy he will just get eaten so we wanted a twist where the dragon would get defeated somehow but the knight thinks he did it when he didnt.
We split into 3. Knight animator/designer, Dragon animator/designer and background/props designer. I was in charge of the knight.
I designed a body then I tried out some different faces.
Animation practise. Very simple walk cycle only on 2's and partly symbol animation. Final will mainly be all drawn and will be animated on 1's.
Animation process
I firstly animated the knight pulling out his sword and falling over. I thought in this bit the knight stays in the same place and it would be good to animate this bit first as its one of the bigger movements the knight makes. The timing on this had to be right.
In our animatic we had the knight falling over then struggling with his helmet for the rest of the time until he lifts the visor up and sees the dragon knocked out. I wasnt quite sure how to animate this. Having him struggle while holding his sword sounded tricky. Someone in the feedback group suggested the knight falls over and is knocked out because it wouldnt matter if the visor fell down anyway because you can see through it. I thought that made sense and would be slightly easier to animate. I did more of the animation with the knight jumping in, being knocked out and then getting up at the end.
The animation for the knight getting up at the end I had done wasnt very good. I dont think you could realistically lift yourself up like that. I then struggled on how to get the knight to stand up. I ended up filming myslef getting up and this help massively. I then talked to the rest of my group and Chris said he didnt want the knight to be knocked out for most of the animation he still wanted a bit of struggling before he lifted his visor.
I then used what I had animated and added all the bits I needed to do. The struggling and getting up was the hardest and longest part to animate. Eventually I got it done and coloured.
The final peice
11 Second Club
"You mind if I give you a bit of advice? of course you know this because your a smart guy... You should never make important desicions while your upset".
I started to think about ideas. Something that these words could fit with. I had one idea for it - A character standing on a bridge is about to jump off. Someone walking passed stops and see him. They start to say "You mind if I give you a bit of advice?" as saying this the other character had his foot off the edge. when he hears the guy speaking it makes him jump and he nearly falls. He stops and turns to see the guy. "of course you know this because your a smart guy" the guy says making hand gesters at the other one. He then climbs up to the edge of the bridge where the other one is standing as he climbs up he says "You should never make important decisions" Then he reaches out one hand to him "while your upset" then the other one looks at his hand then at him then he takes the hand and that's the end.
The second idea I had would start with a close up of a guys face clearly angry and upset. It then cuts and you see him pick up an axe he starts to walk with it anger in his face. Another guy sees him and starts to say the line. He walks up and puts his arm around the guys shoulder. The one talking would have clearly over confident expressions. He's saying this to someone who could be very dangerous but he doesn't seem to care the other guy just looks confused as he starts to speak.
A rough script i did for the second idea
My final idea was two characters in a field. One is looking at a lantern and you see a few shots before that petrol has been poured over the grass. The character is looking down at the lantern and the other character is behind him watching him. The idea is the one saying the line isnt trying to stop the other guy making a bad decision, like my other ideas, he himself is upset and about to make a bad decision. He says it to the other guy even though he is about to make a bad decision. He says the line and with the other guy looking at him worried/concerned. The guy then knocks over the lantern setting the grass on fire and it ends. My characters will be animals.
I did some very rough drawings for the lines. I was focusing on the characters performance since he walks on all fours and is an animal I needed to show him with some personality.
Doing these helped me get an idea of what could work.
I drew the key poses for the dialogue parts.
"You mind if I give you a bit of advice?"
So the idea is the one speaking is about to do something he sees the other one watching him. He says the line to him almost telling him "what im going to do is a bad decision because im acting off bad emotions but I don't care and im going to do it anyway".
I saw in the 11 second club competision they preffered you not to have much before or after the sound clip. I had quite a lot before my sound clip came in so for the entry i shortened it quite a lot. This is my entry
Crew Project Revenant
For the crew project I was eager to work on the 3rd year project "Revenant". They were creating a game pitch bible and a game trailer. I wanted to do some 3d animation and prehaps do some help with the script writing or story part. They told me at the moment they didnt need any 3d animation at the moment and the script would be later so they asked if I wanted to do weekly sketches for character design. I agreed to do that. A lot of the design involed making up creatures so that was something I was interested in. Every week they would set a task of some creatures and characters/ sometimes backgrounds that all the artists would then submit designs for.
Pwca-
Priest
Church Grimm
