m-flo loves Chara / Love to Live By

The history of the relationship of animation and music tells us of a birthing point where machines, such as phonograms and projectors, would play a major role in publicising and inspiring artistry on a global scale. In this Japanese Hip-Hop video, this Hip-Hop group "m-flo", a personal favourite of mine, have taken their passion for old-school forms of art and entertainment and applied it to their Jazzy tune "Love to Live By", in March 28, 2007. Their feature artist "Chara" has an old-school Jazzy vocal style that inspired music video makers to hire animators and create a world for this song; resembling those of Max Fleischer and Grim Natwick's "Betty Boop" cartoons of 1930, particularly the theatrical number she starred in "Betty Boop - Rise to Fame" of 1934. This piece not only pays tribute to the global sensation that was Betty Boop, but to the principles of animation itself, repackaged in a form appreciated by today's market.

Topsy Tuvry Presentation Reflection

G.I. Pink Panther

This particular animated episode struck a chord with me, as it reminded me of other notable political animations at the time, such as Donald Duck's "Der Fuehrer's Face" 1943 and "Donald Get's Drafted" 1942.

uDraw GameTablet - Creature Timelapse

T-Pain - Rap Song ft. Rick Ross

T-Pain feat. Rick Ross - "Rap Song" Behind the Scenes @ music video shoot

Puss In Boots - Launch Trailer

My Latest Animatic - Topsy Turvy draft 1

A Quick reflection on my Life Drawing class

I must say, I think I'm getting better; I've really drawn from this experience and think I can apply this to my next 3D model project.

More on my 3D Character Dance sequence

As the title page says, I am now thinking of picking a few key moves for my character's dance sequence.

Further research into the - Holland Animation Film Festival ad (2004)

This piece, I found, represents the energy of the festival

Leader Holland Animation Film Festival 2010

Today, Jonathan Hodgson invited the class to an animation festival in HOLLAND

Wishery (Disney Remix)

An example of how further beauties lie within the crevices of a masterpiece through the art of Remixing.

zelda animation

I have had a most tender and eye-watering game of Zelda: Twilight Princess today with my nephew, as we completed it and enjoyed the ending sequence (after 4 years of game play). The beauty of Zelda is in the story as much as the graphics, in my opinion, and this is what I feel is key to the quality of each game, despite the difference in graphics. It is my pleasure to introduce a piece on Youtube that has attempted to recreate the storytelling artwork of 'Zelda: the Wind Waker' through the replicative classical animation technique of ROTOSCOPING.

Review of Introduction to Animation presentation

Today's presentation was a great learning experience for me. I had presented a storyboard of my character 'Miss Conny' who had conned a store clerk of BANANA Republic out of £2000. The challenge of this assignment was relating our sketch to 2 of 47 random words and pictures on our assignment sheet - I used them all. The result made for a great story full of diversity, but received constructive criticism on completing the presentation. The element of various attributes was a potential distraction from the central plotline.

GDC 2000: Yu Suzuki and Shenmue Part 3

This second (third) part for now!

GDC 2000: Yu Suzuki and Shenmue Part 2

I'm just gonna have to put this here. It is why I am on this course!!!
Talk more about it soon.

How to create Rotoscope Animation with Adobe Flash

This breakdown of how Flash does this old classic method of animation is an inspiration to me on this course, as a fan of Flash.

Bust-a-Groove, Hamm's Fever Time

Rigging Jack today was a most enjoyable task, along with hearing that we students were to be elected with the task of picking a sound track that all of our Models could dance to. I had decided to base my character's dance routine off of a favorite 1990s dancing game of mine, Bust-a Groove, and the character Hamm:

Student progress catch up with Sophie and Magnus

Today, I shared with Magnus and Sophie the fact that I came from a Computer Games Development BSc course and developed 3 proud portfolio flash Games - as Magnus requested, my show reel:

- Show reel -

Reviewing last week's last week Lecture - today's was cancelled

Jonathan Hudgson cancelled his lecture today so this blog is based on reviewing the 2 week old lecture from the Power Point he gave me after last week's lecture. The exploration of "Timing in animation" taught the principles on which storytelling gems like anticipation are achieved. Every action must have timing taken into consideration to effectively communicate the animator's ideas, as shown in these examples below. This will be explored in more depth later.

An Animator's review of Disney's "Meet the Robinsons" the Wii Game

This game of Disney Animation Studio's "Meet The Robinsons" by the Avalanche Software development team has certainly maintained the animated comic timing of the feature length film. The film itself begins with an excerpt from Mickey Mouse's "Steam Boat Willy" as a logo for Disney Animation Studios, paying homage to the foundations of Disney's Animation as they've progressed onto 3D animation. The game's detail to the animation of the story is key to preserving the feel of the story in this game. This is facilitated by the promoted "new gaming technology" of the Wii, keeping in theme with "the future has arrived" of the film; an experience of the imaginative world of an aspiring child inventor.

Big Blue Planet versus The Little Mermaid and Ponyo

ADD BBC FOUR BIG BLUE PLANET, LITTLE MERMAID AND PONYO (DATES) LINK:

This documentary series reveals that at least 80% of sea creatures remain undiscovered, and the most recent findings of fish can act as one of the most inspirational art forms for animators on this course. For instance, when considering the various and wondrous animated works forming characters of Walt Disney's Little Mermaid - created by a mixture of observing fish motion and a great amount of animation - it appears that their bringing life to mythological aquatic creatures was born out of the inspiration drawn from their findings. Furthermore, the development process of Studio Ghibli's Ponyo shows an in depth investigation into the fascinating art and motions of sea creatures. Therefore, venturing into the unexplored crevices of this world is certainly a rich resource that students here can draw from for ideas of animation - even the depths of one's own mind.

Introduction to Animation - Tutorial reflection

Today was the hand in deadline date of our assignment 'Walk this way', which I entitled 'Taking the Piss', and to my delight, I handed in the above piece, which although I could obviously improve upon, get across my original intention; to be funny through a storyline. The lesson I learned: be simple! Actually, having so much detail out of my control in my illustrations caused me to lose the consistent smoothness that a simpler drawing would have. A lesson learned.

The class today included a brief breakdown of film language terms, such as the different kinds of shots to use and why. This proved most useful for our task for next week, before our next assignment brief, was to create and present storyboard of a story centring from two words from an array of abstract words issued us, lasting 20 seconds and containing a variety of well chosen story telling shots. The story I've chosen is centred around the words 'Ruby' and 'Pram' and I'll show you what becomes of that next post.

Life drawing class - Reflection

This session, exploring a holistic life drawing of a nude male, provided students with an opportunity to explore there spatial awareness. The exercises for the day included a series of quick observations and charcoal drawings from memory, to aide students in their discernment of imagined and actual anatomy.
As an animator, for 3D Games in this case, such principles are crucial to understanding and applying animations to rigged models of bodies.

Maya Class Presentation Reflection

Success, my presentation answered all of the brief's objectives, discussed thus far. It was only afterward, however, that I began realized that my presentation lacked my mood-board:

- Add image -

Animation Core Assignment 1 Insights

- To be filled in soon -

Monday's Core Animation Lecture 7 - Reflection

Today film language and terminology was explored in relation to setting up and beginning pre-production of an animation assignment. Words such as, animatic, staging and storyboard were all made clear to the class who had  needed to made use of to bring the best out of our works professionally. More will be written of this later.

Kung Fu Panda 2 Review

First of all this film appears more of a Kung Fu Movie than the first, or a Jackie Chan Movie at that, with more Street Fight scenes. The physical animated comedy in this film, therefore, is very well observing real Kung Fu fight scenes and combining that with the fantasy fighting elements as seen in anime such as throwing fireballs - an inspiration of the director, according to the commentary - avoiding anime animator short cuts such as repeating punches and kicks to prolong a fight.

Mario Brothers 3 - Review

- Add Mario Clip -

Finally, I get to talk to you about my passion: current, classic and retro video games, in this case 'Mario Brothers 3' - but what of it's animation?
This game, down to the illustrated artworks decorating the very boxes and cartridges it came in, was brought to life with hand drawn animation frames. In theme with this module's apt title "Pencil to Pixel", the presence of 2d hand drawn animations in games had often been missed in that original 16-bit games could not accurately raster the original animation frames for their games' worlds and characters - an example of this would be the classic Mario walk cycle. Thus the difference in animation standards in commercial video games and commercial animated films became more apparent; as video game artwork was primarily pixel based and sought solace in the world of digital art. Animators appeared to have come full circle, as renowned animation companies like Disney, with foundations in hand-drawn animations, had taken to the "digital pen" to create 3D feature length films like the successful 'Meet the Robinsons'. Come the 2012 cut-off of analogue signals and analogue televisions, embracing the new digital age may very well bring back the more classical rastering processes of artists and animators: hand drawn illustrations, with a new level of clarity - in video games as well.

CHECK OUT UN-GO on animefreak.tv

thorn21

Su Lynn - Core Animation Presentation - Review

Alas, I had underperformed again by having a substitution for my work to show to everyone today; an animatic created by flash. Sadly this did not meet my criteria and was so ambitious and time consuming that it prohibited me from completing my brief to deliver a hand drawn animation to the class. Arguably, my work timetable was interrupted by a rather long and unexpected hospital appointment during the week, however the inspiration I had for my work had indeed run away with me considering my time constraints - causing me to forget my brief and, as I put it, write a brief around my story than a story around my brief. This experience challenged me in that I was passionate in bringing across a genuinely funny sketch, but was hit with the first sting of just how important time constraints for the passionate animator are.

Life drawing class 6 - Reflection

This performance of me playing two character "Eddie" and "Mickey" in an excerpt from the Willy Russell's "BLOOD BROTHERS" the musical, during my time on a PINEAPPLE DANCE SCHOOL summer course proved to be an invaluable resource when formulating my storyline for my animation sketch "TAKING THE PISS", an Assignment with Su Lynn Tan called "Walk this way", and conveying characteristics in my character in subject. I had given myself a particularly challenging storyline to animate as it involved two different walk-cycles,intersecting each other along the viewer's field of depth, - with characters Wesley  Bonnick as a mad scientist pacing in his lab and Matthew Akingbade (Me) fretfully needing to pee. Acting this out at home made isolating frames for the animation miles easier in terms of capturing expression sought for in my comedy sketch.

Maya Class Missed - Model dev Progess

Today I hit a turning point where I had to decide to abandon developing Jack from reference planes and instead construct him from primitives. This was realized when I ran into a wall on attempting to develop Jack from inaccurate drawings of his face from the left and right. Using artistic principles like developing pictures from primitives - learned from the DS Art Academy Game - will be the next basis on which I sketch reference images to model from, including combining modeling with primitives along with this.

Beginning the second drafts of my Essay and Portfolio

The topics I have chosen for my Portfolio Report and Essay are as follows:

Portfolio Report -

An Animator's investigation into the development of the Art of the Pokemon franchise.

Essay -

The presence and progression of 2D to 3D animation in Video Games.

LCD Monitor Teardown

WOW!!! An amazing break down!!!

Monday's Core Animation Lecture 6 Missed - Subject Reflection

The exploration of "Timing in animation" taught the principles on which storytelling gems like anticipation are achieved. Every action must have timing taken into consideration to effectively communicate the animator's ideas, as shown in these examples below. This will be explored in more depth later.

Jackie Chan's Drunken Master Review

The gifted 'animated' choreographer Jackie Chan is the original pioneer and master of combining fight choreography with physical comedy. To re-iterate, I'd been drawing the key frames of Jackie Chan's fight scenes since my early childhood, and I shall post this with my next post ASAP. Just sitting down to watch this has proven to be an invaluable resource. Just watch.

A reflection of - Dragon Ball the Animated Series

Episode link:

This cartoon, being a 70s made animation cell production piece, was very effective at playing on suspense, anticipation and depicting pain through animation. This was particularly made possible due to where the animation was intended for - the Japanese juvenile market - where the audience is particularly liberal with regards to the violence and sexual content allowed to be shown. With such artistic freedoms allowed, a truly original piece was created that stood out in the western market when translated and brought across to the US and UK audience. This cartoon starting from a successful Manga comic series, much like Asterix the Gaul, has taught something very precious to animation students of today; the simple key framed images highlighting key moments in a good story can speak bounds more than a highly advanced animation with a poor story.

A review of Su Lynn's Animation Assessment Part 1

This day was very informative, but a bit of a downer on my part as I could not add any workings of my character to the fray of works my peers had produced. This was due to being quite arrogant and feeling I could complete the task of creating a funny sketch script of Wesley Bonnick, hand drawing an entire sketch of the story and animating it before the actual presentation deadline of next week, without starting on it until today. This presentation, had I thoroughly started it from last Friday would have included a full model sheet of my character with a thorough breakdown of my character, derived from the sketches I had of Wesley initially.

Research and Theory 4

Today, the Life drawing session was cancelled! Bummer, I forgot to check Facebook - there was a life drawing class at a Museum last week Tuesday that I was completely unaware of. I will have to do my own drawings there later.

Maya Session review 3: Texturing Jack!

Now texturing Jack has become much simpler, which was the same time that I developed my character Jack for a flash game I was designing called "Tether Ball" - now called "CONKER BALL" for the Nintendo Wii on Ware. I would normally overlook modeling and animation with much detail and certainly didn't spend as much time as I was asked to in sketching the character before hand on earlier pieces, not coming from an art background, in my earlier works. This was humbling to say the least and most invaluable.

My new showreel

By request from Magnus, these are a portfolio of my first created Games:

Animation Core Lecture 4 review

The foundations of the animation were discussed in good depth today, with particular attention paid to the history of technological progression in animation. This seemed to me to be one of the best way to begin researching the subject of professional animation, which is always restricted to the technology available at the time. The uncanny valley, one of the earliest pieces of animations in human history, being made from a series of "key frames" appeared to demonstrate this. I learned that despite the effective shortcuts that can be used to create realistic animations nowadays, unavailable in earlier times, the artsitic study and breakdown of animation frame by frame is needed to capture the essence of animation.

Pokemon: another insight - a repost

As an aspiring developer of 8th Generation Games, I was stunned again with the sight of Pikachu comming to life through a Pokeball card symbol on my dinner table. Having had a crack at coding augmented reality for iPhone Games, I was most impressed with a 2D to 3D Animated fantasy of my childhood of mine come to life here. This is a first step towards one of my dreams; blending fantasy with reality to create a new reality for humanity.

I SAW TIN TIN in 3D with my CLASSMATES at the ODEON YESTERDAY

Initial comments:
Oh wow! This was a masterpiece, visually for me. I only have one criticism. I felt TIN TIN's character was too 2 dimensional, the star should have been Captin Hadock. I'll speak more of this later.



A quick technical review:
This piece is indeed a masterpiece in its blend of cartoonist and human-realistic CGI achieved through green screening and body morphing with 3D software. The animation has captured practically perfect human-realistic motion through the combined use of motion capture software and very well observed "ROTOSCOPING-like" of the original actors' performances. This Spielberg film stands as a milestone in CGI films, in a league right next to "Avatar".

Core Animation Tutorial 3

Today with Su Lynn was a hand dirtying exposition of 2D animation paper sketching techniques with lightboxes; the founations from which 3D computer animations rose. With a hit-the-ground-running approach to the session, we were immediately set an assignment of creating a 2D Animation of a  bouncing ball for the day, and then we were assigned a task of animating a rocket flying through space. Using the "old-school" animation techniques refered to in our lectures thus far in a practical way enthralled everyone. This brought a good conclusion to our week as animators: our homework task was to complete this second task and produce a fluid animation with Dragon Stopmotion software. Good stuff!

My Animation:

Life Drawing, Research and Theory 3

This class in life drawing, of a nude model, was very pleasant, yet awkward as the drawing technique we were instructed to implement, guiding a charcoal stub taped to the end of a bamboo cain  whilst standing, through most of us off. This exercise immediately opened my eyes in appreciation whilst observing the various research pieces in the Lecture of Animation Theory that Magnus presented today.

Finishing Modelling Jack!

Wala! Behold the Final product of Jack, ready for presentation:

Uh-oh, my Model of Jack for my presentation almost got flattened

Although the title is true the below clay Model is an apt indication of where I began when beginning my character:

Animation Core Lecture 3 review

The foundations of the animation were discussed in good depth today, with particular attention paid to the history of technological progression in animation. This seemed to me to be one of the best way to begin researching the subject of professional animation, which is always restricted to the technology available at the time. The uncanny valley, one of the earliest pieces of animations in human history, being made from a series of "key frames" appeared to demonstrate this. I learned that despite the effective shortcuts that can be used to create realistic animations nowadays, unavailable in earlier times, the artsitic study and breakdown of animation frame by frame is needed to capture the essence of animation.

Ponyo: a repost of my first insight

I, a huge Hayao Miyazaki, was touched today by watching Studio Ghibli's Ponyo, full of warm art and animation. The colourful and striking character Ponyo was a hit with my whole family, grandchildren to grandparents, captivating us with her transformation from golden fish to human. My Mother who seeks out hidden messages in Anime Cartoons found it ironic that this story about a tsunami being caused by a disregard for the balance of nature was Miyazaki's last film before Japan's 3/11 disaster. The layers of profoundity contained in this animated story serve as an inspiration to me as an aspiring Japanese games developer and animator.

SUPER STREET FIGHTER 4 - 3DS!

GOD ALMIGHTY, WE HAVE SUPER STREET FIGHTER IV, 3D EDITION! This issue of the classic 'STREET FIGHTER' arcade game series is a personal favourite game of mine and is why I am so passionate about pursuing a games development career in no other place than Japan. Street Fighter is one of the few games that genuinely represents the animated ideas seen in Japanese Manga Anime animations. This can be seen in characters such as Dhalsim, a Yoga fighter who's arms and legs can stretch and reach you across the room to strike you, or E-Honda, the Sumo Wrestler who can deliver a 100 hand slap depicted as a blur of hands, on the illustrated covers of some game editions. The beauty of this game is that it beautifully captures the retro 2D animation day and contemporary 3D realism fans of today through Cell Shading the 3D models to maintain a black outline around their bodies, and eliminating side stepping, as in it's rival TEKKEN and in older 3D Street Fighter Games, restricting movement to the x and y axis as in the 2D classic. Ergo, the ideas brought to life here aren't based on rational realism - as the unfortunately infamous first attempt of the Street Fighter acted movie was - rather the fantastic artistic depictions of legendary fighters of different styles seen through the eyes of a manga artist.

Core Animation Tutorial 2

Today with Su Lynn was also a hand dirtying exposition of 2D animation paper sketching techniques with lightboxes; the founations from which 3D computer animations rose. With a hit-the-ground-running approach to the session, we were immediately set an assignment of creating a 2D Animation of a  flower's growing life cycle the day, and then we were assigned a task of animating a rocket flying through space. Using the "old-school" animation techniques refered to in our lectures thus far in a practical way enthralled everyone. This brought a good conclusion to our week as animators: our homework task was to complete this second task and produce a fluid animation with Dragon Stopmotion software. Good stuff!

My Animation:

Life Drawing, Research and Theory 2

This class in life drawing, of a nude model, was very pleasant, with a more slender model and more of a conventional charcoal sketching style with an upheld easel. This exercise had it's share of challenges too, however, with a quick succession of poses struck that we had to sketch. This too immediately opened my eyes in appreciation whilst observing the various research pieces in the Lecture of Animation Theory that Magnus presented today.


- PHOTO'S COMING SOON -


Magnus's Lecture on research and Theory today was also just as enriched with ingenious visual art techniques for the budding young animator as last week's. This lecture moved onto the journey of the earliest animators' attempts at bringing life to their comic storyboards, such as Rotoscoping developed by Max Fletcher's Coco the Clown. Again, this session set a standard for the students in terms of the dedication required to move the hearts of the calibur of artists assessing work at this University.

Max Fletcher's Out of the Inkwell (1921):

Maya Session review 2: Sculpting Jack!

The homework task of sculpting Jack from plastercine proved to be a most useful in pre-planning the polygons needed to sculpt him in Maya. This modelling task suddenly began to feel more organic when using the plastercine model as a reference with reference planes, textured with front and left photos of the model. This activity gave me an eager anticipation for using laser scanning hardware of 3d sculptures to get my exact model brought to life more quickly one day.

- The pics and the rest of this blog is coming -

Peppa Pig critique

Astley Baker Davies an Alumnus of this here Middlesex University has captivated my nephews and nieces with his delightful Peppa Pig cartoon - along with their uncle. The show being born out of his passion and the principles learned from the illustration course tutors of this University has such a pull, resulting in the multi-million pound franchise that is now Peppa Pig, because in my opinion the wholesome family values of a good children show has survived through the competitive market place littered of lifeless money seeking attempts at cartoons today. This is a subject that I will certainly return to at a later blog.


(Peppa Pig: 31 May 2004 (2004-05-31))

Animation Core Lecture 2 review

Animation & Observation

The foundations of the animation were discussed in good depth today, with particular attention paid to the history of technological progression in animation. This seemed to me to be one of the best way to begin researching the subject of professional animation, which is always restricted to the technology available at the time. The uncanny valley, one of the earliest pieces of animations in human history, being made from a series of "key frames" appeared to demonstrate this. I learned that despite the effective shortcuts that can be used to create realistic animations nowadays, unavailable in earlier times, the artsitic study and breakdown of animation frame by frame is needed to capture the essence of animation.

(The above to be adited later)


Thought of you, by Ryan Woodward (2011) - Moving to say the least:

The wonderful animation of Jackie Chan: Who Am I

I indugled in my enourmous collection of Jackie Chan movies this weekend and marvelled once more in the miracle that is Jackie Chan and his action sequences. This hero of mine has expanded as a concept into the TV animated series and video game series world, due to his distinctive awareness of physical comedy and Kung Fu fight scene choreography. This movie in question "Who am I" featuring an accademy award winning finale fight sequence was so captivating that I paused the scene continously key frame by key frame and sketched out the key poses struck by the fighter in my portfolio at 14 years old whilst living in Japan. The man may not be an animator, but he is certainly the most animated fighter in Hollywood today.

Playing "Zelda: Twilight Princess", anticipating the "Skyward Sword"

This Sunday, I had a blast with Zelda: Twilight Princess on my Wii with my Nephew, appreciating it from a new perspective as an animator, as well as a coder. The game is full of influences from fairy tales and religous stories, such as the symbol of the "triforce" from Catholicism and "Excalibur" from the Sword in the Stone - I now, as an animator feel that the Pulling of the sword from the stone in this game is much more standard than the charsimatic pulling by the protagonist Authur in Walt Disnsey's "Sword in the Stone" (1963).The game is as enthralling as ever, however, with developer legendary Nintendo Game Developer producer Shigeru Miyamoto seeing even more to add to the animated gameplay in later versions, such as the player's Wiimote to be used as a tracker to accurately guide the motion of the hero Link's sword holding hand. This is but a sliver of why I anticipate the sequel the "Skyward Sword".


The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:

Core Animation Tutorial 1, with Su Lynn!

Today with Su Lynn was a hand dirtying exposition of 2D animation paper sketching techniques with lightboxes; the founations from which 3D computer animations rose. With a hit-the-ground-running approach to the session, we were immediately set an assignment of creating a 2D Animation of a  bouncing ball for the day, and then we were assigned a task of animating a rocket flying through space. Using the "old-school" animation techniques refered to in our lectures thus far in a practical way enthralled everyone. This brought a good conclusion to our week as animators: our homework task was to complete this second task and produce a fluid animation with Dragon Stopmotion software. Good stuff!

My Animations:

Life Drawing, Research and Theory 1

This class in life drawing, of a nude model, was very pleasant, yet awkward as the drawing technique we were instructed to implement, guiding a charcoal stub taped to the end of a bamboo cain  whilst standing, through most of us off. This exercise immediately opened my eyes in appreciation whilst observing the various research pieces in the Lecture of Animation Theory that Magnus presented today.

- PHOTO'S COMING SOON -

Magnus's Lecture on research and Theory, however, was just as enriched with ingenious visual art techniques for the budding young animator. This lecture journeyed from man's earliest attempts at animatable art, e.g. key framed figures drawn on ancient surfaces including the "Cauvet Cave" (32,000 years old) a decorated Iranian Bowl (5,200 years old) and a egyptian motion piece (400 years old), to the first deliberate inventions of machines purposefully built for animation purposes. This session set a standard for the students in terms of the dedication required to move the hearts of the calibur of artists assessing work at this University.

Maya Session review 1: Sketching Jack!

First of all, Maya is a art package that I've been using since 10 years old, which was the same time that I developed my character Jack for a flash game I was designing called "Tether Ball" - now calle "CONKER BALL" for the Nintendo Wii on Ware. I would normally overlook modelling and animaton with much detail and certainly didn't spend as much time as I was asked to in sketching the character before hand on earlier pieces, not coming from an art background, in my earlier works. This was humbling to say the least and most invaluable.

HALLELUJAH! I now have a vintage "Dragon Ball Manga" Comic - Vol. 1!.

Being a true fan of the Dragon Ball Anime series, and a regular viewer of the subtitled japanese anime version  online today, holding and reading the Manga comic of my cherished early episodes, in japanese also, distilled the beauty of the story. As the storylines are exactly the same in the comics as are in the anime shows, they comic read like a storyboard, showing where the animators probably drew inspiration from for the animation style of the fight scenes, repeating expressive key frames continuously. This reminded me of  the "Asterix the Gaul" comic by René Goscinny (story writer) and Albert Uderzo (illustrator), adding voice to an already living story.

HERE'S WHAT I GOT:

                           

Animation Core Lecture 1 review

Animation & Visual Research

The foundations of the animation were discussed in good depth today, with particular attention paid to the history of technological progression in animation. This seemed to me to be one of the best ways to begin researching the subject of professional animation, which is always restricted to the technology available at the time. On observing the works from early dilegent animating artsits, such as Ryan Larkin - of the acclaimed "Street Musique" (1972) and subject of Oscar winning animated documentary "Ryan" (2004)  - highlighted the important progression from Pencil to "Key Frame" to Pixel that all animators can benefit from taking. Despite the effective shortcuts that can be used to create realistic animations with computer software today, unavailable in earlier times, the artsitic study and breakdown of animation in life frame by frame is needed to capture the essence of animation.

Walking - Oscar nominated-, by Ryan Larkin (1968):
A diligent piece centred around walk cycles, good reference material.

Pokemon's POKEDEX 3D: A 3DS Miracle

This Sunday, I was blessed with the experience of Pokemon in Augmented reality with my 3DS, online with Pokemon Black and White - POKEDEX 3D. As an aspiring developer of 8th Generation Games, I was stunned with the sight of Pikachu comming to life through a Pokeball card symbol on my dinner table. Having had a crack at coding augmented reality for iPhone Games, I was most impressed with a 2D to 3D Animated fantasy of my childhood of mine come to life here. This is a first step towards one of my dreams; blending fantasy with reality to create a new reality for humanity.

Here's a clip of more on the way:

Moved by Miyazaki - A quick Ghibli Film review: Ponyo

I, a huge Hayao Miazaki movie fan, was touched today by watching Studio Ghibli's Ponyo, full of warm art and animation. The colourful and striking character Ponyo was a hit with my whole family, grandchildren to grandparents, captivating us with her transformation from golden fish to human. My Mother who seeks out hidden messages in Anime Cartoons found it ironic that this story about a tsunami being caused by a disregard for the balance of nature was Miyazaki's last film before Japan's 3/11 disaster. The layers of profoundity contained in this animated story serve as an inspiration to me as an aspiring Japanese games developer and animator.

Summer Work - The Fresher's Fair at Middlesex Uni

On attending the Fresher's Fair at Uni today, and enjoying the free Pizza, I found a number of job opportunities that could serve me as self-promotional events in my career. Firstly, there was an anime workshop consultant job stand that caught my attention in being a window into promoting my animation to visiting enthusiasts and business opportunists. Second, the job stand for Olympic jobs proved to be a similar prospect for promoting my developed iPhone Games aimed at 'game enthusiasts'. This reminded me of the great social networking potential that good Universities provide.

http://www.londonanimecon.com/

http://www.london2012.com/get-involved/jobs/

My trip to the Comic Museum

I took a trip to the comic Museum in London to explore the history of cartoonist expression in comics. In a word, "Insightful"!

http://www.cartoonmuseum.org/

Induction Week: Life Drawing Reflection 1

Today I drew a raw whole headless chicken in my induction week's life drawing class and gained valuable insights on life drawing. On building a character from primitive geometric 3D objects, as though with Maya the 3D Modelling software, a consitent naturealistic sketch can be achieved quickly. I had gleened this prior to the class from the Nintendo DS Art Accademy's life drawing class. This proves to be very useful to me as a 3 animator, as this technique also serves as a plan for setting up 3d geometric primitives to flesh out a 3d object with.

By the way I had the pleasure of meeting our guest Lecturer, Dave McKean, I'll talk more of him on a leter post:

EASTERN ARRAYSAIL: My poem and next project theme

I have entered, and had accepted for publication, another poem into the national poem competion POETRY RIVALS 2011. This poem, "Before Baptism" is dedicated to the victims of Japan's 3/11 Tsunami and Earthquake disaster. Japan is very beloved to me and I have always wanted to make a game that I could dedicate to the my experience of it. Hence, due to my poem's positive reception amongst readers thus far, I decided to aptly name my next game project "THE EASTERN ARRAYSAIL" - inspired by a 3/11 documentary by Pharrell Williams "Tokyo Rising".
 
Link: Tokyo Rising | Palladium Boots

Enrolled on 3D Animation and Games Course

Greeting's y'all. I'm taking a new approach into the Games intustry. I'm still a coder, ofcourse, but I'm perfecting my art for a while.

 BA 3D Animation and Games

I have set up a Game Music Promotion event

Using a sound track from my Game ' Cop Killer' as a supliment, I have written a poem for poetry rivals 2010 and have been selected as a finalist to read this poem at their poetry Slam.

http://www.poetryrivals.com/

(PM) I have sent 'NEWGROUNDS.COM' a demo of my Blooded Boxing Day Flash Game

http://learning.wmin.ac.uk/webapps/bbcms/portfolio/viewPortfolio.jsp?pid=_1314_1

Posted Personal Development Report on Page

Please view the Personal Development Report on the Tab next to Home

SKYLANCER (Vertical Slice)

Please enjoy my Original concept and team built game of SKYLANCER:
http://www.mediafire.com/?b38r57lewntk2hk