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: