Production Blog- Projection Mapping Brief: Initial Ideas (Study Task 3)

The Brief/ Initial Ideas

Another one of the required Live Briefs was the Lifting Tower Project in which we were commissioned

to produce a 10-20 second Christmas themed animation which was to be projected on the side

of the Lifting Tower in an office park in Leeds over the festive period. We were being commissioned for this

by an external agency so it was important we make the most of it for CV purposes and that preproduction work

be presented ahead of time to the client. This was intended

as an opportunity for collaboration across the Illustration & Animation courses though I ended up producing

my animation largely on my own, stepping in occasionally to help some illustrators who weren’t

well acquainted with the animation software when needed.

Initial Design ideas

Some of my initial ideas for realising this brief were very different from what I ended up producing.

From the beginning I wanted to use this projection mapping opportunity to use the space creatively.

One way of doing this I toyed around with the idea of was simulating a searchlight on the side of the building

exposing an elf abseiling own the side of the building on a piece of tinsel, simulating a prison escape scene.

Another idea I tossed around was projecting a series of multi-faith festive scenes as viewed through windows,

for example; depicting a Menorah in the windowsill for a Hanukkah scene.

The idea I felt had the most legs and served my sensibilities the best as an animator, which would provide me with the best material for my portfolio, was having a Xmas pudding flying around a snowy scene before a large disembodied Santa head flies in from the corner of the frame to eat it before turning to the camera and enveloping the frame, with the camera zooming in on the interior of his mouth where the words 'Happy Holidays' would be displayed in the saliva at the back of the mouth. This was the idea I ended up presenting to the client during a crit.

Production Blog- LoopDeLoop: 'Love Is Love' - Evaluation (Study Task 2)

Evaluation

The finished product is something I am strangely proud of and have since gone in to incorporate

on business cards and professional branding, even going so far as to purchase the domain sickbirb.com

which I am hoping to redirect to a looping video some time in the future. The animation itself I feel is strong
enough to stand on its own and humorously communicates the theme in a fairly unconventional way. I feel
this animation serves as a nice bridge between the styles I developed in second year and the direction I see myself
taking this year with Extended Practice.

Strengths

• Strong aesthetic bridges the gap between styles I have developed.
• Strong keys/character poses.
• Character design. Something I want to develop further. (Personal branding opportunity?)
• Sound Design. (Satisfactorily disgusting)
• Loops nicely (Fulfills LoopDeLoop criteria)

Weaknesses

• Younger bird character probably could have used more keyframes. (More varied animation)
• Animation probably would have been better served with more overlapping action/exaggeration.

Production Blog- LoopDeLoop: Love Is Love (Study Task 2)

Final Outcome

Initial Pinterest Moodboard

As a part of Extended Practice we have been tasked with responding to four live briefs alongside
our final major project. The first of these which I have undertaken was a competition
brief for LoopDeLoop, the theme of which for the month was ‘Love is Love’.
Wanting to deviate from the usual interpretations of the phrase I opted to make my short looping
animation about the love between a parent and a child through depicting an adult Blue Jay regurgitating
food into the mouth of its child, with the aim of making it as disgusting as possible, embracing a sort of
Ren& Stimpy style of gross-out humour.

Initial Bird Design

Sketchbook drawings

Sketchbook Design Concepts

Final Bird Design

Stylistically I sought to build upon the aesthetic I used for much of my animation in second year
while bringing in elements from my main Extended Practice project which I was working on at the time.
The character designs for the bird and it’s child were primarily based around a vector-based style
with a focus on silhouettes and primitive shapes, however incorporating coloured linework which
I feel is more pleasing to the eye.

Background/Foreground Set

The backgrounds/set for the animation were primarily a carry over from the style I developed over much
of second year inspired by the work of Genndy Tartakovsky on shows such as Samurai Jack. I also took
some inspiration from a similar artist, the background designer Eyvind Earle who was a background artist
for Disney in the mid 20th century, whose work has very clearly inspired Tartakovsky's.
I also opted for a simple, cartoonish complementary block colour scheme which I felt
would be visually appealing. The sounds of the bird regurgitating food was a mix of free sounds taken
from royalty free sound websites (freesound.org), mixed together in Adobe Soundbooth;
notably the sounds of water being poured in a bucket, a human burp/gag slowed down and
pitched shifted and general environmental ambience. The effect is a sound which I feel works really well
in grossing out the viewer.

Bird Keyframes

The process of animating followed a fairly straightforward workflow, with me working from rough keys I
sketched out ahead of time in photoshop before polishing them off and working in the in-betweens after
I have the scene blocked out and timed how I want it. I find this workflow much more efficient when working
in this art style as working primarily from block colours and adding the linework after the fact necessitates
solid drawing and maintaining the character model. Character animation was done in photoshop and background
elements such as the leaf which falls from the tree when the bird brushes up against it were composited
in Adobe After Effects CC. The PSD file was imported into AE as a composition allowing me to tween
the leaf falling from the tree when the bird flies offscreen.

Business Cards (Back/Front)

Production Blog- Concept Stage

Initial sketches/design ideas

Monsieur Sausage Initial Sketches

Unnamed female character Initial Sketches

• I wanted to make sure I had a solid aesthetic foundation to build upon as I would be relying mostly on visual, no verbal storytelling to communicate my setting, story and characters. 

• The design fundamentals for Monsieur Sausage didn't deviate too much from my initial sketches though I did experiment with different hats and aprons in order to decide what suited the design better.

•  My intent is to create a main character which is easy to animate and can communicate body language clearly and efficiently. 

• One element of Monsieur Sausage’s design which I feel most effectively communicates body language is the moustache, which acts as a sort of stand in for the character’s mouth, which is obscured by the size of the moustache, to indicate emotion. (E.g; a smile, frown etc…) 

Face Sheet

• The moustache also serves as point of secondary action which will emphasise movement more. 

• The inclusion of a moustache as one of the main focal points of the design was at least partially inspired by the characters Asterix and Obelix, themselves products of French culture.

• In the beginning I was undecided on how to incorporate linework, torn between a more vector-based style and incorporating rough linework to emphasise primitive shapes. I did however, after much experimentation arrive at the conclusion that my neat linework is one of the strongest elements of my drawing practice.

• In order to differentiate from my previous work and ensure a higher standard of polish I opted to colour certain lines and give character’s their own line colour motifs in order to better distinguish themselves from one another. 

• For example, Monsieur Sausage’s outline in the final film is brown, while the woman’s is blue, blue being the more neutral tone indicative of the power dynamic in the scene.) The final effect I feel plays to my core strengths as a character designer with its simplicity and emphasis on primitive shapes. 

Character Walk Cycle

• I created a test walk cycle and turnaround of Monsieur Sausage in order to get better feel for his mannerisms.

• I like the idea of a character of Monsieur Sausage’s stature being very top heavy but with very thin legs, almost like a chicken, as I feel this emphasises movement a little more and is more fun to animate, as well as lending to the comedy.

• One issue with the turnaround I did run into which was called into question during a group crit was the character’s apron, which I had unwittingly made tube-like, stretching all the way around Monsieur Sausage like a pair of dungarees. 

• I also spent a considerable amount of time developing the backgrounds for the animation as to further sell the settings. I want the layout of the scene in my animation to showcase the environment just as much as it showcases the character animation; in order to really sell the setting.

• While I was in Annecy last summer I took numerous photos  of architecture that could possibly serve as inspiration for the backdrop of my animation. Local landmarks such as the Church of St Maurice, which may indicate the setting are scattered around the backdrops of many pieces of concept art.

• I tried to keep the colour scheme for the backgrounds to a minimum in order to not distract from the foreground action.

• I drew some inspiration from children's illustrator Sara Ogilvie, particularly her book ‘Dogs Don’t Do Ballet’ which employs a similar colour scheme to backgrounds, allowing foreground figures to better stand out. 

Page from Sara Ogivie's book

• For the woman’s character design I looked to inspiration from classic French Cinema. The woman character in my animation is largely inspired (at least visually) by the archetype of the ‘Ingenue’ or ‘Femme Fetale’.

• I looked to fashion trends in mid century French cinema in order to inform the look of my character, settling on a striped shirt motif, a staple of actresses in 20th century French cinema.

•  Initially, I intended to give characters a darker skin tone, however felt that for the sake of simplicity and practicality, it fit my film’s aesthetic more to leave the characters skin plain white. This served two purposes; cutting down on colouring when it comes to producing the finished animation as well as emphasizing key features of the characters design,  for example; Monsieur Sausage’s moustache (important in indicating character’s body language) and the woman’s sunglasses (important in establishing to the audience the fact that the woman is blind).

• As for the dog’s design, I turned to one of my mates to provide the groundwork as I have little experience in designing anthropomorphic characters. He produced a series of rough sketches for how the dog in my animation could look, testing out different breeds and drawing styles.

Initial Dog Sketches (By Daniel Goodman)

• However, I instead opted for a simpler style as I felt his designs were not in keeping with the simpler style I was going for in my animation. I eventually ended up brainstorming a few ideas for how the dog could look in my sketchbook and put it down to a vote on one of the college’s communal whiteboards. 

Dog character Sheet

• For the design of the boy who serves as the waiter in the animation I wanted to draw from literary characters such as ‘Tiny Tim’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ to serve as the more empathetic audience stand in. It was important the character’s design to convey their backstory as a street-child in order to let the audience better empathise with them over the course of the events as they unfold.