The Other Side - Animation

 

Beginning to Animate! I'm starting from one of the scene's from the middle. Specifically, the scene in which the lovely nurse taps Billy on the nose at which he breaks out into a big smile. Then, the nurse reaches into her pocket to retrieve his medication, and his smile will immediately disappear. I am starting in the middle to get a good idea of what the movement of the characters should look like, especially with direct interaction. This way, I can 'sample' their interaction and individual movements and quickly find what is successful and what isn't after which I will apply the information to the rest of the animation. 

I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to animate using the Pose to Pose method. I started by outlining the basic shapes of my characters and setting it on a separate layer. This way, I can continue to use the reference throughout each frame and the dimensions of my characters can remain consistent.

 

Then, I set a separate layer for each Key pose. Above, you will see the first three key poses. I set those layers in a layer group and once the key poses of the shot are completed, I will create another group layer in which I will create the extremes and the break down poses in between them, followed by the in between poses completing the animation. 

Here are two extreme poses in which the nurse taps Billy's nose and moves away, just before reaching into her pocket for the pills. Her tapping and moving away will take a total of 2 seconds followed by another 2 or 3 seconds of pulling out Billy's medication and his reaction to it.

I am using this scene as a test to try out different methods of animating pose to pose and to eventually find a method that works best for me.

_______________

Woo Hoo! Progress! (a bit)

My key poses have been completed! So.. I started on the in between poses. I created another group layer, pulled together the key frames so that I could see them through Onion Skin, and because to draw in between the two poses still using my 'shapes' layer as a reference.

 

The bottom layer is the in between frame between key poses 1 and 2.

 

 

Using red on another layer for guides. I erased it after I had outlined it on the Key layer.

 

I colored in Key poses 1 and 2 so that I could better see them and then drew the in between pose.

Set, Series and Sequence - Ideas

I began, simply by creating a spider graph for the word ‘Doughtnut’. I found several ideas to explore for my 24 illustrations. 

Here are a few sketches of random ideas. After I had a sufficient amount of material, I quickly drew them out a bit more rendered. (See Blog: Drawings 1 - 12)

Captain Character - Development

Character description.

I began my Character design by drawing out some simple figures using the very basic of shapes. I Explored further, two different body shapes and several different face shapes.

After that point, I went crazy and just started iterating and iterating and iterating until my character morphed into several very different shapes. 

   

The character I liked the best was the little childlike creature with a square face. My only qualm with this however is that his face is a little rigid. So I played with stretching into into different expressions (on the right) but many of them did not look quite right as his character was lost in the distortion.

This character is not inherently expressive. His expressions are subtle and his passive aggressiveness is demonstrated through his actions. I would like to get more practice in facial expressions so I may explore loud expressions even if they are not in the nature of the character. (Just for practice ;) )

Set, Series and Sequence - Drawings 1 - 12

Doughnut wheels. A car driven by a child. Following the concept of childhood associations with doughnuts and sweets.

Miss Gluttony. Meant to show the allure of desserts.

Doughnut monster.

The Bagel is trying to fit in.

Like the first image, following the idea of childhood. In this case, the shape of the ferris wheel is the shape of a doughnut.

Beauty in shape.

Do-Doughnut.

Mischievous child has eaten all the doughnuts from the box.

Baking elves.

The healthy doughnut.

The doughnut swing.

Doughnut eyes.

The Other Side - Backgrounds

In order to nail the appropriate colouring and mood of the psych ward, I google searched ‘Psychiatric Ward’ and picked out my favourite images. I found that these images contained rooms and halls that looked cold, sterile and clean. The floors are very reflecting making them appear clean, the colours are light pastel (typically blue or green) 

I used watercolors to test the potential colour palette for the backgrounds. I tried out the pink first because it added a touch of childishness to the concept however I decided that it was a little bit too sweet for a Psychiatric Ward and decided to try a cool light green colour.

I proceeded to sketch out some shots from my story. I am quite satisfied with the results. The layouts are very simple and desolate which is exactly the feeling I wanted from the Ward. 

______

Backgrounds:

Once I had decided on specific layouts for each of my drafted shots, I began to ‘render’ them by illustrating them full scale using fine liner and water-colour. I then scanned them into the computer and began to add a grungy texture as advised by Mat. I also filled the florescent lights with white as well as the sink. 

In order to easily texture the walls, I selected the window as well as the sink and placed them on different layers. Then I added a ‘texture’ layer and place it in between the background and the foreground. I added the texture and distorted the proportions in order to fit them to the dimensions of the room.

Here are two of the shots compared to one another: