Last we I took part in a sound workshop ran by Chris Reed of The Paper Cinema – a collective that perform live animation with music. (See link below to their website for more on them, check them out – they’re amazing!)
I worked with the cat under the table animation I had produced, and decided to add some sounds in order to enhance the audience’s interaction with the animated short. I recorded myself scratching a plate with a spoon – to match the stirring of the cereal in the characters bowl. I used the rough side of a sponge on a mouse mat – to try replicate the sound of the characters shorts rubbing against the chair whilst swinging his leg. & then using a free sound database (www.freesound.org) I used a recording of a meowing kitten to bring the Cat in my animation to life.
There’s some background noise from the recordings due to other people being in the studio – but for my final animation recordings will be more controlled and refined. But as a test, I think this proved a successful outcome & allowed me to get to grips with iMovie and Adobe Audtion.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been focusing on character development for my animation – the main character being Bilbo the Cat. Character design is something I’ve been interested in ever since my final project of Level 4, so this kind of development has been very prominent throughout my Level 5 projects. In my physical sketchbook the development of character is much more clearly illustrated – and you can visually see where stronger traits have been identified and weaker have been dropped. My final character design focuses on quite a small cat, big eyes and chubby limbs to help strengthen the characters appeal to the audience. I’ve had a lot of good feedback from peers & also from when I’ve updated my Facebook & instagram, so I know the final design is successful. I think the main thing is I’ve created a character that I really like & really want to animate – and hopefully the audience will too!
More recently I have been developing possible ideas for scenes to be included in my animation. Here is a quick stop frame animation I produced, experimenting with the manipulation of paper cut out layers and how these could be manipulated to convey movement.
Below is one of my tests with stop frame motion – using a potential character with Bilbo. It’s a brief scene, and is made up of around 80 frames, the quality isn’t amazing as I the camera I was using isn’t great quality – but will be borrowing a better model for producing my final stop frame animation. It’s quick a quick animating process. Once I figure out what bits I want to move and separate the components in order to animate, it’s a simple method of taking photos overtime you slightly move the model. Once I’ve finished taking photos, I simply compile the photos into a video format on photoshop – setting the rate of frame speed in order to produce a fluid animation.
I really like this style of animation, I think combining an old animation technique with my graphic-like illustration, helps makes a historic technique have a contemporary vibe. I’ve decided to progress further with stop frame motion animation, I really like the movement and mainly it’s a form of animation that will retain my illustrative style – something I think is key in my development throughout my level 5 experience.
These were my 3 final pieces. I mainly wanted to convey the idea of a story that’s all together magical – yet quite dark and sinister at the same time. Obviously not too dark for my target audience, but I felt it helped reflect the question on everyone’s lips – who is Peter Pan?
For my first project of second year, I was asked to interpret J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan. Initially I looked into what children’s books were on the market now, what’s out there that works, and what can I do in order to produce a successful outcome. I also did a bit or market research, talking to parents and children, asking what their favourite books where, and why they bought the books/ enjoyed them. Colour and entertaining images seemed to be an important attribute that the families looked out for.
I began by focusing on character design – producing images which were trying to extend the style I had developed in my last project of first year – Eddie and Ernie, using a dip pen and black ink to produce my first character designs
I also took my favourite images and digitally edited these on Adobe Illustrator…
Below are some development pieces as I work towards my final outcome. Focusing on two male Chameleons – Eddie and Ernie, exploring their relationship & even there two little children, hope you like!
Two illustrators that have inspired my recent ink drawings were Simone Lia, and an illustrator I discovered on instagram called Hanna S Abi-Hanna.
I’ve become a really big fan of Simone Lia – after a recent talk she gave at AUB, her work is really cute, attractive and funny. It takes a lot for an image to make me laugh out loud – but Lia did it with ease! I wanted my images to capture a similar essence to Lia’s – so I wanted to ensure the images were fun and humorous. I particularly like the way Lia uses a limited colour palette – something I was keen on exploring in my work – leaving more focus on the character of my line work.
Hanna S Abi-Hanna is an artist I discovered on Instagram, like Lia I was interested in her work that featured a limited colour palette. Particularly her images that feature one block colour.
Check out their work by clicking on the links below! They really are great!
Simone Lia – http://www.simonelia.com
Hanna S Abi-Hanna – http://instagram.com/habihanna?ref=badge
As I started progressing through my final unit, I became very interested in working with drawing inks and using dip pens.
I own a set of Windsor & Newton inks – which have a really strong colour – which I find really attractive. So have been using these really heavily. I tried to use colours that weren’t usually associated with the animals I was drawing. I had decided that I was going to create a short 8-12 paged illustrative narrative, that dealt with a gay couple in a relationship. Rather than simply focusing on the idea that these characters are gay – the narrative will be more about the concept and meaning of a relationship between two people.
OllieJohn Illustration 