audreygallego

[audreygallego]

Final Critical Evaluation Introduction to Digital 3D

Overall, I don't think there's been a moment that I haven’t enjoyed during the completing of the tasks or Digital 3D after having actually started with it. I feel comfortable using the software, even though I have a whole world to learn yet, as it kind of reminds me of technical drawing - something that I love -  and it is computer related that always implies always so many facilities or even advantages when compared to stop motion, for example.

Against the odds, I’m choosing CG for the Mystery Box Project, and I am excited to see what the outcome is going to be.

I'll try to start doing more independent exercises, in order to get used to Maya as well as improving my skills as much as I can so that I can do my best in the last term. Moreover, I'll keep in mind that in CGI references are also as important as with other mediums.

[audreygallego]

Final Critical Evaluation Introduction to Stop Motion

I wish this project ended a little better, but I felt like I was really losing the interest in it as the weeks went by.

Stop Motion is a medium that I've always been a fan of, and I was expecting for something like magic to happen one I tried to actually do it myself. However, it wasn't like that, in fact, it was just the opposite. I felt like it just wasn't for me and found more comfortable even with CGI - a medium that I used to avoid even watching.

Nonetheless, if I had to do this again, I'll put more effort into planning and more patience into filming, to be honest. I'd also use more references, both real-life videos and movement studies.

[audreygallego]

Final Critical Evaluation Narrative Research Project

I really enjoyed this term’s topic, narratology, as well as the making of the essay.

The fact that we were able to choose from a closed list the questions for our essays was really reassuring to me. Because, I loved to be able to focus my essay on my favorite short film, but, as I know that I am really indecisive, having only to choose which question could fit better with it was really helpful and encouraging.

Overall, I loved every single lecture this term. The last term we focused on characters, not my favorite topic, but this one’s topic has been just right. I feel like I'll be able to take all this new information that I have and use it in the making of any future animation. Or even use it as a new way of watching films that I've already seen or will.

For the next essay, I look forward having a better plan, as this one was a little better than the first one but still kind of running against time.

[audreygallego]

Final Critical Evaluation Animation Principles

This three task project made me had all kinds of emotions. I was pleased with the first one, the morphing, and I finished it relatively quickly. Then the second one, the silhouette, got me stuck and frustrated for weeks and I had to accept that I couldn't do anything else about it. And, finally, the last one, I started the flour sack confident but ended up having to work much more than expected.

Working with only three ‘primary’ colours and no line art was fascinating during the first task, it also reminded me how easy it is in animation to do literally whatever. We can morph from one object to another fluency, we can do anything we can image and it still to have sense and look good.

The second task was my Achilles' heel in every sense possible. I usually have problems with drawing humans when it comes to cartoonish style - or just non-realistic. I'm also not the best one when it comes to dealing with representing emotions. This task was the perfect balance of both, being the reason for many hours of frustration. Nonetheless, I managed to do something reasonably ok.

The third one was the task I spent more hours on, I reviewed the bouncing ball and I think of all three was the one where more principles were involved.

Overall, I really like using TV Paint and look forward to having more projects like this one.

[audreygallego]

Final Critical Evaluation Animated Sketchbook

The sketchbook has been an easy task to do as how free we were for it, although I haven't reached the minimum of pages yet because of I kept going back to draw to my personal ones. I plan to finish it quickly before submissions.

As well as my panoramic, I’m almost entirely done with it. I have already decided the planning and as my last post stated I only need to add the final touches and finish the 8th page.

At first, I didn't like the idea - well, it scared me - of the panoramic drawing, but at the end, it has been one of my favorite tasks of this term. I loved the fact that we were able to choose whichever medium we wanted and I could develop, improve and study the topics that I personally selected.

[audreygallego]

Weekly Summary 24/2

Animated Sketchbook

This week has been, by far, the most productive one referring to this project. I’ve been thinking about it since the beginning, however finally drawing the actual final pages turned out to be a rollercoaster of things to still figure out and indecisiveness. 

Animation Principles

This week I’d to focus more on other projects and didn’t do much related to this tasks.

Narrative Research Project

This week I’ve been finally fully working on the essay, I went to the library and took some books related to narrative and stop-motion. I also took the time to read reviews of others and made some notes of the points that I liked that they approached.

A few days after that, I finally started writing it, and there is no going back now, essay finished!

Introduction to Stop Motion

Even though I wanted to improve some of my animations for submissions, this week the has been impossible to do. I had to spend most of my time on the other projects but, apart from that, I went one day to uni for this purpose this and couldn’t find a single puppet still alive. Now I wish I did all of this earlier.

Introduction to Digital 3D

This week I only had to redo last week’s tasks as I had that little problem. Having to work again on these both animations has been pretty useful. I especially realised this as soon as I opened the program and couldn’t remember how we created a quick character selection set in the last session.

Against the odds, I plan to choose CGI for the Mystery Box Project, so I’m planning to start spending some more time on Maya to really be able to get the hang of it.

[audreygallego]

CG - Task E, F

We were told that, in the first task of this two, a perfectly polished outcome wasn’t really that necessary. So this animation consists of only a few keyframes and Maya did the rest - bc of the spline mode.

In fact, during the original session were we focused on this task, we used this one as an example to try stepped animation - as working in this mode during the blocking phase allows you to really focus on the key areas of the animation.

Finished the recap of task E, I went back to what was left of first time’s task F.

Looking at it now back at home, I see already some details that I couldn’t think of this morning.

First of all, a double take is supposed to be a delayed reaction to something unexpected, immediately after one's first reaction. However, I feel like the first time that he looks at the camera he has already some shock on his face that shouldn’t be there yet. Maybe a more relaxed or uninterested pose on that keyframe or having with less variation from the starting pose, a softer motion.

Having to work again on these both animations has been pretty useful. I especially realised this as soon as I opened the program and couldn't remember how we created a quick character selection set in the last session.

I plan to choose CGI for the Mystery Box Project, so I have to start to spend some more time on Maya to really be able to get the hang of it.

[audreygallego]

Animated Sketchbook

I’ve been working on this project for so long really hard now that I couldn’t decide exactly where to stop and update my blog. Though, I believe that I can now - having it almost finished - just start explaining it from the beginning to the very end altogether in the same post.

So, bulls. Bullfighting, in fact; not so fan of it though.

First of all, I don’t really know how to say this, but I am a big fan of muscular quadruped animals... yeah. I really enjoy drawing animals like horses or... bulls!

So: animals. ¿What to do with them in a panoramic? So many options but none of them really caught my attention. Then... ¿what can I offer? ¿What can I create that says something, contributes to something? The only thing that I could really think of was the fact that I’m Spanish and the people that these days are around me and are going to see this drawing... just aren’t. Spanish themed it is then. But it had to be something ‘iconic’, ‘recognisable’ + animals = bullfighting - to my great regret.

So, it was easy to decide that it was going to be somehow depicting a journey, the bull’s journey when bullfighting happens.

I believe that in the previous - and only - post that wrote a few weeks ago I talked a little about the actual final idea and some structures I was considering.

Basically, Bull's journey with a twist. Those days I was considering the Kishōtenketsu structure; though I did step back and went for the conventional Three Act Structure. It feels just natural to me that way:

Act 1. Set up → Before going into the arena/ring.

being in nature

running to the ring (already part of the journey)

entering through the door

Act 2. Confrontation → Inside the arena; the characteristical - and cruel - part of the fight.

two bull+fighter

bull looking up

bull looking down - getting more defeated

bull completely looking down + fighter stabbing ‘empowered’

bull going through the cape - like a release; looking up again

Act 3. Resolution → Change of positions.

bull empowered ‘stabes’ the defeated fighter - parallelism with the 5th one

focus on the audience, it being bulls 

I’ve been changing idea so many times before reaching this conclusion that I feel like it may differs quite a lot from the first actual 'goal.'

In my sketchbook - the one dedicated to this in particular - is reflected some decision making, such the pain that the 7th panorama was:

The initial idea was something closer to the bottom thumbnail. However, the upper one was the chosen one at the end. It is less shocking in the narrative, a less clear twist, ¿less effective? Maybe. Nonetheless, I couldn't think of fitting in such a 'realistically styled' series of drawing, such a 'funny' pose, as it is physically impossible for a bull to do anything even close to that pose. The idea of literary changing roles by keeping the sword was hard to let go, but it was just necessary.

I’ll talk about each ‘frame’ more in depth (excuse the bad quality pictures):

Page 1

I wanted to somehow represent the part of the bull being an ordinary God’s creature doing no harm or wanting to so that it’s more evident that they’re pushed by us when they have to attack - fight back.

It’s straightforward and simple as I wanted to have the bulky looking pages focused on the middle, the ones really dark or detailed. Besides that, I’ll add some more tiny details in the blanck spaces so that it doesn't look so empty or that the figure it’s just floating there.

Page 2

Here the ‘action’ begins, they’re running through streets and around humans, forced by them to be there, indeed.

I thought of adding some more people between the wall and the guy on the right, but, at the same time, didn’t want it to be ‘too much’, so these two guys are supposed to represent a whole group of them. Again, I’ll probably add some more texture on the floor.

Page 3

This page looks to me like the most complete one; it was also the first one that I inked and painted and I’m still happy with it. Only thing that I can say, I forgot that there was going to be a hand in front of the door on the leg (from the previous page) while doing the crosshatching, I might simply add it over it.

Page 4

For this one, I had the idea of the progression from the bull looking up and ending looking down, as the fight goes one he gets unavoidably defeated. Also, I visualised the action in this frame going on diagonally. A diagonal line was traced corner to corner at the very first stage of sketching it.

I’m still thinking about how in the world can I blend/cohesion this one, especially with the next page. Right now they look only like two separated figures that just happened to be on the same page, not the goal.

Page 5

Fave page right there - :(. I really like the aesthetic and the framing going on here but hate the actual situation, so yeah. Not much to say about this one, it is clear and blends well with the next one - yay.

I’ll come back to this one when talking about the 7th, though.

Page 6

In this one, I wanted to subtly add the audience as well as having the bull figuratively fleeing.

Page 7

I did this one referencing the 5th one, showing a clear contrast between them.

Page 8

[undone yet] ...

I tried the red to be also a narrative feature that goes throughout the whole panorama and comes with the fighter and the cruelty around what he’s doing. That’s why the lack of it in the begging and the increasing presence. Also, when the bull is finally taking the control, he’s stepping up on it, the red cape.

Hoping to end this early, add the final touches everywhere, and see how it looks all together.

[audreygallego]

Weekly Summary 17/2

Animated Sketchbook

These weeks I’ve really started planing my panoramic drawing in regards to content and how am I going to organise it. I’m already starting the final sketches.

Animation Principles

Last week of class and I couldn’t find room in my agenda for improving the silhouette as I’ve been really busy with other projects. I look forward doing this next week - however, if it is not possible, I think I can submit what I already have all three tasks without any regrets.

Narrative Research Project

I’m already sure about my question and my film of choice. I’ve started to do some research, watch it lots of time and taking as many notes as I can.

Introduction to Stop Motion

This week’s stop-motion has been a rollercoaster. On the one hand, I really enjoy stop motion, and I can say that it was one of the big reasons why I chose to study animation. I have a pleasant time both watching it, and when it comes to film, though, I don’t think it is ‘my thing’ which is nothing but heartbreaking.

All of this might just come from my lousy planning sometimes, as I tend to just start as soon as I can with whatever I'm doing and realising and fixing the problems while I'm facing them, not the best approach for stop-motion animation.

Even though I may sound a little negative about it, it is quite the opposite, I want to acknowledge everything I should work on and make it happen. The thing is that, at the same time, I see myself seduced by CG and that’s unexpected for me in every sense.

So, this week I spotted lots of little details I should try to always keep in mind and hope to have enough time next week to apply them.

Introduction to Digital 3D

Having a character already prepared for us to be able to fully animate their facial expression was enjoyable as well as big step from animating a simple character jump.

However still getting used to the software and finally deciding that CG is going to be what I‘ll probably choose for the Mystery Box project; during this week’s lesson I learnt something more fundamental: it is important to keep saving every few minutes.

I’ll see my mistake as a friendly reminder and as an excellent opportunity to try to do the tasks again, on my own, as some more practice does no harm.

[audreygallego]

CG - Task E, F

I’m laughing a lot while writing this, as this stupid version:

is the only thing I have from today’s session.

Maya stopped crashed after improving this animation but before pressing Ctl+S - now I’ve learnt the lesson. I have no words, it’s poorly animated yet the stupidity at the end keeps making me laugh somehow.

... It was fun playing for the first time in Maya with actual facial expressions, I want to maybe come back another day to this character and try some other things as it looks like the perfect blank canvas.

Indeed, I’ll also redo both tasks (Reaction + Double Take) and maybe then talk more about what I've learnt, progress, iteration... as there’s no way I can take this seriously.

[audreygallego]

Life Drawing

Today’s drawing was almost all the lesson long. We used charcoal and white chalk to really try to capture the lighting contrast on the body.

[audreygallego]

So, I’m not proud of this animation, though I feel like it is useful now that I’m looking at it and pinpointing everything that I want to keep in mind for the next one.

Easy things:

objects that shouldn't be on the shot on some frames

my shadow appearing and disappearing constantly 

things that should be static moving bc I wasn’t careful enough 

All of these, I realised while doing the animation but I felt too tired and kept going nonetheless. For the same reason - I really wasn’t feeling alright when filming today -, I started with a character picking up the box and not feeling satisfied with the outcome I kept going and left him on the floor and just added a new one.

This is something that really bugs me in stop-motion, I usually do something ok-ish and then keep improving it and improving it until it becomes something average-good, but with stop-motion, it’s not that easy. I get frustrated and, feeling unable to fix the first problems, I just keep going and -indeed- making more.

All of this is easily fixable by just planning more and more efficiently, which is typically my particular hobbyhorse.

Some other things that looking at this few seconds come to my mind are details like: usually, I start animating, and the character is giving us their profile which, at least with this puppets, it’s not the most exciting or dynamic shot. So, in the future, less profile and more front or 3/4.

I still cannot figure out how to animate a decent walk with this puppets as the passing poses appear to me to be extremely difficult to achieve.

Then, timing... I have to work on that, but again I’m sure it’s to be with better planning. And also define better the ‘key poses’.

Now I’m thinking whether I should hand in this animation, as its the last one, or the other go I had a few days ago which was kind of in the same level of not-ok-ness. I wish I had more time to do at least one more attempt, having on hand a list of ‘Don’ts’; but, having the rest of the projects yet unfished, it might be difficult to do so.

[audreygallego]

Weekly Summary 10/2

Animation Principles

Finally getting there with the second task! Its not the animation that I am most proud of, but I feel like at least it is something and I can’t always be 100% satisfied with everything. It is just an exercise, and I tried to do it as best as I can.

I’m also really slow sometimes and when I get stuck in something it becomes a huge problem, as it was with the Silhouette animation. I want to work on this, maybe being more loosely but trying to keep the good.

Narrative Research Project

This week I’ve been focusing on other projects and unfortunately did nothing related to this one.

Introduction to Stop Motion

Well, this wasn’t my best or proudest week. It was just a mess, and I couldn’t have more attempts at improving the only animation that I could do. I’ll keep this in mind for next week, trying to have everything well prepared and a positive attitude.

I’m starting to feel that stop-motion may not be my thing, even though it was the main reason why I choose to go for animation. On the other hand, CGI happens to not be so bad.

Introduction to Digital 3D

Week two was quite funny, as it is so easy to play with a simple character and give it some personality. It only leaves me hungry for more one that we’re finished with the tasks. I also realized that something that in the first term gave me so many headaches, as it’s a simple jump, was much more comfortable to do it in Maya; maybe because it is 3D and my brain reads it better, or just the mere fact that Maya helps you and fils the gaps.

Besides, it is much quicker, so, even though you can start not in the right path, as soon as you realise it you can change or adjust whatever it is needed to real quick and simple.

[audreygallego]

Silhouette - WIP

A few days ago I took a new fresh approach to this task - still not my favourite.

I started with a proud and powerful pose and finishing it in a defeated posture. After hours and trial and error, I can say that this is the best I can do for now.

I tried to give enough time for the viewer to understand what it is going on in the sequence: he’s proud, showing off; he looks in every direction - and when no one is looking -; he ‘defuses’ his posture and falls - dramatically. Something like this is what I tried to convey here.

I want to still work a little more on the frames and the timing of the fall as well as on the last pose that may makes it look inconsistent.

[audreygallego]

Stop Motion - Character Walk and Change of Expression WIP

Today I had a quick attempt at the character walk and change of expression task. I didn’t bring a planned storyboard so I simply started animating straight away - knowing that doing it that way wouldn’t provide the best outcome.

I started with a relaxed walking, changing it to a scared running after ‘hearing’ something. I can’t really find the words for explaining this whole animation or making, it was and is just a mess.

I found out how difficult it actually is to animate a run as at some points the character is literally flying, anyhow, it still doesn't look ok. The action on the middle has also problems, it’s not clear enough for the viewer to really understand it.

Not proud of today’s outcome. :(

[audreygallego]

CG - Task C,D

Marshmallow Man it’s so happy today that we’re animating him jumping.

We broke up the jump in 6 key poses that, in 2D or Stop Motion, would be later followed by inbetweens. However, Maya does this magic for us and fills the gaps smoothly, in fact maybe too smoothly - evenly - that we still have to work on them a little. For this, we use the Animator Graphs, a gift -tool- from heaven but that still takes some time to wrap your head around.

In the next task, MM jumps onwards. Again, key poses and then adjusting their graphs, rotation and translation of each part of his body, which basically fixes the timing and spacing of them.

I added at the end some walking, as a follow through. However, I quite didn't achieve the acting that I was going for; it looks like he lands and, once his done with it, then he starts walking. My idea was for it to be more cohesive, the jump and the walking as a whole.

Now, looking at it with a clear mind, I’m thinking of adding more exaggeration in the anticipation. It seems like Marshmallow Man doesn't bend enough for such a high jump. 

[audreygallego]

Weekly Summary 3/2

Animated Sketchbook

This week I’ve really started planing my panoramic drawing in regards to content and how am I going to organise it.

Narrative Research Project

Even though every lecture is interesting, this week’s lecture has been particularly helpful for me as it has a lot to do with the question that I’ve chosen for my essay, as it focuses on visual storytelling.

We also saw how the medium shapes the narrative of an animated film, which, again was pretty convenient as the short film that I’m analysing was done using stop-motion animation and it really gives it a characteristic feeling to it.

While the lecture I tried to already adapt what we were talking about to my chosen film and I’m confident I’ll have enough approach and points to have a good essay. Now that we’re done with the lectures, I’m starting with the proper research for this short film in particular and start deciding my essay plan.

Introduction to Stop Motion

I had so much fun this week! Although I couldn't attend to the lesson I went a few days later to catch up with the task and ended up doing something mainly improvised, what is what I most enjoy about stop-motion, it can be easy to ‘go with its flow’ and just get distracted, at least for me.

There are many mistakes on the animation that I did, but overall I just had fun, and I see it as just some relaxed practice a way of anticipating the problems that I might find when doing the final animation this following week, I hope.

Introduction to Digital 3D

First week studying CGI and it’s going so much better than I expected. I’ve never really enjoyed that much Digital 3D animation, in comparison with stop motion or 2D at least, but now that I’m looking at it ‘from the inside,’ it seems fun enough to give it a good try.

I look forward being more familiar with the software and overall the new way of thinking that digital 3D implies, I hope I’ll bee soon able to play with it by my own and explore my own approaches.