This blog is to show my progression through university and my personal skills, my blog journey will begin at university and will continue with what ever life throws at me.
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Group Presentation (pitch)
Week 13
This week was the final pitch with my group, the pitch was to show our lectures what we have come up with and how we created it, we needed to have created the piece and photoshopped them onto the university walls. Here are some of the slides that we created,
We came together to scan our work in and put them together. Me and James were the best at photoshop out of our group, so our jobs were to put everyone’s and our own work together and then on to the university walls. Here are the ones that I photoshopped,
The artwork that you see in the pieces are from all of us, however, I am the one that got the photoshop ready, added the colour and put them in the university. I added colour to the pieces because they were originally just line work. As you can see I kept some of the white areas as I thought it added to the piece, which worked very well.
I added the colours orange, yellow and green. When coming up with ideas I was the one to suggest to keep our colour palette very small to keep it interesting, the original colours ware orange, yellow and pink, however, we all decided to change the pink or green. we chose this because we thought green would balance the orange and yellow very nicely.I used many different layers to keep the colours and images separate, to early remove mistakes and to add the colour.
Our time to show our pitch was 11:40, we went through our slides and our pitch, even before the feedback I felt we did a great job and after the feedback, I felt even better about our work, the feedback was so positive and uplifting, we got some pointers on where to improve, but overall our lecture really liked our work and thought it was very out there. we were all very happy with the outcome.
Here are my group's blogs, check them out.
Sophie Smith, https://sophielaurensmith.format.com
Sophie Spencer- Beeley, www.sophiesbeeillustration.tumblr.com
James Townsend, https://jamesillustrations.com/
Louis Charvill, https://louischarvill.wordpress.com/
Kieran Sleap, https://kjsillustrations.tumblr.com
Next week
next week is trip to Liverpool, I am very excited to go on this trip. I can’t wait to see all that art, take pictures and sketch. it’s going to be great.
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Should I do a Master?
Week 12
This weeks lecture was about an MS, I was very excited to hear about this as it is a possible path for me in the early future. The lecture was full of very important information and I was taking in every word. The lecture made me fall in love with doing an MS, I know now this is what I want to do after my course and I will not stop working to succeed. This lecture was so helpful, not in helping me choose what I want to do next but how to go about it, such as what grande I will need, how to apply, where to apply and so on. I came out of that lecture feeling like I knew what I was doing and where I was going.
After the lecture, I sat down with my group and we made plans for the week to get ready for our final pitch on Friday. The meeting went well and we are all set ready to show our piece on next Friday.
For my animation class, this week was just to show our work and get feedback. the lesson didn’t last long so I stayed behind and finished any work that needed to be finished. I finished recreating style sheets, colour studies and an animation test.
Next week
next week is for our final pitch, we have to show was our final piece will look like an what it will also look like on the university wall and in the app Blippar.
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First week back
week 11
This week was the first week back after the Easter holidays and I feel it went very well, I showed my teachers the work and improvements I made over the holidays, I feel I got good feedback and now know what I have to do to develop my work. My first animation lesson was for the class to pitch our work to our teachers and Derbyshire council, seeing everyone's work and all their ideas was very interesting. I went very well and gave me a lot more confidence that my work is good. Friday's lesson was a lecture on teaching, a speaker came in and told us all about the teaching course, what it takes and what the benefits are. I thought it was very interesting, However, I don’t think it was for me. After the lecture, I sat down with two members of my group (James and Louis) and we went through our work and made a plan of what to do next.
James's work
So far James has created two very detailed pieces, one background that will most likely be used for the final piece and a close-up image of a Lara Croft veg. I love his work and think it will be a great part of the final piece. James has also been very involved with Blippar and getting our work to pop up
Louis’s work
Louis has been very busy creating animations and here are some stills of them. He has been creating the animations for Blippar.
My work
I have created two full pages of characters to add to the final piece, I have tried to develop a few and still want to create a few more, however, I am very happy with the way my work has turned out.
next week
next weeks lecture is about an MS (masters) I am very excited as this is possibly a way for me to go after this course.
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Easter Holidays week 2
Week 10
For the second week of the Easter holidays, I worked on my group project work.
I started off talking to my group and seeing what everything has been and was planning on doing so I can plan and sketch on what we have spoken about and my own ideas on our idea. I spend the week careful creating characters
I spent a few days researching sketching and getting my characters how I wanted them. I then took my time to ink them so I can get the line work just right. I spent a good few hours getting the colours I wanted and how I wanted them and colouring them in with the colour we chose. (yellow, orange and green) I love the way these turned out and this these will look amazing on the end piece.
Next week
next week is the first week back at university after the Easter holidays, I am excited to show my lectures my work through the holidays and get my feedback. I’m also excited to see what’s next and what my lessons will bring.
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Easter Holidays
week 9
For the first week of the Easter Holidays, I focused more on my animations than my group work so I can put the same amount of time for each. I started off with finishing off my storyboards and refining them. Heres some of my storyboards,
After finishing my storyboards I scanned them in and started to create my animatic.
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When I had completed my animatic I then went on to complete and refine my style sheets.
I then continued to add everything to my sketchbook that needs to be added. When I had everythig I needed doing for my animation lesson, also to develop my work and animations such as creating tests to see how things will turn out before making the final animation.
I feel I did a lot of work this week, I worked very hard to get everything I wanted to complete and improve. I feel I used my time very well and did more than I set out to.
next week
next week I will be focusing on my group project, we will be coming together to show our work that we have done over the weekend and developing and refining our work ready to go back the following week.
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Presentation day
week 8
This week is the week for the presentations with our lectures. My group is group 6 and our time was 11:40, my group has six people which are Sophie Smith, Sophie Spencer- Beeley, James Townsend, Louis Charvill, Elizabeth Pollard (me) and Kieran Sleap before Friday we came together and made a power point of our work and ideas, here are some of our slides.
I feel our presentation went very well, it was very positive and the lectures loved all our ideas. They helped us piece together our ideas to get the best out of all of us. After talking to them we were a lot more clear on what we are going to do, when we came out we were all very happy with the way it went, we also sat down together afterwards and went over what we all want from each other over the holidays.
next week
next week we are all on holiday for 2 weeks, however, I will still be creating and posting.
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Interview week
Week 7
This week there was no lesson as we have to go interview someone on our subject and how they got to where they are today...
Me and my friend Dan (Danielle Stevenson) went to Manchester to meet a Freelance animator, her name is Joanne Chalkley, we met her in the Factory Studio where we took some pictures and did the interview.
we got to see some of the work that was going on, which was really interesting, here are the pictures we took.
The interview
1. What do you do for a living?
J: Freelance animator and animation director.
2. How did you go into this business?
J: I did a degree in media production at Newcastle Polytechnic and specialised in animation. After graduating I found it hard to get any work or even work experience in the animation industry. I got an evening job stacking shelves at my local Sainsbury's to pay my rent and worked on small animation projects of my own. I got shortlisted for an 'Animator in Residence) position at The Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) in London 3 times. I made a few short films at home on a 16mm Bolex camera. One film ' Gary Glitter Changed my Life' did quite well in film festivals and was shown internationally, as well as at the Edinburg film festival. I still couldn't get a job in the animation industry. I then did an NVQ in Business Administration as a means to get better-paid work than Sainsbury's. While I was on the course they found a work placement, as a secretary, at a local animation company. Once I was there I managed to persuade them to let me do some unpaid animation work for them. This led to paid work in small blocks (I kept my Sainsbury's job too) after about 2 years working for them, on and off, I managed to get a trainee animator job at 'Cosgrove Hall Films' at the point (20 years ago) they were the biggest stop-motion animation company in the North of England. That then leads to animator jobs on many children's series, short films, a couple of feature film. Though I am based in Manchester I have worked in London, Bristol and Wales.
3. What are your inspirations? (artwork, people, artist, etc.)
J: The Muppets Show, silent comedy, The Clangers, Danger Mouse, Mr Bean and Tintin.
4. How did you find Animation?
J: I watched the making of Return of the Jedi, which showed Luke in a pit with a stop-motion creature. It amazed me that they could be together. I wanted to do that.
5. Was Animation your first choice? If not, what was your first choice? And what made you change your mind?
J: Animation was my first choice, however, I wanted to write for animation too.
6. What are your favourite methods of Animation? And why?
J: Stop-motion; I like to use my hands to actually move the puppet. I’m not that great at drawing. A puppet is in its own little world.
7. Which methods are your least favourite? And why?
J: Drawn animation because I can’t do it.
8. Have you worked with any well-known company’s? If so who? And what did you do for them?
J: I started at Cosgrove Hall as an animator. I’ve also worked for Aardman, Warner Bros, Animortal and Factory.
9. Are you doing any projects for company’s right now? If so how many?
J: One for Factory.
10.How many have you done at one time?
J: One thing at a time.
11.Are you doing any personal projects right now? If so what are they? And what are your inspirations for them?
J: I’m helping someone write a story for a graphic novel.
12.Has there ever been a project you didn’t take and regretted it later?
J: I didn’t pursue working on Coraline since it was in America; I wished I had applied to work on it.
13.If you could give younger you any advice, what would that be?
J: Don’t doubt yourself.
14.Do you have any advice to give us for the future?
J: Work hard. Be flexible. Be pleasant to work with; I have got jobs because people like working with me as often as I have got them for being good at my job. In the early years be prepared to travel for work. Don't tie yourself to one town or city. It's quite a small industry so often you hear of jobs by word of mouth. If you make a contact in the industry keep in touch. Not every week or months but every few months drop them a short email telling them what you are up to. It just reminds people who you are and keeps you in their head.
I feel the interview went very well, we enjoyed our selfs a lot and we both feel like we have learnt a lot. going into this was a little nervous at first but after doing this I am a lot more confident and will not be nervous to talk to other artists in the future.
Next week
Next week is the group presentation to show our ideas as a group for the live brief. My group are getting on very well very and can’t wait to share our ideas.
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New Project
week 6
Today was the start of a new project. The project is an alive group project, the class have been put into 13 different groups all mixed with people we wouldn’t normally work with.
when I heard this I was excited but a little scared at the same time. I was excited to work with new people and see their work, but on the other hand, I was a little scared of not being able to work with the people I know and walking into the unknown.
I am really excited to start working on this brief, I feel it will turn out amazing and I can’t wait to see everyone's work.
when the lecture was over I met the people I would be working with for the next 5 weeks. we sat down and started talking ideas and would be the best.
After talking we went with more nature than anything, we all feel that this still might change as we make more work and develop, we all started to sketch and make work to try and develop our work. I started by looking at some images,
I wanted to show these images as I thought they stood out to me the most. here’s the work I did talking and working with my group, we all did different things and have all helped each other through the day.
I have started with simple flowers, using ink and pencils. Now I have a starting point I can develop this into to something interesting and unique.
Next week
next week I am going to talk to a freelance animator.
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Trip Cancelled
Week 5
Because of the snow that we are having this week the trip to Liverpool has been cancelled until the 4th May.so because of this I have taken the time to create an animatic of the storyboards from the mini project.
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I put the frames from the storyboard into Photoshop and create a animatic,in my animation lessons to make sure that everything looks and works how it show before we start to animation so things can be fixed or changed. animatics are also used for creating soundtracks to get the sounds in the write place and when the final animation is done everything can be added better. The animatic helped to place where sounds and music should be.
in my animation class I am also at the stage of animatcs and starting the final animation, here are a few of my first tests.
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these are a mix of Photoshop and aftereffects, they are simple and the first test I have made and are in the process on making more and getting ready for the final piece.
Next week
week 6 is a alive brief, I am very excited to see what it will be and what new skills I will be leaning and what old skills I will be using.
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Illustration, Graphics or Animation?
Week 4
This week was the other lectures for the mini projects. Last week was the Animation lecture and this week is the Illustration and Graphics lectures. The briefs for then are…
Illustration,
using 11 images, create a rough series of events and all link together (1 big image and 10 smaller images which are all the same size.) can only use 3 colour only. This can be done on the computer. Pencil crayon, marker on paper.
Graphics,
Create a unique typographic treatment of this quote “Design is thinking made visual.” -Saul Bass
After looking at all three briefs I think they all sound really good fun and would love to do them all, however, I can only choose one. I feel I need to choose one that will benefit me and improve my skills. The Graphics sounds fun although I don’t see how this all help me. I also feel that the illustration brief looks so much fun and would help me with my link work and storytelling, however, I want to stay with my subject and do the animation brief.
Now I have chosen the animation brief I have started looking at what books I can use what will be the most interesting. I have two books in minds which are The RoseWood Chronicles, The Undercover Princess by Connive Glynn and The Quotable Doctor Who by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright.
I chose these two books before I feel they are both very unique and two of my favourites. they are both completely different from one another and whichever I do choose, they both have great stories/ quotes that will make an awesome storyboard. when choosing these books I wanted to choose something that I would have fun making art for and love to bring to life.
After a lot of thought, I have chosen The Undercover Princess. I have chosen this book because I loved reading the book and it feels so magical every time I pick the book up and start reading. The story isn’t nothing you would like it would be and I can't wait till the others come out.
Looking through the book, I wanted to make sure I chose the best parts for the storyboard, I have chosen chapter 4 as I do feel it works the best with the visuals.
here is my storyboard, there are 16 frames. I am happy with the way this has turned out and would love to make this into a full animation so I am thinking of making an animatic.
Next week
next week is the trip to Liverpool.
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Live Project - Animation
Week 3
This week is the start of the live projects lectures. There will be 3 lectures with speakers coming in to tell us about their work and the live project, the first one was animation, which is my subject so I was most excited about this lecture. The speaker was Mair Bain’s, I knew her from my first year at university when she was teaching photoshop and aftereffects. Getting to see her personal and university project work was so interesting and inspiring, to see how thinks and works really got me inspired to create. The live project (mini project) is to create a storyboard over 10 frames of a storybook of our choosing. I find this very interesting and have many ideas but want to see what the other mini projects are before I choose.
Next week
next week will be the other two mini-projects, illustration and graphics, I am excited to see what they are and make my discussion.
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what have I learnt?
Week 2
Coming out of week 2, I feel the week went pretty good. I got good feedback from my animation teacher on my project, I am now reaching Stuart Hilton, Jonathan Hodgson and Caleb Wood for inspiration for my animations. This week we had to work on our storyboards and get them ready to animate soon. I want to create this animation with frame by frame on the s lightbox as it’s my favourite way to work.
Friday’s lesson I feel like I have taken in a lot of information. This week we learnt about social media and how to write a CV, I found the information very helpful and got to understand networking and why we use social media and how to a pear on a professional level. Finding out all the information and skills that will help me through my working life and to improve my skills overall.
Now knowing what I know from the lectures I can apply the skills and knowgly I know to network, write a CV and find the job I like.
Next week
Next week an animator is coming in to talk to us about their work and tell us about the live project, will have 3 the choose from. Can’t wait to see what they are and which will be my favourite.
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welcome to me...
week 1
I’m an artist studying animation, in my second year and before starting my journey and new life at university, I studied Art and Design level 2 and 3 for 3 years. Studying art and design helped me develop and discover new skills, many skills that I still use today. I found my love of animation at college in my final year, researching Disney animation for a college project. I have always been in love with Disney and in a way animation. Disney speaks to me like nothing else, when I first looked into animation and the history, I fell in love and wanted to know everything about it. with my artwork, I have created many different types of art, here are some of my favourites...
Realistic drawing of my coat.
This piece was created with charcoal on orange/ brown A1 paper. Overall the piece took me 4 hours to complete, I made sure to take my time and take in every detail of the object to make my drawing as realistic as possible.
College project, Savage, and Beauty.
The Voodoo man (princess and the frog)
The Evil Step-Mother (Cinderella)
The Evil Queen (Snow White)
These pieces are from a collection of many other drawings. This piece is a set of 10 images, which all represent Disney villains. I had a project of Savage and Beauty, I chose to show my love of Disney, but let the villains shine for once. I decided to transform the Disney villains from ugly to beautiful women, however, they all still had parts of their old self.
Photography, taken and edited by me
These 3 photos were taken when I was learning photography, by learning photography tout skills that I can now add to my work at university such as viewpoint, composition, Photoshop, Illustrator and so much more.
To see more of my work check out my Instagram page
Back at university
My first week back at university was very exciting, my week started with animation. For the first project we have, we get to choose between short story and factual film. I chose a short story and the story that I have chosen is called 314.
This story is about a woman and the number 314 and how she can’t get rid of this number, where ever she is so is 314. For my first Professional Practice, there was a lecture on networking, which I found very interesting and made me less nervous about getting my work out there to others. We learnt skills that will could use for networking and how to imbrues our personal skills like drawing and animating. I can now see the difference between personal skills and professional skills. This will help me get my work the other artist and get more known.
Overall the first week went very well and a great start to the new year.
My first week back was great, can’t wait to continue on my journey...
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