#andybiddle

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Motion Graphics - Briefing and Research - 02/11/20

For today’s briefing, we had an introduction to the motion graphics project where we were briefed on the guidelines that we needed to complete for the project as well as ideas and starting off points that we could go off for inspiration. For theming for the project, we had to create two motion graphic projects based from either something from; Diversity, Sustainability, Wellbeing. From those examples that we were shown in the lesson, there were a few artists that I felt attached too being their animation style or the idea that they created they’re idea from even if it’s not the same as our brief/theme.

Artists I felt Attached to from the briefing:

Robin Davy - https://www.robindavey.co.uk/about

James Curran - http://www.slimjimstudios.com/

Andy Biddle - https://vimeo.com/andybiddle

Kevin Germin - https://k-eke.tumblr.com/

Will Anderson -  wanderson.co.uk/

Julian Glander -  wanderson.co.uk/

Jack Sacks - https://www.jacksachs.co.uk/

Whilst these artists may of not been all CG related, James Curran’s visual style really stuck out for me as I liked how he transitions his imagery into another design and then back to the original making an infinite loop with his animation particularly his Japan based Gifs. In addition to James Curran, I really enjoyed the stop motion side of Andy Biddle’s looping Gif too as I felt very inspired to maybe do a stop-motion based Motion Graphic for the project because of it. 

One of James Curran’s Japan Gif’s he created when spending a month in Japan and created a Gif every day on his day out -

Andy Biddle - Little Happy Horror

Own Research:

After the Briefing, I did come up with an idea from the artists we looked at in the lecture which was to look at using different human body parts and them animated in after effects messing with a visual representation of a brain that's crudely put together. There would be two approaches to this which would be either an After Effects creation of taking picture of my arms and body features and placing them into after effects to be animated or go with a stop motion approach and use my actual body to animate the sequence together or use someone as my model. This idea would all be to do with the idea of mental health as it would represent the feeling of not feeling in control of yourself like someone is pulling the stings for you. Because of this, I feel a real-life aspect for the Gif would work really well 

From the idea I came up with, I looked up how I might be able to make my Gif with looking into live action human body parts in the real space where I found how to place a 2D character in live action footage which may be helpful to making my idea a lot easier to understand. Whilst it’s not a 2D process I would be thinking about exploring for the GIF, it was useful to how I might implement that idea into a real thing. But other than the own thinking and the research online, I think I will need to continue my research in the research document that was provided for us to look into for our idea development process.

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Researching into “Somewhere Only We Know” Animation.

It was very difficult to find information about the animation process for the “Somewhere Only We Know” (Allen, 2013) advert. However, I did find that the lead character designer was Aaron Blaise and the lead animator was Andy Biddle. (Their personal links are below)

Whilst watching the video posted onto Lilly Allens YouTube webpage you get an in-depth view of the work that went into making the 3 minute animation. I particularly loved watching the 2D drawn animals mixed with the 3D modelled backgrounds, as well as the small details of the presents and the trees. I posted screenshots of these below to show the areas I was most interested. As I have previously modelled a set for my GCSE artwork and in my spare time, this is something I would love to expand and work on through my animation year.

By using replacement techniques, they animate the key characters, the bear and the hare, through a snowy scene. Although the animals are 2D, the 3D aspects really compliments the art choice and is something I will attempt to do experimental wise. It doesn’t break up the flow from digital to 3D because I’m captivated by what the bear and hare are doing I didn’t acknowledge the change until shown behind the scenes. This is something I want to achieve as it is powerful and really reflects on me how emotional connections with the characters make the scene become more real. I wanted to understand how the animator particularly works in this field therefore I did some research into his Vimeo account.

Andy Biddle specialises in 3D Stop Motion Animation. I especially loved watching his Showreel which shows how he used Maya to map his animations before replacing the digital work with hand made models. Each of his animation sets are handmade for his videos, these range from telly adverts, experiments and short pieces of work. I find his work incredibly inspiring as its so broad on his topics and styles, from 2D animation through to CGI. He’s worked on several famous and popular films such as Fantastic Mr Fox (2008), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2013) and the Isle of Dogs (2017).

Aaron Blaise is a wildlife artist and animation director, he primarily focuses his work on animals and concept artwork as well as storyboards. He teaches multiple drawing techniques such as character designing, drawing cartoon animals and painting in digital software. He works primarily on digital but occasionally does traditional drawings as well. I particularly enjoyed looking at his digital art work because of how intwined it is with real animals and aspects. This is something iI rarely accounted when researching concept designs around animals.(https://www.facebook.com/TheArtofAaronBlaise/photos/a.1529345343969206/2535231056713958 - An example I loved)

https://vimeo.com/418065356 (Biddle, 2020)

Andy Biddle Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/andybiddle

Aaron Blaise Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheArtofAaronBlaise/