Who Am I Now?

What have I learned? 

- How to use Photoshop to animate
- How to use Adobe Animate
- Effectiveness of life drawing in conjunction with design
- Timing and Spacing in Animation
- Editing in both adobe premier and after effects

What do I want to learn more about?

- Cell shading 3D models 

- Background and layout

- Fast pace animations

- how to make an animatic using 3d software

- How to accurately portray natural light in a space

5 Strengths

- Character Drawing

- Shadows and shading

- Male proportions

- Fast worker

- Shot framing

5 areas to improve

- Female character design

- Animation in general

- Dynamic drawing

- texture and detail 

- consistency in drawing 

5 Practitioners that make me interested in Animation

- Bruce Timm (Character Design and Storytelling)

- Egoraptor/ Arin Hanson (Peaked my interest in Animation to begin with)

- Phil Bourassa (Inspirational Character design which constantly improves and changes)

- Tyson Hesse (Purely for his incredible opening animation to Sonic Mania) 

-  Studio Yotta (Incredible Storyboards for animations)

5 Resources that Demonstrate My interest

- FIGURE DRAWING For All Its Worth (Book) By Andrew Loomis

- STARTING POINT (Book) Hayao Miyazaki

- Pixar Storyboards

- Studio Yotta Works

- Castlevania Animator Spencer Wan (Link to be included)

Howl's Moving Castle

Howls moving castle trailer

This is my favourite Studio Ghibli movie, as with all Ghibli movies, it is a visual masterpiece,  and the designs are so incredibly intricate that only Miyazaki could have directed such a film. The movie follows a woman cursed by a wicked witch, the curse causes her to be turned into an old lady.

This film is inspired by a Welsh fairy tale, and is a masterpiece of a movie. It is constantly inspiring, with visuals which could easily belong to any live action film.  This movie, although an eastern animation, has so much movement and life to everything. Eastern animations are often accused of having no movement to them, this and most Ghibli movies, prove this to be wrong, as there is constant life to everything in it, and you really feel that this could be a real world. Some of the visuals and world remind me of a somewhat English setting, which really fits with the theme and original source material. It actually somewhat reminds me of Ethel and Earnest in it's setting, only it is directed much better, and the sense of scale is constantly there. Having gone to the Studio Ghibli museum, I am well aware of how much detail went in to the castle itself, as Miyazaki designed every small detail himself.

It is amazing as well as to how much life there is to the castle itself, and it is great to see how much emotion they managed to pack in to a walking house, when it easily could have been a static design. 

Boku No Hero Academia (My Hero Academia)

I told myself I wouldn't write about anime for my PPP blogs, but this show is too good to ignore. Often anime nowadays is completely uninspired and rehashed as well as being cliche, but this anime is incredibly fresh and hooks you from episode 1. I think it is this way because of the likeable character's as well as the interesting world which has been created for it. Midoriya (Deku) is a character which is very relatable, even though it isa completely unrealistic concept, his emotion is constantly on screen, and you really feel the hard work he puts into everything.

I feel like this is such a successful anime because it feels very much like an old school anime, unlike a newer style uninspired anime. The anime is so over saturated now that it comes as an amazing surprise when something like this comes a long and really connects with the viewer.

Avatar : The Last Airbender

I have only recently started watching this show, and I am hooked and have almost finished it. So I wanted to make a post about it because of how much I am enjoying this show. Often as a child I over looked this show, because it never interested me, and as an ignorant kid, I assumed it was just a western Dragon Ball rip off to cash in on Dragon Ball's success. However what I can say, is that is completely wrong. This show is original, and full of great writing, amazing character development, and inspiring world building.

It is not often you get a show aimed at kids with so much attention to detail, to a point which it has created a large fanbase online. The animation is also top notch, it is obvious that a lot of love, care and attention which has been put into it which makes it incredibly fun to watch and makes for an experience. It takes a lot for me to really get into a show, but this one had me hooked pretty quickly. Even the voice cast do their absolute best to portray their character's to an incredibly high level. It is incredibly easy to get bad child voice actors, but these ones do their jobs incredibly well.

Injustice 2

Injustice 2 Trailer

I wanted to make this post purely to talk about Injustice 2's amazing facial animations. It takes a lot for a video game's faces to be completely believable. And Injustice 2's, are the best I have ever seen from a game. Especially with Mass Effect Andromeda coming out recently and showing everyone just how awful facial animations can be, this game tops anything and raises the bar significantly. With this being a fighting game, it would be all too easy to put more effect into the fight animation and leave out the facial animations, but they did not, they put them in to such a high quality that you really believe that these could be a real person's emotions.

I am not very far into the game yet, but the thing about these games is that they are very story driven, so telling a story and also having good fight's is a significant part of the game, and the facial animations and the emotions shown, really add to this, and make a believable story where you can feel for every character.

Guardians Of the Galaxy 2

Recently, Guardians of the Galaxy vol2 came out, and all the reviews I have seen, have given it never ending praise. And I have to say, it was disappointing to say the least. This movie was lazy. Of course with any Marvel movie it was visually incredible, but it is obvious 5 minutes in, that all the charm from the first movie is gone.

The first movie was full of interesting character development, intriguing world building, with a few hard hitting jokes in there. However, none of that was present in the 2nd volume, the jokes in this one often took over the story and character development, to a point in which no character felt like they should, because they were all trying to be the comic relief. There was also no world building in this one, as the story takes place on just 2 planets, and there is a good hour where nothing really happens, and the movie becomes full of cringeworthy jokes and stale storytelling which is pretty much non existent. This movie really rode the marvel bandwagon and is mediocre at best. I really don't understand the reviews saying this film is a master piece, people really seem to be settling for mediocrity.

The Art of set Making

Godzilla Sets 

There is a true art to making giant monster's look big when in reality they are just men in rubber suits. And i think a lot of this has to do with the design of the sets and making them believable. Eiji Tsuburaya, special effects master at Toho Cinema Japan, did this with a style that no one else could match. Tsuburaya is the mastermind behind the special effects in all the original Godzilla films, and making believable miniature sets for the monster to actually destroy, creating a sense of realism which really drives the film to be such a masterpiece. 

Making these large scale sets saved costs for the studio as they couldnt use stop motion. Therefore it made sense to make these sets so that the film looked good. because of the dark tone of the movie, and a somewhat realistic feel they were going for, the sets had to be top notch in order for the movie's message to come across without being cheesy. And it carries this out spectacularly. Tsuburaya was famous in Toho Studios because of his work on Tora! Tora! Tora!, a film depicting the events of pearl harbour. this film also used sets, which were so believable, that the American Government asked for the film to be destroyed, thinking it was real footage of the event. 

Even in the 1998 butchering of the Godzilla franchise, used some miniature sets becuase they can be made cheaper than an all cgi set, and it always looks bette when something is actually infront of the camera, because of the lighting and the general feel of the sets. 

Gumball Anime Fight

Gumball Anime Fight

During the Amazing World of Gumball, there is a segment which includes an anime style fight, and this fight was animated by Studio 4c, a well known Japanese studio by Einko tanaka, the line producer on the Ghibli Film "My Neighbour Totoro".

For a list of their works see: http://studio4c.co.jp/works/en/

I really wanted to talk about this fight, not because it is in Gumball, but because of how well animated it is. The fight flows really well, and works really well in the style of Gumball. It is important to note too, that even the backgrounds are drawn, but they do not feel like it because of how well done they are. I love the juxta position and humour behind this fight. This fight has inspired me to try and direct my own fight scene done with my own characters. I feel like this also shows that anime is not all static imagery, and it is capable of constantly moving and showing how well it can be pulled off in this style. There is definitely a negative stigmatism behind this type of thing, so I am glad that a Western Show like gumball has shown everyone what it is capable of really being.

One thing that I admire, is the use of colour in this fight, and also the use of shadow. All of this really add to the style of everything and really enhance the fight, even though it is so quick, the shadows and light are always there and follow the light source really well, which it would be easy to leave out, but it adds a lot of detail to the already hilarious juxtaposition of style between this segment and the regular show.

Amazing World of Gumball

Recently I have been getting really into The Amazing World of Gumball, from Cartoon Network, as I really appreciate the humour behind it, and one thing I want to talk about, is the animation style, and the composited backgrounds which they use in the show, which creates a really cool effect which I definitely want to try out for myself.

One thing that appeals to me in The Amazing World of Gumball, is the backgrounds, and the way that it is animated. Gumball always uses 2D and some 3D character's, in front of composited backgrounds, using real pictures edited a bit to fit the theme. I feel as though this a really cool and interesting idea, which probably saves a lot of cost for the animators not having to design all the backgrounds and draw them by hand, instead they can just take photos and composite them together.

This is also a really recognisable feature of gumball. I think this is just as recognisable as the Simpsons being yellow, as soon as you flick past gumball on the TV, you immediately recognise the backgrounds, and that is something that I feel is important for any animated show. I think this is something I want to experiment with next year and in future projects, using composite images rather than drawing everything.

Dragonball Super

As an avid Dragon ball Fan, I follow the new series "Dragon ball Super" every week, and one thing I have noticed, is a lot of complaints about the animation drop from the original Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I feel like it is important to note that this is an anime post, and I am not going to go into this type of thing very often, but Dragon Ball Z was a huge influence on my art style, so I feel like it is important to talk about for me.

This is a comparison between an older episode of Dragon Ball Z, and a pretty important episode of the newer show, it is obvious, that there is a definite drop in quality, even if it is a fast frame zoomed in, I feel as though there is really no excuse for this. In anime, there is a lot of static frames, and not much movement, so a lot of the story telling needs to be told by the visuals, and it is pretty impossible to do this when the visuals don't even look good.

Also, it is important to note, that the manga equivalent, looks significantly better, so I feel like there is really a lack of excuse as to why the anime looks so terrible in places.

It is not as though they haven't listened to complaints from fans however, because Toei has issued a blu ray release of the show since it came out, and it already looks significantly better even from promo's from the episodes, which have been re animated to look much more like the source material and the art style is more like the original show.

Tokyo

I am probably only going to make 1 post on Tokyo, and give the short and sweet version, because otherwise I will end up writing 500 posts on every aspect I loved and what I thought of the wonderfully and wacky place of Shinjuku.

A highlight of photos I took from my week in Tokyo, I feel like these photos perfectly sum up my time there. I found myself in constant awe of the area and the customs, as well as being impressed by the food and culture in general. As a long time fan of Japanese cinema it was a truly humbling experience going to a place I have dreamed of going since I was about 4. Most importantly, the Studio Ghibli Museum and the Godzilla Hotel head, were my main highlights of the place.

The Studio Ghibli museum was inspirational, it felt like going into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory for animators, seeing all the concept art and reference images around the recreation of Miyazaki's study where he created so many wonderful ideas. It truly makes you appreciate the art of animation, and for me, I think really drove home why I want to be an animator so much. It also made me appreciate the thought that goes into everything in the movies which Ghibli produces.

The Godzilla hotel was something I had been looking forward to for years, as my entire motivation for going into film and animation, comes directly from watching Godzilla as a child and looking into Japanese cinema, it was an incredibly emotional and personal experience for me.

MAF 3

Wednesday with Goddard

Wednesday with Goddard

Wednesday with Goddard is a short film by Nicolas Menard. I am happy to say that I am one of few to see the advance screening of this in the Skwigly Animation screening which only had a select few places which I happened to get into.

This short film had such a humour to it that it had the entire audience in stiches by the end, the beautifully drawn backgrounds and shapes only helped drive home the humour in the juxtaposition between the art of the background, and the simply shaped character's on screen, particularly Goddard, the main character searching for God. With it being a short, the movie is short and sweet, and does not hang too long on anything, rather, getting the plot across to the audience in a simple and humorous way. I don't really want to go too deep into this because I feel like it is best if you don't take it too seriously, all I can say is this was an incredibly funny experience and the best of the Skwigly recommended shorts.

MAF 2

The Red Turtle

The red turtle was my most anticipated movie of Manchester Animation Festival. As a long term Ghibli fan, I am usually impressed by all of their movies, and I was excited to see my 2nd Ghibli movie on the big screen. However, I was disappointed by what I saw. First however, let me get the positives out of the way so I can talk about why I was left disappointed. The movie was very visually pretty, the style and shadows all felt natural and they were always beautiful. The sound effects and music always felt atmospheric, and you always felt like you were there due to the atmosphere at the time.

Unfortunately, for me, they were the only positives for me. This movie rides the Ghibli name to success, but calling it "arstsy" is merely an excuse for mediocre. I have seen many people now giving this film highly positive reviews, but all of these reviews seem to make excuses for it, which is always a bad sign. This movie's story is pretty much non existent, for a disappointing ending. The whole story was disjointed, with no real point to anything that any character was doing. The movie was also about half an hour too long, clearly there was a conscious choice not to use voices, however this really let the film down, there could be a lot more of an interesting story, and a lot more understanding about the motivation of the character. I don't want to be purely negative about this movie, because I am glad I watched it, but it was altogether boring, and there is only so long you can look at the exact same setting for an hour and a half, where nothing happens constantly. I really feel like this movie is riding the Ghibli name with no real quality of it's own, this would have been much better suited to being a short film rather than a full length feature.

MAF 1

My Life as a Courgette

For my first Manchester Animation Festival post, I want to talk about what I consider to be the best moment of the festival, with that being My Life as a Courgette a film from director Claude Barras about a small orphan boy struggling with fitting in and finding his place in an unknown place and sticking up for his friends.

This film was such a surprise for me, I knew absolutely nothing going in to this movie, and it was clear from minute 1, that the whole audience was enticed and intrigued as to what would come next. The writing always felt so personal and fresh, and the child character's felt like they were inexperienced, but troubled children. Often when writer's write child characters, it feels very one note, but these felt like real character's who you felt for, at every turn. The animation was also top notch stop motion, the style was incredibly consistent, and all of the sets and characters felt like they belonged in the world which they were introduced in. The sets also had the necessary amount of detail for the shot they were in. Often sets in stop motion feel very deliberate, where as in this movie, all of them felt life like. Overall, I think this was my favourite Manchester Animation festival moment, as it always felt fresh and new to me, and definitely introduced me to some styles that I was unfamiliar with.

Teen Titans: Judas Contract

Judas Contract

I could talk about any number of things when I talk about DC animated movies, a subject I am passionate about, so I feel like it's important for me to talk about this movie, DC Animation's latest, and it's short comings.

Why this movie fell short

There was a lot riding on this movie, and a lot of excitement for it throughout the community. However, it failed to do what it needed to, as a movie, and as a sort of replacement for the show teen titans and it's never released sixth season. There was so much wrong with this movie, that I was left embarrassed whilst showing it to a friend of mine in which this was their first experience with DC animated movie. The writing in this movie felt incredibly lazy and forced to me. All of the jokes felt like it was from a pre teen comedy movie which is straight to tv on the Disney channel. None of them properly connected, and the chemistry between characters felt very forced, and you never really feel for the character's at all. None of the character's felt like they had any motivation for doing what they were doing, and the Deathstroke/ Terra relationship, although comic accurate, could have easily stayed in the comics and left out of the movie. Because of a lot of stuff they had done in earlier animated movies, there could have been a  much more consequential bad guy in this movie, but Deathstroke is reduced to a joke making, paedophile esk character. All of the character's just had the character of "teen" and it was clear the writer's of the movie did not connect with the character's at all, because it was all so cliché.

America - William Silvers

I have just come back from Florida, during my time there, I went to Disney Springs, where there was a store called Animation in Disney. I just so happened to meet a Disney Artist in this time, and had a brief conversation with him about his paintings, and how he feels about them. The artists name was William Silvers. I had no clue who this artist was, so when I came back, I looked into him a little more, and found that Disney is not his only art, and he actually did some of the painting for Star Wars and his speciality is in realistic wildlife art.

During my conversation with him, I tried to ask more about him and how he felt about his art, because I think how the artist feels about their work is much more important than the general public. He revealed to me that he is always trying to learn new things and new techniques, and he is always trying to improve. So he views his art in this way, and encouraged me than anyway could get to his level, because art is a constant learning curve which you can never know everything. There is always something you can do better. I am going to try and take this and apply it into my own art work, and continue to try and learn and grow as an artist. My experience with William Silvers was incredibly inspirational, no matter how brief, and I think his message is something I can learn from. It even inspired me to try some painting of my own, which I have not done for a long time.

Digital Drawing Progression

2015 Drawing Tablet


2015 was my first drawing tablet, and I tended to just draw things I was comfortable with, mostly a lot of Halo and DragonBall  Z. I just wanted to make this post to analyse what I was doing wrong at the start and where I am now. When I first started, I used a lot of reference, and I was very proud of my drawing ability, and I tried to play around with lighting a lot, but I didn't really understand how. I was also new to digital drawing, so I was not very daring with colour choices, so I lowered the opacity of a lot of stuff to try and make it look more realistic, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted. As you can see from this very first re draw I ever did, which was in the space of 10 weeks I became a lot more bold in my colour choice, and the effect is immediate. However there is still a lot wrong with it like blending, and general form

Now in May of 2017, almost 2 years after I decided to redraw it again, using no reference but my older drawing, using my new program of choice, sketchbook pro.

I think it is pretty obvious that progression has been made, there is a lot fixed about this, most noticeably the colouring and the cleanness of everything. This new version I am very proud of, it is very crisp, and the blending on the background is far superior. The line work also has a lot more form to it, and everything has a lot more weight. I also reworked the design slightly to make it fit in with the piece a lot more. I am really proud of my progression, and I think I have definitely come to terms with lighting and stuff a lot more.

Using Sketchbook Pro

At the start of the year, I started using Sketchbook pro, which I had not used before. Before starting I was using Clip Studio Paint and Adobe Photoshop. I immediately preferred the interface and it became my medium of choice when drawing and animating. However, it is clear from the images above, that I was not nearly as comfortable with the programme as I am now. The image on the left, was done around October/November time, but the image on the right was done about 1 hour ago. It is clear from this that the line work is a lot cleaner, and the general form has a lot more weight to it. It was also drawn using a Microsoft Surface Pro, which I bought at the start of the year, and I think this is also relatively clear from the drawing, as before it was very sketchy. I chose to keep the colour palette the same for the updated drawing, however as I have become more comfortable with the programme, my colour palette now is much brighter, and the colours are much bolder.

What I love about Sketchbook Pro

I love a lot about Sketchbook pro, I feel like it is just a simpler way of digitally drawing, it is as easy as drawing pencil on paper, , which is what I love about it.

Brushes -

The brushes on Sketchbook pro, in my opinion, are far superior to Photoshop's, and also Clip Studio's. There is such a wide range, and such customisation that it makes it easy to get my desired effect without mucking around making my own in a program like Photoshop.

Colour Palette -

I love the fact that the colour palette in Sketchbook Pro is the copic colour palette, as Copics are my medium of choice when I colour by hand.

What I dislike

Layers when animating -

When you go into the animation document on Sketchbook pro, you are very restricted with what you can do, because there is only 3, and one of them are set for the scene, and you cant change it, so it makes it very difficult to work around and make a good animation using it.

Resolution -

The only other problem with Sketchbook Pro I have, is whenever you make a new document, the default pixel per inch is only 100, which means the file is very pixelated and doesn't look as good as it could do.

Justice League Dark

A Darker Side of the Justice League 

Last week, the latest DC animated movie was released. Set in the same universe as the previous 6 movies from DC, this movie is based around "Justice League Dark", a comic book line portraying some darker character's, and more adult themes than the usual Justice League comics. There is also a lot more magic, and supernatural elements to these comics than that of Justice League. The producers of this movie wanted to stay as true to the comic's as they could, so this id DC's first "R" or 18 rated film they have released. As an avid DC fan, I can saw, the movie is good, it is not amazing, but it is in no way bad. 

What I liked:

When going into this movie, I had no expectations what so ever, I just knew, that with it being a DC animated film, it would obviously have the same aesthetic, with the same designs and character's as have been in the past few movies. I expected there to be less of the main cast to make way for the new character's being introduced in this movie, however I was pleasantly surprised to find there was still 1 member of the original Justice League present the entire time, that member being Batman. With Batman not having his own movie this year, it made sense for him to be more in the limelight during a Justice League movie. 

The new character's which were introduced, were all done quite well, about as well as you can introduce about 6 main character's in an hour and a half long animated movie. The designs of the character's were all classic and yet modernised and refreshing, which made it a pleasure to watch them at all time's. I did not expect this movie to be funny, with it being an 18, however I found myself laughing a fair few times, which made me appreciate the character's a bit more, because they did not take themselves too seriously. The general flow and plot of this movie was ok, there were times which were a little slow or too convenient but it was fine, and I appreciated what they were going for. 

What I disliked: 

There was a lot of times when watching this movie, when I thought that it should have been renamed "Constantine and Justice League Dark". His presence in the movie was great, but he often overshadowed the rest of the character's apart from Batman, and really a lot of times the other character's had very little to do. Especially character's like Etrigan the Demon and Swamp thing, always made their presence known on screen when they were given the time, but they felt incredibly underused overall. 

As a huge Batman fan, it feels strange to say, he was unnecessary, the part I thought he would play, is to connect the new character's to the original ones. however the original ones were hardly in the movie, therefore making Batman's role insignificant. He was there to make a few cheap jokes, often during the fight scenes he offered absolutely nothing and wasn't really shown. 

Overall: 

Again, this was a good movie, it had it's flaws, but ultimately it was quite enjoyable. If you want to check out the movie trailer go to: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbA8TKIeJ7g

Batman: The Animated Series

It would feel wrong to not write about this legendary show, as it is the entire reason I got into animation in the first place. Batman: The Animated Series is everything you could ever want from an animation, and a Batman show, where the script, aesthetic, and movement all lend themselves to each other creating one, ultimate show.

What is it?

Batman: The Animated Series was an animated tv show from Warner Bros and DC airing through the 90s after the success of Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989). The show was created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, and it carried a similar soundtrack to "Batman" (1989) jowever it was a completely seperate thing on its own, with a vision to redefine what people thought of Batman.

But why is it good?

There is an endless amount of reasons this show is amazing, however, I could talk about this show for ages, and therefore it seems better to just cut this down to the main reasons it is my favourite show of all time; aesthetic and story.

Aesthetic

Batman: The Animated Series had a revolutionary aesthetic, both in terms of backgrounds and character design. Batman: The Animated Series was animated on black animation tiles, in order to create a darker tone and feel overall, with the norm being using white tiles, this was different to what anyone else was producing at the time. The backgrounds were all done using pastel, and then scanned in so that the character's could be placed over the top. The Character designs were all done by Bruce Timm, and the idea was to relay the character's detail and muscle shape whilst feigning detail. The simplicity of the character designs show this incredibly well and allow for a lot of emotion and fluid movement all the time.

Story

The stories in Batman: The Animated Series were written by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, and rewrote some of the classic Batman character's and gave every character so much depth and character. An example of this is Mr Freeze, in the comics, he had just been an enemy with no real backstory, however Paul Dini gave him a backstory which was both relatable and easy to empathise with. This episode was called "Heart of Ice" and won awards due to its amazing story and animation. Many episodes from this series were nominated and won awards due to their story. My main example of amazing story, is introducing the character of Harley Quinn, the Joker's sidekick/love interest. She was introduced as a low down henchman, and people loved her so much from one episode that she is now a pop culture icon who is cosplayed and loved all over the world. Overall, the stories offered empathy, depth and feel for every character, as well as giving everyone a new look at Batman.

Conclusion

I could talk about this show for hours, however I feel that this is a good place to end it, if you'd like to see what I mean, here are a few of my favourite episodes:

"Christmas with the Joker"
"The man who killed Batman"
"Heart of Ice"
"Robin's Reckoning"
"Joker's millions"
"Almost got 'im"
And "Two Face"