Pin the Limb

I decided to create a little character that could be cut out and used to create a simple stop motion animation. So it's an interactive illustration. It was a quick idea that I had, so I quickly whipped together a version of Pete in illustrator with some text which I'm not particular happy with, but it contains simple instructions on how to cut out and put together Pete and his limbs. 

I wanted it to look quite fun and the main audience is for children. I got it printed on quite thick card, and if I was to recreate this I would have it on thinner card to make the whole process easier, I even found it hard to cut out the limbs and because some bits are a bit more detailed cutting out with sissors was almost impossible. I needed an adult supervising! And I'd printed my test on a4 but the actually print I would sell is on a5 which would make peters limbs even harder to cut out by a child, it would have to be an older more confident child.

Sometimes  I had to use a scalpel! Especially when making holes to pin he pins in the limbs. So next time I would print it on thinner card and maybe put a back board behind he print when I put it in hue plastic cover so it keeps the print straight. And I would print it a4 AND I would re do the lettering and maybe re think the wording.

Over all pretty happy with this chappy!

Animations in Advertising

Just recently pay pal have released these adverts which are part animated and part video, the one I've link to this post is quite fun! It's got dinosaurs floating around! Yey! Just watching one ad break inbetweeners watching Greys Anatomy, the adverts which were animated where Rennes, Yakut, even at the end of a Johnsons ad and the flora advert! And a lot of adverts at the moment seem to be going for the 'hand drawn' look!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ihaHKKx5wfQ

The Queens Monastery

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

I wanted to go back to traditional animation, creating my frames outside of flash using a traditional technique, and my strong traditional technique would be watercolour, so I researched this, and the animation came up, in this animation I learnt again how important sound is to creating emotion and aiding movement.
The Queen's Monastery (Water Colour Animation)
Conceived, animated and directed by Emma Calder. Music by Leos Janacek.
I loved the movement that was created by the use of the watercolour, it was beautiful. So I took the frames that I had  created in flash for my walk cycle which helped me plan out my traditional frames, and basically worked the same way on a lightbox as I did in flash. Layering up the roughs until I reached the final frame. I quite liked the result, but I found that it was not the quickest, nor easiest way to animate, you had no control over the frames once they had been scanned in. so if they were slightly wrong you couldn't change it.

Help tutorials I've watched along the way

Converting Art to Vector with Image Trace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-eteeo544

Convert a drawing into vector artwork in Adobe Illustrator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXGY9Q7VmU8

This tutorial taught me about using the pencil tool in Adobe Illustrator,  it show me how to convert a scanned drawing into vector artwork in adobe illustrator, using curves and anchor points.

Vector Line Art Tutorial in Flash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rrjmNtOQDY

This tutorial taught me how to construct an image in flash, an extremely handy skill to learn as later on instead of importing sketches into illustrator to draw and then transport to flash, I would just draw directly into flash, sketching my way up on different layers like I would sketching on to of a lightbox. This tutorial taught me how to lock layers, which tools to use, how to change the colour.

Hand-Drawn Animation in Adobe Flash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQjOynnr7AI


This tutorial helped me understand how to use flash to create a more traditional approach to animation. It pushed me into drawing straight into flash which really quickened up the animation process. It also taught me about 'key frames' the key movements of a movement and 'inbetweens' which is frame which help the key frames flow. To stop it being jumpy. When using a pressure sensitive tablet you can enable 'use pressure' and 'use tilt' which really helps the image look like has been drawn. You can changing the 'smoothing' of the line which can either make it look really vectorized or really hand drawn.

F7- Key frame
Shift-F5 remove frame
F5 copy of the previous frame
F6 coverts a F5 copy into a key frame

How To Animate - Walk Cycle (Tweened)

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

This tutorial I wanted to watch to understand about 'tweening' which in flash means that flash can help you move you animation without hand drawing every frame, but you need to learn how to code and I found it a little complicated and I really wanted to keep my animation looking traditional. Tweening would require a lot of work but would end up making your animation look very smooth. But I don't think I would want that, I quite like the look of hand drawn.

Adobe Flash CC: Basic Actions and Code Snippets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxQKUayab2M

I really wanted to look into coding, I've done abit of coding before which really helped me understand what they were talking about! But I still felt abit unsure about coding and needed to decide whether I wanted to dive into coding, or to step back and focus my energy on something else. This tutorial was basic coding for a website.

Animating a Head Turning - Adobe Flash CC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7JKpUJv1xo

I felt like instead of diving into coding I wanted to rewind back and practice animating, making movement better, learning to convert what we see in real life into basic lines, and how we move. I did alot of people watch, seeing how they moved conveyed their character. Extremely interesting!

Matthew Robins

 http://www.sadlucy.com/matthewrobins.html


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5x93LMHhDI

This isn't an animation but it is kind of. I remember Matthew Robins coming to give a talk in our first year of illustration. I was completely captured by his traditional hand made feel about his work.He created movement and it was so fun to watch and experience. He reminds me that traditional take on things can be refreshing. I had to research him because his videos are so entertaining. It almost reminds me that I need to loosen up not worry about it having to perfect and movement needs to suggest movement but it may not necessary completely represent it. 

Jump!

Love this jump cycle, I wanna animate it, may get Mary on of my pirates who hasn't had the pleasure of being animated yet to get a jump going on! It just looks fun and entertaining :)

Cameo necklaces

I would love to see my little skull boy on a cameo necklace like this as it really fits in with the day of the dead theme. Of course something I would love to create if I had the time! I could sell it on Etsy, or at a fair such as the stuff fair, or at the summer show. Or in the shops that pca sometimes own. Or I could approach a shop selling similar stuff, like there is a jewellery shop close to live on Hyde park road which I have already spoken too who would be happy to take work to sell. I'm. It sure if the theme would quite fit in with the style of the shop.