Draft Horse v2 and Plates ref

Messed around with the head slightly to get a better swing in there and coded the legs/put them on different layers to make adjustment easier. Needs overlap on the muzzle and the legs tweaking so the left hand two don't place at the same time, back leg perspective made more extreme to create a better illusion of the legs being brought forward and taken back. Still needs a lot of work though

To help me get as close as possible to what I would consider a decent animation I've been using Muybridge's wonderful plates. Cannot stress how important they are!

Character development J/D

So I thought I'd get a feel for drawing these guys again since they are going to be the human stars of the reel, well at least for sure one of them will be. I'd love these guys to be couriers or something a bit more normal, mechanics would be cool also. Photographers maybe my good friend drew the little soviet camera at the bottom as some reference for me, you can see more of his work here: http://boxume.tumblr.com/  

Even if its not an action pose, characters doing mundane or everyday things can be interesting and actually quite fun to draw, they might not do it exactly like everyone else for instance and it can add just a little bit more personality. also it can just look hilarious. on a more serious note it can help us as viewers connect to them on a basic level. After all who hasn't wanted to smile for a camera? (image above)

Really rough work on clothing design, it needs to be non restrictive for movement purposes but I'd like it to look pretty cool too, I'm trying to bring in a sloppy military mechanic look.

Power posing from one of the guys >

 Facial work for them both as you can probably see the smaller guy is Jim and the bigger heftier guy Dale. Not very Russian names mind you...maybe they are spy names D:

Music/lipsync

Just posting a couple of candidate songs for my demo reel, I wanted something with a lot of energy and rhythm so the main genre here is Dub step.
Pendulum Tracks:

The Fountain

Witchcraft

Watercolour

Hold Your Colour

I don't feel they add anything really to the narrative? At this stage however once I have been through the lyrics I guess I'l have more of an idea then, they may also help shape my idea more too.
However I'm not completely even sure on the genre so if I hear something that I think will accompany my reel better I'l post it on up here.

Forward Walk Draft Horse Test

Ok so I decided to challenge myself with a awkward 3/4 forward horse walk cycle. It wasn't actually as hard as I first had thought, however I was a bit cheeky with the body and copy and pasted it only adjusting for noticeable movements in its placement ( this will be changed when I do a second pass). The legs are also not working as the should, the general movements there but its not quite right, so a lot of corrections needed there, Running at 12 Fps at the moment as on 24 fps it looks like its headbanging :/ Maybe I'l upload it for a laugh.

While studying the movement in 2d I have also been replicating the musculature in 3d to better my understanding.

Materials used Apoxie sculpt and an awfully looking old cardboard horse form. Looked more like a skinned rat.

I could not recommend doing something like this more. It really made me look hard and concentrate on the form and bettered my placement for effective line work and curvatures which could improve and minimize my style. 

More Sketch work

 Quick character sketch work as you can see I've stuck with the stylized concept I had touched up briefly earlier, just trying to flesh him out a bit more. As you can see from his hat he's Russian ;). he's actually a rework of a older character I created. See Below:

Whether I have time to animate his mate though I have no clue we will see how it goes.

Facial sketch (possible for lip sync) and movement thumb : Helps to quickly jot these down, any angle any situation. Can create character facets and generate interesting ideas.

 Slightly more developed sketch looks like hes vaulting over something . Note: Just thought i'd say it now before anybody goes on about stereotypes  yes he is supposed to play up to some stereotypes. But I see them in a positive way. I want him to be easily recognizable as a character and I want any symbols or clothing to emphasize his occupation or personality. Obviously he is a figment of imagination, I doubt the Soviet Army Pre and/or during cold war had any practitioners of parkour  who were also mechanics, so don't take him too seriously please. As an avid history fan/ history student I've had my fair few scrapes with Russian history during my A level days, I'm by no means an expert do not get me wrong but somethings you just don't forget coming by information wise.

 Torso design, I feel the shape of this really needs to be right for the character to look effective, I think its going to be something I will be focusing on in later sketch work

Flash Test Horse Gallop

Horse Gallop cycle:
Very quick Gallop cycle done over day, although I realized after that the limbs were a bit hypnotic all in the same colour so decided to code them so its a bit easier to follow. Fun to do and relatively easy, However I feel there is not enough of an extension so the gallop looks a tiny but restricted on the back legs. Will mess around with it at a later point to see if I can remedy it. Used references such as Eadweard Muybridge's plates and looked at James Baxter too (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron)

Horse/Parkour Initial Sketches

Initial sketches and studies of Parkour movement, really quick to capture the form in motion, I didn't really want to make the lines dead and/heavy as sometimes it can restrict what you wanted to get out of it in the first place. Done in my trusty blue pencil, apologies for the lightness of the marks you may have to make the image bigger to properly see these ;)

Running and jumping: Stylized these without meaning too, its quite interesting to exaggerate the parts of the body which are in use by the drawn subject, makes them look like they are more than capable of pulling off the task.

Very quick horse sketches with no reference just to see how much I remember of the neck and the head, certainly some odd stuff going on there with that horses front so at least I know I have to do some more work on that area.

Rider and Horse: I did this to see if I could get the dynamics right between the two subjects and who better to study than horseback archers! Placing the human form on top of the equine though is very difficult, it never seems to look right for me. I think it might be worth concentrating on the Two as separate entities before I try making them work in unison.

Chunky Horse: I adore chunky horses so I suppose this was a stab at drawing a Percheron. Just more studying really, nothing of great importance.

Plan time

The Plan: (Obviously to be pulled off with military precision ;) )

Ok for my reel I am hoping to explore the mechanics of movement both in human and animal locomotion. However as they are such incredibly broad subject areas I'm narrowing it down to things which I feel would be challenging enough to capture in 2D animation.

Anybody that knows me cannot escape the fact that I'm a huge horse fan, it's not that I'm a horsey person, as so to say, rather I find it amazing how they move and the relationship between us, humans, and our equid friends that I find incredibly interesting. Not just the whole idea of trust, but also of horsemanship through the ages etc.
I feel I would benefit from the study and hopeful outcome of some horse animation, this will also give me a greater understanding of  movement within other quadrupeds.

The next point of call is animating human characters and so on. I would really love to get a good grasp on emotion and lip sync as well as extreme human movement. A particular area of interest for me in this regard is the urban movement of Parkour, the art of navigating city/urban environments as fast as is possible on your own two feet.
While focusing on these groups of personal interest I'd love to have a good go at introducing a practice of foreshortening and perspective to create and engaging piece which doesn't appear "flat". I feel that the completion of study on these subjects will prepare me in some respects for next years final film project.

A small form of narrative will hopefully be introduced, showing the competing between the two  and the range in which they move. However my main focus is the actual movement itself.
Audio wise I'm hoping to narrow down a track list of songs which I feel would be suitable to use and that I could possibly use to lip sync the character too. These will be posted as soon as I've routed around for them.

As either an inclusive project/or a separate demo reel I would also like to delve into is Character & Creature design, studying in style, form and colour for animation and/or video games. However I still feel I need to discuss this with my tutor . Also I understand that my plan for this work may change in parts due to different circumstances throughout the module.

Proposal

Project Proposal:

Intentions:

As I have progressed through this year of the course it has become more apparent to me that I would most probably be better off, concerning skill and knowledge, to follow the course of traditional 2D animation. Ideally the career path I would follow would be to find employment in either a traditional/Digital 2D animation studio  or in freelance work, although recently I have become more and more interested in teaching within the subject area so that’s also something I shall continue to bear in mind.

Skills:

For this module I believe the skills needed are primarily draughtsmanship, time management and technical aspects of animation for example timing, direction, composition etc.., as well as storyboarding. If group work is taking place then people management and directive skills will also be employed. In order to create a 2D piece a solid underpinning of animation principles is also required such as squash, stretch, anticipation, staging, exaggeration etc... Anatomical understanding to create solid form is also desirable as is the ability to visualize expression effectively.

Hardware:

·         *Mac computer system

·         *Windows (my personal computer runs on this)

·         Graphics Tablet: for visualization, digital draughtsmanship etc .

·         Scanner: Just in case traditional draftsman ship proves easier on some frames.

·         and access will be to both Mac and Windows operating systems as some have OP exclusive programmes

·         Memory hardware and back up drives

Software:

Software needed, will be dependent on which programme I use to put the finished product together. I could do this hand drawn frame by frame, however this will be very time consuming so to eliminate the scanning and resizing time most of the animation, apart from some key frames, I shall digitally enter the images into Flash via graphics tablet.

 Knowledge of the programme Photoshop will also be required for colouring and clean-up of frames. Other programmes needed would be sound editing software; I have experience with Audacity so it may be programme I use. Sound effects Pro would also be an option, however it would mean constantly converting files as it is a Mac only programme and I am primarily based on a Windows operating system, however again this could change.

To create the final render of work the use of Adobe Premier pro and or After Effects will be needed to effectively create a seamless piece and transition from one section of the demo reel to the other.

Production Pipeline:

v  Scripting

v  Casting

 

v  Voice Recording /track recording/sound gathering/recording and library

 

v  Art Direction : Character conceptualization>Character development, Environment design,

v  Layout, Colour styling

v  Storyboarding

 

v  Story Reel/Animatic reel

 

v  Start Production:

v  Key Framing > Animation breakdown > Inbetweening

v  Animation Checking & Clean-up

 

v  Layout and Background Finalization

 

v  Digital Inking/Painting

 

v  Rendering

 

v  Editorial Process:

-Using Adobe After Effects/Premier Pro

v  Final Render of reel.