PPP2 Evaluation

I have changed quite a lot during Second year.  This year, I have a lot of opportunities to work in groups, experiment and develop further and discover more about myself and I have different results from those. At the beginning of the year, we had the MAF festival but I did not go because I thought the maya brief is more important at that moment which I regret it so much now. Nevertheless, we had a lot of presentations this year, the Animation studio research allows me to look deeply into the real Ghibli studio, their history, what it is like inside the studio and the main people. I learnt that the even the most successful studio struggles and it makes me feel more motivated as an animator and feeling more engage with this career. The pitch perfect brief also provides an opportunities for us to research about the costs, the tax and other odds and ends that we need to set up a business which I figured out that I would like to work for somebody instead. I found out a lot more about myself and my future through researching and I found it importantly useful.

I enjoyed drawing traditionally so much in applied animation and in COP. I drew traditionally both on paper and in flash which was another new animating programme learnt this year! I learnt that is vital to have precise timing and spacing planned out before hand in order to make a good looking animation and my weakness is in easing and timing. During the two briefs, making backgrounds and using watercolours are as enjoyable as animating itself and I think I am quite talented at colouring but still, want to improve the quality of drawing as I was not satisfied by the frames I did. The large amount of group work also push me to talk to people more often and keep asking for feedback and exchange information within group. I have more vocabularies to describe my work, explaining ideas and to comment on other’s work constructively which is the biggest improvement from having all the group work this year.

I also met a lot of professionals this year, like Dave Alex from Aardman, Zane Whittingham from Fettle animation and contact couples of animators that I like or found on internet. I feel like talking to them is a big improvement to myself as I have been so shy. The professionals have great experience and they explained the real situation in the animation industry clearly to me and I had a better overview of it. I would not say I have learnt much from them but they are all very nice and friendly with passion and happiness on their faces. I wonder if I could keep animating after graduated since I have been so lost through the year, worrying about the future, the career and my own style.

I think my current aim is to improve the quality of my drawings, less sketchy lines and more accurate move. Animation wise, good quality of drawings would definitely help and also I want to learn making motion graphic. Exploring different mix media animation like scanned in textures and 3D & 2D. I also want to find my unique style because at this stage, my style is constantly changing without a distinct element and I do not like it. I hope to find my special feature while drawing more and more during this summer and set up some drawing tasks daily, push myself more and hope this could break the boundaries. I am not hardworking enough which I regretted it now therefore I need to push myself very hard next year to achieve what I want. For the future, I still have not decided whether I would like to stay in the UK or go back to Hong Kong or go to dreamland Japan. I quite like the working environment in the UK, everyone is nice, the studio usual full of creative and fun people but I would miss home a lot and I hate living alone. On the other hand, Hong Kong has so little opportunities as an animator, creative worker usually end up doing commercial job like advertising but do not really have a chance to develop own work while Japan is more in between but have to be really skilled and hardworking. After this year, I can surely say that I do not want to set up a business because I do not want to be the boss but still hoping that I could have a certain authority in the studio. Over the Summer, I would focus on practising drawing skills, hopefully I would get the job which is animating a background environment for a musical on screen and I am very looking forward to it. Also start researching COP3 essay topic and hope I could find something interesting that will influence my perspective of seeing animation or the world.

Moth Collection and other artists

I was introduced to Moth Collection by Oscar and I ABSOULTELY love their work! The first video I watched at their home page was stunning (scroll down!) The animation combines illustrations, graphics and 3D with a style that I love so much. The characters is beautiful with graphically designed environment that is just dreamy and amazing. I really want to know what they make it so delicately and I wish I could have this sense. It is very important to practice drawing skills daily and I should push myself more to achieve that.

They still make a lot of illustrations and little gif which are also super cool. I love how they included textures in their illustrations (which I have been trying to do so this year) and the choice of colour is perfect. 

The Last Job on Earth - The Guardian from Moth on Vimeo.

The Moth Collection reminds me of this Hong Kong based artist

Little Thunder 門小雷
Unlike Moth, Little Thunder never use digital materials but ink and other water-based colour instead. Her style is so authentic and comfortable to look at and she is really good at painting light and shadow. It is important to leave blank when drawing so the picture could be more realistic.

Other similar artist like USA based Tomer Hanuka. I found him on BoooooooooM!. Amzing use of colours, layout of the characters, information within the illustration and the drawing skills. Perfect!

 

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is an anime series by Wit Studio. The series is directed by Tetsurō Araki and written by Ichirō Ōkouchi and original character designs by Haruhiko Mikimoto. This is one of the most popular anime started in this spring with a vintage style of character design and beautiful storyline and exquisite storyboard which has make a boom in the ACG world. I only watched the first episode because it is too amazing and I should watch the whole story when it is finished at once for some respect haha. The style as I said is like styles before 2000, it is because the character designer is old and worked at many famous anime before like Macross and his distinct style is still loved by many people now a days. It also bring some fresh element to the ACG world when many of the new anime just emphasis on girls, love and fans services. People love good story and plot with beautiful art and Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress satisfies them.

I obsessed with the storyboards they display in Japan. The level of detail and each panel is useful to the story, no wasted scenes at all.

I know some director could not draw but Araki definitely can! His drawing in the storyboard is already fascinating and tell the story interestingly with different creative camera angles. The colouring also help a lot when distinguishing characters or movements.

These panels below are so powerful!

The steampunk-style design mix with traditional Japanese cultures remains me of Princess Mononoke. The tone of the whole animation is so beautiful and make the environment more realistic.

Let's enjoy the Opening animation!

Anime production in brief

To understand more about the real local Japanese animation firm's, I have been looking for informations and references online. The animation companies in Japan do not usually let strangers in or to film but luckily there are still some videos on youtube demonstrating the working process of normal animation company. I think it would be good looking at studios in different places, comparing their working process and equipment and I found that the Japanese studio do not use updated computers and softwares even in 2010. I was not surprised since it is a pretty low pay job and maybe they want to save money for better use but this also differ in the studios as well.

Basically all the anime are hand-drawn and most anime has been including CG recently as it does save time. The main animators will do the key frames and set the basic look of the characters and moves, other animators are filling the in betweens then all the frames would be drawn again twice for the high quality outline with other informations like indicating the colours. The frames will then scanned into computers and painted digitally by other animators. After that the coloured frames are sent to the programmers who edit the frames together and add any filters or change in camera angle by editing software. This is basically the work a animation studio would do, they hire other sound studio and Voice actors for the sounds instead. It sounds quite the same the the UK studios but I would say anime studio is definitely more intense and longer working hours since they have to produce a 20 minutes anime episode every week with more than 300 camera shots.

Creative CV

Anime Drawings

so I have done quite a lot of anime drawing this year. I have been uploading them on Pixiv, a famous Japanese Illustration website where illustrations or animations could be uploaded and could be rated and commented by anyone. I did not show any anime drawings to the class because I feel like drawing anime is not appreciated in the UK... so I have been practising silently. This year, mainly I practise a lot of different style of drawings, painting on one layer; a lot of layers; different brushes; lighting and colour. I think I have build up a good sense of colour and lighting than before. I have been watching the working environment of Japan animation studios like Production I.G, Sunrise and Kyoto animation, because I really want to be an animator inside or any job possible I could do in Japan animation industry. But before that, I know they have an incredible high standard of requirement neither in drawing skills or Japanese skills, and I really want to try out life being animator in Japan. However, this kind of confused me since my style is very flexible.. I do not know which is the real style deep inside me. I started feeling worried about the future whether I should stay in the UK or go back to Hong Kong. The anime drawings has only little future, though it is what I like to do, unless I was master level of anime artists, there would be quite little opportunities to develop it as a career, at least not in the UK. 

Lip sync

Lip sync is the move of lips silently in synchronization with a pre-recorded soundtrack. It is widely used in Stop-motion, documentaries, or any animation that requires characters to speak. There are different mouth shape for different vowels for example a smiley wide open mouth shape is for vowels A and I. Like the pictures show below. 

The mouth shapes has to be made before the audio because the shape makes the sounds so never delay the animation otherwise it will not look natural. We had a little task to lip sync a character. I chose 'You're a wizard, Harry' line from Harry Potter and the philosophy stone. Instead of following the letters, saying the line out would capture the mouth shape in accuracy and so I use U and E for You're; A for A; U, E,D for wizard; A and E for harry. It feels complicated at first but soon I found it's fun to do because it could change the emotion or exaggerate the expression according to how you want your character to be.

Business Card

There are a lot of creative business cards out there like the ones I found on the internet and I really like them!

very cool paper cut business card. Definitely make people remember, but it might be difficult to keep and there's so little space for information. I would like more colours or patterns to show on the card.

I like the idea of folding the business card into something different. The box is a clever idea where it could stand on office desks or just as a decoration and it is also very creative! It is also related to the job, probably cargo at the airport.

I think this business cards are very creative however it is not really very useful. Why would someone want to take out the word? How could others remember you!?

I think this would be suitable for puppet makers or animators! I would like to play round with this but it might be very hard to put inside wallet but it would be cool if it was less thick.

I have an idea that a business card could expand into a lantern and could act as a decoration at home. But it is not very efficient when keeping it in pocket and it is very hard to cut so many letters on paper lantern also increase the chance of breaking.

I am thinking of a way to tell my background so I look for traditional paper cut and I absolutely love them and hoping to incorporate the art into my business card. However I would not use red and it would not be just paper but put in between two acetate or frosting acetate so as to make it less fragile and visually beautiful. And here are my designs:

I put some fade trees background at the back with white colour letter to make my brand looks more nature-friendly and have a soft look. However the words are kind of difficult to see and it does not really show that I am an animator. Also I use circle because it is more unique and inspired by the traditional paper cuttings.

I tried to incorporate other patterns as well. I think darker colour letters and logo would stands out more and I would like the business card to be very light and could actual allow light to penetrate so this might not be a good one and it might be a bit dull at the back. I would like all the information at the font so people could look at all the information straight away.

 This is my final design where the white area is going to be frosting acetate and the brown area like the logo, the words and the outer circle would stay solid. Although I was afraid that the information would be too packed, it actually looks alright when I edit a hand holding it and it looks so stylish which I very happy with.

I hope the celluloid type of materials could relate me to animation and the words are pretty big so I think it would make sense. It should definitely stands out and very unique and I hope this design could make people remember me.