Realtime UK

I attended a lecture from someone who. Works for realtimeuk and it was very insightful into the world of animation! It explai ed how competitive the industry is and have me a greater understanding of what I still needed to do to ensure my animation was complete!

Some of the videos that they should us, were, well incredible, and I never expected myself to do anything like that! I didn't even realise animation could be that complex and detailed. It did really fascinate me!

I'm glad I went!

Video, done, finished, ready!

youtube link (just incase) youtube video

Quick Evaluation

I am overall very pleased with my attempt at my own animation, i feel that some areas could of been better, for example, at some points the clay people became quite cracked, this was due to the vast amounts of movements that the characters were put through.. some of the movements seem quite sharp, which i could of changed.. HOWEVER, i wanted to animation to have a more of a 'do it yourself' kind of look as i think it adds to the effect.

I think changing my idea was a better idea, it allowed me to develop a more interesting concept, which didnt repeat itself! I didnt loose out of too much time doing this as it was just the basics that i changed, - the story board, which i had done before i had any introductions into animation software. When i had these introduction it became alot clearer to me that i didnt want to focus my whole animation around after effects, because well its confuses me! (getting the hang of photoshop was hard enough) but in time i think the idea of after effects will grow on me and i will be able to produce better quality animations!

I did enjoy the brief in some aspects as i was challenged and enjoyed myself when experimenting with the playdoh people and stop motion, but i have learnt how time consuming it actually it doing animation!

DONE! - Nearly

I just need to add the lighting...

link taken from youtube, as i couldnt upload my video straight to blogger...



Click here if video fails to play (youtube link)

After Effects..

as i wasnt able tp upload eny evidence of the workshops i attend on after effects (never had a computer/kept crashing when trying to save) i thought id show some evidence of me trying out some after effects technquies in my animation after id used stop motion

i used after effects to both, add the music to my animation and slow the speed of it down.. as when it exported in 'icananimate' it seemed very fast, and therefore no longer fit the music.. as well as cutting its self down to only just 20 seconds!

Youtube Channel...

i found this channel on youtube full of claymation videos, where characters interact with eachother!

http://www.youtube.com/user/mamshmam?feature=watch

Here's one of the videos!

When uploading and rendering the animation, it sped up the sound and animation.. this made it drop back down to 20 seconds, however left a 10 second blank ending... strange! 

Thankfully it still ends at 20 seconds! 

I am fairly pleased with how well it has turned out and how the music fits with the movement of the animation though!

I will go and see how to fix the 10 second black screen!!

THREE WORDS

DANCE

OLD

CHEERFUL

testing...

before adding the music to see how it fits..

After adding music.. i think it fits quite well..

New Story Board

abit more understanding...

Although i havn't yet added my new story board to my blog, i thought it would be a good idea to show all the practices i have been doing! i know what i want to do, and these are not my idea, but i wanted to do these to try and experiment with using playdoh, as well as enjoying myself. Hey, you never know i might like these better than my idea!

THIS IS SO HARD

Background..

So i have the background i want, now i just need to make my character work...its hard because of the movements the character needs to make... hmm.. i may have to resort to giving my character no legs?

experimentation

To fill you in...

So I decided to change my idea completely and scrap my original story board and idea for a completely new one (I'm aware that this isn't very sensible in terms of research I have done). I then it will be a lot more beneficial to revert my idea back to the themes that I first came up with... Which make it fit better with my three words as well as motivates me more.

Why have I changed my mind?

Well mostly because after I did trials of my plan, I felt it looked childish and amateur-like (yes I am aware I'm not a pro, but I don't want It to look to naff)

Secondly after effects is my worst nightmare, after being to the workshops, having my computers crash on me several time (sometimes not even log on, and be no computers left) -reasoning for the lack of after effects workshop evidence, most of it didn't save!!

Thirdly, I didn't feel as it was as interesting and fit the music as well, I think reverting back to he dea of stop motion has made me more motivated

Having fun whilst doing work?! surely not?

TRUE. doing this is actually pretty entertaining... however i just need to make the movements fit the music, so coming to terms with the clay movements is what i aim to do here!

The chase...

I decided to play around again and develop the previous stop motion...

HAHA.

Even though there a some mistake in this animation, and i am using the built in camera on the mac so its abit naff, this little experement made me pretty happy, and brightened up my mood, the movements of the little Doh man seem to give him character!

When I exported the video it turned it black and white so i used QuickTime to a screen recording however it slowed it down a lot when i play it, If this was my final aniamtion i would take it back into another piece of software to speed it up!

PLAY, doh.

Claymation practice...

So, I have the 'i can animate' iphone app, and now I have some play doh, so whats my excuse.... ITS SO HARD! surprisingly knowing when to click to take the photo.

But anyway I attempted anyway! I made two that looked remotely decent.. 

Scrap That.. back to idea one..

so after presenting my story board it became clear that my story board and ideas were to literal, and the adaptation i though of was quite frankly boring... so, what if i went back to the VERY FIRST idea, people dancing? literal again, right? Wrong! im going to use my childish side again, and use play dough!! 

i want two characters to interact, and well dance to the music..

so i did a youtube search, found a couple of videos but i liked the way there claymation characters interacted.

To the shops for play dough!

Record Players...

looking at pictures of record players was important as i needed to ensure that i could use each part to interact with eachother.. now i just have to decide if i want to use a digital photo of a record player or i use a hand drawn one?

Tweaking...

tweaking the idea!!

Getting there..

After talking through my story board idea, my thoughts that the most important parts of my animation were too short, so im going to adapt my storyboard and change the idea from drawing and orchestra to a simple record player, which notes will come out of and then turn into sound waves for the idea shown on the story board to continue.

Heres a quick animation video that i made to see how the record player would look, with a moving record and interactive hand.. im pretty happy with this(despite the notes looking a bit dodgy) 

Story Board

I will use the music from 01.14.00 as this is where it fits best for the instruments that have been drawn on the page.

Drawings!

Developing the idea in my head before i story board, i decided i needed to attempt drawing parts of the animation (hopefully if my idea goes to plan these wont have to move themselves soooo it should be fairly simple to add these in...

Quick test, before storyboarding

Doing this has made me realise that i need a lot more content than id originally first thought, this is 3 seconds and originally i was going to have the  drawn hands and then have them move but no sound appear, then i was going to add elements to the drawing which made it make sound and then this would be represented by lines on the screen. 

This also made me realise that i need to have someone else taking the photo with the camera on a tripod or something that wont move so the only thing that is moving is the hand and the drawing not the paper. 

Orchestra animation research..

Back to good old youtube to search for some orchestra and music animations...

heres a few..

 FAR TO COMPLICATED FOR ME TO DO SURELY?

MUSIC PAINTING - Glocal Sound - Matteo Negrin

i like this one a lot, its very similar to an idea i have, and similar it the VW advert i showed earlier, which was mostly what inspired me...

WHY INK?

I thought i'd quickly just verify why id decided to use ink and a paintbrush in the previous sketches... (now ill go back to the pen and pencil.. i think) but its simply because it flows so helped my drawings from to the music and i when the ink got a bit dry it gave a different effect (which in a way is the effect of the music on the ink.. kinda)

part two...

I then decided to make my hand flow to the music and try and represent the sound through lines, almost like sound waves.. this gave me a better understanding of the flow of the tune, and then when this combined with the sketches of the conductors hands gave me another idea ...

Doodling while listening..

I decided it would be a good idea to get some doodles drawn whilst listening to the song.. this took my mind away from the idea of people dancing and back to the idea of an orchestra, as the song was playing i doodled a picture of the conductors hands, and some musical not (i know its a pretty bad drawing but i made mt hand flow to the tune) 

more idea branching...

ok, so another idea was along the lines of an orchestra, this is one of my preferred ideas, as i think the tempo of the song fits quite well.. however the element of a drawn animation is still in my head... maybe i could do an animation ot a imagine being drawn at the pace of the the song?

Idea's Branching out

...Because one of my ideas involved men wearing top hats, i though id have a crack at trying to draw some, i used ink and a paintbrush to give it a sketched quick effect.. I am fairly happy with these guys, but it has made me realised it might be quite difficult to animate them.

Quick Mind map..

The Third Man Theme

So, heres the song... its about 45 seconds in where my idea of dancing come in to it.. however from listening to it over and over more and more ideas have come into my head.. so i just need to control these and decide on a final idea to story board...

New App..

After the first workshop we had on animation, I went home I spent some of the very little money I have on this animation app (better be worth it) called "I can animate" just so I could have a play around with some simple animation! (Thanks to my flat mates acting stupid)

Inspiration..

I have always always always liked the animations which look to be drawing especially the adverts you get on tv now-a-days.. some of my favourites has to be the 'V Water' ad or the 'VW' ad...

V Water Advert

 VW Advert

Thinking, thinking, thinking...

To start, this is what came into my head when thinking about what i could do for my animation and the words that gave me the idea.. its quite a old style jazz-y song which a slowish beat..

Dancing
Old
Slow
Glentleman (top hats etc)
old street..

Aha! i have my idea...

The Third Man Theme

So, new day, new brief... making an 20-30 second animation inspired by a song... great. except I don't pick the song which makes it ten times harder.

Lucky when listening to the song and idea popped into my head straight away.. and oh, if you havn't guessed by the title the song i have it "The Third Man Theme"

PRINT TO PIXEL

Opps i forgot to publish these posts..

After looking through my blog i realised that my research posts weren't there.. then I realised that I didn't publish them as they weren't quite finished.. so here they are..

I began with good old google.. my search for 'self promoting packaging' helped me get started.. here are a few examples i found..

http://talent.adweek.com/gallery/The-Creative-Chemists/5890447

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Self-Promotion/4206433

Yay its made..

                           

Final Idea

These here are my final designs for my packaging, i knew from the start that i wanted to use red colours and have the quote "design is thinking made visible" so here are my final ideas.

Drawings and Doodles

when i was thinking about myself as a designer i found my self doodling drawings of things around me... this got me thinking.. I wanted to express myself as a designer by doodling drawings of things i used most when designing... i wanted to do these in doodle effects as it felt as though it was expressing more than if i were to draw them in detail..

What to go inside..

After making a mockup of my work i decided it needed something else inside to make it a bit more interesting, along with the fact i needed 4 items plus my logo to fit with the brief, as the whole project was on branding myself i decided even though advertising is the thing that interests me most that i wanted to show the other areas i am interested in.. such as photography and typography, these are the two designs i came up with for the words in the middle..

DESIGN IS..

"DESIGN IS THINKING MADE VISIBLE" - Saul Bass

this quote is my favourite design quote at the minute, I believe it fits with everything good about design, when i design or other design there first ideas should go down on paper is this these thoughts which are developed and edited to depict and make a final product.

Final Idea?

After some 'umming' and 'arring' about which nets to use, I decided I wanted to go back to my original idea of using more of the paper folded origami design. The reason behind this is because I have more idea of where to take the whole thing and what to do with all the different sections. So I went back to my sketch book and sketched out a neater version of my prototype with all the fold correctly marked so I could see where each fold needed to be. I then realised that this net would not be big enough and eventually I would need to redo the net on a bigger scale.

A more complicated net...

After attempting some easy nets on my own i had a go at attempting another more complicated net, this however i needed to use the internet to help me get a rough guide, hopefully after this net i will have come to terms with how they work and have a better understanding of paper folding and more ideas of what i could do with my work.

Laser Cutting..

Last week we had a session where we were taught to use the laser cutter, I was looking forward to this session as i though it'd be good to use this process to make my packaging, so i found my way around illustrator and made the shapes we had to make, i found this extremely difficult as i'm not the best for being patient but i got there eventually.

I took this to the workshop and although it was a lot quicker than cutting it out and i'm not a fan out cutting things by hand, as i don't have the steadiest hand i wasn't amazed by the laser cutting process, as when the edges and shapes were cut the ends of the paper were burnt and the smell wasn't great! So i am therefore undecided on whether I will use this as the method i want to use to cut out my net.

Nets Nets Nets

So after successfully making one box out of a nets I thought id attempt some simple nets again without the use of the internet, so i drew them out in my sketch book. these are the nets i came up with.

A simple box and two different triangles, a four sided triangle box and then an equilateral triangle with a triangle bottom. 

Another Net...

So I thought id have another go at making a net, and after struggling to make a box I thought this would be next to impossible, but with a bit of help from the internet making a more complicated net wasn't as hard as i first thought.

This is the packaging flat as a net...

And this is it constructed...

Packaging Nets

As i wanted my logo to look as if it had been stamped onto my packaging I originally wanted to have a simple box as my package, to represent a parcel, but then i later went onto wanting to use a kind of envelope as my design but not a usual envelope.

Here is one of my ideas for packaging.

Although i think this is a good idea and my 4 different areas of of inspiration could be placed on the four 'spokes' this design is not  really a net and is more origami so this is not 100% fitting to the brief so I will try and come up with another net i could use.

a bit more playing around..

After receiving feedback on the logos i had created i decided to have a go at creating more logos, well use the logos i had created to enhance them further.

I didn't want to make them too complicated so i took one logo and put a circle around one and a rectangle around the other

When i put my logo on my packaging i would like it to look as though it has been stamped on, like on a parcel or letter (like the image below) The reason behind this is because although the crips look sometimes is stronger as more effective i do like the rough and quick look to work as well.

and more..

After playing around with my logos in my sketch book i took them to the computer to have a play on photoshop and illustrator 

i then took them to the ever helpful facebook and got some advise and primary research into which people thought was the best 

I agree with all these comments and Joe's stood out the most as my original idea was to use my logo as a sort of stamp and make it look like it had been stamped on my packaging so I will have a go and using both circles and square to surround my logos

logos logos and a few more logos

Right so back to the important stuff, my logo! at first i found it very hard working with the letters 's' and 'w' but after playing around with the shapes for a while i got to terms with the rounded shapes and the curves the letter have. is started first with a few doodles in my sketch book and then chose a few i liked and started to play around with the colour

here are a few of my favourites 

i like both of these as they are smooth and delicate but are also clear, i think i prefer to later to the first though as it gives a better over all shape.

What type of designer am i?

Before I started with what should be inside my packaging i thought i would be a good idea that looked back at work i had done previously to determine which designer i think i am, i have always thought myself to be more of an advertiser rather rather than an illustrator but looking back at work I have done it the past it seems to fit the illustrative theme.

Here are a few examples of work I have done in the past and techniques I may use in this topic 

Colour...

Whilst trying to think about the designer i am I thought id have a look around to see what about me caught my eye and stood out more than the rest. One thing that did stand out was the colour 'red' i know it sounds weird but pretty much everything in my room is red! this isnt coincidence and it may sound silly focusing on a colour but ever since i was little if there was a choice of something in red id have it! 

This got me thinking more about the colour of my packaging, its one thing that is often over looked and just put there because it looks good! However because we have to make this about ourselfs i thought the colour of my packaging or at least parts of it should be a colour which people think represent me, so i asked about 10 people, some who know me well and others who i know only through uni, to see if the answers i got were very different. 

As i expected the answers i got differed from person to person, and as i expected the people who knew me well, associated me with the colour red, proving that 'red is my colour' and people who don't know me well at all picked a variety of colours which had no resemblance to me at all..