experimental research
experimenting with colour palettes
Following my secondary research about colour theory, I decided to experiment with making colour palettes. I used my new knowledge about using colour wheels and the importance of contrast to try and use a good colour palette on a character design. I felt doing this would help me to practice picking colour schemes especially on characters, and help me when picking colours when designing my characters and backgrounds for the animation, and make sure I think closely about how the colours look together.
I started with this sketch I already had of a pegasus character, I wanted it to look like it has a quirky, fun perosnality for this fantasy character so wanted to use bright or pastel colours to convey this.
I then created this colour palette of blue, purple, turquoise and yellow, picking different hues and values so I had some options. I used colour meanings and the colour palette types to pick these.
I then experimented with this pallete and made a few versions, a pastel one and a tinted one.
I then roughed out the colour placemen, trying to create a good balance of values and hues, like how I used the darker purple for the hair to contrast the pastel colours, the bluey white markings help contrast the brightness of the greyed out turquoise colour. I also created an alternate palette using more natural colours I referenced from Shetland ponies which I had referenced for anatomy and proportions on the drawing.
I finally settled on the original palette because I wanted the vibrant colours to convey a fun personality, I tidied up the sketch, and finished up the character design and coloured the lines with a clipping mask.
Overall this experiment gave me some practice with carefully picking colours that can compliment eachother and add some meaning to a character. I want to use these ideas in my animation to help convey my character's personality through their character design, and use appropriate colours in the backgrounds to help set the scene/ shot's intented mood or atmosphere. This will help create strong visuals and the viewer will be able to interpret the scene better. Next I'd like to experiment some more with shading possibly, so I could know what types of lighting I can use to fit for different moods in my animation.
lighting studies
Following my research in colour theory and shading, I wanted to test out what I had learnt by experimenting with different lighting looks on an illustration. I thought this would help me practice lighting a scene to create a mood/ feeling and I could use this skill in my FMP film to help create atmosphere in my scenes.
I started with this illustration of a bust and added some basic shading with a couple multiply and overlay layers to create some depth like the hair, facial geometry and some highlights. This will act as the base that the lighting effects will go on.
I then started with an effect I already knew I wanted to do, a strong side lighting look. I added a cooler mask and erased where I wanted the higlights to be, then added another overlay layer and added the orange refelctive light, then I used a yellow in add mode to create the glow effect and blended out areas further away from the lightsource with the smudge tool to soften it. This created a good contrast between cool and warm colours, this is what I tried to keep in mind from my secondary research.
I wasn't sure where to go from there so created a Pinterest board with other artist's lighting studies, so I could pick out looks I liked to try out. I also took some photos of myself in different lighting so I could use those as a reference if I wanted to use that for a study.
I then made a moodboard with some of the ideas from the Pinterest board.
This will help me consolidate my ideas of what looks I want to make and I can use it as a reference as I produce the studies.
I then used the moodboard to reference all the other lighting looks, adding light sources and shadows in areas needed, I found using blending modes to be very useful. I also followed what I learned through secondary research, and added highlights in the shadow areas, used complimentary colours to add depth and tried to contrast cool and warm tones as much as possible,
Overall I'm very pleased with how my lighting studies went, I fulfilled my plan of experimenting with different light sources and I think helped consolidate skills and and knowledge I'll be able to take not just into this project but into my own personal artworks/projects. I found this a good practice to use colour palettes and knocked in what I learnt about trying to add add contrast and interest with shading. I liked how the soft shading style I achieved with mostly paint/watercolour brushes gives a sort of 3d effect.
What did I learn?
This practice taught me the importance of using different colours and lighting to create effects and atmosphere. I noticed how in some of the studies, like the dappled lighting and the daylight make the illustration feel much more calm and relaxed, but the darker ones, like neon, or cold backlighting, the piece feels more mysterious. I will use this knowledge to create the shading and colouring in my film to help create the emotions I want. I think it would be good for me to plan what atmosphere I want each scene to have and that would help me pick out a strong colour scheme that can convey that idea. I could also look at different films/ media to see how they use colour and lighting to portray these things, this could also help me expand my knowledge on picking out shot types.
extra lighting/shading investigations
I further wanted to experiment more with some colouring methods and looks, I want to practice shading the face in different angles. This is because adding light sources from different angles helps create different emotions and atmospheres and I want to be able to use this in my piece. I also think I should practice shading in a simpler style so I know how I can transfer these skills into moving image work.
I want to use this resource on art station by William Nguyen to experiment with drawing shadows from different angles. This allows you to rotate a model of a face and add a light source, this will be useful to this task.
I started with a sketch and only coloured the skin so it was easier to focus on one area of the shading. I used the art station tool and referenced the light coming from different areas, using a multiply layer to add the shade with a light pink colour and opacity around 65%.
I did this for all the light directions I wanted and then compiled all the images to make a video, trying to put them in order of the light source starting in the front, going around to the top and then behind, I hoped this would give me a similar result to what the Nguyens looks like.
I tried to keep this quite messy and quick looking for efficiency's sake, but I think it looks effective enough and gets the point across. This exercise made me practice draw lighting coming from different directions. This taught me that light affects different parts of the face differently, like the eyelids/eyebrows area will be darker because it's set back into the skull. I also saw that more harsh lighting (like lots of contrast) looks more dramatic and I think this could be used to create different tones and effects.
HOW WILL I USE THIS IN MY FMP?
I want to use this experiment when making my FMP so I can reference it for when I'm shading the frames. I can use what I noticed about the direction of light to add contrast and create interest to areas in a shot I want the viewer to focus most on. For example, in a frame I want to have dark, dramatic lighting I can add the lightsource to cast light on the character's face so the viewer is drawn to their facial expressions. I'd like to experiment with this in a whole scene image.
CELL VS SOFT SHADE
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I then wanted to experiment more with shading styles, I wanted to see the difference between a cell shaded and soft shaded art work. I thought this would be a good chance to try out different methods and an opportunity to simplify the process for animation.
Cell shading is when you shade using hard edges, there is no blending, it adds good contrast and is quicker than soft.
Soft shading is shading with blending and is smoothed out, it is 'soft' compared to the hard edges of a cell shade.
Soft shading looks more painterly and can have more detail but can take longer to do.
I added shading to a simple illustration of a girl in a more cartoony style because I thought that would lend itself better to more simple shading styles. I did the cell shade with highlights in the hair inspired by anime styles. I tried to 'paint' the soft shade more which I did greyscale and then layered the base colours on top in 'soft light' with the saturation increased.
I this went well and gave me a good comparison of how each shading 'method' is done and looks since they were done on the same drawing. I liked the painted one because it looks a bit more detailed and softer even though the colours came out more desaturated, but the cell shade is more graphic and strongly shows the light and shadows. Overall this experiment taught me that both of these methods give different results and have advantages and disadvantages, cell shading feels more modern like anime and cartoons, the soft shade feels more like a painting. I think I will use this knowledge to decide how I'll do shade for my FMP. A detailed soft shade would look great but the animation would have to be more limited to account for time, the cell shade could be easier and less time consuming. I think I could go for a mixture of these. I plan to shade the frames once it’s animated, lined and coloured, on top of the frames which will each be a png. I could use the airbrush to gradient some softer shading and use cell in moments that need more harsh lighting.
HOW WILL I USE THIS IN MY FMP?
These experiments taught me that both the direction of light, and how you shade it can give entirely different looks and aesthetics. I want to use this knowledge to help me figure out how my animation will look. I know both can look good and I am capable of doing both, but am on the fence of either or a mix of. I think a good way to investigate this further would be to look into some different animated media to take inspiration and maybe use as an opportunity to see how different types of animated content look and work.
university of east london animation workshop
I attended a online animation workshop by the UEL as prompted by a tutor. I thought that this workshop would be a good opportunity to learn something new and practice animation.
The session introduced how to make stop motion animation from a phone app, and encouraged the participants to submit their work to their competition. I found this very interesting because I'd never considered doing claymation which they had given as an idea. I chose not to make mine like this and opted for 2d animation on my tablet. However this did inspire an idea to create something mixed media, for example I could use different art styles in my film, I could have a filmed IRL background with the 2d digitally animated characters.
WHAT DID I MAKE?
I made a very short animated clip of a girl noticing something and smiling. I tried to focus most on the facial expressions and copied over the layers with the unmoving parts to save time (this took less than an hour). The animation is a sketch and you can see where I used different colours to identify which parts where what. The hardest part was the head tilt part which I made by lassoing the face and rotating it on each frame, this was more difficult because I had to make the hair move with the face. Overall I like this, I think it came out in a cute style and looks fluid enough, but its quite rough looking and the timing feels off.
WHAT DID I LEARN?
I found this to be a good practice for my animation skills, it was good to work on some again and I found it easier than past projects because I'm now more familiar with it . I learnt more about refining my workflow when animating, like copying layers of parts I want to reuse in the next frame.
experimenting with art styles
I wanted to experiment with some different art styles to help myself find an art style I could use in my animation. I plan to look at some art styles from different media and using those to make my own.
STAR VS THE FORCES OF EVIL, DISNEY
I wanted to look at the style of this cartoon because it's a great example of the so called 'CalArts style'. I really like this show's balance of detail and simplicity .
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Key Features
Very circular and rounded faces, the face shapes are different for every character but are mostly very rounded or prominently some other shape.
Simple hair, usually drawn in one big 'chunk'.
Simplified anatomy, legs and arms are skinny and 'noodle' like, sometimes they don't bend like a usual human arm, but will curve and flop.
Rounded mouths and ears.
less detail on the clothes, things like folds don't really show.
Lots of cell shading.
Circular eyes and pupils drawn with 2 other circles inside, no catchlights.
Backgrounds have lots of texture and are quite geometric in style.
SAILOR MOON, Naoko Takeuchi, 1990'S
I wanted to look at the style of this anime because it is probably one of the best known anime out there and an excellent example of the 90's Shoujo style.
Key Features
Face shape is quite wavy and defined.
Black pupils.
Very round eye shapes.
Hair has lots of volume.
Nose is drawn as a small line.
Hair is sort of 'clustered'
Very long legs and hour glass figures.
Colourful hair styles.
ADVENTURE TIME, CARTOON NETWORK, 2010-2018
I wanted to look at the style of this cartoon because it is a more simple example of a western animation style.
KEY FEATURES
Very rounded faces, but are quite 'long' in shape.
Very long 'noodley ' limbs.
Very sparing in details
Mouths drawn in one line
Lack of noses
Hair is very simple.
Eyes are small dots.
Mouth is very high up on the face .
VEWN, YOUTUBE, 2015-PRESENT
I wanted to look at the style of this youtuber because they have been very influential to my creative process over the course of this project and I thought it would be a good idea to try out how they draw.
KEY FEATURES
Very simplified.
Exaggerated anatomy, adult characters look tall and long and child characters are very small.
More noodle arms.
Hair is in 'chunks', no strands are drawn but the prominent parts are drawn as solid shapes.
Very colourful with well thought out colour palettes.
Messy line art.
Lots of added textures like shading drawn with hatching.
Old retro feeling.
LEARNING HOW TO USE STORYBOARDER
I wanted to practice and look into using the program for making storyboards before I started boarding my animation. I thought that getting myself better aquainted with the software would be a good idea, so I could be more efficient at making my boards, I've used this program before but only using the 3D models and would like to get some more practice using the drawing tools.
I wasn't sure what to make when testing out Storyboarder so just tried to make a simple rough animation, I found this a good way to practice using it and I learnt more about its functionality and uses. I think this was a great way of getting some more experience with it and hopefully will make the process of boarding my animation easier since I won't have to figure out how to use the software.
I tried out drawing with the different tools and found out that they all operated on different layers and had assigned different purposes like the pencil which was for roughs. I didn't know where to navigate at first but found using the prompts to be very useful, like suggesting keyboard shortcuts etc. I was stuck with how to adjust timing on the boards but found the window for it underneath the button for the shot generator. This came in useful when I wanted some of the shots to be held for longer than the others.