up655374

Cartoon Evaluation

Picking Flower

Coming about 2 weeks late into the unit (due to optional unit changes) I needed to catch up and

beginexperimenting with creating a simplistic character to animate. Everyone started off with circles

and drew their character from easy, smooth shapes. After getting to grasps with drawing my

character I begun drawing the key frames of the animation I will be doing, for this exercise I believe I

estimated around 7 key frames. Once the key frames were all drawn out the next thing to so would

to shoot them on Dragonframe (A piece of software which enables the user to capture pictures and

create an animation from the images). After everything seemed to go well it was time to do the in-

betweens to make the animation smoother. Upon completion, I was pleased with the result from

anticipation and the action my character takes, if I was to improve my the final result I think it would

have been good if my character falls over or something similar after picking the flower to add appeal

and quality.

Exaggeration

The next stage we were given was to create another character but with an extruded feature upon

the face, e.g. nose. I began by using the same teachings from my first exercise, by drawing circles

and seeing what I could develop through further circles. At first I struggled, creating an appealing

character out of thin air just wasnt coming to me through my drawings. Sat down in a lecture one

day I began doodling, and was practising my techniques when I stumbled upon drawing a likable

character (A Rabbit with a big belly). After my character was in place I practised drawing him in

different ways and once confident, began the same process as the first exercise and drew out the

key frames. However instead of drawing 12 or so key frames, instead I thought Id take a different

approach and draw the whole animation through and through, as I wanted to experiment the pose

my character will be left in. I am happy with the result of my final expression however I think I could

have improved more on the ears, and added more follow through animation on the ears.

Dark Dog

Rather than creating our own character again, we were now told to draw someone elses character

and learn to break it down and draw from memory, this character is Dark Dog. Drawing from the

pose sheets provided we learned the basic shapes hes made out of (three small circles for the width

of his head for example) and how to mould and stretch him. Once gaining the knowledge of drawing

him from memory we created our own character sheets and poses from this, personally I didnt like

him as a character to draw from memory and had to keep looking back to the original pose sheets. I

think this is because he has such an adaptable form it was difficult to keep the consistency of his

personal appearance. I was rather rushed on dark dog, as I delayed the animation to the point after

my existing character animation so I believe there is much room for improvement on this piece of

animation. For example an anticipation action like throwing a chilli into his mouth and/or furthering

the result after he has eaten the chilli.

Existing Character

Now was the time to go off and select a cartoon character and be inspired by the characters

animation and recreate a small animation in our own way. The length of the animation was

up655374

determined through how complex the character was and/or how much frames were used per

second. E.g. the more fps, the less time the animation had to be overall. With so much choice I ran

to google to find some characters, I came across Stitch from Lilo& Stitch and having already seeing

the film I wanted to recreate a scene with him in it. Right off the bat I was excited, even though this

animation had to top quality as I was mimicking Disney! After drawing a few character sheets and

learning him from memory, I learnt a lot of other animators were doing him also. Slightly distraught I

no longer wanted to animate him, not because I disliked the character in any way, I just didnt want

to be pressured into making an animation and wanted it to come freely and me enjoying the time I

put into my animation. Therefore I decided to change my character to the Pokmon Mew. After

drawing a more complicated character first I found Mew came to me easily, as he was easy to

deconstruct and didnt alternate his shape that much. Also, this allowed me to expand how much of

Mew I could animate, so I created a brief and simplistic storyboard. I loved drawing mew and believe

my animation excelled anything I expected I could animate traditionally and found it to be a great

learning curve for me personally. I am especially proud of my animation of smoke or effects and will

continue to practice this as I found this very cool and interesting.

Custom Character

Finally we were given the freedom to create a character on our own accord. Again I struggled with

the choice, but created a solid character based of the sloth. As sloths are very lazy I wanted to both

go crazy and do the opposite or stylize this character based of the stereotypical sloth. In the end I

went for the latter, and decided to make him a superhero. However this superhero does nothing but

walk, instead, his loyal robot backpack is there to assist him in every task it can. Once I had my idea

and drawings I went to the storyboard and created a scenario with him saving a baby in a fire. I also

decided to animate the final animation in Adobe Flash rather than rationally as it gives my

sketchbook a wide range of displaying my abilities. I am extremely happy with the result of my final

animation, however I believe it lacks sound.

Evaluation

Overall I surprisingly enjoyed this unit, being a more of a 3D animator I started the year with a bit of

a negative attitude, however as the year progressed the more it grew on me. I believe I can take a lot

of information and what I have learnt from this unit into my next year's projects and even into 3D!