Environmental Storytelling: Cloudy 2

The backgrounds in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 are beautifully done. The jungle and the water look quite realistic and natural, however the colours are brighter. The textures both in the jungle and in the city look natural and this comes from observation and drawing of those environments. 

Particularly this city scene, I think the lighting from the sunset is done perfectly across the buildings and the sky. It looks realistic, even with the stylised buildings.

Research into ripples in the water

I did some research into the ripples you get when you throw a stone into water. The ripples look broken up and not one round circle like I'd first thought, because of the light reflecting different bits. The lighting also means some parts look darker and some are highlighted. I will be sure to use this in my animation.

Research into how a person throws a ball

I found this video on youtube which shows some boys throwing a ball around, this will help me work out the movements involved in throwing a ball and the arm placements, Although it's not at the right angle for my animation but it was the best video I could find.

I also studied my flatmate throwing a ball around.

Observe, Explore and Consider - Environmental Storytelling.

1) Where are you drawing?

Guildford Castle

Why have you chosen to draw there? 

It's a beautiful castle and I've heard the gardens are really interesting and Alice in Wonderland themed.

What are you expecting to see, what is of interest to you? 

A really old castle, lots of trees- not many flowers because it's winter.. Alice in Wonderland statues.

What do you think you are going to draw whilst there, (a vista that can be zoomed into with a camera, an interior scene, stairs, lifts???)

Maybe a view of the castle, a view from the top of the castle.. some drawings of the gardens and statues.

How are you going to draw? (Are you going to do a series of short observational drawings, make notes about the sights, sounds smells, conversations, actions, movements and interactions of people, take photographs and refer to them later?) 

Relatively quick sketches most of the time because it's outside and cold.. however I will take some pictures to work back into later. 

What media are you going to use?

Mostly pen and pencils as I don't want to drag loads of different paints etc to the castle.. also it's cold and I don't want to have to wait for paint to dry..

What about light, shadow, colour, texture, shape, composition, perspective.? How can these be used as storytelling devices. 

Shadow can be used to make a space seem more ominous.. 

Are there famous/infamous stories about the spaces that you already know? 

From the top of the castle, you can see the cathedral where part of the Omen was filmed...

2) Where are you drawing?

On the train/ coach between Leeds and London.

Why have you chosen to draw there? 

Because I'm going to be sat on the coach/ train for nearly 6 hours down to London and back again so I'll have plenty of time to draw.

What are you expecting to see, what is of interest to you? 

People, commuters...

What do you think you are going to draw whilst there, (a vista that can be zoomed into with a camera, an interior scene, stairs, lifts???)

Interior scene of the train and coach (and outdoors at the station). Maybe the view out of the window..

How are you going to draw? (Are you going to do a series of short observational drawings, make notes about the sights, sounds smells, conversations, actions, movements and interactions of people, take photographs and refer to them later?) 

Relatively lengthy observational drawings.. I have a lot of time to draw..

What media are you going to use?

Pen and pencil.

3) Where are you drawing?

Somewhere in Leeds. Just out in the city.

Why have you chosen to draw there? 

I don't know Leeds that well yet so it would be a good chance to explore. Also it's a very different environment to my other two as it's a city instead of in the countryside or travelling

What are you expecting to see, what is of interest to you? 

Buildings, busy city people, shoppers..

What do you think you are going to draw whilst there, (a vista that can be zoomed into with a camera, an interior scene, stairs, lifts???)

City life.. outdoor scenes. 

How are you going to draw? (Are you going to do a series of short observational drawings, make notes about the sights, sounds smells, conversations, actions, movements and interactions of people, take photographs and refer to them later?) 

Very short observational drawings- it's going to be busy so I don't want to get in the way of people.

What media are you going to use?

Pens and pencils, maybe paints.. watercolour maybe..

Are there famous/infamous stories about the spaces that you already know? 

Not yet..

Kid by the Water Animatic

Here is my animatic for my Classical Elements Animation. I am using it to work out timing and to give a basic idea of the story in moving image. My animatic lasts 20 seconds, which is the time needed for the final animation. Now all I need to do is flesh it out into the final animation! 

Storyboard for Classical Elements project.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water. The Classical elements.

My story is about a boy who is playing by the water, throwing stones in and for some reason the water spits back so the boy goes to investigate and finds a surprise hidden under the surface.

More Photoshop experiments.

Today we were taught a different way of animating in photoshop, by using the timeline tool at the bottom of the screen. It is a lot easier than the first method of animating in photoshop we were taught, however it makes it difficult to use different layers in one frame as each frame comes from a new layer. This can get quite confusing but overall I like this way of working. 

Once again we experimented with this new way of animating by making a ball bounce using squash and stretch, and by making a pendulum swing using timing and spacing. The pendulum in this method of working was a lot harder than in previous methods, I'm not really sure why...

After Effects Experiments

In our Adobe After Effects induction today, I have learnt to manipulate images in a very basic way that I have imported into after effects. We were given some images to import and allowed to animate them in any way we liked.. and were given the option to find extra images online if we required them.

Then we learnt about cutting out sections of images on photoshop to move and animate them in a monty python style.

Classical Elements: Project Development

When I got this brief, the first thing I did was research into the classical elements and what other people had written about them and believed about them. This ranged between everything from Greek and Roman mythology, to star signs and colours.

Once I'd done this research, I created a mind map of some ideas I had gotten from it and narrowed it down to my top 3.

I then storyboarded my top 2 ideas in rough stickman drawings, and then I created a schedule in a diary planner of mine to work out when I would be doing each part of my animation process.

Flash! (ah-ah)

 Today, we were introduced to animating in Adobe Flash. As usual, we learnt the basics of using the program to animate while using some of the 12 principles of animation: Squash and stretch in the bouncing ball, and timing (and spacing) with the pendulum.

Animating the bouncing ball in Flash I actually found a lot harder than in any other program or animation method we've learnt to use so far. It just took a while to get my head around as I couldn't work out how to effectively squash and stretch the ball using just a few key frames, but I think it worked out alright.

Animating the pendulum in Flash was a lot easier, in my opinion. It was easy to make the ball and the line work together as one object and easy to create the pivot point. I even added an owl clock to the top of the pendulum and made the eyes move, just for fun as I had some time! I think it worked well.