The finished animation!

Well, here it is. The finished animation. 

There are still a few things I'd like to sort out if I had more time, like his feet dancing around a bit too much and the fact that his arm doesn't look quite attached, but for the deadline which is today, this is finished.

Disney's Frozen

Disney's latest release- Frozen- really shows how far 3D animation has come in recent years. The technology now allows the characters to move so realistically and it makes it possible to create detailed and realistic textures that almost make you feel like it's real instead of animated, although it clearly is..

I really loved this movie when I saw it over Christmas, the attention to detail and the realism were beautiful and the ability of technology in animation today amazes me. The "let it go" song sequence was stunning with the ice magic, this sort of animation would not have been possible many years ago and it really shows how far technology has come. Overall I think it was an amazing feature film.

Disney Pixar's Toy Story 1995

Toy Story was the first ever full length feature film made entirely with CG. It was made by a team of 27 animators at Pixar on a very small budget. Considering the small team, small budget and the fact that half the animators on this project hadn't even used computers to animate before, the leap from traditional hand drawn animation to CG made by Pixar with this movie is amazing. The expressions and movements achieved were incredible and the movie is still as good now as it was then, even with the improvements in CG and the new skills the Pixar team has now. Toy Story is nearly as old as I am and I grew up with it, so it's interesting to see how  much or little has changed between the original Toy Story, and Toy Story 3. Interestingly, not too much has changed in styles between these two movies, however the textures available in Toy Story 3 are much improved on the first.

Early examples of 3D animation

This is one of the first examples of 3D animation. It's just a hand and a face in 3D but it shows pioneering technology that now is seen frequently. This hand was made in 1972 by Pixar founder Ed Catmull. At this point in his life he was a computer scientist at the University of Utah.

This video shows how he created the 3D computer model and how he animated it.

PROJECT UPDATE #2

Today I had to present my "finished" animation. It's almost there, enough for the presentation and I got some feedback. I need to add shadows to place the character more in the scene. It was also suggested that I make the lobster king more angry and show the rock that he throws maybe on the castle somewhere- destroying part of it. I also need to sort out my characters feet in the first scene as they dance around a bit, but I knew that already. The sound also needs to be adjusted and toned down a little in parts. 

Everyone in my class agreed that the emotions and expressions were well done as was the weighting of the second rock.

If I had the time I would go back and reference more movements to get a more realistic movement in the characters.

Mickey Mouse "Get a Horse" Short 2013

The newest Disney Short to appear before the movies in the cinema is Mickey Mouse in "Get a Horse" which appears before Frozen. The short starts off seeming like it's going to be a classic black and white Mickey Mouse story, which is beautiful in its own way. However it has a twist, as it uses very modern techniques and ideas compared to the original black and white image that it appeared to be at the beginning and it allows the 2D black and white characters to appear to climb out of the screen and into the 3D world. This short shows within itself how far technology and animation has come in a relatively short space of time. 

Below is a (admittedly really bad recording) clip that I found on youtube that shows some of the 3D part of the short that isn't seen in the official trailers.

Gertie the Dinosaur 1914

"Gertie the Dinosaur" by Winsor McCay is often regarded as the first character based cartoon, and an early example of character animation. It successfully establishes an attachment to the character Gertie in the animation, and it combines animated footage with live action. It was the first animation to do this. It was the first animation to use key frames to create the animation, enabling Winsor McCay to incorporate the live action.

Ladislaw Starewicz- The Cameraman's Revenge. 1912

Ladislaw Starewicz was a pioneer in puppet animation. In "The Cameraman's Revenge", the characters were real dead bugs with  wire limbs. This made them easier to move around in stop motion animation. I really like this animation because, even though it's horrible with the bugs, it's really well done, the bugs have human mannerisms and I think it's just hilarious watching bugs driving cars or riding bikes. I think that, even though it was done in 1912, it is done in a way that would still be interesting and unique today and I think that's a really good quality in animation and art.

Matches an Appeal 1899

"Matches an Appeal" is believed to be the oldest existing animated film. It was done during the war to convince people to donate matches to soldiers. The video was done using stop motion and was revolutionary for its time.

The Enchanted Drawing 1900

The Enchanted Drawing in 1900 was the first short film to try to incorporate live action with animation. Although the idea was there, it isn't what we would nowadays refer to as animation as such. However it uses a very pioneering idea of pulling drawings out of the paper and into real life. It also shows the live action person interacting with the drawing. This was a very new idea in 1900.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937

Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is widely regarded as the first animated feature film. In fact it wasn't, however it was Disney's first animated feature length film and the first feature animation to use technicolour, making it a pioneering film. It was also the first animated feature to become successful across the english speaking world. It is a really well done 2D animation and the Disney style for princesses was established from this film. The Disney Style is easily recognised in all of their work because of the success of this film.

PROJECT UPDATE

I have now done the backgrounds, and a skeleton/stick man armature for the character and added the face for each frame. all that is left to do is the Lobster King at the end and the body of the boy in each scene. Not long to go now!

Observe, Explore and Consider- Reflect

I didn't enjoy this project that much,  I liked the drawing, but I felt so awkward sitting out in public drawing with people around watching me..

If I was to re-do this project, I'd probably approach it differently, and sketch quickly on location and then take photos and work into it more later at home. I think that would allow me to get more detail in and it would also mean I could use a lot more different media like paints because I didn't want to drag around paints with me to all the locations.

I also found that drawing on the coach and train was more of a challenge than I'd thought because I forgot to account for the bumps of the road and the lack of space to draw comfortably..

These are my two favourite drawings from the 15, I think they're the most successful. The on on the left was at the train station in the waiting room. I think I got the perspectives quite well in this one, but I would have liked to get more detail in. On the right is the gate to the Alice in Wonderland gardens at Guildford Castle. I like this drawing because I got a nice amount of detail into it, there's a sense of depth in the image and a focus point. 

Environmental Storytelling: Finished Drawings

My 15 final drawings the for environmental storytelling brief.

Train/ Bus journey.

Guildford Castle.

 Leeds.

If I were to do this project again, I'd try to take more materials with me to get a wider range of media. I'd also probably do it when the weather wasn't always raining as it meant I couldn't draw outside for long. 
I'm really happy with the way most of the Guildford castle drawings turned out, however I'm less pleased with the way the Leeds drawings turned out as I think they were too rushed as I was running out of time. I need to work on time management!
The Guildford castle drawings are the ones I used the most media on and this also, I think, makes them stand out from the others. I really enjoyed sitting in the castle grounds drawing as it was quiet and no one was watching me draw because no one was there.
The first set of drawings- on the coach and the train, could have turned out better, however it was quite hard to draw on the train/ coach. Because of this, the drawing at the station at the start of my trip turned out better than the others. I also like the one where I added colour as it makes it more interesting and draws your eye to that drawing. 

Environmental Storytelling: Up

The art directors at Disney outdid themselves in the movie 'Up'. The lighting and shadows in this movie are so realistic. This movie really shows the importance of observational on location drawing because, although the actual location of Paradise falls in the movie doesn't exist, a team of artists and photographers for Disney went to South America to draw and capture the surroundings and environment of jungles for their fictional world.

In these two images taken from Up, you can see the use of light and shadows and how realistically the shadows fall on the ground. This amount of realism could only be achieved through actual research of the table top mountains and jungles.

 They have also captured realistic rock textures and the texture of the jungle trees from a distance which makes this scene even more believable. 
I also like the way they have put detail into the distance, the way you can see other mountains faded into the horizon, blending into the sky. So much detail has gone into the backgrounds for this movie.


The lighting in this final picture shows paradise falls in the sunset and the shades of pink look natural in this light. 

Environmental Storytelling: The Regular Show

The Regular Show, on Cartoon Network uses relatively realistic backgrounds. They clearly use the rule of thirds for their composition. The lighting is very natural and realistic, you can see natural shadows from the trees and bushes in the background and the buildings, however the character's dont have shadows. The textures on the backgrounds are made visible by the different colours, as overall the animation uses very flat colours with little natural shading.

Silly Symphonies- The Skeleton Dance 1929

The Skeleton Dance was one of Disney's first animated shorts with synchronised sound. The first was Steamboat Willie, however I prefer the Skeleton Dance as I like how the music fits so well with the characters. The movements are really fluid and the disney style is evident in this short. 
Although this is in black and white because colour wasn't really available for animation at the time, I think the black and white thing works really well with this animation because of it's graveyard scene.