Week 7 overall

Okay so I have been so busy trying to finish my animation I lost track of my blog... And sketchbook. However I have managed to get it done and dusted pretty much. My animation is all sorted now although I am very frustrated that I couldn't make the ripple effect to basically fade in my text at the end. I couldn't spend anymore time on it trying to get it to work as I have to put it on the iPad. More frustration with that too as it isn't letting me add anything onto it from my laptop. I am hoping I can get someone to help me out tomorrow before the 12pm deadline.

The sounds I used in my animation were from a CD that Andy let me borrow to get the relevant ones off of. The music sound track was from Lindsey Stirling's deluxe album "shatter me" that a bought a few weeks ago on itunes. I chose the orchestral version of "take flight". I find the song in combination with the animation is rather "cheesy" so to speak, but I feel it is effective and as luck would have it the song changes about the same time my creatures change too. If there was more time I would have trailed through online sites or made my own sound track using garage band to get a music track that has no copyright laws ect (I cant remember what it was all called, I am rather tired) but the track I chose I think is better than anything I could have attempted, although again, if mroe time had allowed, i would have tried to make it loop.

I just need to do my end point evaluation now and finalise my sketchbook. ooh i hope it all works okay tonight at the exhibition, even though my animation has been saved and rendered I still feel like it could stop working and end up having size issues and lag like I encountered using Sony Vegas.

See you at the exhibition!

Week 6 - Day Four

Last day I'm allowed to work on my FMP in college. I don't like this because I have work tomorrow night after college so I essentially miss out on a whole days worth of work, which I feel I rather desperately need after yesterdays fiasco.

Turns out sony vegas wasn't working yesterday because my cloud files were gigantic! Turns out I need to look at the % on top of  photoshop window and look at the image size too, I've never had to do this before but I felt so fed up after realising this mistake. Live and Learn though right. Anyway, my clouds are sorted, I figured out placing my mountain into the bird flying scene. Last  night I managed to get a few sounds relevant but at college I got a disk off my friend Andy that he had with sounds on. I found pretty much all the sounds I need, just have to start adding them in over the weekend as I can't tomorrow and right now, I want sleep.

Week 6 - Day Three

OH MY GAUD! I have spent the entire day trying desperately to get the clouds into my bird scenes.. I was going to get the clouds into the background for my cat and wolf morphing's too but at the moment I can't do anything, one click on sony vegas and it all freezes and says it isn't responding -.-
So frustrating and annoying. Putting in the clouds was only meant to be a quick thing, nice and simple. Oh how it was not simple. Still isn't sorted, so tomorrow I will have another go, although I can't waste to much time sorting this issue out as I still need to finish the other areas, find and add sounds as well as finish my log book (this will probably get done over the weekend though) Anyway, I think I ought to get some sleep so my laptop and I can have a fresh start tomorrow.

Week 6 - Day Two

Okay so when I got home after college yesterday I was not the most productive.. I ended up falling asleep for a nice nap... totally needed it though but it doesn't help when I have deadlines to work to. Only have two more days after today, in college to work on this. That doesn't bother me too much but it is annoying about this week friday and how we aren't allowed to work as we have to put boards up, paint them, move shelves ect ect ect. Actually dreading it slightly as I struggled last term moving boards about.. I'm not exactly average/tall height... as well as the fact I have to go to work in evening too so I can't even work that friday on my animation.

Moving on...

I've sorted out my textures for the water scenes, as well as the mole/rat/mole-rat-thing walking out the water onto land and grass. I used my textured experiment pieces, took a quick photo on my phone, put the images on my laptop and then changed the size and colours on photoshop. It went pretty well I think as by this point I was understanding that the image size often effected the way that the pan/crop mode would work. I think I've got enough done to the mountains too but I need to change the foreground as in one section it dips down low too much so you end up seeing the animals feet, and this, I think, ruins it slightly.

Tomorrows plan is to get my bird background sorted with the sky and try and figure out how to make my cat paw at the water if I can. I have a feeling I cant start looking at sounds at college due to the ridiculous internet filters but none the less i can still get it done home.

Week 6 - Day One

I had a tutorial and a group crit today too. I found both helpful as in my tutorial it was pointed out that my animation needed speeding up. Before this was mentioned I had previously thought just a few sections of film needed shifting about. I used my breaks and group crit to get friends to give their opinions on how fast/slow they should be. It was suggested that I add in sounds like a bird flapping, water running ect as well as including in my idea I've had in my head for a while of the cat at the end putting its paws in the water as if trying to see/catch the fish. This idea got strong positive results and it was said that it would indeed make my video a full cycle which I have considered (not majorly, just ideas that I never wrote down). It was also mentioned adding in textures to the water scenes and details to the bird flying. I think I will probably do that tomorrow though, although in an idealistic world I ought to try get it done today.

My plan for the rest of today is to sort the video timings, continue working on the mountains and foreground as I've had issues with the image resizing on its own when I use the crop/pan tools. I am finding sony vegas to be pretty good to understand, way less confusing than flash was. Admittedly I am finding vegas to lag sometimes, such as when my laptop wakes from sleep mode. When I started making the animation on vegas I didn't know about keeping all the files together in a folder so now my desktop is bugging me as it is massively cluttered with several folders within folders for different parts of the animation an photoshop process.

Week 5 - Day Four

I booked next weeks tutorials, I've had to put down three as I missed my usual Thursday one with Gary yesterday as I was home busy filming. I've managed to get the iPad for over TT week, which is a huge relief because now I don't have to stress out too much trying to animate. I had my second booked tutorial of this week and after showing my animations and getting opinions from the tutorial, as well as just asking a few friends, I have concluded it would be better if I stuck with my paper cut outs and made them work instead. I do prefer my paper cut outs and if i didn't use them it would have been a good full week (probably longer if I'm perfectly honest) wasted trying to get them all sorted and printed and ready to film. I need to photograph my foreground too because it is going to get squashed soon I think. (edit: it did get squashed on the busy bus home, so I have stuck on the wall in an attempt to straighten it out.)  In my tutorial I also went through some of the objectives I have to get. So far it seems everything is going okay,I just need to update my log book and do everything so it all gets finished. I think I will start putting my animation together over TT week when I am not at college. If I leave it to do in week6 it is highly likely more late/last minute announcements and paperwork will get in the way and waste time, not to mention the highly probable technical issues I will encounter too. Also need to try and figure out how to get this blog onto a usb stick (I actually have no clue how, doesn't it defeat the purpose too?)

Week 5 - Day Three

I spent the whole day filming. I didn't finish until 1.30am because I have to return the equipment tomorrow/later today. I think I will have to try and book out the iPad over the TT race week just in case I need to do some more filming. I ended up taking longer than I thought I would because when I animated my paper dog cutouts I didn't think the walk cycle was working properly so I decided to make a paper silhouette of the dog and lioness instead. I will see what people think of them tomorrow/later today when I am at college. Personally I think my paper cut outs look better. Lets hope I can get it all sorted out tomorrow, right now.. bed!

Week 5 - Day Two

I was late into college today because I needed to print off my fish, bird, lioness and first wolf cycle. I had planned to get my wolf morphing frames printed too but I still hadn't perfected them. When I got into college I had a group crit too. Apart from the obvious, "get stuff stuck in and get everything done" not much was said. It was pointed out to me that my fish cycle only needed to be three frames, which was only noticed because I was cutting the onther frames out, the last three had been left on the paper and drawn in the wrong order... That wrong order was actually a more accurate order for a fish swim cycle so i used it. It meant I didn't have to faff too much cutting out about 5 fish cycles . Each cycle was one morphing feature, hence why i had cut out about 5 full swim cycles. When I got home with the iPad I found a tripod, sorted out green backdrop to allow me to do the green screen effect. I managed to film my fish swimming and morphing, film the rat and the bird. The bird fly cycle is my favourite.

Week 5 - Day One

It was a bank holiday yesterday so I only have 4days (3 now considering the time I am writing this at) before a week off due to the TT races. I was actually able to use the laser cutter today, no mishaps either, so that's a bonus. The only thing that went wrong when I was using the cutter was when I resized my trees, I made them way too big! luckily I only cut out two layers in this large size so I didn't waste too much paper, they will probably go in my sketch book now (we will see though).

Talking about sketch books, I need to get mine updated, currently looking like that will be over the TT race week though (but I seriously hope not!) I haven't updated my sketchbook for about half a week and I've missed out bits so in total about a week and counting needs to be put it. I don't like drawing in sketchbooks, I find it messy and wastes lots of pages, its cheaper to use larger loose sheets. Either way, I need to stick in my drawings of my animals before I loose them all.

So back to today. I used the laser cutter. Got about 10 trees cut I think, so thats 20 layers that now need a yellow layer glued onto them. When I use the cutter I placed a thin yellow sheet of paper below the thicker paper because there wasn't any yellow card about in the art department (that I knew of anyway) so I now need to glue each yellow and corresponding white piece of paper together. Thankfully I still have some liquid glue.

After being shown how to do the greenscreen effect on sony vegas I have now realised I cant use pink. It has to be green as the pink ends up making everything else rather transparent, which is no good at all. My new plan for filming is to have my creatures lying flat on the table, on the green paper and to make them walk. I will then put the video into sony vegas and remove the green so allow the placement of the background mountains/hills. I will photograph the trees too against the green background screen so I can simply pop them in beside the creatures and infront of the mountains (I still need to make them...) This idea came from Andy who is also helping me out in sony vegas as he knows how to use it. The video below is my first attempt at using sony vegas and I feel I can get the greenscreen to work well, its just everything else.

The idea to photograph the creatures, background and trees separately was thought of as my creatures are very small and as I was explaining to another student how I was going to make them stand up Andy mentioned how they make south park. Since I have to return all the equipment this week friday morning it will probably be easier and quicker to film the creatures separately because then I don't have to worry about the background not moving ect. I need to get my next lot of morphing creatures photoshopped so I can print them off, otherwise a very early morning for me. (eek!)

Week 5 - Bankholiday Monday

Today I managed to print out my lioness, bird and wolf. I'm calling my wolf a wild dog instead because it looks too petite to be a wolf and I can't keep faffing trying to perfect all my drawings because I've done that too much so far on the lioness. I think in week 4 I must have spent a good two or three ish days trying to perfect it. I ended up trying to find photographs rather than other peoples drawings of a full walk cycle. It wasn't easy and I can't see all of the feet either in the references but I've got it done.

Step 2 of my Lioness walk cycle

Step 2 of my Wild Dog walk cycle

I'm not 100% happy with my wild dog walk cycle. I feel it needs a lot of perfecting (not as much as the fish though, I have had to start over several times with that), but I can not afford to waste a day trying to perfect it all. I have to deal with what I can feasibly do in the time I have left myself.

I was planning on testing out my chosen colours against my pink green screen to see if I can actually use this. I will do this tomorrow instead when I am at college, at least then I can have some assistance as I've never used sony vegas before (I am hoping I can pick it up quickly like I have done in past briefs with programs such as flash and final cut pro).

Week 4 - Day Five

So I managed to get my trees sorted on the software for the laser cutter. I did my test too so I can finally tick off the experiment for that. I have't managed to laser cut the required amount of trees though. Actually, I never got the chance to, I honestly don't see the point in creating a timetable to allow people a half hour slot on the laser cutter if the room is going to be locked. Today in my mind has been a waste.. waiting for time that wasn't going to happen but on a more positive side I experimented with textures for backgrounds after my friend suggested wetting the paper and hen making splotches of colour from acrylic and inks. I tried out normal paper from the store cupboard, brown parcel paper and my dark blue card.  I preferred the green grass colours compared to the brown mountain but my favorite was on the dark blue card (need to get pictures of these as I only have the brown as an example on my phone). I don't think I will use this technique though as I am running out of time.

Another postive from today; I was given an example on how I could use a green screen effect in my animation to create the background in. I like this idea and want to try it out. As I cant get ahold of large amounts of green paper to cover at least three sides of a box opened up so the top is exposed and the front, I will use pink sugar paper as I currently don't think I will be using pink in any of my props or creatures. I do need to test it out though to see if the program I will be using will effect any other colours if I choose to use pink as a background that I change. The green (pink) screen will allow me to make a smaller scale background, possibly with larger amounts of detail in. This eliminates the risks of running out of paper of a certain colour and makes it easier if I make the backgrounds too short to run smoothly.

Was finally asked to day what space I would need for my exhibition and at the moment I need an Ipad, cable and charger, Two plinths in which I can put a board over to support the ipad and props on. I think I also get two boards in which I can put my photographs up on once I get round to sorting out my characters for the finals. Needs to be a busy weekend.. also need to update my logbook as I've not touched it much for the past week.

Week 4 - Day Four

Had my usual Tutorial with Gary, I found it helpful because he showed me a video of how an advert by John Lewis was made using cutouts of what I think was wood. So same idea I had with my paper puppets but theirs more sturdy. I was shown it to explain the point of adding a base which could be hidden by something in the foreground, like the ground undulating in front of the creatures. Not only will it hide the bases but it also means I can hide the creatures feet too because I was finding on my first goes of drawing the lion the feet kept going wrong. Patience isn't always with me I suppose. Anyway after Gary suggested I test my fish cycle out I decided to put the scanned in images I had onto flash. I didn't like the results so I went back online to find some other examples. I found one youtube video that I found helpful i just need to get my own fish drawn. I have "morphings", so to speak, of the first fish that I am now redoing. So I have more than just a vague idea of how the fish will evolve and get legs. I tested my lion on photoshop and realised each step in the cycle is slightly different so I don't feel it will work well. I am now redoing my lion but have also found a decent walk cycle for a dog so everything should be able to get underway over Friday and the Weekend/Monday if I can make the time for it all (hopefully I can)

Week 4 - Day Three

I got a fish cycle, I scanned my lioness and fish images into the computer so  I can now perfect them and print them onto the correct coloured paper. I managed to get some card from the village but its only A4... not sure how many trees I can actually make with that. I booked out my equipment to film but I don't feel at all confident that I am actually going to be able to film on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. At least I know I can still film end of week5 and if push comes to shove, start of week6. Although I seriously hope it doesn't come to that. I scanned my trees into the computer too today so once I get a laptop with the laser cutter software on it I should in theory get it done pretty quick.Group crit was helpful as it was pointed out that my evolution of wolf - lion(ess) - dragon was like the food chain. I asked if they preferred the idea of a wold into lion into dragon, or a lion then wolf. Due to the fact I begin with a fish, then a rodent (RAT possibly) which gets picked off by a bird or owl it made sense to carry on the theme of each evolutionary creature being higher up in the food chain. Anyway I have another tutorial tomorrow I think, I hope I can get some serious work done on my characters too.

Week 4 - Day Two

So after a whole day trying to perfect my lioness walk cycle I have now found some things online to use as reference for my fish cycle. I think I can probably get away with the fish just being a silhouette but I will shoot it from above because I can show a fish swimming easier from above than from my intended idea of the fish swimming viewed from the side. I haven't finished my lioness, I want to scan it into the computer and print off several copies, this means that I can have several copies of it in case anything goes wrong. My idea for having several copies is so that I can keep the walk cycle and morph the creature into the next. The creature for air will be an owl, eagle or a bird that I alter so it isn't realistic. I can't see how I am going to begin filming by start of week5, especially as I just found out today that next week Monday is a bank holiday. That said I also found out that we have a week after the planned week6 to organize our displays, so in theory, everything I was going to do then in week 6 for displaying my work could always happen in week7.. maybe.. I need to find out more information on this though.

Week 4 - Day One

I managed to get most of my techniques sorted over the Weekend and Friday. I now only need to use the laser cutter to make all of my trees and possibly the backgrounds too. I also need to experiment with quilling too. At the moment I am considering creating one drawing for each creature and cutting it up so it can move, possibly just a simple silhouette. It will be flat on the table and each movement it does I will draw around it, photocopy it or photograph it. On the other hand... it may be quicker just to draw each frame instead of photographing it and then adding detail in digitally. I am currently looking into the walk cycles of a wolf. I desperately need my printer though as I can then get all the scaling right the first time instead of faffing for ages like I normally do trying to get everything perfect.

I like this short animation because it shows the legs clearly with the ones furthest away shaded.  
                                         Click here for link to site; Wolf-Walk-cycle-rough

Whilst I was looking for references on a walk cycle for a wolf I came across several images of a wolf that looks as if it turning into a lion and a dragon. It means that if I get stuck on how I am going to change my wolf, into a dragon or lion or even a bird, then I will have plenty examples to go off of.

                                                                     White-wolf

Week 3 - Day Five

I made my two trees today. One tree is made up of two components of identical tree templates, one template gets cut along a verticals straight line starting at the bottom of the tree trunk to about half way up, the other template starts from the top of the tree. These two trees took way longer than I wanted to so I am going to have to bite the bullet and use the laser cutter instead of cutting by hand.

Hada quick experiment with making a fish with legs, I think I can make it work as a paper cut out, I need to continue making my characters and experimenting, as well as updating my log book.

Week 3 - Day Four

So I had my second tutorial for this week as well as my group crit. Kept the group crit to just three people this time, it was much better and quicker. I got a few good ideas that I want to try but right now my main foccus is getting the techniques, characters and scenes completed.

I was going to create my charcters 3d using origami, but yesterday when I tried to create a koi itwas a bit of a failure so I have decided that I will create paper cut outs with details in them instead. Inspiration was from the animation called I Have Your Heart. I just love the way that the houses are 3D but the people are flat (or at least that is what I got from it anyway). I don't think I will reach my idea target for this week, which was to have 5 techniques tried and tested but I have my story now and the evolution of the creatures is at the point where I can start making them.

Week 3 - Day Three

I honestly can't believe it's Wednesday  already... last week seemed to drag, this week is just flying by. I Tried to make a koi today using origami step-by-step from this website.
http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-koi.html

Safe to say.. I didn't get it right, even with two attempts. I'm going to find another fish that I can try.

My next step is completing my storyboard for the evolution idea. I also want to start cutting out trees and mountains for my back grounds. This will allow me to figure out  the sizes that my characters need to be too, which currently for my dragon is a bit of an issue.

Week 3 - Day Two

So my story idea has been chosen, I just need to sort out the rest of the story line and each of the scenes and which creatures I want to create.

The big bang will occur and then the world scene will fold up from the ground. Evolution of the creatures will begin afterwards. I am trying to think of all the different ways my creatures could be hidden to change so I don't have to make so many different models.

I want to do my animation in 3D but I'm thinking that 2D would be quicker and easier, but why go for the easy options?

Week 3 - Day One

I feel like I have managed to get back on track after a rather unproductive week2. I managed to get a group crit going so I could catch up on the one I missed. Luckily I wasn't the only person who missed their group crit last week. I had my first turorial of the week today too which has proved quite helpful.

My plan for this week includes;

Creating paper crafts with 5 different techniques, these include; quilling/paper filigree, hand cut paper/card, origanic architecture, origami and golden venture folding, as well as possibly lazer cut paper/card too.

Suggestions after tutorial;
Sort out my concept/narrative and figure out what I want to say.
Establish the concept/narrative this week! Then work on the aesthetic of the animation.
Story could show evolution of mythological creatures (combine with bigbang?)

Suggestions from group crit;
Look into mythology- Indian, Chinese, Manx, English/Asian-for dragons.
Look at pokemon and the elemental types included in them.
Chinese Zodiac- they have a race
Rise of the Guardians - how jack frost becomes frost.
Story ideas that people liked;
Bigbang and everything rises from the ground
Person who points and creates the world and creatures (a bit like God creating the world in 7 days)
A zoo keeper going around doing his daily deeds, feeding and cleaning up after the animals.

After my group crit and tutorial I feel that the big bang combined with the evolution idea would work well. I could hide the animal while it walks behind a tree and when it comes out from behind it, it will have changed into another creature. I feel a bit more relaxed nowI have been told I have good research as I felt I could stop now for it other than references and learning/showing examples of techniques. I've started listing down pokemon but the internet at college has blocked the official site (fair play but still frustrating!) so I will have to do it at home.

Week 2 - Weekend overview

I was ill Friday (day4 of week2) so I missed out on my group crit. My plan is to do it monday morning if possible and then have another later in the week. I want to get my own opinions and views on my research finished so I can start by looking deeper into the elements, walk cycles and techniques of how paper crafts can be made and look like.


Story boarding had started but I was struggling when I had my tutorials on day3, I was given some ideas though that work well when I mix them into my own. I hope week3 is far more productive than this week.

Overview-did I complete my targets for week2?

Storyboarding (started but on going)
Begin to create at least three ideas(incomplete)
Evaluate ideas and choose 1 to develop into the final piece (evaluation started and ongoing but development is incomplete)

Week 2 - Day Three

Had both my tutorials today, the group crit should be tomorrow. I have more of a plan with what I need to get done. By the end of next week I need to have tried out 5 different techniques. So far I am managing to create my golden venture dragon. Although it is taking a long time, I feel it will be one of the best characters that I might make.

Currently thinking about several stories for the animation to follow. One is about each elemental creature being jealous of other elemental creatures e.g. Fire dragon jealous of a swan as it is both air and water. Another is urbanization and/or poaching and a third idea is a zoo and you see some f the animals in the zoo.

Need to continue and make this golden venture dragon then I might be able to sort the storyline out a bit better.

Week 2 - Day Two

So another poor day for logbook work. Why is it I can talk and be focused and awake but as soon as I try and write and read in my book I end up getting drowsy? It's ridiculous...

Ok, I tried to get some more research done for walk cycles and more videos of stop motions made with paper. It would work if the college internet wasn't so strictly filtered though... couldn't even watch a video showing the introduction scenes to Lemony Snickets film base on the first three books from "Series of Unfortunate Events" I'd managed to look at it at home the previous night before but wanted to get snapshots of it for my logbook. Silly idea.

Story ideas have begun. So far I have three (ish) ideas;

1)A simple story like a  kiddy book and characters walk out the pages

2)A single person points and waves at blank space creating creatures and landscapes, or flash of light and everything comes to life.

3)A poacher  and you follow the character around seeing how he traps/kills/releases the animals

I quite like the idea of the story book, especially as then I can make the story childish and simpler.

Week 2 - Day One

So it was bank holiday monday yesterday, so no college and no FMP work done that day. However I was thankful for that day off as I felt horrible from what I can assume was hayfever or a cold. Still feel rubbish today too and I highly doubt its going away soon.

Started making some more triangles for the golden venture dragon idea but I can't get any of the exact colours I have already used so I need to go out and get some orange or red paper. Something to go with the yellow paper I bought a few years ago (so handy I still have it too!) Although not much, I managed to write down my group crit in my sketchbook, begin research into the elements and looked at a few animations made using paper.

My favorite video I watched that used paper cut outs was called "I Have Your Heart"
you can view it here; http://www.skwigly.co.uk/showcase/heart/
or on youtube at;  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06dAqSFn1lk#t=240

Whilst researching the 5elements earth, fire, water, earth and spirit I found some information on the four humors, Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic and Phlegmatic. Whilst discovering the correct terminology I found it a fairly interesting read (if your into history of medicine, ancient Egyptians and the Greeks) which you can find too at this site; https://explorable.com/ancient-medicine

I need to start story boarding soon and getting more ideas for creatures but I'm finding focusing at college hard. Thankfully my night-school photography hand in is tomorrow so I can actually get some more work done at home too (or at least that is my theory, soon see how it goes)

Week 1 - Day Five

Day Five. For the second day now and I've been struggling to write in my logbook. Each time I try I end up almost falling asleep! It is not good! So instead I started creating the triangle pieces that will fit together to create whatever you can possibly think of. If my memory is correct, this technique is called golden venture, or 3D origami. Inspiration was a giant swan made out of these triangle pieces that I saw on a YouTube video which led me to find dragons made in the same way.

At first I thought that this technique wouldn't be easily movable but I now think that a dragon or snake like creature made out of these triangle pieces wouldn't be as difficult as I thought because in a tutorial video found via YouTube the triangle are layered in a flat straight line then bent to create the necessary shape. It's going to take a while but once the triangles are folded everything will go fairly quickly.

I need more research in my book but I don't feel like I'm falling behind. So long as next week I start story boarding and get ideas created everything should be fine.

Week 1 - Day Four

Day four and I and I've successfully had my first tutorial. Managed to get advice on how long I should plan for filming and I managed to see what other lighting I could other than the lights that the collage have for the ipads. Waiting for an email that will have some animations and/or animators that is relevant as I felt I needed more so I can hopefully get that all done tomorrow once I have a starting point. Begun to think about how long my animation will be and so far I've been thinking of creating short vines for experimentation to see which ideas might work for my characters and then creating the story so if I only manage to do 30seconds, of a 1minute story, it will still make sense.

Week 1 - Day Three

Day three and had my first group critical assessment (crit). It's only the start of the project so I was a bit unsure how useful it would be but so far I've got more ideas for research. My project is to create a paper stop motion animation and the working title is Creatures of the Elements. The group crit has shown that I could research the elements as there are so many different ideas of what they are. Earth, water, air and fire or the old fashioned physical elements such as bile, puss and blood.Not forgetting the scientific ones such as all those on the good ol' periodic table. Going to try and make a start in some of them tomorrow as I've still got plenty of research to stick in and talk about.

Week - Day Two

Day Two and so far research has included Tim Burton, Ray Harryhausen and Nick Park. Ray Harryhausen is a well known animator who has influenced many animators and artists. He created a stop motion form called dynanimation but I feel like I ought to know more about Harryhausen and his work as I'm not familiar with many (if any) of his well known films such as Clash of the Titans (1981) as well as Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977). I am constantly thinking of different ways that I could animate my stop motion so I'd better write some of it down before I forget.


I'm enjoying the space that everyone has been given. So many times you try and get a seat on a table and you end up getting your own work covered up by others. Oh the frustration! So very glad I have my own table now though.

Week 1 - Day One

So... Day one of FMP. So far I've already got my photographs of animals, but the when I went to the wildlife park in Easter holidays the animals were pretty sleepy. The fabulous monkeys were jumping and playing though, as well as the meerkats and penguins (it was their feeding time). Unfortunately the wildlife park wasn't successful to give me walk cycles and movement so I think photographs, books and YouTube videos will have to be resorted to next.