animation 2D final

Fireflies

I apologize for not updating for an entire month, but life has been pretty busy.  The girls are getting ready for final exams, and we've been preoccupied with ordering group sweatpants, exchanging Secret Santa, and of course making Christmas/holiday gifts in our brand new craft room!   I'm going the extra mile and making fabulous jewelry gift for the girls this year... and it's taken quite a bit of time to get them done!

And of course, my animation semester is almost over!  Over Thanksgiving break I played around with Adobe After Effects some more, and if there's anything I learned about mastering a new tool, you gotta learn to have fun with it.  I managed to master this wonderful lighting and particle effect for something I might actually use for my final project.  Speaking of which... I haven't mentioned it yet:  my class final will consist of animating/illustrating at least 30 seconds of a song.  I chose Fireflies by Owl City - such a wonderful synth-pop feel-good song!  For the past two weeks I've been doing all these sketches of my characters and an (amazing) background, but I still have so much to finish by next Tuesday.

The story goes that these three kids are playing marbles in a narrow city street, and one of them catches sight of some fireflies (which is very unusual in a city).   Immediately the boy gets excited and free-spirited, chasing the fireflies with the other kids.  By the end of the segment, we realize the boy was just day-dreaming, but nevertheless he begins to leave the marbles game to seek out the fireflies in the distance.  The other two kids just watch very confusingly, but then decide to follow along.

Here's a "screen shot" of the final scene:

I'm super excited about this project, but it definitely took a lot more time planning and story-boarding than I had initially expected.  I've concluded that the best part is sketching out ideas and bringing out the characters' personalities through their facial expressions.  The nitty gritty comes with putting in the frame-by-frame action sequences and visual effects (like the fireflies - which I haven't even animated yet!)   I'm glad I delved into After Effects and Flash this semester, but I would love to master more illustration software in the spring to polish those basic coloring skills.  =)

Oh!  And The Princess and the Frog comes out tomorrow!!!

After Effects is a kicker...

...in the butt, I should say.  But it's so freakin' awesome!!!

I spent a good 2 hours trying to teach myself some things through an online AE tutorial, and honestly I don't know why I didn't start doing this earlier.  It's so much more hands-on than just reading the textbook and I don't get intimidated whenever the teacher just whips through complicated lingo like 'anchorpoints' and 'pre-comps' like I've heard of these things before.  =)  It's an advanced class, so I should've known better, but at least this is helping me understand Graphic Design terminology!  

Here's what I worked on today, basically consisting of layered lighting effects, particle wave manipulation, and typography.

  

=D

No really, I love this.  I love it all.

my animation midterm!

This was all done in Adobe Flash, using mainly frame-by-frame animation and classic "tweening" for movement of the characters.  We had to do a 9 second story, complete with action and character development.  Tammy Mouse is a character I created for a coworker of mine, and it started as a simple inside joke made through a series of comics.  I thought it would be fun to go the next step!   I fixed a bit of the layering issues (won't tell you where!) by the time I turned this thing in, and I'm so proud of it!

All art and voice-overs done by me.  Approx. time for completion?  A week and a half.

Crazyness...

I've been in such a comic-making frenzy lately, partially because the job and my class combined have made me super exhausted that drawing makes me relax... and partially because it's helped me understand the human condition that comes with animation!

It's what I learned in class a couple weeks ago.  Animation is nothing without putting actions and feelings into your characters.  Sometimes you can only do this with a few frames, and storyboarding your character into different facial expressions bring out the most subtle hints of characterization and personality.

Take this image for example.  It's two characters, with two simple poses and two facial expressions.  You don't need to know them personally or understand what's been going on in the story to get a hint of how they're feeling.  Ranait is looking outward, her arm raised up nervously - clearly feeling out of her comfort zone - while the Bunny looks to her curiously, as if in a daze.  That's what I love about comics & animation.  You don't have to read much dialogue or exposition in order to feel a connection with these characters.  Right now I'm working on mastering the art of lip-synching into animated faces, and that brings out a whole new level into the human condition.  It's really tedious to match the mouths with the sounds in audio, but when you get the final result... it's so rewarding!

I've also been making one-shot comics about my job.  =) Here's one I recently did about my girls in the residence hall:

(The one opening the door is me.)  Can you guess how each of the girls are feeling?

eye pencil animation test

Something I did for fun; frame-by-frame animation. It only took... 2 hours?

Yaaaay!

Forgiveness in Person

Okay... for those who know me, I could probably talk about this animated show for hours. Hours. But I'll spare you the never-ending praises and just talk about one subject that I believe is very crucial to a strong animated project: character development. And what is necessary for good character development? Good frickin' writing!

I didn't have too many gripes about the writing quality in "Avatar: the Last Airbender" because if you watch an episode (any episode, really) you can see that the creators valued a vivid sense of growth in their characters. They wanted to show density - to give each of their characters a past and help us as the viewers feel and understand what they were going through. The story of "Avatar" deserves praise in itself: basically you have a world that's divided into four nations: Earth, Fire, Water, Air... each one uniquely crafted by a supernatural martial art... by which they call bending. These nations are supposed to be at peace, but one day, the Fire Nation claims itself superior and starts a global invasion. The only person who can stop the Fire Nation from taking over the world is the Avatar... but before he could do that, he must master the bending of all four elements.

... Oh, and did I mention the Avatar's only a 12-year-old kid? And he's been trapped in an iceberg since before the War, and hasn't got a clue what's going on?

Yep, that's "Avatar" in a nutshell, and for roughly 2 years, I've been enamored by the writing quality of this show. You can definitely see the human condition in these characters... especially for Aang (the Avatar) as he struggles to make sense of what has happened during the last 100 years he wasn't around. He is also an Air Nomad, which makes him peaceful, care-free, and naturally fun-spirited as a kid... and you can tell he tries to avoid confrontation. He starts out very passive about his responsibilities as the Avatar, but gradually begins to realize how much the world needs him. Aang really grows up in the show, and the writers do a helluva job doing it. You gotta see it to believe it.

So going to my point about good writing (seriously, I could go forever!) I give these "Avatar" writers bonus points about keeping the bitterness between characters very strong, yet also providing the possibility of reconciliation. If you're curious to know how far a tension can develop between two people because of their past... let me introduce you to Zuko and Katara.

Zuko was the banished prince of the Fire Nation. His only ticket back home was to capture the Avatar. For the entire first season, he was chasing Aang and his friends through hell and high-water... and they hated him... which was fine, because Zuko didn't like them either. For the entire second season, Zuko is at a crossroads; he's not sure whether or not his father (the Fire Lord) is doing the right thing with the War. At the end of Season 2, it seems there's no turning back for Zuko when he chooses to fight and nearly kill Aang.

This angers one character in particular: Katara. See, she's the one who found Aang in the iceberg and basically restored the world's only hope for peace. She and her brother travelled with Aang across the world, helping him train and find the people he needed to become a master Avatar. She practically raised Aang like a son and threw her life on the line so many times for him, in dire hope that he could one day face the Fire Lord and end the War.

Now, you gotta understand... she and Zuko have had their differences since Day 1. Their bending battles (Firebending vs. Waterbending) are super intense, and yet when Zuko finally explains himself, Katara builds a small sliver of hope that Zuko could probably change and help the Avatar. Of course... when Zuko goes back to his Avatar-capturing ways, Katara sustains this ongoing hatred for Zuko. She refuses to believe him even when he admits to his mistakes and declares once and for all that he is no longer the person he used to be. He wants to help the Avatar defeat his own father! Everyone gives Zuko a chance... except for Katara. It's almost clear to say you will never think Zuko and Katara will be able to confide in each other ever again.

... and they're the ones hugging up there. =)

It's why I continue to tip my hat to the creators of "Avatar," because they found a way to demonstrate how the most opposing forces can still find a way to reconcile. I think that's why these two characters are so close to my heart.

Haha, I could go on about how much I would've loved to see Zuko and Katara together... but I won't bore you about my romatic writing tendencies. They finished as friends, and that's good enough for me! So if you're up for seeing a great, well-written animated show, watch "Avatar: the Last Airbender." Forgiveness is just one of the many good messages they cover.

I still haven't seen 9.

This is such a shameless plug, but the movie looks awwwesome. Imagine Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas warped 1000 years into the future: a post-apocalyptic place where everyday household items have transformed into deadly machines. Machines rule our dark and polluted world... and they're hungry for human life-spark... which is unfortunately imbedded inside each of these adorable looking rag dolls. 0_O

Yeah, this film brings out the inner animation nerd in me, because just the story and graphics show the extent to which 3D animation has evolved. It's not all harmless bunnies and butterflies anymore. Hellz no. Things can get pretty violent and intense if done right, which is why I think it's my favorite film genre. =) Dark stories like this remind me of the good ole' days of Don Bluth, back in the 90s. Remember The Secret of NIMH? All Dogs go to Heaven? There some dark scenes in there that I didn't understand as a kid, but now seeing them again makes me realize how 'human' some of these characters were.

Anyway, I entered a contest: Designing a Creature for 9. Deviantart.com was promoting the film by asking people to design a creature inspired by the machine monsters we see in the movie! Here's the rough draft sketch of what I came up with:

Can you guess what it's made of?

I have a project!

So all through the weekend I worked on these characters, just after an idea popped into my head.  My mind has been in Anime/Comics mode lately, so I figured I'd take advantage of that.  Haha... when we presented our sketches in class today, one student actually pointed mine out and said "That looks like Anime!" and our animation professor replied "yeah... there's always one..." ^^.  

Anyway, here are my characters for the semester:

The girl's name is Ranait (pronounced 'Renee' but with a soft 't' at the end) and her pet Bunny is... well, a giant bunny.  It's pretty obvious that the two don't always get along.   =)  I got this idea from having a pet cat for so many years, how sometimes she drove me nuts with playfulness, but always had a cuddly demeanor whenever I had a rough day.   I'm not sure how many simple animations I'll have of Ranait & Bunny by December, but I'm excited.

This was just a rough sketch.  Bunny has evolved a little bit, which you'll see once I'm done making the first coloring piece.  Yay!

First week into 2D Animation...

... and I still haven't gotten my books. =(

But the good news is that I can now animate a bouncing ball in Adobe Flash! W00T!!! The teacher's a great guy - probably in his early thirties, with shoulder-length hair and colorful striped button-down shirts that looked stolen from the 70s - but something about him just seems off. I think I felt it when he flew out the door the millisecond class was supposed to end.

Don't get me wrong, he's amazing at what he does, and one of the things he's taught us is that as an Animator, you need to me meticulous with your work. The bouncing ball example was a perfect demonstration... because it's one thing to animate like it's bouncing onto ground, but it's a whole different thing when you want to make it look realistic. That's when the detail comes in, because first of all... every frame in a moving shot is important. Here's the first rule I learned from Animation:

Frames = Time.

Roughly one second of animation takes up 24 individual frames, and it's the animator's job to determine how she wants to use the frames. You can make the object look like it's going in super slow motion, like it's in control of its own weight or completely at gravity's mercy, etc. The more realistic an object moves in an environment, the more believable it will be to the viewer. Apparently... the Laws of Physics are quite handy in the world of Animation. =)

So I created a circle. I gave it an environment (actually just a horizontal line for it to 'bounce' on) and did my fancy Adobe Flash magic to direct the circle in a straight vertical movement. I selected the 1st and 24th frames in the shot to have the ball stay "up" and then selected a Key Frame in the 12th frame. This 12th frame would direct the ball to 'land' on the horizontal line. if you put it together, the circle starts up... slowly moves down, lands on the ground... then magically goes back up to where it started! That's just the basic animation. Now comes the meticulous part... where you have to ease into the timing to make the ball go faster into the bounce, and then ease out when the ball is back up in the air like a floating balloon. And don't forget that the ball needs distortion! It goes into a flat shape when it hits the ground, then thins out as it's about to go up into the air. Hah. Physics!

It's been a great experience thus far. I'm definitely looking forward to creating my own characters... starting next week! Sketching is the best part of putting together an idea. That's what I'm doing right now!

In other animation news, I showed Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away this week to my girls, and... it sold like hotcakes. They absolutely loved it! It makes me feel good that the girls I take care of have an utter appreciation for this art. Yay!

The Arrival

I sat in on the Graphic Novels class today as if I were a student, no different from what I did last year with Japanese I. It's actually fun, but it gets really strange when the kids get obnoxious and there's nothing you can do about it. =) But anyway... the class looks very promising. I'm excited about the books we'll be covering throughout the semester, like Art Spiegelman's MAUS and Alan Moore's Watchmen (which I'm still trying to get through!), analyzing the definition of comics and deciding what makes a good illustrated story.

For homework, he gave us a copy of Shaun Tan's The Arrival, a short illustrated novel about a young man's experience as an immigrant.


The kicker is unlike other graphic novels, this one has absolutely no dialogue! It's just a series of images... what Will Eisner once described as traditional "Sequential Art." The Arrival is a quick read, and the illustrations are unlike anything I've seen before! They are colorless except with gray and sepia tones, depicting a foreign Metropolis that functions under the mechanics of the early Industrial Revolution. In spite of the lacking dialogue, it's unnecessary, because the images and expressions of the people are enough to understand what's going on - or what happened in the past. There's also a certain fantastical element to Tan's work, regarding the animals (often seen as house-pets in the story) and the methods of transportation. It's a great story, and the images reminded me of something Hayao Miyazaki would probably do.

Speaking of whom... I just learned that Miyazaki's newest animated film, Ponyo, just came out into theaters! Thus far he has never let me down, so I'm pretty sure I'll love the story behind this one. Can't wait to see it!

First Day of School!

...for the kids, actually. =)

This makes it the second consecutive year that I've had twenty girls with different names. I love having distinct names like Ashtin and Irene, and Faith. It gives me the urge to start writing a comic book with each of them as characters. Such sweet ladies!

Major thing came in the mail for me this week, but let me explain why it's so cool. My friend Jul and I are setting ourselves a goal to become better comic artists (to better perfect my long-term goal with animation) and she'd recommended me this graphic novel entitled Blankets, by Craig Thompson. I'd never heard of it before, but she told me it's one of the best-illustrated novels she's ever read. This past week, I've been pumping myself this graphic novels class I'd be sitting in on with the IMSA kids this semester... and when I emailed the professor about book recommendations, he mentioned Blankets!

So naturally, I had to get it.

Okay, before I comment on it... let me just say that the size of this thing confirms my utter love and appreciation for the graphic novels genre. It's roughly takes up the same mass as Gone with the Wind (which is also currently sitting on my coffee table) and it's a pure black-and-white comic from beginning to end. Now I'd read b/w graphic novels before, such as Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi that deals with coming-of-age experiences of the respective author, and Blankets takes it to a whole different level. I've only read the first two chapters, and thus far I'm really enveloped by the way this guy can draw & write about his rough childhood... how he was bullied, isolated, and pushed into this deep depression. It isn't until he finds true love when he finally begins to get out of that black hole. =)

I love the book so far, and I recommend it to anyone who's interested in graphic novels. I'll comment more about it when I'm done. My animation class starts next week. Yay!

Building the Animation dream.

My newest endeavor.

So for the past year, I've been working at a residential school for gifted teens. They're some of the most brilliant minds I've ever met, kids striving to become pediatric oncologists or chemical engineers at the age of fourteen. They live here at the school, and since parenting and guidance is of the essence... that's where I come in. My name is Sandra. I'm a resident counselor, and I take care of twenty girls as if I were a second mom, disciplining them and teaching them how to do their own laundry and housekeeping... with the occasional batch of brownies. ^^

I just finished training for a second year at this job. It's exciting, but strangely uneventful... and I'm determined to fix some of the mistakes I made from last year. One: not hesitate or be afraid to get to know my girls. Two: to push for more community within the group of girls I'm committed to. Three: to do a damn good job at it.

And to think... I'm also doing this to save up money for art school.

You see, I want to be an Animator.

It's funny how sometimes you can remember parts of your life and wonder why the heck you didn't just go with your gut feeling, even when everyone else around you said to take a safer route. Artists don't make money. Artists are really competitive. blah blah blah. So I graduated college two years ago with the faint plan of becoming a teacher... and it took me about four months of academic tutoring in inner-city Boston to make me realize that no, I'm not ready to be a teacher. First, I want to make it in the graphic arts and animation world. Then maybe... just maybe... I'll be able to enjoy my life as a teacher more.

So that dream's been locked away in my mind, even while I had this job as a resident counselor. I want to have that chance to work for an awesome company like Nickelodeon or Pixar or even Studio Ghibli (if I can master Japanese). I'm aware of what I want, even though I barely have been able to master Photoshop this summer! It's a looong way to go, but I'm determined to work hard for it.

Every artist needs inspiration, so what better way to find it through the job? I love these girls and will use all my energy in getting to know them this year... with enough energy left over to keep those Photoshop and Flash tutorials going! I'll be the Nanny working diligently to raise her twenty girls, but also dedicating her spare time and creativity for her dream job in (Ani)mation. I'm the AniNanny.

Get ready to read about a young woman's progress in Photoshop, her responses about the latest animated film she's seen, as well as her personal experience working with a new batch of twenty gifted teenage girls.

I have a feeling inspiration will happen this year! =)