1st year (1st Semester)
Assignment: Animation Studio
Week 1 INTRO
Monday:
For our first assignment, we were given the subject title 'Design a World'. I was assign to team with Eva, Bethany and Piers. We introduce ourselves and began sharing our interests to get to know the group. We were then given the task to come up with 100 ideas, then eventually narrowing it to one. Together we started visually brainstorming our ideas as shown below:
Our ideas range from dystopian, magic, hell to bacteria, infection etc. After some time we find ourselves leaning towards the biological area. Eva then put forward the idea of a world existing in a petri dish. I immediately thought it was a brilliant idea and we all agree it is a great idea to build on. We then started scheduling the days we can meet up throughout this week.
Tuesday:
Our plan for the today was to look more deeply into the idea of organisms living in a petri dish. Deciding if the idea was good enough to continue and so on. Eva shared some of her past experience in relation to this subject ('Bodyworlds' exhibition on human cells/organs) and she had a great connection to certain friends who are students in the science field where she was able to obtain first-hand resources (photos of cells etc.) This had personally helped me understand the idea more visually and can be helpful to go back on if the people in our team were to be changed.
We decided to name our World 'Ortus' (a Latin word for germs) suggested by Bethany. It stood out to us because it was rememberable and it also reminded me of the word orbit in relation to planets. To create more depth to our world we did a small mind map of what makes a world then divide each area to the most suitable member. I offer to look into the climate as I felt most knowledgeable in that section. We then plan to meet up on Thursday to share our research in those areas.
Wednesday:
First of all, I divided the idea of climate/conditions into four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. When the season gets hotter, the idea of a lamp is used on the petri dish as for winter/rainy season condensation drops is present in the petri dish.
As shown above, I started to show what you'd expect the weather/humidity to be like in each season. I also began gathering research from reliable resource online to back up the idea. On top of that, I was inspired by the characters Susuwatari and Kodama in Studio Ghibli Movies by the way they increase in numbers and working together in groups. I thought I could somehow relate that to how the weather affects the number of the germs/bacteria present in 'Ortus'.
Finally, I came up with a final sketch of how each season affects the growth/development of the bacteria/organism.
Spring- warm - bacteria grow fastest/best in warm and moist areas= population is at its highest- increasing humidity- bacteria stays on the ground.
Summer- hot- most bacteria can't survive above 50c= population is at its lowest- high humidity- bacteria pick up the water vapour present in the air which makes them drop to the ground.
Autumn- cool - population starts to increase as it's getting cooler- humidity starts to decline
Winter- Freezing - wet= bacteria multiple as the water helps them to dissolve food in order to develop- low humidity- less water in sky= more particles float in the air.
Thursday:
On the day we met up, each of us took turns to share our work together in order to gain feedback for any improvements or just any disagreements on our work. I was glad that everyone agrees with the direction I was taking; to forward the idea of having the world being section into four seasons.
Friday:
Eva gathered all of our research in order for her to combine it all into a powerpoint. This helped us to see how our world 'Ortus' is heading to and that everything fits along with each other. Furthermore, it gives us a clear goal on what might we include in the future coming.
Alec and Priya were also keen on our idea as they have given us mostly positive feedback, which made us more assure of where we were going. Additionally, they start suggesting us to explore the character design/shape and surroundings over the next week.
Week 2 FORM & PERSPECTIVE
Monday:
During our class, Alec talked us through the fundamental of forms and perspective. He instructed us to come up with unpredictable quirky combinations of forms by merging different forms e.g. animal, man-made objects that would fit into the world we are creating. Our group thought along with the idea of juxtaposition between geometric/angular and blobby; the contrast between hard and soft would be captivating.
Tuesday/ Wednesday:
I began creating weird combinations that began to look like creatures and environmental subjects. Then I went for the climate and came up with better ideas as it has more relation aspects to my planet more e.g. cotton swabs to imitate clouds.
Thursday:
We met up at the student hub as usual to discuss our outcomes on the task given. I was very eager to show my ideas. I put forward the idea of the cotton swab cloud as I thought it will add an interesting element to our planet 'Ortus' and they agreed it will also fit well with the other forms we decided to include.
From there on we continue to discuss our influences and research into more images that can inspire new ideas which somehow lead us talking about the characters/monsters in 'Doctor Who'. We find that we could use some the characteristic to build on our ideas.
After seeing the result the Eva kindly offer to combine I was very pleased with how each of our ideas complemented with one another.
Week 3 COMPOSITION
Group change
I was absent the other day so I learnt that the team members were changed which I had expected sooner or later. Bethany and Eva were moved from our group, whilst Piers and myself were grouped with Donal and Jack who was in the same team from before. I also heard that we were team up with a 2nd year mentor 'Natasha' who will help guide us. I also check the blackboard and learnt that our new task was to design pages of thumbnails for the background of our world.
We've started a new group chat to stay in contact with each other and started making plans on when we are to meet up. Natasha had also sent us a link to her blog on to the group chat which was quite helpful to see the direction of her group went when she took this project last year. I also sent my personal blog so they have an idea on what my group were doing before since we are to continue the petri dish idea. The blog really helped me summarise it to them and so that they can also start working on the thumbnails as well.
Wednesday/Thursday:
On Wednesday, I've spent most of the day researching compositions and looking up some images to spark up some ideas. As shown in the image below I used watercolour to bogged down some ideas.
Friday:
After class, we finally had time to meet up to discuss the work we did. I shared my thumbnail designs to them and they all approved it was nicely done and suggest to further expand it. As for them, they understand the gist of the idea of our world 'Ortus' but they wanted to have more time to adjust to the idea so we planned to meet up next week.
Week 4 TONAL
Monday:
The image below shows how I develop my thumbnails into a more detailed design:
As you can see I tried to incorporate the forms we design from weeks ago to give the composition more personality to it. During our meet up, I realise that I was going in a different direction than them as I can see they went towards to a microscopy object kind of landscapes.
Priya also had a chance to talk to us about our ideas and she seems to like how they were going so this made me reconsider the designs I'll be working towards to.
We then were also given a new task where we have to turn our landscapes into tonal sketches.
Tuesday:
On Tuesday, we met up to talk more about the concept of this world 'Ortus'. We looked over some animation books and I was inspired by a book called 'Sketching for Animation'- Peter Parr - pg 137. What caught my attention was how the dinosaur is made up of the landscape/ground. I thought I could incorporate this idea in terms of the agar risen into an object. I shared this idea with my group and they thought it was a great point to include.
Left image: 'Sketching for Animation'- Peter Parr - pg 137.
Wednesday/ Thursday:
Over the two days, I've redesigned my landscapes by using the reference of microscope objects. A microscopic slice of banana and a microscopic of a tongue's taste buds. The last image is the idea of the agar risen off the ground into a shape resembling a tree with many branches- referring to the ideas on Tuesday.
Friday:
Everyone was busy on this day so we decided to post our tonal drawings on the group chat to make sure that everyone is on the same page. As for my tonal drawings, I was glad to have received great feedback as they love the designs I went with. It was also amazing to see how others had approached this task and it had really broadened my perspective.
- Redrew the tonal studies into digital 2D:
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