Captain Character: Edrik, The Flamboyant King of Vladya

He came to be, Edrik, The Flamboyant King of Vladya! I have always been interested in the self-righteous "facetious" egoists among us on this world, and how characters have been created to reflect that phenomenon of traits in society. I chose the name Edrik by browsing the Internet for names that mean "ruler", whereas I added a suffix title to his name to promote his most prominent trait: flamboyance. Inspired by the brilliant character development of Archer and Johnny Bravo, I wanted to make a character that piles up all of the human ego in the 21st century and combines it with metrosexuality, narcissism, and pretentiousness, a real absolute extreme of character traits!

Captain Character: Initial Iterations

Creating a strong character is a time-worthy developmental process as one must implement an aspect of his own self into the character, making it radiate vivacity and energy. With this study task, we are to create a character based on an archetype, develop it, give it life, make a story, let it shine with emotion, artistically conceive. However, nothing's pragmatic when it comes to creating a character, as I firmly believe that a character designer or animator must broaden his or her horizons when trying to invent a new character and try multiple times before finally settling which appearance of the character is to fit the most. I chose to expand on one of the Jungian archetypes based on their signature emotion, assets, and visual aspects. I could not decide between the Sage and the Ruler, thus I resolved that by drawing iterations for both. After a lot of thinking, drawing, re-structuring, it seemed to me much more plausible to go with the Ruler, hence the Sages have signature beards which limit their possibility of expressing versatile emotions, along with the limited world of backstories they have (intelligent, eclectic, but passive). Choosing the Ruler gave me the opportunity to focus on facial features, because I wanted to make a rather arrogant king, one that is disrespectful towards his people but self-loving and narcissistic, and with that comes a fitting face. In terms of body shape, I only attempted two constructed out of basic shapes - one circular small one, and one trapezoid big one. I tried several designs of faces, interlaced with different facial hair and contours, but made them all by just combining basic shapes together, then following them to make a figure, a shape. Aside from that, the first thing I always draw in a character is their eyes, because I believe they are the most important part of emotional expression. For example, wide eyes can insinuate a childlike wonder, whereas smaller ones give off more of a depth and seriousness to the character, and for my own I needed the upper eyelid a little closed, because semi-open eyes along with a smile give off an assured certainty. Out of the several I did, I'll give it more thought and see which one fits!

The Other Side - Developmental Stages: Animating Movie Clips and Elements

Referential Drawing

As in animation made during the Golden Era, as well as now in the Digital Age of animations, some actions and movements of a character, background, or miscellaneous are often repetitive. In other words, they occur more than once during the entire sequence. Except in stop-motion, these actions need not be drawn or created individually every-time they are in queue, thus animated templates are created. This was the next stage in my animation. Primarily, I imported the digital versions of my character and design sheets onto Flash, and then used them as a reference in order to digitally draw the characters and elements and create the color palette for each. Taking into considerations all of the scenes, I first created the repeating movements of the characters, one being the jumps that the main character makes, another being the gliding dragon, and yet another the miscellaneous which lie in the background. In order to effectively use onion skin and preserve time, I first drew the outlines of every single frame, and then followed up with coloring and shading, and finally finishing up with specific detailing (one such are the eyebrows and wrinkles on the main character).

Colored reference, drawing in use, sketchbook reference

Set, Series, Sequence: Storyboard

Now came to create the final narrative for this project. I used the 12 sequential images of the second step as drawing practice and individual possible scenes of a story which was then in-progress. For example, one of my drawings featured the "Broccoli Brains" character (which I named Jack) getting shot, which completely splatters his brains into plentiful chunks of "viscera". I wanted to include that scene in the story if the character were to be killed before achieving the final step of the parasitic transformation, however, in the end I decided to leave that out as I considered it to be a story without an appropriate culmination - one with no pizzazz. In terms of drawing practice, I drew several of the scenes in my sketchbook as to see whether they fit, and whether the imagery is correct for serving as the key-frame.

The Other Side - Developmental Stages: Creation of Backgrounds

Taking into consideration that the main emphasis of my future animation will be placed on the actions occurring in the foreground, as well as the midground, I altered images for my background. My background is extremely minimalistic, as it is the embrace of the cosmos, thus, I thought that I needed not to elaborate on the details. Seeing that there will be rockets, levitating islands, and ambiguous creatures in the background, I considered making the background posterized (on 9 levels, to be exact), as I want it to differentiate from the rest of the animation (as that part will be graphically-drawn). I took an image of space, rendered and altered it through Photoshop, and for the fast-moving scene added a motion blur - the background will be animated at all times, hence I despise static backgrounds as I consider them to take away from the vivacity of movement within the animation.

Understanding Animation: Rotoscoping in Early and Modern Animation

Rotoscoping is a technique in animation which uses live footage as a foundation upon which animators draw frame by frame. In other words, with rotoscoping animators are able to create animation using live video as onion-skin, where they trace over the projected images. The rotoscope had been invented by the American inventor and animator Max Fleischer, and got patented under his name in 1915 with his debut "Out of The Inkwell" cartoon series. Initially, the rotoscope that Fleischer had invented used recorded live-action film images and projected them under a frozen glass panel - a complex mechanism that was quite the size. However, ever since its creation, the rotoscope had gradually advanced and its conventions of functionality had simplified, while still being used over the years to this day. Ranging animations from the Golden Era of Animation up to modern animation series, the rotoscope is still among the prevalent animation tools that help animators create life-like characters, as well as practice live drawing and tracing of lines. For example, A-ha's famous 1985 song "Take on Me" features a rotoscope animation which encompasses the story of a comic book character coming to life. In the music video, both live-action and animation are combined to create a phantasmagorical essence between what is real and what is not. Furthermore, according to Richard Shicklel, many sequences in Disney movies are rotoscoped, as actresses' performances were filmed and then used for lip-syncing and gestures. It goes without saying that the rotoscope still influences modern animators and has revolutionized the way we bring something still to life, as creators, as artists.

"A-ha - Take on Me" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914

Set, Series, Sequence: Symbolism and Derived Concepts from "Broccoli Brains"

Whilst creating the 12 images that follow-up the project, I was simultaneously thinking about the short narrative and what it will encompass. Thus, among the 12 images I was also creating key-frame scenes from my still-in-production narrative story. However, these images were not pure visuals from the action in the story, but also included the hidden thoughts of the main character from different perspectives. I created a backstory behind "Broccoli Brains" - broccoli feasting on the character's brain, like a parasite, becoming a menace. Taking this into consideration, I made the 12 images in relation to narration, but also in relation to drawing practice and styles of drawing.

Set, Series, Sequence: Sequential Imagery of "Broccoli Brains"

As part of this project, I have chosen to elaborate upon the drawing "Broccoli Brains". I have chosen to explore this image through perspective, concept, and style as to produce a whimsical variety of 12 images. Primarily, since I thought it would be effective practice, I chose to further develop the image from different perspectives: one profile, one from above, one from up close, etc. I do wish to develop my sense of point of view, with which I will utilize the principle of Solid Drawing effectively.

Perspective from above, with inkpen for accuracy.

Perspective from profile, no color.

Close-up.

Set, Series, Sequence: Practice of Depth with Charcoal

"Fear of Broccoli"

Sometimes, the absence of colors portrays so much about the essence of a drawing. No colors, no life, no hope, darkness, or so I see it. I attempted at creating several drawings by using pure charcoal, without the pencil outlining of the drawing. What I found most intriguing about charcoal was its dry residue on the paper, which could be purposefully smudged to create effective gradients which depict perspective and depth. This is exactly what I was aiming for while drawing and sketching with charcoal, and unexpectedly, they turned out quite effective. For example, in "Fear of Broccoli" (one of my drawings), the gradient that protrudes from the background serves as a shadow and effectively portrays depth - darkness insinuates depth. Furthermore, I created the smudges on the floor to simulate roots of a tree (due to broccoli's similarity to oak trees), as if they were creeping upon the 6-eyed being who is suffering from a severe case of fear. Nevertheless, this part of this project helped me in drawing practice and the correct portrayal of depth. As I go on I can notice a distinct development of my drawing skills, something that will help me in fully embracing 2D animation - something that I have not YET had enough experience with.

Set, Series, Sequence: Character Design

"Frustrated Broccoli Chef"

When it comes to character design, I personally prefer creating and drawing characters using an ink-pen, because it calls for accuracy in portraying facial detail and body shape. In compliance to this project, along with my initial ideas, I created several characters associated with broccoli, be they of a "broccoli-kin" race or just connected with the plant in some way. However, I also tried creating a character using charcoal, which can be prominently used for the application of shadowing (most commonly used for the emphasis of facial contours). In both cases, the characters I created relayed emotion effectively, appeared to have "life-like" facial expressions, and were in compliance to Solid Drawing, one of the 12 Principles of Animation. Sequentially, the creation of one character fueled my ideas for the next one, the first one being "Frustrated Broccoli Chef" (which was the initial idea of a broccoli character's cartoonish profile, written in my sketchbook), followed by "Broccoli's Hair", etc. Luckily, this project assisted me in developing my animation skills in terms of character design, something I had found quite difficult in the past due to misunderstanding of relaying emotions through expression.

"Broccoli's Hair"

"Broccoli Flawless"

Set, Series, Sequence: Pastel Style

Now for coloring I used a new tool: pastel. Rarely have I ever colored with pastel (maybe in Elementary and Middle School?), but I had forgotten the wonders it can bring. Pastel is perfect for smudges and creating gradients of color, which is exactly why I chose this element for several drawings. Because pastel cannot define outlines (well, the light colored pastels), I only used them for coloring by following the shapes I had created with pencil. After laying down the colors, I used my fingers to smudge the residue left on the paper, either to create a gradation effect or to blur the colors, with the soul purpose of removing visible rough texture (as is the case with watercolor). However, only pastel was not enough, because it looked like a bunch of patterns inarticulately mixed together. Thus, after the color was put, I outlined the shapes and forms with an ink pen to add contour to the composition. Overall, it turned out successful, and I am glad that this project was assigned because now I'm trying out different ways of drawing which could be applied in traditional animation in the future.

                                                                                                           
This is one of my pastel drawings, named "Broccoli Forest". In it, due to the outlining of pastel, the broccoli seem to have an outer glow, adding the notion that they are haunted. Emphasis is placed on the color and absence of it rather than on the outlines of the shapes.

Set, Series, Sequence: Watercolor Style Development

Following up with a new technique, one I had never used prior, came the ink pencil + watercolor drawings. Same as the previous technique, I drew the outlines of the picture with pencil, and then overlapped them with an ink pen. However, this time I took "frantic" swipes with the ink pen instead of careful and pedantic ones. What I hoped to achieve with this was a whole new different atmosphere, one more dark, one more inky, less precise. But, instead of just pencil shading or coloring with wooden color pencils, I used watercolor. The reason I used watercolor was that with it I can manipulate the visual texture of the color instead of drawing inner contour lines. With watercolor, every brush swipe can be seen after the color dries out, which gives an artist aesthetic flexibility. Finally, for finesse, I sprayed ink on the drawings as to further strengthen the dominance of the color black and add to the murky and shadowed essence of the drawings. And finally, for the sake of experimentation, I mixed gold ink with black ink, took a piece of broccoli, dipped it in the ink, slapped it on a piece of paper, let it dry, then drew around it. Instead of copying the outline of broccoli using referential images, I let the broccoli do it's own form, natural in a way. Kinda post-modern, but hey, wonderful ideas sprouted!

The initial ink blots made with broccoli.










The final drawing, named "Cosmic Broccoli"

Understanding Animation: The Evolution of Bugs Bunny

As every animator knows, the very initial idea of a character is never solidly considered. It is always built upon, always altering, always evolving, providing the animator with developmental practice. Prior to this course, I had rarely considered character development, usually sticking with the first or second "draft" of a character (keep in mind, I mainly did stop-motion, so characters were literally built and never conceptualized with drawings prior-hand). Thus, in order to understand this process further and develop my skill for it I looked into the evolution of the Looney Tunes character Bugs Bunny.

Bugs Bunny's first official appearance under that pseudonym was in the Tex Avery episode "A Wild Hare", whereas before that there were several prototypical appearances of the character. According to the book "Bugs Bunny: Fifty Years and Only One Grey Hare", Bugs Bunny was "born" on the 27th of July in 1940, and ever since then has been evolving visually, but also characteristically. What struck the audience about this character was his ever-growing nonchalance towards the myriad of situations he was thrown into, and soon enough became a mascot for Warner Bros. During Bugs' early era, he was named as "Happy Rabbit" and was perfectly matched with a jocular voice (similar to that of Woody the Woodpecker) that became famous with the audience, after which it was decided that he was to be cast again (and the development started from that point in time). What interests me the most is that Bugs Bunny had solely evolved due to his success: his early designs extremely resembled a rabbit. With him becoming the star, the cast and Leon Schlesinger focused on his design profusely and started designing him to appear more elegant, taller, appearing more "human", something that matched his newly-introduced witty intellect. However, the template design is the one from 1948 which has constantly been built upon for future films with slight appearance changes because that was the image of Bugs that was vested in everyone's mind, so it would have been horrid to significantly alter his looks. This even reflects on today, as many fans of the "old" Bugs Bunny can relate to even the newest re-run of Looney Tunes since the voice matches, and the essence of his appearance does as well. Conclusively, it is how a character is adored that changes his/her vigor, and constantly sticking to one design (or using the first one that pops in your mind) adds a level of monotony - something that's UNACCEPTABLE in the cartoon world and industry.

Set, Series, Sequence: Ink-Pen Graphic Style Development

Attempting to eliminate the profuse use of over-lapping lines, I approached the next drawings differently. I first drew the outline of the picture with pencil, erasing any mistakes easily as I only drew the lines lightly. Once the general contours were drawn, I went over them with a 0.1 drawliner only once. Prior to this, I had always drawn my characters/backgrounds with the initial swipe of the ink pen, completely forgetting that ctrl + Z doesn't work in real life. Nevertheless, pencils used to be my main drawing/sketching tools, not drawliners. Taking this into consideration, I now shifted their use for outlining purposes, as to avoid unnecessary over-lapping. Plus, with the dark embrace of the lines, I used different thick lines for different situations, thin ones being for inner details, while thick ones for the outline. Along with this, as I have not used color much in my previous sketchbook drawings throughout the years, I colored parts of the drawings (those which draw detail) with coloring pencils as they do not cover the ink. Practicing with this technique I will gradually develop a style along the lines of graphic cartoon-realism, with the thickness of the lines complementing the figures.

Penciled outline visualized drawing of the insult "Broccoli Brains"












Finished version of "Broccoli Brains"

Set, Series, Sequence: Initial Re-Drawing of Broccoli

First off, before settling in to assign different styles to different ideas, I had to envision broccoli and how it is to be drawn. Personally, I haven't had my fair share of broccoli, and if I were to draw it directly from the images of the vegetable in my mind, I'd just draw a tree and color it differently. However, the trick is to draw it without color, get the contours right, so that when someone sees it identifies it as broccoli, and not a tree. Luckily, Google Images are a plentiful source of how broccoli looks like accurately, and I used all sorts of pictures (from broccoli clip-arts to the real deal) to serve as my "muse" of drawing a chunk of broccoli. Incipiently, I shall draw broccoli in a graphic ink-pen style with a combined sense of realism and cartoon-visuals. Nevertheless, soon I shall start doing color and experiment with styles I have yet to accustom to, because that's how we practice, right?

Image I used for re-drawing broccoli

Set, Series, Sequence: Ideas and Style of Approach

Now comes a new module, Visual Language, which is solely oriented on developing one's drawing skills, be they observational or pulled out of their minds. The first study task, whimsically named "Set, Series, Sequence" is an orderly, organized, but amusing project where we are assigned a word and are expected to let our imaginations flow freely and draw anything and everything associated with that word. For a more ironic sake, I got the word "broccoli"... rough. However, I immediately started plotting ideas, associating broccoli with what it resembles, and which notion it carries in society. I wrote down all initial ideas that sparked in my head in my sketchbook and drew a symbol next to them as to not forget the essence of the drawing. Plus, I devised a method of approach for this project, which is draw all images on A5 paper, but trying different styles with different tools in every one (one with charcoal, one with pastel, etc...). I believe firmly that this project will help me develop not only my signature drawing style, but also get to know different methods of drawing, sketching, and painting, which helps create variety in one's art (no one wants to be a monochrome square).

The Other Side - Developmental Stages: Critical Session and Animatic

While development unfolds, it's more than important to receive constructive criticism from peers, fellow practitioners, and even people who have nothing to do with animation. All these diverse opinions can reflect on your projects and improve them for the better, because no one is able to keep an eye out for every single detail on their own work (plus, some of the egoistical biases might distort the views of one's own work). Thus, as a part of this module we were expected to present all of the work we had created so far to the class and our proctor as to receive some feedback. A thoughtful part of this module, the crit session allowed me to cascade my style of animation, techniques of development, and animation of my project to my fellow credible peers, as well as to receive a professional tutorial record. Overall, I loved the session. I was given compliments on my structured approach, but also was informed that being too pragmatic can be limiting when it comes to the creative process. I fully agree: sometimes I just stick with the ideas that come the moment a light-bulb flashes over my head. I was given lovely advice on incorporating elements of the initial ideas I had within the current one, as every little idea has a certain amount of gold in it. When it comes to character development, although there is only one, was perceived as good due to the depth I went into while designing the character with different styles. The animatic I had produced was credited as being clear with a good story, which for me is the most important factor of my future animation: entertainment and keeping the audience's attention. Most important of all, I saw everybody's whimsical and vibrant ideas, which is what I found most helpful at the session - observation! Wonderful progression!

Understanding Animation: The Aesthetic of Stop-Motion and Puppetry

Scene from "Dimensions of Dialogue"

During last week's session of Animation: Process and Production we went through a presentation on the linear history of animation from its very roots. Starting from the chronicles of animated entertainment, we were introduced to the technological and mechanized marvels of the Pre-Film era such as the phenakistoscope, the praxinoscope, the zoetrope, etc. While all of these revolutionary and innovative gadgets initiated and drove the progression of animation as we know it, it had been up until circa 1899 when film had started growing its roots. With further development of techniques of animation, we were able to identify the dispersing progression of all kinds of animation. I, personally, was intrigued by the very incipient upswing of stop-motion, and being motivated by the presentation went on researching about how the technique had progressed to this day. Initially, what caught my interest in the presentation was the animation "Matches an Appeal" by Arthur Melbourne - Cooper, which is frequently identified as being the first film (plus stop-motion) in existence. What intrigued me about it were the puppets used - solely made from matchsticks, like doodle stickmen. Furthermore, as the presentation progressed, we were introduced to Wladyslaw Starewicz's animations which used beetles as armatured puppets, shedding light to the progression of puppet-making in animation. More elaborate than the matchstick-men, the beetles introduced a level of eeriness and grotesque atmosphere in the world of stop-motion animation, as the characters mimicked life more profusely with the characters being something existent in real life. More so, the beetles were the among the first armatured characters in stop-motion, as when Starewicz noticed that they moved when he did not want them to he reassembled their limbs with wax as to become more flexible and stationary during animating. Having said this, one animator that had been significantly inspired by Starewicz is Jan Svankmajer (one of my favorite stop-motion artists), which also incorporated a macabre feature in his animations. However, unlike Starewicz, Svankmajer elaborated upon his characters and made them in a surreal manner - crafting characters out of a variety of materials. One such example would be his film "Dimensions of Dialogue" which presented vivacity in characters (as they appeared human-like, done with clay). Personally, I believe Svankmajer to be the initiator of puppetry due to his use of various elements to craft his characters, where from that point on many stop-motion armatured characters had been created with the same materials. Interconnecting this with my trip to the Manchester Animation Festival, the figures used for the making of "Shaun the Sheep" had been extremely intricate with inner iron armatures for optimum stability, which goes to show how with time people have mastered the art of puppetry and stop-motion.

The Other Side - Developmental Stages: Concept Art and Character Sheets

Among the final steps before beginning with the production of an animation is the creation of the concept art and character sheets. During these stages, animators draw the designs of the characters, backgrounds, and scenery elements which are later to be utilized as the animation is being made. Every animation studio goes through this stage, for example the studio of the re-making of Danger Mouse had prevalent character sheets that conceptualized the "rejuvenation" of the new characters as well as the atmosphere the backgrounds brought. Within my project, the background is simple - an ambiguous cosmos with little detail, thus I focused on the elements in the scenery instead of the actual background. Because space is relatively vacant, I drew the miscellaneous which will be floating/moving in the background for the sense of smoothness and prevalence of animation. Placing the scenery aside, the soul purpose of my character sheets and concept art was to create several designs for the main character and then decide on which sheet I shall use. Not forgetting peer feedback, I scoured throughout my college studio and showed my designs to fellow animators, getting accurate constructive criticism. For example, one of my peers was quite fond of the Tim Burton inspired 3rd design (they are labeled in my sketchbook), however stated that the very first one would be easier to animate. Furthermore, he also stated that the consistency of the character expressions is more conveyed in the 3rd design instead of the first (another peer's feedback is on the character sheet). I attempted at appropriating different styles for all of the designs in order to encompass a broad variety of possibilities, because who wants to be dull and monotone, right? Nevertheless, now that I have conceptualized the idea, the atmosphere, and with this step the design it is time to head on to the animatic, which will appropriate the motion and layout of all elements, right before I start on the productive step of the animation.

Understanding Animation: Contemporary Context - Idle

As stated previously, animation as a communicative tool of ideologies and messages can be perceived in different contexts, one being the intended and the other a subjective perspective. In order for animations to be thoroughly understood, every aspect of their presentation must be taken into consideration: from the way the visual aesthetics insinuate a concept to the verbal communication between characters. However, animations differentiate in an intended context which has to do with the time in which they are published. As I looked at animation from a historical context in my previous post, now I shed some light on the contemporary. "Idle" is a short animation by Jonah Primiano, published in 2015 on Skwigly. The animation features two men: one of a more younger generation and one belonging to the late years of adulthood. The adult's high stature of employment is depicted by his appearance and dress code, while the young is dressed in a white t-shirt. Nevertheless, both of them have expressionless faces which insinuates their dehumanized essence by the corporate expectations of their lives, as well as the similarities which they share. As the plot unfolds, both characters enter brisk series of flashbacks which shed light on their lives, as they get lost during communication by stuttering before beginning to talk due to their absent-mindedness. Although the adult has a secure job and is a part of the community, he feels empty as he is engulfed by the clutches of monotony. This is evident through his flashbacks, constantly repeating the same routine of work, while he tries to disprove that notion by stating that everything is alright and that he's just been busy - busy with rumination. While the adult tackles this concept, the young is portraying flashbacks of how he denied fulfilling his dreams by exerting laziness and allowing it to diverge his interests. All in all, both characters feel desolate as their circumstances have drained the life out of them and portray existential doubts about their lives. Thus, the animation dwells on the 21st century's concept of corporate dehumanization and monotony, and along with the technique of the animation (which is a minimalist 2D traditional style with charcoal) the eerie and bleak tone is even more so expressed. At the end, from a contemporary context, they are both lost souls with no faces... people have lost their way.

"Idle" - http://www.skwigly.co.uk/showcase/idle/

The Other Side - Developmental Stages: Mood Boards

Mood Boards are assemblages of images, materials, pictures, and text which present a certain project's style or concept by displaying its visual elements. As a part of the developmental process, whilst drawing the multiple possible designs for my characters and background scenery, I compiled a mood board which is to present the different elements within the animation. Furthermore, in contrast to what other mood boards might present (which is the tone of the animation, among many factors), my mood board consists of the different styles that inspired the creation of my own, as well as the character elements of my future animation. For example, there is a drawing of sharp teeth on my mood board which is similar to my design of the dragon in the animation (for relevance, check my blog post on character design). Thus, with this mood board I wanted to present the elements more than I did the tone of the animation, for the tone itself is quite arbitrary and whimsical - wacky, to say the least. Finally, with one of Terry Gilliam's cut-out elements I wanted to present the juxtaposed styles of animation I shall use while animating, one being the 2D drawn (which is something I haven't quite done previously) and the other being the computer-style cut-out of the Ketchup Construct that is to hit the main character, changing his direction of movement. By the end of this entire project, my purpose is to gain a more profound experience with 2D drawn animation, as that will further develop my eclectic skills as an animator.

The Other Side - Developmental Stages: Dismissed Idea

Inevitably, out of the two storyboards I had to pick one idea and progress with it. Unless I wanted to complicate matters by animating BOTH ideas... not happening. Thus, I chose the Concept of Wonder, and dismissed the Concept of Suicide for several reasons, both technical and practical. The Concept of Suicide was supposed to be supported by background music (Morphine's "The Other Side", as convenient as it sounds), which simplified the total process by eliminating the hardship of assembling a myriad of sound effects. However, by using the soundtrack I assume that I have copyrights for the music, which I don't due to the fact that I'm not well informed on how Morphine handles their copyright legislations, and I didn't want to stumble upon unexpected problems. Which brings me to my next reason: the lack of animation. For the majority of the animation the main character's soul would cruise around an ambiguous space in a simple form, which eliminates my portrayal of animation techniques - something that might have jeopardized my final grade in terms of the animation. Additionally, I wasn't satisfied with the designes I made for the story, shedding some light on necessary improvement. Lastly, I dismissed the idea because I personally believe it to be too depressive... why not flabbergast the audience with a small level of whimsicality? It's something the Concept of Wonder should do, effectively, as now I progress into assembling a mood board to better assist me with the style of the animation, as well as character and background desings.

Understanding Animation: Historical Context - The Ducktators

Animation can be used for a myriad of purposes, be it to convey a clandestine message through vivid or not-so-vivid imagery, to present a concept of philosophy or such, or to just amaze the audience with a whimsical feat of visualizations. Through the ages, people have created animations with all kinds of purposes, all of which were differentiating as the years passed by: from descriptive, to political, to philosophical, to entertaining, etc. Thus, we can pull a distinctive line between the historical and contemporary use of animations throughout the ages, and what better way is there to prove a contrasting point than with examples. For example, "The Ducktators" is a black and white cartoon animation produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions and released by Warner Bros. in 1942, which was created to be perceived through the perspective of WWII. The animation is a satirical allegory against the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or the Nazi Party of Germany's regime which waged the Second World War by implementing the concept of fascism. In other words, the animation promotes propaganda by implying buying war bonds (such an example would be the poster from which the human soldier detaches). Moreover, the animation's true purpose can only be digested through an understanding of historical context (as a purely contemporary one will not do), for without it the reference to Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, and the infamous motivational phrase of the Nazi Party "Sieg Heil" would not be comprehended as intended. By using abundant metaphors, the animation ridicules the three main "geese" and their ideologies (one such example would be Tojo Duck getting attacked by a turtle with his own sign of the Japanese Mandate). Conclusively, "The Ducktators" is a cartoon based on historical practice, where animations were used as subtle communication tools which delivered messages to the audience in a whimsical and educational manner. The power of animation knows no bounds!

Evaluation of Module: Animation Skills

Now comes the end of our first module, Animation Skills. This module has marked my entrance into the world of animation and has introduced me to the vast variety of manners in which the inanimate can be brought to life. Prior to this module, I had only been properly affiliated with the technique of stop-motion, but as I progressed with the module so did my desire to utilize many of the abundant techniques of animation that I had not even considered before. Furthermore, my style has always been more spontaneous and erratic than organized; I rarely scripted my animations and went on creating them as my creative thought patterns guided me without any direction. However, this module has been successful in teaching me the importance of pre-productive planning, as sometimes without an organized approach an animator might stumble into a difficult quandary. For example, during our last two briefs, it was expected of us to create a storyboard to articulate our ideas and visualize how the animation is supposed to look like as the final product.

The different study tasks and projects we got gradually guided us through the wonders of animation in a profusely steady and consequent manner. In other words, I experienced no confusion when it came to the tasks at hand as they gradually developed. First, we had the Storyboard Project that placed significance on pre-production, followed by Explore brief which motivated us into broadening our perspectives of animation (flip-book, pixilation, Pose to Pose, Photoshop animation). As all of these exercises prepared us for the final brief, we were given a brief that expected us to create an animation using any style or technique based on a theme. With this, I had attempted at making a cutting stop-motion animation in a Pythonesque style; something that I would not have done without the research that this module motivated me to do. Furthermore, this module engaged all of my peers into providing each other with constructed criticism, which is something I consider extremely beneficial to one's progress. For example, during our Telling Stories brief, the module required all of us to look at each other's work and stick notes with personal thoughts and criticism which gave us different perspectives to consider. Alongside this, with the Explore brief we were motivated to create our pixilations with another peer, an experience that solidified our collaborative skills with other another. More so, by learning and applying the 12 Principles of Animation we understood the basics of animation and were given the foundation upon which we will build to vivaciously mimic reality through art. In order to assert a level of professionalism, this module placed significance on the documentation of our work (through blogs) and the necessity of research for the broadening of one's perspective in terms of animation. For example, with the Identify brief students were expected to explore a range of different animations and analyze their techniques and styles through blog posts, which for me was highly beneficial. Overall, this module has enriched my animation skills as well as my utilization of techniques, or in other words, has opened the doors of becoming a professional animator.

The Other Side - Developmental Stages: Storyboarding

Now comes the second part of the developmental process: the storyboard. It is the stage where one articulates their ideas in a more visual and meticulous manner: by drawing the story's most important still images. This is done with the soul purpose of giving an optical perspective of the future animation to the audience, but also to yourself as a reference. I drew the storyboards with the hopes that they are coherent and explanatory in terms of action, movement, and tone. Moreover, with adding arrows in the panels that guide the movement of the character or shot, I've added another level of organization, which is a useful storytelling skill I've acquired throughout this course. Thus, I chose two of the initial ideas I had and made two storyboards in total: one for the Concept of Suicide, and the other for the Concept of Wonder. By drawing two of the ideas I liked the most, I have now plundered into a difficult choice on which story to animate, what a quandary... One's existential, the other whimsical. One's depressing, the other uplifting. One tackles suicide's coping promise, the other a confusing turn of colorful events. I'll have to choose. Furthermore, in the storyboards general appearances of the characters of both animations are presented, as I shall now enter the realm of individual character and background design.

Animation Exercise: Flipbook Motion

During our previous module, we were expected to create 3 flipbook animations which portray our understanding and prowess of traditional animation. Moreover, the flipbook sequences were to help us exercise the application of Squash and Stretch, one of the 12 Principles of Animation we studied and researched about. During my development stage of the flipbooks, I stumbled upon the difficulty of properly drawing the volume of the ball as it bounced up and down, due to the fact that the individual papers of the flipbook were not thin enough for proper translucency (as I could not accurately draw every frame based on the previous one). However, after several tries and several wasted flipbooks (3 wasted, if I'm correct), I prevailed at the end, as I created a smooth movement of image sequences which I scanned individually for the assemblage of a GIF image.

After doing the bouncing sequence, I took the liberty of doing a more free-form and flexible animation of a gun firing a single bullet, then dissolving into thin air (as if it were David Copperfield's gun). The sequence is smooth, however, the recoil of the gun does not seem that natural as it only moves up and down and does not tilt backwards. But still, it's an efficient and successful attempt and traditional animation seeing as this was the first time I've ever tackled real-life drawing of animated motion.

Animation Project: Pendulum

In order to improve the use of the principles of animation, we were assigned to animate a moving pendulum hand-drawn style. For this exercise, we were to use the ease-in and ease-out technique so that we may produce a realistic movement of a swinging pendulum, one that applies to physics. For the sake of accuracy, I first drew all frames geometrically on a single piece of animation paper, and thus numbered all of the frame pendulum balls in order to avoid confusion once overdrawing them one by one. Furthermore, the pendulum's line has a constant length (11 cm), and the size of the ball is an unchanging factor as I drew it with a small circular gear. The final animation of the pendulum is 12 FPS (frames per second), unconventional in comparison with my regular style of animation (25.5 FPS), however, effective in portraying a realistic illusion of a pendulum's movement.

Animation Project: Storyboard

We were instructed to create a storyboard which was to present a nursery rhyme, however, with our own twist to the plot. I did "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" and gave it an existentially-nihilistic warp. I intertwined the plot of "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" with the myth of Sisyphus, who is cursed to push a rock up a hill for all eternity, embracing monotony and the misery of routine. By using the colors black and red, along with a sharp contour style of drawing, I was able to exhibit a more obscure and bleak representation of The Myth of Sisyphus by using the Itsy-Bitsy Spider as a symbol to produce an allegory. Furthermore, as the final and conclusive exercise of this project, every student was obliged to look at some of their peers' work and supply them with constructive criticism. For my storyboard, I got short, but concise responses which signify the responses I elicited; the kind that I wanted to see.

"Great commentary"
"I like the use of selective colouring!"
"I love your style and philosophical approach!"
"This shot (9th) is awesome!"
"Moody and abstract, textured and atmospheric, effective use of color, however, very scary."