My term is done. I am free. But I’d like to write about my final week here before the summer holidays. Because if I don’t do it now I never will.
When last I wrote about my progress I had done four Key drawings in one day! Keys take a while because they are the drawing that tell the story, but not only did I do them, but I did them well! I could be going insane but I think I’m getting better and quicker at drawing. The next day I made two more Keys. And again they came out good! I talked to Owen about line testing and he said that I should just do the “Passing positions” and draw them in a very loose style. I tried doing this. But after a while I found it was easier to draw detailed in-betweens with Key-like quality. I kept at and after a while I started thinking “Lets add in an expression change here” or “What if I did an extra halfway point?” and I found myself doing something I hadn’t done in a long time. Taking the indicative and getting creative. I was giving myself more work than I had to because e I wanted to. I was determined to Show the full range of emotions Ezekiel goes through as he considers accepting the Loving embrace Hestia offers him before changing his mind and violently rejecting it.
I came in everyday feeling drained, convinced I couldn’t start again. But Not letting myself use the computer means over time I can work up the confidence to do a little. And a Little can turn into a lot. And soon I’m working away. Not that I didn’t have relapses. I wasted a lot of time on Wednesday on the computer and on Thursday I sent a lot of time staring at the celling. But was able to break the through the fear that’s been holding me back and on Thursday pulled a Midnight shift for the first time in Months. And at the end of it I had 24 extra drawings. Considering I have struggled in the past to get two drawings of this quality done in a day 24 in three days is a massive step up! The last ones where I had to use all the techniques I’ve discovered in the last month to show him breaking free where epically hard. I thought I would be able to do it at all. But somehow I did.
There were enough of drawings that when I put them all together for a line test on Friday (Today) on 3s (8 frames per second) in was good enough to pass as animation!
Her it is
It’s still just a linetest. On seeing it Morgan said the bit where he breaks free of her embrace should be quicker and I agree. Fast actions should really be on Ones. And the bit in the middle where he’s thinking needs to be longer. But that was always the plan. But I still think it’s good. Could use more movement though. And I wish I’d made Hestia’s movements more visible. Turns out really small movements just don’t register if they’re this small, or fast, or something else is the centre of attention, or all three.
But the thoughts and emotions are clear as day and the expressions are perfect. For a guy who hates drawing faces and expressions I think that is a real accomplishment.
I still hope to animate it for real some day. And maybe even draw the final scene of him walking away and Hestia looking sad. But for now, I think I did okay. Morgan sure seems to think I’ve come on by leaps and bounds.
Owen helped me render the thing. Looped the bits that needed looping. As well as colour correct the backlit parts that just look kind of blue. I am very grateful to him I would not have been able to do it on my own.
There’s enough here that when you put it together it tells a coherent story. So While it is not finished here is the animation as it is. I hope you like it.
And Now I’m done.
Fuck my life. I need a rest. I’m going to play the easiest Video game I own to unwind.
When I started this I was still reeling from the disaster that was the Field Module. My desire to create was low and I was out of shape artistically. I knew this was going to be a big brief and I had to plan ahead. When the character design bit started I was angry about how what was presented as a mere thought experiment would actually dictate the rest of the project. I had to scrap on of my characters and start again to make one worth animating. But Years of coursework has taught me it’s best to plan ahead. And also to do what you love, even if it’s not a good idea. So I came as little shock to me I ended up creating a Fox-human mage thing and an Amazon warrior. Creatures straight out the Fantasy fiction I devoured as a teen. Classy? No? Something that would hold my interest? Yes.
On that same not I decided to do what I loved in animation. Full hand-drawn animation like they used to do at Disney or The Illuminated Film Company. Stupid. But something I could care about enough to gives it my all for. But I’d do it all in Black and White to save time (and homage the silent films I loved as a teen. Murnau’s Sunrise inpaticual).
In typical me fashion I Followed the design brief too the letter. Trying to make the most visually distinct and expressive characters I could, which lead to them being horribly over-designed. I tried and tried to make them simpler. But I could only do so much. As for keeping their look consistent? I have never been good at that. Even making a character sheet for Ezekiel the Fox (which I didn’t finish) didn’t help at all. My fear of drawing people with real faces and consistent appearance was crushing me. I would come in and do no work sometimes.
Then when the animation started things started falling back into place. I wasn’t back to where I was last winter in terms of output (And never did get there). But I started to find myself. I realized I had to TURN. OFF. THE COMPUTER if I was to get anything done. I kept it off at work and when at home I avoided social media so It wouldn’t drag me down emotionally (Or tempt me to turn the work computer back on. I also started to sleep reasonably (Or try to) and my output erupted! I was still struggling with faces and expressions. Sometimes I only got two drawings done a day. But the quality of my work shot up. I actually made drawings I’m not ashamed of. And they became part of animations that look like animation! I feel like I am actually an animator now rather than a failed art student just BSing through the course. Towards the end I even started enjoying it just a little bit. When I realized I could make something better it was like a switch went off in my head. And while I still fear drawing expressions. I notice More and more my drawings show the exact expression I want them to show. And I’m drawing them quicker too.
At some point in this module, I started to see a real future for myself as a true animator.
I’m hoping talking a little time to write about what I’ve done will at least give me a bit of breathing space.
Having finished the two hardest pieces of Animation I’d ever done the next piece on the table looked quite fun, albeit pretty difficult. I had to show the distant and melancholy Eziecal getting a big surprise hug from behind from Hestia. A chance to do something short but with a lot of movement.
As I mentioned here https://wordpress.com/post/johnhawk.art.blog/139 Morgan wasn’t happy I had gone ahead and made my last pieces without linetesting them. I waited till he was free and talked over everything that was going to happen. We mimed out the motions several times and found several “key” moments.
The Start (Obviously)
A small accent of her arms going up before going down, an industry standard called: Anticipate
The arm swinging in: The Swing
The Arms making contact: The Contact
Hestia’s arms pulling together tight: The Squeeze
Ezekical’s head going down as an anticipate of his reaction: The Down
An intense physical and emotional reaction from Ezekiel: The Overreact
A moment where the Overreact is finished but not totally over and Hestia’s arms loosen: The Release (Which ended up being the Key drawing)
And finally a shot where her arms are loose and he has finished reacting: The Settle
If this seems like a lot of info. The scary part is this is (I think) just standard practice for any piece of animation.
With our key moments picked Morgan told me to make a very simple (read, shitty) drawings to stand in for each key drawing. I did so. But I still tried to make every head an opportunity to get better at drawing foxes, 3D space, consistent size and shape, expressions, and different angles. I’m never going to get good at any of these things if I don’t try.
The Linetest drawings came out looking pretty funny. I went completely over the top with the Overact and drew something straight out of Loony Toons with bulging eyes bigger than his head. But I liked the effect so much I put it in the final animation. Morgan found it funny too.
With the linetest keys ready we guessed where they would fall on the timeline and filmed them. The result already had some kick to it. But the hug didn’t have enough impact to it and we needed more precise timing.
Suggested putting the Down and the Squeeze in the same drawing. That would keep the impact from feeling too rubbery. For the second bit it was clear more was needed.
I’d been planning on doing this on Twos (12 frames a second) from the start. Threes (8 frames a second) just wouldn’t convey the action at all. Fast motion needs a high framerate. But it was clear the delicate timing and spacing meant this would have to be a mixture of Twos and ones (24 frames a second), industry standard. I hadn’t animated like that since last November. But If it was what was needed I’d do it!
Morgan and I wrote down the new timing on an X-sheet (Something he is keen I use more often) And I got down to work. My first job was to turn the linetest keys into real Keys. Most pretty easy. Except for Ezekiel’s damn face! I regret giving Ezekical a fox’s face. Human faces are hard enough for me, But as a human I have an inherent understanding of what a human face is like and where everything is. Everytime I had to draw his face I had to go into Google images look up pictures of foxes. Finding new ones that had the fax at a similar angle to where Ezekical was at that moment. And I do mean EVERY! SINGLE! DRAWING!.
I didn’t help that I had chosen to have him at a new angle each time rather than keeping him and one pose and expression I could easily trace over and over. But given what a fluid piece of animation this was that would have looked awful anyway. Given the piece his head would have had to have been moving around. I did the right thing even if it made my life hell.
I wonder If making him a fox was a mistake? But given my fascination with humanoid animals I know I’d end up doing this sooner or later. And he is a pleasure to watch for me. So maybe it’s just as well.
Working on Hestia’s arms was a lot of fun. I got a good and logical movement out of them. I also got pretty creative animating the Overreact. Adding in some secondary animation. Add to that the way I somehow (Maybe accidentally?) got Ezekical to slam back into her made this probably the most lively piece of animation I’ve done yet. I know I’ve said this before. But it feels like the first piece of real animation I’ve ever done. Like cleaned up, coloured, and better drawn it would be okay in a movie.
The only downside is that the last few drawings, around the “Settle” are awful and it shows in the final product. It’s true. A bad drawing can’t hide in a piece of animation. I guess I was just tired and off my game,
But On the plus side I think I’m actually getting better at drawing expressions! I can’ be sure but it feels like I’m spending less time rubbing out my old expressions and starting again. I can only hope.
With that done I could look forward to something easier. The reaction shot of Ezekiel looking up at Hestia. This would be so much simpler because only one thing, Ezekiel’s head, is moving. Unlike on the hug where everything was moving, meaning I had to change a redraw everything everytime. Here I could push about a third of it into a background boilline, and most of the res of it I could trace. Something I’ve become very good at by now….. I hate my life.
The other thing that would make this much easier is being a simple and slow movement i could go back to working on Threes. Beautiful, work-saving Threes!
Morgan was keen I start using “ladders” when planning. But I’m having a lot of trouble understanding the concept. So he felt we should just try mastering the X-sheet for now. I tried using the X-sheet. But quickly found it was such a simple motion I could just do this on straight-ahead animation. Morgan wont be happy.
I might be crazy, but I think I’m getting better at drawing cartoon foxes (touch wood). The animation came out fine. Unimpressive. But fine. Where the trouble is is lighting the damn thing right when filming it.
I’m used to filming with the paper lit from above. See almost any of my previous pieces of animation for examples.It looks a little harsh, but it’s fine. But the multiple layers of drawing Morgan is asking me to use require backlighting (Lighting from underneath) for all the layers to be visible. I wouldn’t mind, but it gives the animation a blue-ish quality that will be horribly at odds with the rest of the animation when it’s put together. I decided to film it three different ways to see if one worked better.
I started off with the standard backlighting and it didn’t look good. Too much light shone through and you couldn’t make out what was happening at all. I then tried lighting from both above and below, but that just made things even worse. Now the footage was so overexposed your couldn’t see a thing almost. I then tried a lighting just from above. Hoping the thinness of the paper would let the background show through. No such luck. The Background was almost invisible.
I made a fourth attempt, just using backlighting again.But this time I used an extra piece of paper underneath the other two. My reasoning being that when I did this before I’d had a background and a foreground under the main drawing, but here I’d only had a background. Maybe the third sheet was what had given me slightly better results in the past? I gave it a shot, and yes, it made things better. Not massively better. But it helped. If I can’t find a better way of lighting it I’ll use this version. Or maybe I’ll try it with two sheets of paper underneath!?
My course is nearly over. And I am tired. This morning I felt like I couldn’t do any work at all. I amazed myself by doing three Four Key drawings. But I feel like I’m running on fumes. About to fall apart at any moment. Even writing about the challenges I face costs me a huge amount of mental effort. Whenever I start it feels like my brain has turned to cotton wool. I keep on waiting for things to get easier. To have a breakthrough. To get my second wind. But I just feel more and more drained and my mind feels more and more foggy and I feel like I’m getting less done.
But on the plus side, I think my drawings are getting better. In my Keys my fox is actually starting to look like a fox!
This is not a quintessential journal for me to write. But given this is meant to show my learning process I thought It might be relevant to talk about how I’ve been using extra drawings to improve my animation.
I’ve been doing preparatory drawings to figure out landscapes
Poses
Positioning
Testing out with partial-stick figures.
Or just testing small movements using stick figures.
I also write out animation nots on some of them. Specailly if they were just being used for small changes,
And for testing and developing faces, facial expressions, and what angle the face should be at
I use many of of these things to make simple drawings. But they are beyond valuable when making Keys. The big drawings that act as the bedrock for each new piece of animation. The Keys are what make the animation what it is. Morgan tells me in the old days it would take an animator years before they made their own keys. You’d start out doing someone-else’s inbetweens and then move up tp breakdowns and passing positions. A Key Animator was as important as both these people even if he made fewer drawings.
I might not have the skills make real Keys, but I have no choice but to make both Keys and inbetweens and everything between those two. Let it not be said I don’t do hard work.
I have found rather than trying to make perfect Keys it is best to make lots of messy drawings (including but not limited to the types shown above) that in time can be sculpted into what I call a “Messy key”. Brutal drawings not unlike those of Leonardo or Henry Moore. These Messy Keys feel less like drawings than acts of sculpture. I feel myself carving and chiseling into three-dimensional space with my pencil and paper. It is laborious work. But when it is done I have something that looks right in all the important places, and that I can easily trace over to make a final Key. Occasionally the Messy keys are good enough to be used in the animation itself. Here are my Messy Keys.
Sometimes messy keys ar needed even mid animation. Like here when I was animating the downwards swing in two arms getting ready to embrace someone.
If I may brag, I think some of these are or have lead to some of the finest drawing I’ve ever done. Or maybe i’m just going crazy from all the work.
And Just to give some context. Here’s how over time all these things come together to make something worth looking at
Starting
A bit of detail
And now its a real Key
Even really simple drawing can be invaluable.
When I was doing my woman walking a a three-quarters angle In was able to plan her movements with these two arcing lines representing how her feet would move (Which strangely, do look a bit like shoes)
Simple, but beyond useful. I asked Morgan and drawing out arcs like this is a really useful thing to do when animating and planning. There’s a line at the bottom of each arc with a Capital C and a number next to it. These represent her feet making contact with the ground at the end of the step. Again. really useful. But so damn simple!
And after what feels like a lifetime of drawing, my 2B grade pencil has been used so much it’s too small for me to hold anymore. Look at it!
I promised I would write about the making of the piece of animation where I showed Hestia thinking about going over to Ezekial. And now it is finished I will do just that.
When I started Morgan was firm with me that I start animating on layers. That it would save me a lot of time not having to draw the whole thing over and over again. Knowing I was pressed for time, I acquiesced.
I made three master keys based on my storyboard, I went through the process I’m getting used to by now, Proto-keys, messy keys, and finally something worth looking at. I also made some semi-keys/inbetweens that would be cleaner and thus easier to trace off of.
That done I got to work making layers.I figured out what would be in front of Hestia and what would be behind her and made separate layers for both those things. Her shield and some blades of grass in front and on one layer, and more grass, the horizon, the stars and the tail end of her dress on the background layer. Once I had this going I copied both out twice so both would be on a boil line, taking notes from earlier https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/152561916/posts/134 and evolving the process, I would now have both real time animation and boil lines going at the same time. How’s that for layered animation!?
But That still left most of Hestia on the main layer of animation, and she would have to be fully animated. My use of the boil line had only saved me so much work. This wasing to be very hard.
The scene had Hestia looking into the distance (Ata an off-screen Ezekiel) looking sad and concerned. She raises one arm up, letting the other flop down, looks at her hand in uncertainty, looks away thoughtfully, makes a decision and steels herself, straightens up and begins to smile with hope, and then lets her arms down into a position of easy and openness, ready to give Ezekiel an embrace.
It might sound simple. But I’m showing off a thinking process and a lot of emotions just using pose, body movement, and facial expressions. That’s a plan of planning to do and act out.
The whole thing would take at least 6 seconds. More drawn animation than I have ever done for a single shot.
As if that wasn’t enough this would require me to draw faces and expressions constantly. Two things I am terrible at. But I vowed I would give my all. Plus This was a change to improve on a mistake I made years ago.
When I made my first animation I broke a big rule I didn’t know about. You should never have a major change in facial expression when a character is moving a lot. It makes the change impossible to read. Not knowing this I ruined an important moment of a character deciding a ghost he is looking at is just brought on by drink by having all change from fear to mirth happen while his head was moving. I would fix this mistake. This time my expression changes would read clearly!
I knew I couldn’t do this on straight ahead animation. Not when this would require at least 46 drawings.i would have to do this pose-to-pose. I went to the library and reread a chunk of Richard Williams “The Animator’s Survival Kit”. I re-learned quite a few things I’d forgotten. Extremes, downs, and passing-positions where all things I had forgotten about. In my mind anything that was not a Key was an Inbetween.
I took all of this back to heart and got to work I made my Extremes first. As knew from earlier in the course that if you don’t show the parts of the movement people need to see then it will look like the subject skips in a flat line from A to C, missing that B section that makes the movement right instead of wrong. I mentioned this problem in this journal https://johnhawk.art.blog/2018/10/26/looping-multi-media-animation/ Stating that in my small piece of classical animation the spacing was all wrong. So yes. The extremes had to come first,
I chose to just focus on the first two seconds of footage first. The space between the first two keys. With my extremes done I then did my passing positions (Thought sometimes they were one and the same thing) as the piece cannot work without them and having these halfway points would make inbetweening way easier. I then did any downs or ups I could find, acting out the motions myself time and again. I then did some extra ones for things like changes in facial expression. With ALL of that done I now found I had few inbetweens to do considering I was still animation on threes. All I had to do was decide where to put them so the timing would be right.
The Inbetweens seemed easy. Fun almost. But when they were done I was only half way to the second Key out of three.
What happened next is mostly a blank. But I went through this process three more times. A full two weeks of work. Even improvising a bit where Hestia’s eyes dart from one corner to another that I really like. Also adding in blink that was unplanned. I looked forward to reaching the final Key. Not because it meant the end, there was another 2 seconds of footage after that. But because I felt I could do all of that in straight-ahead animation, which I did, and it felt like a holiday in comparison. But the animation on that last bit wasn’t quite as good. All I had to do was wait for Morgan to set up the Lightbox.
But he was very busy and I wasn’t always awake when he was free. So in the meantime I moved onto the next bit. Hestia moving forward to give Eziekal his embrace. No sooner did I finish drawing the Key than I panicked. Not only was she walking. But she was walking forwards at a diagonal angle. Something I had no idea how to do. The small bits of walking animation I had done had always been them walking along a 2D plane. But I’d made my bed and decided to go for it. It was only a second and a half long.
This involving scaling along with everything else that makes a walk cycle hard I went totally pose-to-pose. Nothing left to chance. It was some of the most rigid and methodical animation work I had ever done. But it also meant I would have to redraw Hestia everytime. Meaning the animation would have a lot of life and movement to it by default.
It turns out that walks with a character at a three-quarters angle like this are one of the hardest things a 2D animator can do. Morgan, Tom and Owen have all said this to me. Once again I had jumped into the artistic deep end without even considering if what I was doing was normal for people of my level. And once again it worked out okay for me.
When Morgan was available he set up the light box for me. He was a little cross that I had done the whole thing. He’d wanted me to make a line test first. I promised I Would do one next time if he’d help me (A promise I kept. But that’s another story).
We put the different layers down. I actually found I had to put the top layer underneath the image of Hestia. She became too blurry otherwise. Morgan left me to film it and I got to work. Taking a shot, removing the old drawing, changing the boil lines, adding the new drawing, over and over again. I felt physically sick with nerves. If this turned out awful I’d want to kill myself. But when it was all done it was okay. Not great. But still the best animation I’ve ever done. Truthfully it feels like the only piece of real animation I’ve ever done.
Here’s Hestia thinking
(Pease go fullscreen the video quality isn’t great)
And here’s her walking towards Ezekial.
Ezekiel is on a boil. He doesn’t need to move here. I put him on the top layer because even though Hestia is moving and he isn’t it would feel wrong if she was in focus when he is nearer.
And there you go. 3 weeks work. The hardest animation work I’ve ever done. I hope it was worth it.
It has been a month since my last journal. And what a rollercoaster of emotions it has been. I feel almost dead on my feet. Turing my story boards into an animatic was one of the most draining processes of my life. I should have written something about it at the time. but when it was done my desire to ever think about animatics again was non-existent.
I needed a lot of help just getting started. Morgan had to scan the story boards in and turn them into PNGs. Over time I got involved in this process and even learned a little bit about how to do it. But then we had to put all the PNGs into Adobe Premiere and crop them, and this is where the pain started.
Premiere is the worst program I have ever used. It is counter-intuitive. Impossible to navigate. It can become unusable. And it crashes all the time. I needed constant help from Owen, Tom and Morgan to get anything done. The second they left the program would do something new that would leave me unable to work. I felt like bursting into tears. But in the end I got everything into the timeline in the right order. Now I had to time each still to see how long it had to be on screen to read right. manipulating the timing to get all the right length was a fresh hell. The program was very fiddly unless you were doing everything just right. But I started to get the timing right, and then the problems started to emerge.
I had broken a big rule of filmmakimaking, I had broken the circular line. A complex subject still don’t really understand. But boils down to only showing characters from one side in a scene. I flipped some drawings around to address this. But there was still a linebreak and Tom and Owen were not happy with it. At least Morgan didn’t mind too much. And it was clear that my animatic wasn’t fully reading. I need to draw new panels for my storyboard. I wanted to die. But I did it, and uploaded the new stills to Premiere. But now i had extra stills I had to adjust the timing for all the other stills to make it all fit! It was pain. I hated my own drawings by the end. But in time I had an animatic.
After this I fell into a depression for two weeks where I barely worked. Only making small efforts. I had the timing. But Now I needed to turn my storyboard drawings into animation keys. Not only is this hard work, but I had drawn my storyboards in square panels, but the animator’s paper is rectangular. Meaning I have to change the composition for each one. This taught me a painful lesson. Draw your storyboards at the same aspect ratio you mean to animate at! It means you can scale up with ease!
Weeks passed. But eventually I started animation again. And I started to feel better.
I had to animate a seascape first, I decided to try to make an animation loop. The result was crude, but gets the idea across. This one was hard as I redrew the whole thing everytime, Winsor McCay style. I knew I’d have to get smarter.
I had to film it now and I couldn’t get the camera to show the whole thing or stop it from showing too much. It turns out the camera was in the modern aspect ratio, widescreen or 16.9, but classic handdrawn animation was made in 4.3 ratio. Owen had to change the program setting for me. I must remember this for when I make my own films. Draw in the ratio you mean to film in or it will throw the composition of the whole thing off. I’m just lucky the program I use had a 4.3 option. At least I have been told this technical side of the process wrongfoots a lot of newcomers. Clearly you need to be up on how you mean to film your animation before you even think about drawing frame one.
After that I had to draw my fox, Ezekiel, staring out into the distance. At last all the reading I did paid off. I remembered reading about a technique called “The Boil Line” where you redraw something a few times and film the few drawings on a loop. The tiny differences between the drawings mean that even though the figure is motionless it still looks alive. I talked to Morgan about using this and he said it was a good idea. He said three drawings would give me the boil I wanted. It is a sign of what a bad place I was in that it took me two days to just get the three drawing. But when it was done the boil did look good… okay it looked passable. But seeing your own work animated does a lot to make you feel better.
Next I had to show my amazon, Hestia, looking at Ezekiel from a distance. I decided to apply what I’d learned and opened the shot with a boil and it works. I also started animating on 3s (8 frames per second) I had Hestia draw her arm into her for comfort. Animating it was slow. But I started to get my groove back. I wouldn’t say the animation is good but it works. And I found a method of being able to make my work contestant from frame to frame. You would not know from looking I redrew the background every tim. I did it by making master frame and drawing of them each time rather than creating each new drawing based on the last one. You can see the shifting background if you look for it. BUT if you are looking and Hestia it works seamlessly.
This not only made my work more consistent but also quicker. But Morgan thinks It can be improved. For the next bit I will have the background on a totally separate layer using a boil to give it live. This has saved me a ton of work in the current piece. I hope it looks good.
As I have worked on the current shot, of Hestia deciding to walk over to Ezekiel, my output has exploded. I’m nowhere near my past peak but It’s felt like a blast. I’m even enjoying my work a little. I hope that the quality of the work has picked up two. But the process put into this will have to wait for another journal.
As stated earlier, I designed them to be characters who I would enjoy playing off each other. I wanted a male and female who would have a positive dynamic, maybe even be friends. My Shield Maiden is a nurturing type more interested in peace than violence. Someone looking for something positive in the world. My Mask Maker is a self-hating loner. Trying to find peace by hiding in other-people’s identities. Both are high fantasy characters with valuable skills. I could see them working as spies or mercenaries. I like what I have come up with.
For the current Brief I have to make a short film, at least 30 seconds long. Showing the two characters interacting. But also showing them thinking and going through emotional change.
“-a series of drawings going through the thinking process…. [That] is the real aphrodisiac” – Richard Williams.
I’ve done my best to comply to this brief. Thanks to trying to make characters who fit together from the start coming up with dynamic was easy. She’s a nurturer and comforter who is confident in her power, and he’s a misanthrope who distrusts others. She would be way to close and touchy feely for his liking even if he would respect her kindness. It would be like trying to hug fire. It can only burn or be smothered. Even there is no malice on either one’s part.
I first had to name my characters. I named the Shield Maiden Hestia. After the most under represented greek goddess. And the Mask Maker Ezekiel. After the Biblical prophet. One name from Greek mythology and one from the Bible. Keep things balanced.
Then I decided to write a script. Have all my ideas fleshed out before even putting pencil to paper (Also I was going through a phase where I was terrified to draw anything). The scripting processes was easy (it does only need to be 30 or so seconds long). I actually had more trouble coming up with the character names.
Here is the final script
Exterior: Night: A cliff face overlooking the sea.
Ezekiel, the Mask Maker looks out over the cliff. Sadness in his eyes.
Hestia looks at him from a distance.
She feels concern.
She wonders what to do
A smile crosses her face
She walks over to him
Ezekiel finds himself hugged from behind.
He is surprised
He mellows
He looks thoughtful
He the closes his eyes and grits his teeth.
He shakes Hestia’s arms off him and pulls away from her.
Ezekiel gives Hestia an annoyed look.
He then walks away. Hestia looks on
Ezekiel walks out of view.
Hestia continues looking after him.
She then looks down at the ground.
Her expression looks sadder
In total, 18 lines of text to be turned into 18 panels for the storyboard. Nice and simple.
We’ve had the importance of storyboarding drilled into us hard for the past few months. We’ve had side-classes, extra reading material, and even a film-class storyboarder as a lecturer. They want us to take it seriously. If what I have been told is true then storyboarding is every bit as important to animation as daily exercise is to a boxer preparing for the big match.
So had to take these seriously . It was advised that we should make series of thumbnails (Rough drawings the size of a box of matches) before doing the storyboard proper. But this is where the title of this journal comes in. For some reason I thought the others where using postit notes for theirs. So I decided to make my thumb nails the same size, tracing around a pad of postit notes to get them the same size and shape.
The result is I had a lot of extra space. Enought space to make some very detailed drawings. With shading and gradient lightwork and all. So when I finally showed them to Own he thought it was my storyboard. Morgan seems to agree. They are storyboard quality (At least for my skill level). Once again I have jumped into doing the hardest part first. Like how I often seem to approach art. Running before I can walk. And it’s just as well. According to the brief the storyboards were due to be finished yesterday.
So I guess there’s no point doing the thumbnails now?…..
Here are the storyboards as they are now.
I considered photographing each panel. But right now my ability to upload photographs is a little compromised and really this is more about evidencing my work for the future than showing off my lackluster drawing skills.
With that done I am now ready to start turning this into a film. Tomorrow I will begin making an animatic of these storyboards. Which can be used to judge of long each scene in the film should be. That should get me ready to create an animation.
I had lengthy talk with Morgan about the process of turning storyboards into animatics. He thinks it will be fine. But he was also keen that I alter some drawings to change the composition and add in some closeups. He says both will me it read better to a new audience. I can’t say I want to. I have a rhythm and vision planned out in my head. I don’t really want to redraw things. And I hate doing closeups. Drawing faces is the hardest thing for me. But it is good to actually get some hard constructive criticism for once. If I decide to add those bits in I’ll write about it here.
We also talked about my habit of jumping straight into the deep end. My odd little blunder made me thing about when I was younger and planning to make the greatest animated film ever. I had long ago given up such dreams as overconfident nonsense. I’ve been trying to aim small and manageable. But my work has lacked passion and I’ve suffered from bouts of paranoia where I am scared to draw anything. I wonder if my habit of doing crazy things I had no chance of pulling off was what gave me my drive to begin with? It certainly kept on helping me make my best work. Maybe I need to start dreaming big again.
Certainly as I remember a lot of the dreams I used to have a weight of tension seemed to melt away. I felt… free….
This Journal has been a bit too long in the making. It’s going to have a lot of photographs in it and I’m sorry if it’s a bit much. The event written down here started two weeks ago on this tuesday. It starts on Tuesday the 26th of February and ends today on the 11th of March. As I often say.It’s hard to work flatout and write at the same time.
I could just break this down into two separate journals, but I’d have to post them side-by-side anyway so I might as well make them one post as this is all part of the same project.
Shapes
After doing the archetype project I wrote about here https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/02/27/the-archetype-project/ I had to start making siluhetted characters using two of the archetypes and the shapes I had assigned them. At least 12 of each before choosing one. I went with the Ruler and the Lover. Being a strong contrast to each-other. I got to work on designing some Ruler characters Just using shapes. Here is what I made
Among those present are
The Pope
A Judge
Moses
King Triton
Aslan
Princess Celestia
Tarzan
Barack Obama
And an actual ruler
My favourite was this fat old king I made.
And then I had to make some Lovers. Here is what I did
Present are…
A Princess
Eros (I seem to have a thing for him)
A Ballerina
Zeus in his swan form
A despairing poet
A child
And The Wanderer
But the one that struck me as most interesting was the Amazon I felt I could make a very interesting character out of her.
I started playing with different Amazons. Everything from bikini clad barbarians to Burqa clad guardswomen
When I was done I put ticks next to the ones that had ideas I liked and began to refine them into a single character
I soon had a warrior woman with flowing hair, bare shoulders, a kind demeanor, and only a shield to defend herself with. For she needed no weapon to defend justice and love. My Shield Maiden.
Things seemed to be going well. Then I heard from one of my classmates my characters would have to interact at somepoint. None of my Rulers were really clicking with me. And I knew I didn’t want to do a scene with any of them and my amazon. So after weighing up the pros and cons I decided to junk the ruler and pick a new archetype. I went for The Creator. But damned if I was going to let myself make an artist! I swore long ago I’d never have an artist as a main character. It’s the height of laziness. (I only tolerant it in Stephen King)
It was Thursday evening by this point (We’d spent the day at an awesome lecture by animation legend Barry Purves) so I just went stream-of-consciousness and let myself draw whatever until the page was full (And yes. Several artists slipped in)
Here’s the piece
Present are…
A mother goddess
Buddha
A chef
An Arcangel
A father
An Exorcist
A Wizard
A Mad scientist
A One Armed artist
A sculpter
A robot
An Arcangel
Sisyphus
Several Lovecraftian monsters
And this guy
I have no idea how most of these relate to the creator type. I was letting my subconscious drive. But I did find one I liked. A fox with a mask I knew he was something special.
I began to refine him. Adding in bits of my wizard and monster designs
It wasn’t much But I had a character of sorts.
I wanted to draw both side by side.I started with basic shapes and built on top of them.
My Shield maiden had a face, and my fox had a personality. He was the Mask Maker. A half-fox half-human freak who used a magical mask to look human.
This done I decided to finalise their designs. I think The result is one of the best pieces of illustration I have ever done
By this point the new week [Last week as of this writing] had rolled around. So I had to start making the Mattese-like collages I mentioned here https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/03/05/a-bad-case-of-the-mondays/ But i continued working on some colour disigns in my downtime.
Cutouts
As Tuesday of this week arrived I found myself bit by the insane bug that bites me every two years and decided to make my first Mattese-alike using whole sheets of card for each piece. The result is a collage that is over 7 feet tall and pasted onto nine pieces of A2 paper that have been stapled together
It took 2 hours to make. At least it is Mattese scale. Plus I find art teachers will often mistake size for quality.
I had fun making this life-size Shield Maiden. I do think the piece does actually look good regardless of how big it is. But I decided to make the next one a lot smaller. Using scraps left over from the the first piece I made one for the Mask-Maker that fit onto a piece of paper only slightly larger than A4
It’s okay. I did start altering his design to make it more exaggerated and a bit mor fox-like (MacCory helped me there) and I like the changes. I asked Owen for an opinion. And her liked them But asked me to make my cutouts more exaggerated and to start adding detail into them. I had already started on a second Mask-Maker cutout. One that would be made of two colours only. I was loath to draw on it. But I did exaggerate the design a bit more. But I was tired so I went home. I think Tuesday was a rare good day where I got a lot done.
Wednesday was slow. I didn’t have much energy left. And I had to go home early. But I did make some progress with my design and animation work.
And at Least I cleaned my room when I got home.
On Thursday I did okay. I finished the second Mask-Maker cutout. Here it is
I like it. I think his design gets a little better each time. Plus the colours just look cool.
I felt lazy and apathetic through Thursday. It’s a problem I’ve been facing for a while. But that drive to just work flatout isn’t there anymore.
But I did finish the design I was making with coloured pencils
I regret that the photos here and from here-onward are not very good I struggled keeping my shadow out of the shor. And the paper in some of these is crumpled. I hate photographing my work.
The Mask-Maker looks fantastic in colour. The sadness and fantastical side of his nature now really shine through. At Owen’s request I exaggerated his design a little more and I now think he could pass the silhouette test. I think this might be the best depiction of him I’ve done yet.
The Shield Maiden here isn’t so good. I’ve exaggerated her design too. And she is definitely more distinctive now. But I feel the charm and innocence of her character have been lost somewhere. I also wasn’t able to get the pink on her clothes right, Except for on her chest strangely. On her dress it came out so badly I tried to fix it with watercolours, which just crumpled the paper.
But in spite of that I had more fun working with the coloured pencils than I had had in weeks. For the first time in ages I found myself getting sucked into to the flow of my work. Should I have become an illustrator instead?
I also used Thursday to start writing the journal you are reading right now. And these take a long time to write let me tell you,
I spent most of Friday creating the photographs you have been looking at. It was pain. Getting everything in the shot. Keeping my shadow out Getting enough room to photograph the bigger pieces.And trying to get an at least decent composition. I feel sorry for people who do this for a living. I really don’t know how they do it and get nice results. Some of them were terrible. Look at at this Photograph
This wasn’t the only one that came out the upsidedown or in its side either. Far from. Just didn’t correct this one to make a point. And about a quarter of the time I hit record instead of photograph, making worthless mini-movies
If it seems like I’m talking more about the making processes here than on the actual artworks there’s two reasons. Firstly it was a lot harder.Secondly it’s a lot fresher in my memory. I guess this is why you should do these journals more often. You remember more and can be more reflective and critical.
With that done I just coasted through Friday. Reluctant to work but unwilling to go home. I may write more about this later. But want to get that drive to work for hours at a time back. Until I do I’ll get by staying in late and working scrappily so I may get something done.
I made two simple version of my characters in watercolours. Working wet into wet. Sometimes not even mixing the colours! (I’m a rebel!)
The water was even still on the page when I photographed it.
I think it looks fine. I like working wet into wet. The colors pop and I feel the Mask Maker’s design looks better than ever. The Shield Maiden looks okay. I don’t know what inspired me to add the green streaks to her dress but I love it.
Then I did a pic of the Shield Maiden using coloured pencils and water
It looks alright. I like I’ve got her proportions a bit more in check. And I love the kinds of colours and patterns coloured pencils give you.
I also wrote up an animation journal, then did a tiny bit of animation. I tried making one last cutout, this time adding details with watercolour. I had handed the camera over to Owen by this point so there is no photograph of this one. It’s not much to look at.
But at this point my desire to work had dried up and I went home around Six. Feeling kinda rubbish.
Today I came in and Owen gave me the Photographs. Put everything into to finishing this journal. Meaning once again I wont be able to start the new task till Tuesday. At least I stayed in till [] today. Hopefully by bad case of the Mondays is over.
A full two hours and 20 minutes was given over to us showing each-other our work and asking questions about it. Only one student asked me about my stuff. I guess they didn’t like it. Oh well. At least it’s over.
I added the Photographs to this jornal (It takes a long time) and now my blog is totally up to date.
There are times when I wonder if I am wrong in choosing animation Sometimes I miss making fine art or paintings. An I recently had great fun making illustrations of my characters in coloured pencils. But I am here. And I now want to review my animation work over the past month.
After my surprisingly good return to animation, making a walk cycle on a computer, as documented here https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/02/15/return-to-subject-first-week/ I was keen to get back to real animation with a pencle and paper. But that’s when my bad case of the mondays (Covered here https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/03/05/a-bad-case-of-the-mondays/ ) kicked in and my energy started circling the drain. I came in on Tuesday and was given my brief. Make a new walk cycle. This time showing a specific emotion. I chose anger and had a good time planning out the motions and posses. Things went okay at first. I made a walk cycle of 24 frames. Morgan was sceptical of my keyframes. He wanted a more exaggerated look to the whole thing. But I wanted to see if I could convey anger with very subtle movements.
I think the end result was okay. It moves way better than I thought it would and it has character.
But where it does lack is in the arms. They seem lifeless and don’t express much, and the movement on them is a bit choppy. Morgan did admit it was better than he thought it would be. But told me to redo the arms. Keen to learn. I complied. Even though it took me a week to finish.
I found the idea of doing the arm movements again terrifying. But I erased my old arms and got to work. But by this point the week was over and the Archetype brief had begun. Keen to pull my weight, I still worked on the angry walk in my spare time. I eventually did the arms again and filmed them
Now he looks angry. Like he has something on his mind I even found myself really getting emotionally invested at one point. Felt the world fade away just leveling me and the animation. Which is what I want. It moments like those I believe I will be an animator.
I showed the result to Owen and he liked it but we both agreed something was wrong on the second swing. After a long time we agreed one of the arms had too much snap in it, It looked jarring, This is the sort of, harsh, no-holds barred honest critique I crave. Telling me how to do it right rather than just saying “It’s perfect because you did it your way”. I want to get better! Not to be told I’m fine.
I redid the last few frames the next day and here’s the result.
It doesn’t look as angry as the second one. But the movement is a lot smoother. It actually moves really nicely. It looks like it was made by a professional rather than a hack who isn’t sure if he’s on the right course.
Maybe I’ll tinker with it some more. Try to add some more punch to it. Or draw a character on top of the the stickfigure currently there. Who knows. I feel I’m far from done with this.
I’ve had to learn a bit about swings, cushioning and had impacts. But I struggle to remember where what applied or where I had to redo what. I hope some of it sticks in my subconscious at least.
Also. On the rare occasions I’ve had nothing to do I’ve been working on another walk cycle. 24 frames (one second) per-step. The what is basically hobby work I think it’s okay
It’s not meant to show any emotion or character. It’s just meant to have the buttery smooth animation I want to make. And that it does have. I do not believe computers have caught up to this level of smooth animation yet. And won’t anytime soon. It’s not even a walk cycle. It’s one step. But again, I want to do more with this. Turn it into a walk cycle or even turn it into a character. If only the idea of doing so much didn’t frighten me so.
It’s been a while since I updated this journal. Hopefully the fact I’m back reflects a change for the better.
On the monday two weeks ago I just did not come in at all. I was feeling awful and I don’t even remember why. But despite The best efforts of my support worker I just would not go outside. I was able to make it in for the rest of the week. I don’t truly remember what I was doing. Walk cycle stuff I think. I’ll cover it more when I do my next journal on walk cycles, whenever that may be. But it wasn’t a great week. I remember feeling lousy and not getting much done.
At the start of last week I was feeling utterly lousy. Like I was living at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. No light and a lot of pressure. Late February is a bad time for me for personal reasons. I did not want to come in on Monday in the slightest. But I was talked into coming in at least for the opening talk. And I will confess it was a very good talk. We got to talk about Archetypes in literature and watch a Bugs Bunny short. But when it was done I had to go home. I felt exhausted. Again I was able to come in for the rest of the week. But I remember my working being slow. I felt I spent the whole week just catching up.
We had to make characters now. Using two archetypes and the shapes we associated with them. I’ll cover this process in full soon. But in the end I did come up with two new and in-my-opinion very unique characters of my own. I feel very pleased with the final designs I settled on. But I was so slow in getting it done those designs weren’t complete until yesterday. Which brings me to….
One the Monday of this week again felt just kind of awful. I hadn’t showered or shaved in a while and as soon as this week’s lecture started I felt my face and neck (I have long hair) itching like crazy. I wanted to get out. To run away. When I found out we were doing collage work I felt my heart sinking. I did not know this until yesterday. But there’s something about the thought of cutting and pasting from magazines that I can’t stand. Maybe some leftover truma from Junior primary school? Maybe just how complicated it sounds. Whatever the reason, when approaching the table with all the glue and magazines I literally ran away I regrouped, and decided to finish of my design work. Which went well. In fact very soon the insane itching totally vanished.
I don’t know where my fear fear of cutting and pasting comes from. I don’t mind looking at collages.One of my favorite artists of all time, Joseph Cornell, worked in collage. Albeit unique ones. I’ve also liked the collages of Ben Nicholson and Henri Matisse. And that’s when inspiration struck! I would do as Matisse did. I would cut out large pieces of coloured paper and make versions of my characters using them. This did not inspire terror in me In fact it sounded kind of fun. I pitched the idea to Owen and he was onboard with it. I prepped my supplies and started drawing. But I just felt tired and slightly ill so i decided to go home. It was only two a’clock (And thanks to bad traffic I didn’t get home till 3:30.
To recap. Two weeks ago i didn’t come in at all on Monday. Last week I only stayed in for one and a half hours. And this week I made it till 2:00 on Monday, I hope this means my bad case of the Mondays is getting better and next week it won’t affect me at all. Here’s to hoping.
As for my Matisse’alikes, they’re coming along well. I know I’ve said this twice already, but I’m hoping to have a journal about them soon. Today felt okay. I’m still slacking a little. But I feel little of my grove coming back.
I felt I could make a very interesting character out of her.
I knew he was something special.
John's Learning Journal 