I’m definitely made progress. Whether it is enough or not time will tell.
With my animatic and character designs done I was doing better than I thought I would. I could have started animating there. But I wouldn’t be able to do much with no voice acting to go off of. With no sign of voice actors coming up I decided I might as well make a temporary voice track myself. Owen approved of this, so I went back to Oxford for a week to record it.
The process of recording the impromptu soundtrack was a nightmare. But when it was done I had a take for each line that was at least adequate. Heck. It might be good enough to use. I know Owen thinks it could be. It doesn’t make me want to curl into a ball and cry at least.
Coming back to Cardiff Morgan helped me get to grips with Premiere and I synced my audio with my images. This may make it sound like it was all easy, Nothing about this was easy. It was some of the most nerve wracking work I’ve done so far. It really makes me feel a lack of control than makes me unhappy and tense. But it is at least done.
In hindsight I should have allowed more silent spaces for my rabbits to move about in. Whether this can be changed or not without affecting the sound effects I have for later I don’t know.
So without wasting anymore time, here it is
I think it’s okay.
Words don’t express how intense the past three weeks have been. It’s been a nightmare trying to find the will to do all this strange stuff.
Next I can either start drawing my keyframes, based on the storyboard panels. Or I can start figuring out the timing. Either way, I’m in animating process next.
There were two things I knew would take a lot out of me this term I’m honestly surprised to have done as well as as I have. I may even get started on my animation before term ends. (Fingers crossed)
Character design scares me. Trying to get a character right scares me. Last year trying to finalise my characters was where I choked and couldn’t go on (Other animating and writing projects didn’t help). So I took it in stages.
First I drew very simple character sheets over the summer. I didn’t even have my old reference from my comic book project to go off of (it was in Cardiff.) So I really had to wing these.
Once back in Cardiff I had all my reference again. But I knew that wouldn’t be enough to help me finalise my designs. So I decided to be sneaky. I would do my storyboards first with all my reference on hand and figure out what my characters looked like on the fly! it would make my storyboards horribly inconsistent. But it wouldn’t be the first time. My storyboard issues are covered in this journal https://johnhawk.art.blog/2021/11/01/where-i-am-now-and-my-future-fears/
It paid off. After a while I had some idea of what made the characters more like like themselves and less like each other, and a bit about how to make them look like rabbits and not foxes, dogs, or donkeys. I felt ready to start making my character designs.
This were some intense drawings. But I did them. And they came out better than I hoped. At Morgan’s suggestion, I made these a lot bigger than my summer drawings. I think it paid off.
Ghost
White Tail
Strype
I needed a little advice. According to Morgan I broke a cardinal character sheet rule by giving the different poses different expressions. But considering how hard expressions are for me, I need all the practice I can get!
Next I needed to figure out how they would look in colour. I had an idea based on a rough drawing I did.
But I decided to test every colour combination I could first. Starting with White Tail and Strype. And people complain I don’t experiment enough!
This doubled as expression practise. I even experimented with different art styles. Something I’d never done before. But in the end I found one that was almost perfect.
It was almost exactly what I had done in the rough drawing.
Using the colour of one brother and the black outline of the other.
For Ghost I splashed out even harder. I spent over £30 on different coloured pencils to experiment with and experimented ever harder
Only one of the new coloured pencils I bought, Ash Grey, ended up in the final project. I did add some brown into his design as well to add some darkness to contrast to his paleness. But he also ended up very similar to his doodle version. My instincts normally do trump experimentation.
Here is the rough drawing of Ghost and what I settled on. Again, it was almost the exact same colour scheme as in the rough drawing.
Just with black outlines and the Ash Grey colour.
This is one reason I don’t care much for experimentation. I have very strong instincts and I waste time ignoring them.
The best part of this process was it helped me figure out what the eyes should look like. If I wanted coloured irises, black dots, highlights, or such like. I settled black rings that emphasise size and innocence.
Now I had to get ready for the colour character designs. I would trace off the existing character sheets to new pieces of paper using a lightbox. This would also act as clean up and a chance to refine the designs one last time. Make the characters look more consistent and add in the new eye shapes.
I honestly really like how the cleaned up versions look
Ghost
White Tail
Strype
These almost look professional. Can’t believe I made character sheets this good. I showed them to Owen, He liked them too. Just so I’d have them even after being coloured, I’ve photocopied them too.
I finally added colour to my character designs. And now they were finished! I’ve never finished character designs before. I know there are many people for whom this level of drawing is easy. But I’m just glad to have done it.
Strype and White Tail look fine. But I did have to go over some of their linework again. It blended in with the dark colour at first. Specially the interior lines and the sitting poses
But I think they look okay.
Ghost was harder. I still don’t think I’ve got him totally figured out. But the idea of his colours is there
In my downtime between drawings I was also able to make a template for my background.
So I now know exactly what background my rabbits will be moving on. I could pretty much jump straight into animation this if I knew how I was going to blend background and characters together. That’s proving tricky to figure out.
I’m not going to agonise over how the colours of the background and Parsnip should look. I’m just going to to go for it. Simple colours are probably better anyway.
Next I’m going to make a soundtrack to make an animatic with. I’m getting so close to making a real animation I can barely believe it! I hope I pull it off.
But I’ve done both the storyboard and the character sheets! I thought that would take all term But here I am with four weeks spare! Plus I have other things done as evidenced in this journal. Maybe I can pull this off after all?
But I eventually fizzled out. What work I did do ended up being in trying to resore my broken health. Which is still a priority. For nearly two years now I’ve been trying to recover my health. But always running into stumbling blocks. I’m hoping I’m finally beginning to make progress. But I’ll write a full journal about that some other time.
When I got back to Cardiff my first decision was that I couldn’t let the computer become part of my routine. I’m fairly sure the computer killed my chances of getting anything done last year. I don’t remember making art. Just staring at the computer all day. So this time It had to go. I would draw and do nothing else. I did bring a large book of old Marvel comics for when I got tired though. Which happens far more than I want to admit.
But the plan was built on solid ground. I started just making thumbnail drawings. to figure out what would be needed for a a storyboard
At Morgan’s suggestion I did some head studies to figure out what my rabbits really looked like. This was some of the hardest and most painful drawing I’ve ever done. But I did it. The front on drawings aren’t very good. They look more like donkeys than rabbits to me
This is what scares me. The idea of putting all my effort into into something only for it to turn and terrible. And the feeling it won’t get any better. But that’s also a subject for another journal. The three quaters drawings were better. A lot better
I used them a lot when making the storyboard. (You can tell Ghost took longer due to the heavier line work)
The story board wasn’t easy to make. I now respect people who do this for a living. But It was finished before I thought it would be.
First I had to get the size and shapes right. Then focused on making templates for the background
With that done I could just copy the background over and over again using a lightbox until I had enough drawings. When in the later drawings the turnip was being held up I simply didn’t trace the turnip from the BG! With all that done I had what I needed to start adding in the rabbits. With my script, thumbnails, character designs, and even an image of a real rabbit to work with, I was ready to go!
I found tracing certain poses, or even just feet positions with the lightbox also helped.
I’d hoped like with my comic book project drawing faces and expressions would get easier over time. And I think I’ve remembered some of it. But it didn’t get easier. The last few actually got a lot harder. I guess progress isn’t always one one way. But here’s some of the things I have.
I then wrote a letter for the RWCMD telling them about my project. Now I am hoping to get some voices for my characters. This is nerve wracking as I’ve never recorded voice-over before and have no idea how to mix it and stuff. But I hope someone will help me.
The next thing I have to do once this journal is up is to finalise my character designs and make character sheets. This terrifies me.
Trying to get drawings of characters with faces perfect is the hardest thing for me. It’s where I totally fell apart last year. I had a full day on Friday where I could have done it. But I really didn’t want to. So I decided to do a little test. I set the things up so could start working on the character design. But I turned on the computer so I could write that letter to the RWCMD, which needed doing. I also opened TVPaint to do a little bit of abstract animation I was doing on the side. Even set up a little hand drawn animation I’d like to do.
The one thing I didn’t let anywhere near me was headphones with which I could listen to youtube. One that was involved, it would be game over. I don’t know what this means in terms of when I have to put together the audio of the thing. Let alone animate it. But I hope something will come to me. But sure enough. I drifted from one occupation to another. I did eventually get through the letter to RWCMD. But then I just started on I needed to send to an old tutour. And when the day was done I hadn’t done one line of the character sheets. The conclusion is clear. If I’m ever going to get through the hard parts I’m going to need to go cold turkey with the computer while I’m on campus. It’s the only way. Please wish me luck with the trials ahead.
Things could have been so much better. But that’s not life I guess.
During my first year three I overshot in terms of my goals. I assumed what was wanted was a full length film of about 10 to 20 minutes. So I wrote a script that was appropriate. But couldn’t get beyond the character design (The other projects I got saddled with didn’t help).
When 2021 came round and lockdown restrictions got even tighter I knew this wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t doing well. But now I had no chance. I decided to bite the bullet, and deferred my final year.
Over the nine months I had to think about it I decided to rethink my idea to something smaller. I’d picked up on the hints that the idea I’d come up with was too much. And I was told i should use the summer to build up the skills for my final project. So given the chance to start over and hit the ground running, I went for it.
It did not go well. I spent some time in Cardiff with the intent to really get my drawing skills up, and I fell incredibly ill. For two weeks I was not even able to leave my room. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. And it left me very weak. I’m now in a position were exorcising even for half an hour is a real stretch. I’m trying to improve my output bit by bit. But my future as an active person seems uncertain.
Bit I did get some drawing done. Enough that my drawing skills started to improve for the first time in years. And I decided to base my revised animation on a small comic I had drawn as part of my Field project (now lost) about three rabbits arguing over a parsnip. I’ve turned it into a script https://docs.google.com/document/d/16JLQxB0iRgH-WSiebRw6j5_i7HB0Glko_n3bIuDdCDY/edit
Drawn some basic character sheets. A thumbnail storyboard. And I’m now working on a real storyboard.
So things could be way better. But that could be way worse.
I’m not sure what I did. Or why I did it. But I’ll try to remember.
It started with the most annoying of all assignments. Picking your own assignment. I complain about this every time. But this problem never goes away. So, I’m going to say it again. These look backs always come with an assumed or sometimes stated question. “Why did you decide to do this?” To which the only honest answer is “Because I was told to or I would fail the course.” At this point the teacher invariably looks embarrassed and maybe even a little flustered and says something to the effect of “Yes, but why did you chose THIS thing?” The assumed and eternally false narrative being that our passion for writing essays made us do this and it was just a luck co-incidence that one was part of the course. Even this counter question is phrased so as to try to push responsibility for this mess back on to us the students. To make us answer as if we were motivated by are own creativity. Ignoring that we are VISUAL artists and for most of us writing will be a weak point. It is depressing how the very structure of the question is designed to alleviate the tutors and the system of the responsibility, and possibly the guilt, for causing the mess they have to read.
Anyhow. Here goes.
It’s been well over a year since we were first given our outline. A year that has been a drag for us all. And I’ve had plenty of other things that I’ve cared about more in the meantime. So, a lot of my memories regarding this project, both what I thought, and what I did, are very hazy to me. I might even have to guess some of it. But I’ll try.
The initial outline didn’t give us much to work with. It took me a long time to understand what was even being asked of us. But I slept on it for a bit. In fact, it was while I was drifting off to sleep I had an idea. I was listing to something about the history of Christianity while going to sleep, and the byzantine debate over icons came up. And it gave me an idea. I was interested in the question of if an animation could fit the strict rules that were used for byzantine icons could be applied to an animation. If one could make an animated icon. I went with this idea to Professor Clarkson. He seemed sceptical about the idea. Felt the scope of it was too limited. So, I mulled it over a little longer, then tweaked it. I came back with the idea of the question “Can an animation be a work of devotional art?” A work of religious art designed specifically to help people in their relationship with God. Of which the Byzantine icons were just one example. On bringing this back to Professor Clarkson he said it would fit the bill nicely. This is where my memories get very blurry. Please forgive me. This all was over a year ago. And I was not in great mental health when it was happening. I borrowed all the books I felt would be useful and started reading at a furious rate. I read until my head hurt. I dipped in and out of many books, so I was getting a wide variety of information. But I gave some higher priority than others. I’ve never got the hang of taking notes. But I did what I could. Confusingly, I had another project writing about contemplative prayer going on at the same time. And in hindsight I don’t think I knew where one project ended and the other started. But I think I gave a lot more effort to the other project than it ever actually demanded. I really don’t remember much of what happened next. There was a lot of writing. It was very boring. I don’t remember Why I did what I or what motivated me to do what. I remember reading the book on video art bored and annoyed me a lot. Video artists mostly seem to be smug pricks. I liked the book on Bill Viola a lot. It was interesting to learn the “piss christ” wasn’t actually meant to be disrespectful. I don’t think I’ll ever really get the appeal of William Blake, either as painter or as a poet. And Reading about zen circle art was a pleasure.
At some point I crashed hard. I just couldn’t read anymore. I don’t remember what happened after that. We were deep into lockdown by that point anyway. But at some point an essay was written. And at some point it was shown to Professor Clarkson and he liked it.
It was decided that I should make a proof-of-concept animation. Something to go with my essay. Or maybe that was part of the brief. I don’t remember. But I would do a test run of what a devotional Christian animation could be. I chose to make something inspired by Japanese Zen circle art. It would be an animation of a cross being drawn. One that could be looped infinitely. And damn did it feel good to be animating again. Though filming it without university equipment proved to be a nightmare. Thankfully, I had someone to help out. Honestly, I liked the end result. It had a grainy, hand-made charm to it.
The new academic year started, and I was hit out of the blue with an order for an even bigger essay I’d been doing no prep work for. As always, the fine art teachers just seem to think the animation students just don’t have lives of our own. That we came here to work for them as a sort of second-class Fine Art students. I felt totally at sea in a boat that was taking on water fast. Thankfully someone told me that I could just build a new essay out of the old one. That I already had most of the work done. And then another bombshell was dropped on me. I had to make another animation for this project. I don’t know how know this happened. But luckily for me (very luckily) I had been experimenting with TVpaint at the time. So I had the tools I needed on hand and tuned. Amazingly I made an animation in just three days. It was of an eternally changing cross. Moving from one type of cross to another. I really liked it. Not bad for a few days work. There’s another large gap in my memory here. I was more involved with other stuff at the time. But when the new year rolled around it soon became clear I would not be going back to Cardiff. The new restrictions would make working there impossible. So it was decided I would finish my Constellation work once and for all. Then defer the rest of the year. Back in oxford. I found myself writing this final big writing project. It was indeed a case of just adding to my old writing. It wasn’t fun. But eventually I had enough. In fact, some bits talking about the artist Fra Angelico had to be cut down. But now it’s done.
I don’t feel any sense of accomplishment. I don’t feel I’ve learned anything. I don’t feel anything at all. This whole venture was an exercise in conscripted, meaningless work.
Why I’m I being forced to do this? I’m struggling as is without being asked to do a mandatory joural in one day.
So. How has this term been?
I’ve hated it. No point being coy.
If it seems like I’ve been doing less work it’s only because I have. Self orgonising and self motivating has never been a strong point for me. And in this term it’s been hard. I’ve been trying to re-engage with what got my fire going in the last term. But it all seems to backfire.
Towards the end of last academic year I was multitasking. Trying to learn many things. And it felt great. I was drawing, animating, writing, reading, exercising, and even doing a little poetry. But I still got stuff done.
But my attempt to bring multitasking back has gone horribly wrong. The extra stuff has grown into a sort of cancer. Taking over my work. First it was my animation experiments. Taking up more and more time. I’ve written several journals about how they went. And in the end it ended up comming in handy when I needed to make an animation for Constellation quickly. And somehow there I was able to get my momentum up to speed in no time. After four days of solid work I had wh I needed. I hoped then I would be done with TV Paint. Didn’t stop me from making two more little experiments next week.
I do like them. But I didn’t need to do them. Just an excuse to try a boil line again.
Despite hoping i could channel the passion I’d had for the Changing Cross animation into my main work now. I found instead it was all going into my writing instead. Into a story the wasn’t even uni work no less!
I think the issue is this. There are many states of working. but the simplest is work that takes no or little hard thought. Were you can just go with it. Like stenciling. My animation work can be like that. Specially is I’m just doing the inbetweens and not worrying about the timing. Even storywriting can be like that if I know everything that has to happen. But above that is a higher geer where to have to think hard about what to do next. A lot of mental walls between you and work. Raw hard thinking. I tend to really get caught in this geer when designing or drawing complicated stuff.
I know I can push through this state were it gets easier. And the drawing and the designing start to become one. But I’ve been scared of this effort. And once again. Scared of trying to get there and failing. My attempts at drawing have been hard and lackluster. Only doing a few lines at a time. Feeling dispirited. And on many days doin no drawing at all. I’m sorry.
So as a result I’m very behind schedule. Still haven’t finished the character designs. No progress on my test painted animation. And haven’t even started my storyboards. (And to Owen’s shagrin, no photographs of my drawings.)
I don’t know what to do. But I’m going to haveto change my tactics so I can get the stuff that matters done.
I’ve been procrastinating a lot. Mostly doing experiments in TVPaint.
And it has been fun. I think I am starting to get the hang of this program. Maybe even animating well in it. But I find I am mostly jumping from one minor project to another and getting very little done.
I decided to do one more swing animation. One that would change from green to blue to purple then back again. I was very careful with the timing and spacing. And as a result I think this is the best swing I’ve done yet.
Back to doing bouncing balls. I deced to add in a background for this one. I went for a blue ball against a blue background. It looks nice. I used vauge pose to pose animamation. Which sadly made the ball very floaty.
For the next one I tried to make a nice background with some artistic merit to it. And I do rather like it.
I made the ball yell this time. And took more time with the timing and spacing this time. Using a more structured form of pose to pose. I like it.
Feeling ambitious. I decided to try a walk cycle. I did this entirely in straight ahead animation. And forgive me. But i rather like it.
I think it has energy to it. I even managed to put in a background that looked like a nice sunny day.
My ambition climbing I made a brown, hazy background inspired my the Silent Hill series. I used pose to pose animation. And tried to make the character change colour as he walked. I even figured out how to loop the animation!
It is technically a lot stronger than the last one. But for some reason, I like it less.
Maybe it’s just a bit to fast.
I put everything I learned recently into one more walk cycle. Made a nice background, a strong definition between the ground and the sky, and used a mixture of pose to pose and straight ahead animation. I think there’s more charm and character to it. Even if it doesn’t loop all that well.
It’s nice.
I thought I’d just been wasting my time doing all this, and I was. I should have been making my character designs and storyboards. And I really should get back to that as quickly as possible. But out of the blue it suddenly all became useful.
I was tasked with making another animation for my Constellation work. It was a big deal. I had to make something quickly. But now I knew exactly how to make a digital animation quickly. Far quicker than I could on paper!
I decided to do a morphing cross animation. I would take different crosses from differnt eras and places, and show them change from one to the other. Morphing from form to form. All pose to pose animation. Very carefully planned out. Using careful timing and lightboxing techniques I’d learned in the past few weeks.
I worked flat out for three days straight. Not slacking at all. I didn’t think I could switch into high gear so quickly.
When it came out the timing was a little disappointing. I’s put the main posing on 1s to make them stand out more. And it kinda works. But backwards. They go by too quickly and feel like the less important pics.
I went back the next day. Put the main posses in 3s like the morphing poses. It doesn’t have the old emphasis. But it looks better. It has the serene atmosphere I wanted.
I’m glad my procrastinating ended up paying off. But I need to get this passion into my other work. Get a real momentum going. But I do at least feel closer to being able to do this as a job.
Well I’m doing more experiments (When i really should be designing characters) and I think I am making a little progress.
Somehow, figured out how to make a background for these things. Suddenly i felt the call of artistry. I made a blue and green background reminiscent of algae, then made a pendulum that was a dark torques colour
I like the result.
Even if the timing is kinda terrible.
With a bit of courage, I took another shot at it.
This time, as well as a background, a did a second layer to plan my spacing and timing. And the end result is better. But I still need to improve
It seems to me I make the same mistakes every year.
I get obsessed with something outside my university work. The first two years it was the online art groups I was part of and the commissions I was getting there. This year it was a faith crisis as to if Christianity is right for me, what i might have to give up, and if there is a denomination right for me (It’s been intense). And then I find I have no energy for my work and I’m doing next to nothing.
Forgive me if this sounds zen (I have been reading a lot religious writings) but I need to empty my mind first. It’s okay to have reading and viewing to unwind to. Even serious religious stuff. But when I am effectively studying it that is only bad for my art. I should be careful how I use my free time so it revialises me rather than drains me. i think fiction is a little better than non fiction here. But it’s not an absolute. And I think a little serious stuff can be good for keeping me feeling ground in my interests and happy, IF I don’t over do it. But it would also probably help a lot if I looked at more stuff, both fiction and non-fiction, that motivates, inspires, and most importantly, focases me on my artwork. As long as I don’t overdo it.
I feel a bit bad about dropping my heavy religious reading in the middle of a crisis. But I’ll have to live with it. I hope I can enjoy the lighter stuff.
To try to get my groove back I started doodling in TVPaint. Even though I’ve no idea what to do.
I had no digipen. I had to use a mouse. Meaning the linework would be very shoddy indeed. So I decided to run with it and have fun.
Rebelling against tradition, I decided to make a bouncing triangle rather than a bouncing ball. I think the result is funny.
Having actual done something I decided do a pendulum swing. An exercise I should get the hang of. Should have learned years ago. I’d forgotten almost everything I’d once known about TV paint. So I just ran with it. It maybe be the ugliest thing I’ve ever made. But I don’t mind.
I wanted to see if I could get better results using my finger (I’m using a touchscreen) and tried to make a heavy, bowling-type ball. The linework is nicer, and I think the animation is a little better, but making it was harder.
You judge if it’s any good.
I contacted Morgan. He wants me to do a run cycle. I felt I couldn’t do it with the mouse or my finger. I asked if I could get a digipen. He said I could borrow one from upstairs. I’d been working straight-ahead so far (Which I do prefer even if it’s considered flawed.) But I decided to refresh my understanding of Pose-to-pose in TVPaint. So I did another pendulum. This one is better. But I think it’s a bit too sharp if that makes sense
John's Learning Journal 