Start of the Project

We started our project briefing by setting our goals and ambitions for the unit. We were asked to make a presentation regarding in. We were asked to explore our aspirational and motivational projects, as well as set our possible technical benchmark for an upcoming project.

For my aspirational artist, I chose Sad-ist. She is a Filipino animator and shares her work on youtube. Her work’s aspiration points:

• composition
• energy flow
• transitions
• editing.

I chose her because she is skilled in what she does, and I am learning a lot from her approach. My skill level can reach that in my 2D animation pathway.

My motivational work is Arcane, a series produced by Fortiche studios. Phenomenal art direction and 3D animation wrapped with engaging characters and storytelling create one of the kind series to watch and learn from.

• Character design
• Composition
• Storytelling
• Colour
• 2D FX

TECHNICAL BENCHMARK

For my upcoming Personal Project, I looked into artists whose style and approach are more in line with my own vision. I found a couple that became my inspiration for the self-led project.

• Kiera Boyle – strong shape and colour language, bold colour choice.

• Ethan Becker – character design flow, expressions and innovative hair design.

• Dedouze – Blender artist, limited palette, colour limit sparks ingenuity while using lights and shadows.

SUBJECTS

For the project, I had a couple of ideas that I found myself intrigued to explore:

LOSS – Missing a person, place, or time left in the pat.

LOST – Not knowing where to go, feeling trapped, What are you searching for?

ENEMY – Who is the real evil? Instinct or knowledge

PHOBIA – What is scary? How is it perceived?

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

My project started as a way to visually and technically explore a chosen concept. It is fear and its perception. I chose agoraphobia and social anxiety as my area of focus, I thought it was quite suitable as a projection of the world as it is, living in a technologically advanced society in post-pandemic times. Technology the whole world connected, but it also leaves us open for anyone to observe and judge as well. Contrary, pandemics kept people forcefully separated, and the need for contact was prevalent enough.

In my personal project that I called OUTSIDE, I decided to focus not establish specific world events, but focus on telling a story about the state of the character while experiencing the state of overbearing fear-induced panic.

I set my goals for this project to explore visuals of fear and while doing so, build a project that I could work with in the different mediums.

MOODBOARD

I compiled a moldboard for my projects by the strong shape and colour play – two things I wanted to put the main focus on. Strong silhouetted designs help characters appear more visually interesting and distinct.

CHARACTER

For my main character Fio, I did character exploration and development exercises. I knew that I wanted him to appear more reserved, anxious, and maybe inconspicuous trying to not get approached.

For character hair, I gave him fringe and made it to cover one of his eyes. It is partially for the subconscious need to hide oneself and not attract attention. As for eyes, I wanted to give him more down-turn wing eyes, to appear more worried and uncertain.

I gave him a hoodie for an extra layer of support, baggy clothes sometimes feel more comforting in uncomfortable environments. I made a creative choice to give him a bright pink hoodie, because I am planning on using mainly a cyan/pink colour palette for my project, and consciously using the main accent colour will establish Fio as the main character.

STORYBOARD WITH AUDIO TEST

We had a couple of sound editing workshops, where we could work on our speculative sound design and assemble some sort of audio library that we are going for.

STORYBOARD PROGRESS

My first shown storyboard. It got improved and ore developed every time I worked on it.

I had a lot of hustle trying to come up with a somewhat satisfying narrative end. Although I stayed quite consistent regarding the first part of the storyboard. I think I had a fully-developed idea in my mind about how I wanted to start the animation but wasn’t sure what end would be the best in telling my story.

SCRIPTS

VERSION 1

the boy is on the train. he is pushed and drops his phone, and it breaks. phone releases insecurities (Lil monsters)

the boy tries to put them all in his pockets and keep them there.

the boy is out of the train. the monsters squirm in his pockets. few of them get out and start disfiguring outside (boy falls into the abstract, disfigured plane).

he tries to claw his way out of it. struggling. tries to do breathing exercises (4 in 4 out). little by little he started to calm down.

he gets out of the pit and recognises his home.

when he passes the entrance, the monsters morph into non-threatening ones, change colour and find their places.

VERSION 2

the boy is on the train. he is pushed and drops his phone, it breaks. phone releases lightning/glitch

buy picks the phone, looks around the carriage to check if anyone saw it. Passengers’ faces start to glitch (subtle glitches)

Close up to one of the passenger’s faces glitching into a morphed state.

the boy is out of the train. surroundings/ people glitching (still subtly)

The boy is almost knocked by a bike/scooter passing by.

Scare makes the surroundings glitch, even more, boy is overwhelmed. (boy falls in the abstract, disfigured plane).

he tries to claw his way out of it. struggling. Runs in the darkness, trying to reach the light.

he gets out of the pit and recognises his home.

when he passes the entrance, the glitches stay outside.

VERSION 3

the boy is on the train. he is pushed and drops his phone, it breaks. phone releases lightning/glitch

buy picks the phone, looks around the carriage to check if anyone saw it. Passengers’ faces start to glitch (subtle glitches)

Close up to one of the passenger’s faces glitching into a morphed state.

the boy is out of the train. surroundings/ people glitching (still subtly)

The boy is almost knocked by a bike/scooter passing by.

Scare makes the surroundings glitch, even more, boy is overwhelmed. (boy falls in the abstract, disfigured plane).

he tries to claw his way out of it. struggling. Runs in the darkness, trying to reach the light.

He wakes up on the pavement. He is still on the same road, but now he can recognise the place for what it is.

But even when he calms down and stands up to go back, from the corner of his eye he still can see the distortions from the corner of his eye.

In the end, I went with script version 3. I decided that the message of ‘fears are still there even if you overcome them’ is the best portrayed in that version.

COLOUR

My animation is created with a cyan/pink complementary colour palette in mind. I set my goal to use limited colours and explore work tonally and contrast-wise.

From the start, I had a few ideas about colour and did some exploration regarding the mood of the piece ut later on I settled on the cyan/pink combination.

Cyan – cold, unfamiliar, detached.

Pink – Approaching threat, danger.

I decided to use the colours for showing growing intensity in the animation. The brighter pink gets, the more environment it consumes, and the less stable the main character feel.

Finally, I reached the point where I was happy with my storyboard. It was still pretty rough, but clear enough to help guide me in creating further animatic for the piece.

3D DEVELOPMENT

My want to develop a 2D/3D project was partially inspired by the artist Dedouze, whose main body of work is Blender Grease Pencil moving illustrations.

Personal Project for the Exploratory Practise unit seemed like the right place to try and hone my skills in this specific area of interest.

I started my process by designing shots that would require an elaborate background set, such as a train carriage and city square. And by learning about toon shading, I prepared all the models with greyscale to, later on, recolour them with the appropriate colour scheme.

I went through a bit of colour alteration, but it was really easy and efficient to do so. As well as useful to check different colour combination moods and their compatibility with my narrative goal.

I can strongly say that this opportunity was eye-opening about the possibilities of 3D backgrounds and I will be sure to improve and use it more efficiently later on.

CRITICAL APPRAISAL

Throughout the Exploratory Practice unit, we were allowed to explore ourselves as creatives and animators through provided Personal Project brief. The unit was largely focused on leading and encouraging us to experiment. Try techniques or approaches we haven’t before. It was a unit full of opportunities to hone and try own new aptitudes and possible ways of production for future reference. I viewed this project as an opportunity to finally explore different techniques that could help me become more proficient, such as Blender and After Effects, and try to incorporate them into my work pipeline in the future.

From the beginning, the brief provided was lax in the form of the subject of choice. That was my first challenge. To come up with a narrative to tell in a minute and make it count. I quickly realised that most of my ideas would go over that time. To simplify and make it count, it was my first self-taught lesson to learn. I kept it in mind while developing my narrative. While working on it, I was not confident in the themes I wanted to cover. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gotten regarding making a choice was to draw it from self-experience and improve on it. So, I decided to focus on visual analysis of a person’s well-being in a post-pandemic world. It let me explore the connectivity of people as well as the vulnerability and openness that comes with it. And it led me to the exploration of social anxiety and agoraphobia – fear of going outside, which is relevant regarding health endangerment for the past few years. The real experience, even if it didn’t feel like the project directly, gave me a clear frame of reference for how I wanted to proceed with it.

I used the time in the unit to explore my technical horizons. My biggest inspiration style is 2D/3D blended animation, I wanted to give myself time to re-familiarise myself with Blender, learn After Effects and Harmony, and start expanding my skill set in them. What helped me was the tool kits and workshops. The ability to learn from professionals that work in their respective software was hugely appreciated. I didn’t waste my time and got After Effects basics in character animation, motion graphics and multiplane, as well as further knowledge about Harmony rigging and nodes. But I think I am most proud that I pushed myself to remember Blender and use it in my own time to learn and hone my skills there. My focus was to create backgrounds with toon shading and have explored enough Grease Pencil tools to use it with ease for extra detail. And I can confidently say I successfully reached my set goal for this project regarding 3D elements.

Of course, it’s just the start of the learning curve for me, and I am ready to work on my knowledge and understanding further. Additionally, my understanding and usage of Harmony improved as well. I got used to it, for it to become my software of preference. It was a shame that I didn’t feel confident enough to use rigged animation, but I am planning on putting an effort to learn it. Overall, I gained a lot of new and renewed dexterities through the time of this unit, and it provided me with an overview of the skills I could build upon further.

This project showed me that I am capable to develop a cohesive narrative and take a project from its very start to its very end. I found myself paying more attention to the implied meaning in colours, design choices shot composition. That was another of my goals for the project: make argumentative choices, and create things with reason. I always loved the little trinkets and easter eggs in films and productions, that tell a bit more about the world. Maybe I didn’t add a lot of those in this project, but I was keeping conscientious regarding my decisions in visuals. I think overall I used this project to train my eye and mind to focus on the narrative and worldbuilding it requires.

As well as positives, I had my shortcomings as well. I caught myself not managing my time as efficiently as I could have. I was working with schedule, but sometimes undenounced circumstances can put progress in a tight spot. Secondary under-coming was noticed as my stubbornness in working solo. I found it hard to ask people for assistance regarding project progress. Although thanks to Patricia and Coco that helped me with colouring and character design respectfully. I found it difficult to convey the needed ideas and goals regarding my project. But I am staying conscientious regarding these bumps in my progress and will make sure to try and work through them in my upcoming projects.

In conclusion, the project overall was great for remembering and using the animation pipeline and skills that we developed throughout our artist journey so far and building on top of it. The unit gave me greater self-awareness and understanding of my own goals, and steps to move forward both technically and in professionally. The whole experience is really rewarding when the final animation is viewed fully and the knowledge of how much effort was put in is what makes it worth a while.