TOON BOOM HARMONY INTRODUCTION: CHARACTER

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First dip with Toon Boom Harmony. My first try creating a character in Harmony. We were learning how to use layers and Harmony system overall. I created Corn (Conelius), character that I really liked. I use him quite a lot in my projects I noticed.

FLYING CIRCLE

Flying circle was exercise dedicated to further study Harmony set-up and learn how to animate transitions. Lil birb.

RIGGING INTRODUCTION

Rigging and Nodes window. Pretty complicated approach but I excited to work with it more. I want to cover rigging and to get more skilled in it.

WALKING CIRCLE

Walking circle – exercise for animating character, giving character personality and learning animating with consistency. As you can see I chose to do Corn.

Line art~~~

CHARACTER ANIMATION TEST (TOOLKITS)

One of 2D animation toolkits with Mario exercises. We were tasked with creating interesting character and doing short animation test with them.

My inspiration was mushroom and I used it as reference for characer’s hat and skirt shape.

I imagine it being magical forest occupant, that masks themself as a mushroom to avoid predators and unwanted attention.

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CHARACTER WALK (TOOLKITS)

Another 2D animation exercise. This time we were studying walks. Each of us needed to select walking prompt, act it out ourselves and just with mental and physical memory animate it out no video or mirror reference.

I choose to to crab. It was quite confusing at first how to walk with four legs insed six, but I figured it out.

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STORYBOARD WORKSHOP

Tell the story in 6 shorts. ”Character emerges from the lake”

On this project, I am working with Depi, a fellow animator. We decided to take up the NHS breast cancer for black women brief to work on, because both of our styles and approaches lead towards more mature audiences, as well as presented challenge to create something daring, but approachable and thought-provoking.

On the briefing day, we were provided with an hour-long testimony recording from a couple of black women who survived breast cancer. Our project required 50-60 seconds of content for the final animation so we needed to settle on a well-working narrative with sound leading it.

From the beginning, we started with a workshop that encouraged us to do flash brainstorming for ideas for the project. We highlighted the most important messages we wanted to work on for this project. It being: cancer not being deadly anymore, acknowledgement of taboos surrounding the cancers in general, encouragement to speak up.

On this project, I chose to work with Despina Markaki, my fellow coursemate and animator. My choice to work on NHS prepared brief was cemented by the chosen audience. My goal was to create animation for a more mature audience, as well as explore the possible ways of approaching this specific demographic, it being black women.

After our very first briefing from the client, we set off to explore different perspectives that we could take with our project. We were provided with a lengthy audio-recorded interview from incredible black women who shared their experiences with breast cancer.

Through careful consideration, workshopping together, we came up with main concepts that we as a group want to explore throughout this animation: Taboos surrounding the cancers in the black community, fear and support and encouragement between women.

Despi came up with a spot-on audio cut that portrayed the message as a conversation between two beliefs, women speaking out about their journeys as well as others trying to stop them.

Our goal was to both acknowledge the taboos and encourage women to confront the fear, not hide from it.

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Through our visual research, we explored possible approaches. At the start more focusing on the colour palette and exploring possible shape and line languages that we could use. From the start, we were keen on using a more limited palette, pinks, browns, pastels.

The goal of the visuals was to look soft, approachable, feminine, as well as positive and encouraging.

We started by listening and exploring audio possibilities. After a couple of days of experimentation, we settled on Despi’s cut – audio highlighting testimonies as well as acknowledging the taboos that cancers have in the black community.

We settled on an audio cut that portrays a form of a conversation between two sides: survivors and scared/unwilling to acknowledge. The project’s storyboard shows that. We settled do surrealistic, dynamic line and shape play for this project, so the simple and clear shape was on the main priorities list.

At the beginning of development Despi and I were working more separately on the concepts and approaches, evolving on a few basic norms, such as themes that we wanted to cover and the structure of the film. The visual language, as well as flow, was up to us to introduce concepts and discuss them together at it.

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Interim 1

When we had our first interim with the client, we had to present the ideas and development we reached in the past two weeks that we had after the briefing. We presented our ideas, chosen audio cut and visual guide.

our visual guide was constructed from a few concept art pieces in which we explored possible visual approaches in different scenes. The initial idea was to use different visual styles to portray different messages said in the video.

Our presentation was welcomed with high interest, and our idea was green-lit with minor critiques such as pacing and more explorative composition for shots.

After the presentation, we gave a critique look through our project and worked more on the development of cohesive visual language that we both could use to create more cohesive styles as well as views.

Desition was reached to work with a limited palette, where I took initiative to design it. I settle on a more pastel colour approach, still putting priority on skin colour variety, but accompanying with yellow, pink and blue hues.

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I knew that composition in SPEAK UP was going to be a priority. So when we moved on to creating a storyboard, I tried to monitor my composition and negative space.

Another bullet point in my mind was regarding transitions. My vision of the piece was flowing, with no hard cuts, but animated dynamic transitions or fades from one scene to another.

By working on separate storyboards with the came contextual thread we had an opportunity to pick and choose compositions and scenes to include from both of our storyboards to create the ultimate one.

With characters, my goal was to differentiate them, from poses to body types and hair, to the hue of the skin. The main intent was to make them distinctive and diverse range. A big inspiration for designs came from none other but women in the recording themselves. We, of course, haven’t met the real women that shared their experiences, but we tried to imagine what kind of character would suit the message told and portray the character the best.

https://vimeo.com/648994729

After deciding our personal scenes to focus further developement on, the next stage was animatic.

Animatic like every step before was separated for both Despi and me to work on. After the storyboard was done, we chose our respective scenes to work on from now on.

Animatic provided an opportunity to analyse the timing of the actions as well as timing with the sound. It was the first look into what could relatively be our final project.

I encountered a bit of trouble trying to animate my scene’s morphing lines. I experienced a few mishaps with animation flow and direction, but eventually, I settled on the composition that reads and flows much better.

https://vimeo.com/651327099

https://vimeo.com/651328648

Interim 2

For the second consultation with the client, we had to have prepared animatic and proof of concept – 5-10s fully rendered animation segment. We chose to do the first scene, the very beginning because in it two characters are interacting and Despi and I decided to split the scene and work together on the same segment but animate different women. Although we encountered a bit of systematic failure. While Despi cant access toon boom on her home computer, she would usually go to the LCC to use computers and work. But the day when we planned to go work together, LCC was put in an emergency because of the flooding and we lost time. So the first pass of scene 1 is partially made in Adobe Animate and composited in After Effects.

The interim itself went great. The client was happy with the progress so far, the colours and character designs weren’t put up for debate, and the audio was still working.

We got just a couple suggestions for using more dynamic camera angles and how to change the timing a bit to make the visuals and sound flow more cohesively.

Working on the final

Getting back from winter break was a bit hectic. We both took some time off to enjoy holidays more than working on slowly but surely approaching the deadline. We decided to spend all possible time in computer labs, from 11am to sometimes 8pm to try and finish it for Interim 3. Throughout working relentlessly day in and day out together, it was tiring as well as liberating. Working on a group project with the partner next to you is a real advantage. It helps with immediate feedback and bouncing ideas and their generation. Because our project’s scenes were so tightly knit together between my animation and Despi’s, immediate back and forth was amazing to have and speed up our production so much.

Interim 3

So, we didn’t manage to finish our full animation to present it as finished. But to be honest? No one did. Everyone brought their works in progress which made me feel a bit better inside.

Interim 3 went well. Clients were satisfied with our process. while we were presenting we highlighted different parts of unfinished animation, acknowledged that they are not finished yet, and showed through concept what it will look like. We enclosed a comparison between Animatic and animation so far.

After the interim, we had a sound design workshop. I had throughout discussion with Jesicca Marlowe about possible audio editing. And she suggested quite a few directions that I could take with the animation. Sadly, I was really busy with animating the final thing that audio was left for the last minute.

The final outcome.

After an intense couple of weeks of working together animating, I am proud that we could accomplish this with a relatively tight deadline.

I had quite a few struggles with navigating files and workspace at the beginning of rendering, but as time passed, I’ve grown to recognise each other’s naming and saving patterns.

While working on the final animation, Despi and I made a conscious decision to work together in the same space as much as possible. It helped immensely with immediate response or help in the field where another had more experience.

I am proud of us for taking time and changing the scene’s idea to fit the voice better, sometimes reanimating the whole scene for it to come out as best as we can make it.

ELECTIVE I: LIP-SYNCH with Willow Kirkman

ELECTIVE II: 3D COMPUTER ANIMATION. RETRO DEVICE

RIP YOUR EYES OUT

By Urte Karvelyte

The box hits the pavement. The final one. It is a quite time-demanding task, but now you are done with moving everything in. Your newly bought house towers before you. A two-story brick house, squished between a couple of others, residing on the outskirts of town. With a small garden in the front, you can see a new start for you. Finally

It is a strange town you have come to realise. Rural and compact, with a small town centre and few utility buildings indicating some kind of authority existing here. Rows of houses surrounding it make the town centre appear lens-shaped, with pointed corners. A peculiar shape for a communal area. What is strange about it was not the houses or the streets It was the people. At first, it didn’t register – in such a compact town you would think to have met a resident or two. But you do not recall ever spotting even a glimpse of life as if everyone is trying to avoid you. Still, who are you to judge?

You have your little habit of going outside into the town’s centre almost every day. Sitting down, reading a book or doing some minuscule task. A Simple, yet productive routine, built up from repetition. You sit on the bench in the middle of the square, under the shadows. It helps you to collect your thoughts, and of course, increases the chance to meet townsfolk, which is also quite tempting. You have started to see glimpses, but none of them approached you yet.

One of those days, while on your ritual outing, you start to feel Them.

Their gaze makes your body unconsciously shudder, your hair stands up and a shiver passes through the whole length of your spine. You turn around. But no one is there.

You feel that piercing gaze follow you, reading into you, dissecting you piece by piece. But as hard as you try to find the culprit, you cannot. There is no one in the streets or alleyways between the houses. Even curtains are still in all windows you can observe. That day you take more urgent steps home. Only inside you feel that you can take a breather. Finally, you were truly alone, no staring, no stalking – only you and yourself – right?

Right?

The nightmares started. You are stared at in your dreams, invisible eyes following you, Their gaze like hot knives, cutting your skin open, exposing your insides and leaving you bare in the spotlight. There are so many stares, but you are all alone.

You wake up with vigour, not registering where you are. But one thing is clear to you, the watcher is here. In your room. The invisible stares trap you in their web – like a fly, pointlessly struggling to escape the spider’s many eyes.

Every uneven seam, the pattern on the curtain, wallpaper or couch comforter bore Their gazes straight into you, eyes piercing, ripping, caging you in your home. The pace you previously felt safe and protected in is now a cage.

In a panicked daze, you fling the doors open and crawl out outside like a rabbit trying to run out of the wolf’s den. Primal instinct is taking over, you run far, as far as you can. From Them.

Passing houses shift in your peripheral, their windows follow you, their walls bending to take a look into who is running, who is this poor soul, trying to outrun Their watching. You can feel Them closing in, surrounding you, almost succeeding in keeping you pinned under their gaze, like a butterfly with a nail through its body on the wall of an entomologist’s study. Your feverish body jerks and keeps fighting to get away, even if your mind is no longer present.

 Just another square, another house, another meter, another step…!

Your body staggers back from a sudden impact. The shock momentarily brings you back into the scene. A figure, a man’s back, covered in an old-fashioned tweed jacket. You start spurting apologies, frantically trying to get away from the situation. The man turns around and smiles, although you are reluctant to meet his gaze. His hand falls on your shoulder shaking you out of your spiral. Your eyes shoot up to meet his.

But there is nothing to meet. His eyes. There are none. Jagged, old, blistered scars are covering the eye line of his face. It looks like a past burn destroyed any leftover tissue of his eyeballs, melting skin together into a perturbing mess of scar tissue and half-healed burns. But only his eyes are covered, other parts of the face left untouched – a horrifyingly specific view.

You consciously start to back away. He is still smiling. Nothing is stopping him from doing so. Your limbs are locked, almost unmovable, screaming to stop. But you cannot. “Go away!” Your mind screams. The stares are still here. You turn around and try to book down the street, towards the centre, away from that man. You do not notice another figure in front of you and stumble. Breathing erratic, you move your head to glance behind you.

A kid. A small, twelve-year-old kid. His soft-looking blond hair is covering half of his face while the boy is fussing with the dirt on his hands. The embarrassment from your crazed actions comes flushing in as you extend a hand for the boy to take. He only smiles and with a quiet ‘thank you pulls himself up.

White-eyes. The boy has white eyes. Cloudy, vacant, dead eyes. He can’t see you, but you swear on your life, the pupils follow you like a hungry predator. His hands are still holding yours while you try to pull away. But this child’s hands are surprisingly persistent to hold onto you. His smile widens, it grows to form a friendly, childish, innocent grin.

You trip. The force you applied to get yourself free is miscalculated and you cannot hold your balance. You hit the pavement and struggle to get away. The gravel and glass shards dig into your hands, drawing blood in some places, but you cannot see it. Your eyes are locked in front of you. The boy is no longer alone. Kids are coming to stand beside him. Adults towering over them in the back. It looks like the whole town came here to see you. Although maybe ‘see’ is wrong to say. None of them, as far as you can observe, can see. Burns, scars, scratches, stitches, blindfolds, bandages – all the eyes of the people being covered with them. But they all are smiling like they have been waiting for this since you arrived.

You back away. Get out, get out, you need to get out! But the mass of people is closing in. They are not in a hurry; their relaxed posture tells you that they already know you are unable to escape.

Your back hits the wall. You freeze and can’t move your eyes from the enclosing townsfolk. Your body is shaking, tremors both making your body move and locking it away from your control. You are like a ball thrown in the sea of nails, wondering when one of them gets a lucky shot. They are all here, circling you, trapping you in the makeshift, half-moon shaped human cage. As your last-ditch effort, you try to dash into the mass, desperately trying to get away. They all know that they have you pinned, you are trapped.

The disembodied stares, the rough hands pinning you down, the feeling of being encased in a mass of bodies makes you panic more. Two small hands hold your face. Everything freezes. You can not register anything else but the boy in front of you and his hands on your cheeks. He traces them up to your cheekbones and rests them to the sides of your eyelids. His face seemed morbidly fascinated. You try to get his grip to release. He just holds it even tighter to keep you still.

“Don’t worry! I will help you see soon!”

A childish, joy-filled voice rang through the crowd. What does that mean?

Small fingers plunge into your eye sockets, grabbing your eyeballs and, with a swift motion, ripping them away. Hot white pain spikes through your head and thick metallic liquid spurts down your face filling your gaping mouth. You are probably screaming.

If you had been conscious at that moment, you would have been able to feel how the disembodied stares moved from you to the hands of the child.

You open your eyelids. Darkness. You cannot see anything. But you do not need to. You can still see through Them. Gaze, observe, witness. See them.

A few houses away boxes are dropped on the porch of a newly purchased estate.

Ideas of “Rip your eyes out”

Surveillance is a big part of our society in current times. CCTV cameras can be found all over the neighbourhoods, signs are put up to enforce the belief of being always observed. People feel safe knowing they are looked after. But what if the ‘looking after’ could turn into more invasive practice?

I based my short story on the concept of the Panopticon – prison concept, where cellmates can’t ever know when the guard is watching or not. “The Panopticon Writings” (Bentham and Božovič, 1995) and “Theorizing Surveillance” (Lyon, 2006), both works look how the prospect of the Panopticon can change a person’s behaviour by enforcing person to fear the punishment. Accordingly, “Discipline and Punish” (Foucault, 1975) and “What does the panopticon mean in the age of digital surveillance?” (McMullan, 2015) express the point about surveillance making people bury their individualism while behaving ‘correctly’ to not stand out in the crowd.

The story setting of the town is shown deserted, devoid of life. But the stares are obvious. The protagonist is the one who feels Them. Even the narrator talks in the second person to identify as a watcher. It is a town controlled by one mind hive with one imposter. And that imposter slowly being pulled in the mass until They become the part of a whole. “The Magnus Archives”(2016), a horror podcast written by Jonathan Sims, explores the concept of people submitting to their greatest fears and sacrificing themselves to become fear’s prophets, avatars. These creatures are no longer human and they have only one goal – to do their patron’s bidding.

The action of ripping eyes out is the sacrifice of individualism. Different eyes, different perspectives. If everyone has only one perspective, it becomes a mass. This concept is the driving force of “Rip your eyes out”. Town people blinding each other to show them “the truth”, the hive mind they all follow. There is no opposition if everyone believes the same truth.

References

Bentham, J. and Božovič, M. (1995). The Panopticon Writings. second edition. [online] Google Books. Verso Books. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=lt&lr=&id=VbpvDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=panopticon&ots=X2HckqmERJ&sig=ujy53_21vAVex8URkjjR2S-XJjQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=panopticon&f=false [Accessed 11 May 2021].

Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Penguin Books Ltd.

Lyon, D. (2006). Theorizing Surveillance. [online] Routledge. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=t_J8AgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA23&ots=gT9SAZhkF9&dq=panopticon&lr&hl=lt&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q=panopticon&f=false [Accessed 11 May 2021].

McMullan, T. (2015). What does the panopticon mean in the age of digital surveillance? [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/23/panopticon-digital-surveillance-jeremy-bentham [Accessed 11 May 2021].

Shackleton, C. (2021). Fear Itself. [online] Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/142058424 [Accessed 12 May 2021].

Sims, J. and Newall, A. J. (2016) The Magnus Archives, Rusty Quil Available at: https://rustyquill.com/the-magnus-archives/ [Accessed 12 May 2021].