Pick n Mix project (Installment no. 1)

So the Pick n Mix project started on Monday, the third - and yes I had to check the date...

so. what have I done so far? well.. i struggled for ideas up until saturday. I spoke to Kathy and Derek (my lecturers) and they suggested branching off from my cards and coming up with something related to the cards but not exactly true to the words I was provided.

so I shall explain.. My last post was about the Art nouveau remake piece, which was the first instalment of this project, we were provided on the 3rd with a further three cards with random words on them. My cards read:

Style: Art Nouveau

Place: New York

Show: Reality tv

Character: Ceramic knick knacks. 

So everything was going fine until the characters, thats where all my ideas stopped and I hit, not a mental wall... more like the project was this bottomless pit and the only way to escape was to come up with an amazing idea not only my lecturers would like but my class would too. so... it was hopeless, and I'm scared of the dark, and failing, so I got myself into this downward spiralling anxiety ridden project. 

So, when in such a predicament you speak to friends and teachers for ideas

nothing. 

I literally had nothing. it had been 5 days since the class and usually id be full of ideas, incapable of just choosing one. but this time i was done for. there was nothing. my house mates tried to help but even then.. it wasn't working. 

I literally gave up on saturday night. sat down, watched tv ate dinner with some housemates and chilled.

epiphanies happen at the most random of times. ill tell you that for sure. id ben straining my brain for an idea for 6 days straight and id even tried to pretend like i was chilled and not thinking about it in order for something to come to me, but it wasn't until id literally given up all hope and just said i won't even bother, ill wing it in a week, that i realised something I read. 

You see id done loads of research, on each one of my cards and it was a single line of text in pages and pages of reading that i remembered something along the lines of 'Reality Tv is any program which is partially or completely unscripted' - you know what that means:

Chat shows  - Late night with Seth Meyers

- The Graham Norton Show

- The Tonight Show staring Jimmy Fallon

- The Ellen DeGeneres Show

- The Late Late Show with James Corden 

They all count!

Comedy Tv - QI

- 8 out of 10 Cats

 -  Mock the week

- As Yet Untitles

This is where the ideas started flowing.

So heres the research bible so far :)

Proof of Concept and research into Reality tv:

 

Ceramic Knick Knack research

Art Nouveau in New York Research

This is when i started brainstorming ideas and had a brain melt. Nothing worked. Nothing Fit. Nothing seemed just right. There were ideas but not one that I actually wanted to produce. 

So, i continued my research into how id animate, what colours i should use to display certain moods or time periods.  Then into character design, hoping that if I came up with a character I liked then maybe I could construct an animation around the character...

Update: I get Headaches

Ive been struggling the past couple of weeks to get any work done, but this week has been by far the worst. Two weeks ago my dog died, and last week my grandmother. So now I spend the majority of my time on the phone to my mother when I'm not in class, and while I love her and theres nothing I'd rather do that make sure she's okay every day, it means that I'm pretty much incapable of doing any work.
This is not to say I've been slacking off for the last 7 days, it just means I've been doing more research and tv watching than drawings, designing, and most importantly animating. In fact, i don't think I've animated anything in the past two weeks. Being so out of touch with the university and my work makes in more daunting than ever to open up toon boom, cel action or tv paint in order to get started on any actual animating. Its all planned out, every shot, every movement - the problem is, I've lost touch with the art work, I seem incapable of drawing a proper figure outside of my mind, let along a whole storyboard to turn into an animatic.
Never the less, this is my weekly update:

so as far as research goes, Ive been looking through The Animation Bible  and some other character design books

I also started a new sketchbook last week during the Presentations at the Poly, started with a couple pencil sketches, but its only been a week:

 

And then there was life drawing this week, as there now is every week :/ first is a pencil sketch and the second was a later drawing in the session in brown chalk and black charcoal.

some extra work I attempted was the drawing below, a test to see how long it would take me to draw a single frame of Art Nouveau Style animation. So ill tell you now, it took me about 45 minutes to an hour.... way too long to make a 5 minute animatic in my opinion. 

OCTOBER 2016

Christmas Art Nouveau Advert (and a rant on the side)

So, Uni Pt2. has begun.
I think the class has learnt to stay in the studio longer this year. We got assignments on day one... two assignments.  The Tv students were thrust upon us Animators and dealt to deal with them and work with them on a christmas episode. Not only did I never even meet the Tv students, but I don't recall them actually contributing to the project. Angry to say the least.  I wrote the script for the advert on day one, so my part was complete until the final stage which was the presentation powerpoint which I was meant to work on with Maj, Lucie organised and had final say as both Producer and Director. She was nice, hearing out everyones opinions before her final decision, Harriet Mira and Sam did art work and storyboarding then Amid edited... the tv students... found the track Sam chose and... took Amids footage of the meetings to make a documentary... which we never saw -.-

the thing was decent... i cried with laughter when I saw it for the first time put together, not the intended response but maybe thats because it was cringy and embarrassing more than anything else, have a look:

The second project, was less of a stress to do, but more a pain to find time to complete. Its Thursday today, and that means Class at the Poly all day tomorrow, so no time to animate before my parents come to visit at 7pm. I mean there is about 3 hours if it doesn't over-run, but then dinner and travel time, not really worth it in my opinion. This means that on Monday I have until 1pm to get it done from the time it takes me to wake up. Ill show you the problem this causes this is the piece I am meant to me Imitating:

and this is what's happened so far:

day 1 

 

day 2 (today)

so you see... its going to take longer than (9am-1pm = 4hours) 4 hrs to complete when i spent 5 hrs today and 3 the day before on this. and before anyone messages me saying 'do it at home' i can't afford to pay for adobe software.. and its pretty impossible to torrent a Mac version of Photoshop without the Adobe Suit mucking everything up so I don't even try. 

all in all. i like the advert, i do, I just wish i could have contributed more to the animatic, and as for the Art nouveau piece i need to copy... well Ill keep you updated on its progress next week. 

:) 

Life Drawing

life drawing was horrific... for the first 30 mins... and then i forgot i was looking at a naked lady.... time to revisit my thoughts of the naked and the nude, John bergers theories and some good old essays

To be naked is to be oneself.
To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself.

                            - John Berger, Ways of Seeing

Summer 2016

So the start of summer is officiated by my leavers photo, my true goodbye to Penryn Campus for the summer, and Cottages for good.

I absolutely loved my room last year, the memories, the antics, the neighbours, the friends... the speakers. I know my room next year won't be anywhere near as nice, I know I probably won't have a window to sit out, stables opposite, my best friends just a courtyard tiptoe away in my slippers or socks. but next year ill make nee friends, and keep the old too. not going to miss the ants in the kitchen and the birds flying in and out of the house, probably won't miss the cats 'presents' of dead mice, but couscous the cat.... i will miss your tail flicking my face till i sneeze, kind of.






while you may think theres only architecture in london to draw, well.. you're right, apart from the few parks, the scenery isn't much to look at if I'm honest. it doesn't really inspire the animator in me. so, i spent a substantial amount of time on the trains. i started drawing pokemon over the summer, inspired by the release of Pokemon Go, everyone was playing it. Any time a person mentioned a pokemon in conversation (eves dropping is wrong i know, whatever) id start drawing that pokemon, and sometimes a person would remind me of a pokemon by their scarf or outfit, weird shoes or strange hairdo. these were my two favourite of the summer, till the pokemon hype slowed somewhat.







this is the first drawing in my new home. it is, september now, and classes start in a couple of days. charcoal on my massive pink rubber, a pencil that understands me, a drawing that expresses my love of disney, mac beneath, and a cup of tea on the side.

now, its nothing like my darkrai drawing in pen, but it somewhat shares features to my other pen drawing of a Cubone above. Im looking forward to the next semester, but yet still in fear of what it will bring. Maybe the briefs make the course look scarier than they really are... we can only hope..

in the mean time...

i guess enjoy my freedom for now, and just forget about it :)

When Pigs Fly

Since I can remember I have had an obsession with pigs - strange, I know. I think it started when my mother and aunt explained to me at the age of 6 what the Chinese Zodiac was, we were in Penang, Malaysia when my cousins started talking about how I was 'so a pig' and I thought they were just bullying. Never the less, thats where it began, I knew how google worked and I found out all the traits, the lucky charms and all the other superstitions. My family started buying me pig items to the point where I own a Snorting Piggie Bin, and a Flying Pig toy named Gurtrude (don't ask, I have no clue)

So its the middle of summer, and there were balloons at work... someone mentioned my aunt (who bought me the majority of my piggie collection) and thus, the 'flying' pig was born.