wormie!!

Now please don't judge this terrible piece of stop-motion too harshly, I know I have a hell of a lot to learn! But I'm giving it a go, definetly need to practise more! This is just a quick clip of a 'worm' wriggling across our kitchen table.. I only had black plasticine so it looks a bit weird and the movement is pretty jerky :s Going to invest in some new materials soon :D It was fun though, and Monkey Jam is a god send! :D

Monkey Jam Test!!

Well well.. once again it's been bloomin' aaages since my last post, and I am ashamed to say I have abandoned my poor blog once again! It's been a pretty busy summer so far catching up with people which has been lovely, but I have also been working quite a bit to try and pay off a fraction of my hidious debts (I try not to think about it!) So I admit I haven't really done much animating or anything remotely 'animatey'.. which kind of scares me because my memory is terrible, and knowing me I will probably forget everything I have learnt this year! :s So I have decided to kick myself up the bum and finally do something! For the past week I have been doing some doodling and sketching, trying to focus on a quick style rather than my usual painstakingly- detailed illustrations, which I'm finding quite hard to get to grips with, but I will upload some on here soon. I have also discovered an amazing programme called Monkey Jam which, suprisingly, I can actually work! :D It's designed to help make stop-motion animations, and I have been attempting to make some models using wire armatures for the skeleton and plastacine for the main bulk of the body.. they look pretty crude and clumsy but they will do for some practising! I've only ever tried stop-motion once a couple of years ago and it immediately caught my interest, but for some reason I haven't tried it out since. So I'm gonna give it a go over the next few weeks, it could be a disastor but wahaay.. trial and error :) Here is a silly test I did on monkey jam to see how the programme works :)

Finished Animal Firm PDF

Wahay! Here's the finished Animal Firm pdf that I handed in for marking! For some reason it wouldn't upload at first, so I loaded the file into Scribd and copied the code for my bible into here, and it seems to have worked! After grumbling excessively about this project, looking back I have actually enjoyed working on it! I struggled at first to get a strong idea and spent too long worrying about the plot. Bu then I realised it wasn't all about the plot... a simple idea can often flourish into something special! I still do not really like the concept to my Animal Firm because I think it is very cliche and has been used many times before. But I am really pleased with all my character designs and the final look of the bible that I've created, I just wish I had a bit more time to work on the backgrounds more since I feel they look a bit rushed and basic. But this project has definetely helped me to understand more about the pre-production side of animation, which is great because it is the area of animation that I would love to get involved with. So here is my final pdf, enjoy!
Final Animal Firm

animal firm finished!

finally the animal firm is finished!!! over the past week i knuckled down and got my act together with this project, seeings as i was pretty unenthusiastic about it to start with! but after quite a few struggles with understanding the brief, i am pleased with the results, and fingers crossed il get an alright mark! here are some piccies of the final images :)

Final 'What?!' Animation!

'What?!'... the finale

Hurrah! Our deadline for the 'what?' project is now over and we managed to get everything done in time, so we can all breath a sigh of relief! We are all really pleased with the animation because it works well and captures the cut-out look and style that we wanted to encorporate into the animation, and I adore the accordian in the background (good choice Insa!) Sasha deserves a HUGE pat on the back for being so patient with animating, and with the dreaded programme After Effects! But in the end it worked really well, especially the lighting effects that were added after animating. Once everything was completed, including our individual evaluations, Sasha put all our work onto a disc which was then handed in at the studio, and we uploaded our evaluations onto moodle. I've really enjoyed working on this project with Sasha and Insa, because its the style and technique of animating that I have always wanted to try out, and we have all worked really well together as a team. Cut-out animation is definetely a style that I would like to explore further, so I will try and do some experimental animating over the holidays :) Here is the original animatic for our animation, the storyboard, some stills from the story and also the final animation. Enjoy :)

Oops the last image didnt work so well! You can have a look at thr whole thing, just click on it :)