Animation Fundamentals - Project 1
20/09/2023 - xx/xx/2023 // (Week 4 - Week x)
Denise Anjali // 0342430
Animation Fundamentals // Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Project 1: Character & Layout Design
LECTURES
Week 4: Appeal & Solid Drawing
Appeal applies to the entire process. Make it an objective to make good animation. Many aspects make a good animation including but not limited to the drawing (character and background), sound (music, sfx and voice) and applied animation principles. Appeal refers to anything the audience would like to see and looks good. Shape variety, playing with proportions, and not being overly detailed are some ways to make appealing visuals.
Solid drawing is about making the animation look 3D. With 2D animation, it gives the illusion of being 3D. With 3D animation, it is about lighting the scene well using highlights, shadows and midtones. The visual aspect of solid drawing is how well made the visuals are. This includes character design (proposition, silhouette, and line of action) and layout (composition, background, environment).
Good poses have a clear and dynamic line of action. Have overlap in shapes and lines. Good understanding of structure is necessary. Understanding the skeleton of a pose can help with the construction of the structure in the next step. Ensure that the shapes have some contour lines to help with drawing in 3D and helps to imitate the drawing again for differing poses or angles. Silhouettes that provide clarity are important. Avoid twinning (having a symmetrical pose).
Week 5 Clarity & Exaggeration
Clarity is ensuring that the shot is clean and precise so that it is easily understood by the audience. Several factors must be taken into consideration: character (action, expression & personality), environment (mood) and camera (framing, angle, rule of thirds composition). When staging an action, keep in mind: timing (actions should be step by step), overlapping (don't overlap important actions), pause (gives rhythm to how the audience understands the scene).
Exaggeration can be applied to the action (line of action) and emotion. It depends on the style of animation, on the spectrum of realistic to cartoony (can have more exaggeration and squash & stretch).
Framing - Rule of third. Place the character on the intersections, center makes the shot overly stable and lacks dynamic. For layout design use an ES or FS and place the character within it.
Establishing shot (ES) - Typically just landscape and a wide shot
Full shot (FS) - Give the character room and have the action within
Medium shot (MS) - Upper body of the character and give them head room in the frame
Close up (CU) - Shoulders and head only. Focus on facial expression
Extreme close up (ECU) - Focus on details
INSTRUCTIONS
Project 1(A): Character Design
This part of the project leads us to apply the newly learnt principles 'appeal' and 'solid drawing'. We have to design a character to later be used in later projects. The character's design must be visually appealing and reflect their personality/attitude. The final outcome should have a character model sheet, 5 character poses and 5 character expressions.
Initially, I had the idea to create an overly romantic character, in order for them to have dramatic poses. This lead me back to my ever present obsession with ghost characters and helped me come up with a character idea. My character would be a ghost girl who adores romance and romantic gestures who tragically got killed on her first date at a diner and ends up haunting it due to it being a popular date spot. She helps out a boy who can see her ask out his crush with exceedingly unrealistic romance plots that she learnt from romcoms. She is a silly, cheerful character despite forever having her death wound on her.
I started with some messy sketches that would show her character as well as play around with her design.
Image 1.1: Initial character sketches
Image 1.2: More initial character sketches
FEEDBACK
REFLECTION
Denise Anjali // 0342430
Animation Fundamentals // Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Project 1: Character & Layout Design
LECTURES
Week 4: Appeal & Solid Drawing
Appeal applies to the entire process. Make it an objective to make good animation. Many aspects make a good animation including but not limited to the drawing (character and background), sound (music, sfx and voice) and applied animation principles. Appeal refers to anything the audience would like to see and looks good. Shape variety, playing with proportions, and not being overly detailed are some ways to make appealing visuals.
Solid drawing is about making the animation look 3D. With 2D animation, it gives the illusion of being 3D. With 3D animation, it is about lighting the scene well using highlights, shadows and midtones. The visual aspect of solid drawing is how well made the visuals are. This includes character design (proposition, silhouette, and line of action) and layout (composition, background, environment).
Good poses have a clear and dynamic line of action. Have overlap in shapes and lines. Good understanding of structure is necessary. Understanding the skeleton of a pose can help with the construction of the structure in the next step. Ensure that the shapes have some contour lines to help with drawing in 3D and helps to imitate the drawing again for differing poses or angles. Silhouettes that provide clarity are important. Avoid twinning (having a symmetrical pose).
Week 5 Clarity & Exaggeration
Clarity is ensuring that the shot is clean and precise so that it is easily understood by the audience. Several factors must be taken into consideration: character (action, expression & personality), environment (mood) and camera (framing, angle, rule of thirds composition). When staging an action, keep in mind: timing (actions should be step by step), overlapping (don't overlap important actions), pause (gives rhythm to how the audience understands the scene).
Exaggeration can be applied to the action (line of action) and emotion. It depends on the style of animation, on the spectrum of realistic to cartoony (can have more exaggeration and squash & stretch).
Framing - Rule of third. Place the character on the intersections, center makes the shot overly stable and lacks dynamic. For layout design use an ES or FS and place the character within it.
Establishing shot (ES) - Typically just landscape and a wide shot
Full shot (FS) - Give the character room and have the action within
Medium shot (MS) - Upper body of the character and give them head room in the frame
Close up (CU) - Shoulders and head only. Focus on facial expression
Extreme close up (ECU) - Focus on details
INSTRUCTIONS
Project 1(A): Character Design
This part of the project leads us to apply the newly learnt principles 'appeal' and 'solid drawing'. We have to design a character to later be used in later projects. The character's design must be visually appealing and reflect their personality/attitude. The final outcome should have a character model sheet, 5 character poses and 5 character expressions.
Initially, I had the idea to create an overly romantic character, in order for them to have dramatic poses. This lead me back to my ever present obsession with ghost characters and helped me come up with a character idea. My character would be a ghost girl who adores romance and romantic gestures who tragically got killed on her first date at a diner and ends up haunting it due to it being a popular date spot. She helps out a boy who can see her ask out his crush with exceedingly unrealistic romance plots that she learnt from romcoms. She is a silly, cheerful character despite forever having her death wound on her.
I started with some messy sketches that would show her character as well as play around with her design.
Image 1.1: Initial character sketches
Image 1.2: More initial character sketches
From the sketches, I had a rough idea of making her cause of death be a
gunshot wound that is permanently visible. Additionally, I wanted her hair
to have the shape of a cartoon ghost doodle and be long and floaty like
those of a traditional Asian ghost. Therefore, I moved onto studying similar
characters from existing media.
Image 1.3: Character proportion studies
Image 1.4: Character proportion experiments
Image 1.3: Character proportion studies
I chose Marceline from Adventure Time and Stevonnie from Steven Universe
as my character referenced. They both look like teenage girls which is
the age of my character. Marceline was chosen as she is rather ghostly
(being a vampire) in nature and has similar long hair. Stevonnie was
chosen as they are a cheerful, lively character.
The studies show that the characters are generally built up of rectangles (for the torso and limbs) and ellipses (For the head and hair). Their heads are also equal in size to the width of their torso. Meanwhile, their legs are about twice the length of their torso, making up half of their proportions.
The studies show that the characters are generally built up of rectangles (for the torso and limbs) and ellipses (For the head and hair). Their heads are also equal in size to the width of their torso. Meanwhile, their legs are about twice the length of their torso, making up half of their proportions.
Image 1.4: Character proportion experiments
I played around with the shapes of the torso and legs while generally
keeping the same proportions as the referenced characters. I ended up
choosing to go with the middle option as it is more suited to the
bubbly personality of my character.
Then came time for my character to have features like hair, facial features and clothes. I played around with a few variations, all while sticking to the theme of a date outfit and ghostly shaped hair.
Image 1.5: Character design ideas (1)
Then came time for my character to have features like hair, facial features and clothes. I played around with a few variations, all while sticking to the theme of a date outfit and ghostly shaped hair.
Image 1.5: Character design ideas (1)
Image 1.6: Character design ideas (2)
My personal favourites and the opinions collected from a couple
of my classmates concluded that either the right side character
in image 1.5 or the left side character from image 1.6 would be
best suited. I turned the designs into silhouettes as well in
order to compare the designs.
Image 1.7 & Image 1.8: Character design silhouettes
Image 1.7 & Image 1.8: Character design silhouettes
In the end, I chose to go with the first character design in image 1.6 and image 1.8 as it has a clearer silhouette and gives a more fun yet ghostly look to the character. From this, I moved on to creating the character turnaround sheet. I included the colour palette used for the character in the sheet. I went with more pale colours to emphasise on her nature as a ghost and pink to contrast the cool colours as well as represent her romantic nature.
Image 1.9: Final character turnaround sheet
Based on the turnaround, five poses and expressions are required to show the character in movement and personality. I used Pinterest as a reference to find interesting poses and expressions. I chose mostly positive emotions and more excited poses to suit her bubbly personality.
Image 1.10: Final character poses
Image 1.11: Final character expressions
Image 1.9: Final character turnaround sheet
Based on the turnaround, five poses and expressions are required to show the character in movement and personality. I used Pinterest as a reference to find interesting poses and expressions. I chose mostly positive emotions and more excited poses to suit her bubbly personality.
Image 1.10: Final character poses
Image 1.11: Final character expressions
Project 1(B): Environment Design
For the second part of the assignment, our task is to create a background setting for the character using what we were taught about perspective grids and framing. The overall environment should suit the character and the scene in mood, tone and colour.
When coming up with the story, I wanted to have it set in the cafe where the character was to meet her date before her death, having been obsessed with the place before and after death due to its romantic connotations. This led me down a rabbit hole of searching for reference images of cute cafe interiors on Pinterest. Many of the photos I found were mostly of a top-down angle which I thought might fit the idea of a ghost floating above, watching over the customers.
Image 2.2: Environment design sketch
For the second part of the assignment, our task is to create a background setting for the character using what we were taught about perspective grids and framing. The overall environment should suit the character and the scene in mood, tone and colour.
When coming up with the story, I wanted to have it set in the cafe where the character was to meet her date before her death, having been obsessed with the place before and after death due to its romantic connotations. This led me down a rabbit hole of searching for reference images of cute cafe interiors on Pinterest. Many of the photos I found were mostly of a top-down angle which I thought might fit the idea of a ghost floating above, watching over the customers.
Image 2.1: First sketch of background design
I discarded this idea as I felt it was difficult to place the character within the frame without having an awkward space in the composition. This led me back to searching for a more straight forward angle of a cafe to reference. However, given that I couldn't quite find a reference that suited, I mashed together the elements of several images that I liked on top of a eye-level 2 point perspective. I discovered that IbisPaint had tools that allowed for layering several perspective guides on top of each other which greatly helped me in my design. 
Image 2.2: Environment design sketch
This version of the design allowed me to showcase the character as well as show a hint of the existence of a side character as well as add sufficient details for a cosier vibe.
Image 2.3: Lineart of the environment design
Image 2.4: Flat coloured environment
Image 1.5: Final rendered environment design
Image 2.3: Lineart of the environment design
I went with a similar colour palette for the environment as the character but slightly warmer. The addition of plants are a reference to the many images I found while scrolling Pinterest of cafes with plants everywhere, which seem to be the trend as of right now.
Image 2.4: Flat coloured environment
While rendering the lighting and details of the environment, I felt that the right side of the composition felt empty so I added a pair of cats cuddling to it, as well as to show the cosy and romantic atmosphere of the environment.
Image 1.5: Final rendered environment design
FEEDBACK
Week 5
Specific feedback: The current character outlines
are too thick. However, character proportions are good. Keep in mind the
simple shapes of the characters referenced and how the final character
silhouette would be like.
Week 6
Adjust the arrangement of the poses to make it look like the camera is turning around. Add height lines to make sure they are all consistent.
REFLECTION
Experience:
Observations:
Findings:
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