Exploratory Practices

Initial three themes (Draft)

My partner and I began brainstorming for this brief by using the first word that sprang to mind as the theme. We then attempted to swiftly develop a character using the brief’s specified categories. :

• Gender
• Race/species
• Personality
• Powers
• Architype
• Alignment
• Unique elements

However, because choosing the theme was so random and thoughtless, I didn’t feel like any of these suggestions inspired me. In order to have more options for my characters’ story, I wanted to better explore a theme and, more importantly, the briefs’ themes. After my moodboard and mind map research, I did find that I was leaning towards the third theme because, even though I had written the least about it, I felt like I had more freedom to take the story in any direction while I was doing my research.

Primary Source – Photos of head angles

This helped me to visualise the head angles for my character and where the shadows would hit on the face. Although, my characters face shapes and features can differ, these photos were there to help for the general shape.

Teachers feedback – summary

• Need to arrange the orthographic view differently – make the front view more prominent (make bigger).
• Can also add side character to orthographic view
• Didn’t need to make the side character into a 3d model.
• character expression sheet should have 4 dynamic poses alongside it.
• For the animation – in the scene where the eye is looking side to side frantically, make the movement less exaggerated to make it less “anime” like.
• For the frames about the wings, add more frames in between to make the wing movement more slower at it was too fast.
• Do the same for the frames of the character crying.

I took in all his pieces of advice on what I posted on the group Padlet at the time, as I agreed that they had to be improved in some sort of way. I felt his advice was quite useful, especially for the animation, as it made the animation look more fluid when I added more frames, and I took his advice of just copying the previous frames to work more efficiently. At first, I was hesitant, as I thought I would not have the time to add more frames, but by repeating the frames and just tweaking them a little, I was able to improve the whole animation without spending too much time on each frame.

Primary Sources – Video references to inspire my storyboard.

I have learnt to also reference my own sources instead of relying on secondary sources by filming certain frames, composition, body language and expressions in real life which otherwise cannot obtain specifically through online sources. I found this exercise also useful as i can also look at lighting as well as in the last video there is back light hitting the subject as they walk in and by using this video i can study how light hits the subject and creates a mysterious aura which i wouldn’t be able to visualise just with my own imagination.

More animation Processes – storyboard

SKELETON PROCESS OF EACH FRAME:

1 – 3 frames (hand animation)

2 – 10 frames ( hand animation)

3 – 4 frames (hand animation)

4 – 3 frames (hand animation)

5 – 3 frames (hand animation)

6 – 3 frames (hand animation)

7 – 4 frames (hand animation)

8 – 3 frames (hand animation)

9 – 3 frames (hand animation)

10 – 3 frames (hand animation)

11 – 3 frames (hand animation)

12 – 3 frames (hand animation)

13 – 7 frames (hand animation)

14 – 2 frames (hand animation)

15 – 2 frames (hand animation)

16 – 3 frames (hand animation)

SYNOPSIS:

She watches in horror as someone close to her is struck down, their lifeless body collapsing in front of her. A wave of despair and fear overwhelms her, causing her knees to buckle beneath her. She collapses to the ground, grief hollowing her out from within. Her cries have lost their strength, and the light in her eyes has faded, leaving only the silent unravelling of a broken heart.

More animation process – animation video

National British Museum visit – Research

I went to the British museum to get some Primary Research on Greek sculptures and porcelain vases to help my inspiration for my character design. I was inspired by how detailed the sculptures was at the museum and how despite it being centuries old there weren’t cracks on the sculptures. But I was intrigued to see a lot of headless sculptures which did make me feel uncomfortable to look at cuz of how uncanny the sculptures look without heads. It almost made them look non human.

I then looked at the wide selection of porcelain vases, I really liked the variety of designs which were displayed at the museum. I got to see the backgrounds of some vases which may have affected the patterning of the vase e.g. middle eastern vases which contrasted more east Asian influenced vases which had more animal, complex designs on the vase. It got me thinking about whether patterns in my character can add to the narrative or will it be simply just design choices?

Sculptures

Porcelain Vase Collection