Rough Cut Review for animation

Posted on July 14, 2013 by jonnyh5

Rough Cut Review of the animation so far, with the Key frame animation so far in for review for the 22nd May meeting with the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) as the video below shows.

For feedback and the main one I got to do, is to add a final scene to the animation. And the final scene I ask for feedback is the St Martins-le-Grand building in Central London, as this link shows.

So I used the St Martins-le-Grand building above for my final scene as reference, as the image below shows.

Finally, another bit of feedback is to make the animation a bit more gritty in style or more old fashion. This can be easily done with filters in After Effects. And that is all with feedback so far.

Bye.

Coachmen and Footmen for forth coming project

Posted on July 13, 2013 by jonnyh5

Character designs for the forth coming project with the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA). First I started off by drawing down some rough ideas of my coachmen and footmen may look like.

Then I continue with character designs more with some more drawings with some added colour below.

Then I gone into Illustrator, this time I drawn down what the characters will look like in Illustrator, would be easily to animated in After Effects.

Instant feedback, I needed to added some rough outside lines to the characters which I’ve shown in the concept art perviously showed.

So I went back to drawing board and added some rough outside lines to the characters in Illustrator as shown below.

Now it’s time to animate in After Effects.

Bye.

Creating and animating a Horse

Posted on July 12, 2013 by jonnyh5

Now I’ve started to go into development mode for the forth coming project with the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA). I have started to work on animating the horse, I went through the internet and books to see how a horse will look like and how to draw a horse.

After that, I gone onto YouTube to look for horses in animation. I looked at a few Disney films which has horses in such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Mary Poppins to name a few.

Also, I looked at Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, to see how they would have draw a horse in each film.

Then, I gone onto the lightbox and started of by drawing a rough simple horse and mail coach carriage for practice.

After that, I properly gone onto the lightbox and started on my drawing of a simple horse walk-cycle’s and run-cycles by looking at ‘How to draw animals’ by Jack Hamm.

Walk 1 test

Run 1 test

Walk 2 test

Run 2 test

Walk 3 test

By looking at the results above I felt that portions need to looked less more of a Pony then a Horse walking a few times and also with the run-cycle the back legs needed to be stretch out.

So, I looked at Richard Wiliams theory of animating a horse walk and run cycles in ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’, in page 356-359 how to do a basic horse walk and run patterns. As-well, I looked at Steve Roberts ‘Character Animation Fundamentals’ for horse walk and run cycle’s. Then for a formula I taken out the real like drawings of Horses from ‘Jack Hamm’ and added the simpleness of the walk-run cycles’ of Steve Roberts and Richard Williams on how they did it as my Walk and Run cycles below shows.

Walk 4 test

Run 4 test

Next up some human characters to draw.

Bye.

Storyboards and animatic for forth coming project.

Posted on July 11, 2013 by jonnyh5

Storyboards and animatics for the forth coming project with the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA). First I started off by drawing down my storyboards for this project on how it going to look like.

Then, I started on the animatic, I went into Premier to do this and added all of my sounds effects I have created and added the storyboard images and place them into Premier to create the animatic below shows.

After I done this, I got some feedback, and the main problem was I needed to make the animation much longer, as I made it too fast to understand. Then I went back to Premier to update the animatic and make it much longer as possible as this animatic below shows.

After I done that, I went back for some feedback, I needed to add a few more frames to be added in. After I draw them and added them into Premier. Below is the final animatic I have created.

Now I start to animate this project now and do the development work.

Bye.

Concept art for forth coming project

Posted on July 10, 2013 by jonnyh5

Concept art for the forth coming project with the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA). This was done due to sell our concept work to a student composer, who will collabrorate to do our soundtrack for our final animation.

Thankfully, I have done a good enough job selling my concept art and exlaining the animation to a composer, as I found a composer who would do the music for theforth coming animation.

Next job, this to finish off the storyboard’s and animatic’s.

Bye.

What’s the story?

Posted on July 9, 2013 by jonnyh5

Continuing from last post, working with the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) to produce an animation for under a minute, which connects to the theme of ‘near and far’ and is inspired by research from the The Royal mail Archive and BPMA Museum Collection. This post is to explain what’s the story for this project. First I went onto the BPMA’s Flickr page, and I found this image below.

The image above explains about how the first trial mail coach run from Bristol to London took only 16 hours, a remarkable speed for the time. The first regular mail coach route was therefore established from Bristol to London, via Bath, on 2 August 1784. Then I looked for more stuff on their Flickr page, I found this image below.

After I went through their web-site for research. I went to The BPMA Search Room, Archive and Head Office in Central London to look at their archive to find images with horses and mail coaches from the 19th centery in. I took a few photocopies to use as reference.

After that, I went to the Science Museum at South Kensington to look at a proper Mail Coach from the 19th century in full to give an idea what was like in size.

After that research I have looked at, I have been thinking, what’s the story for this animation?

This was the original idea I have for this proposal, which feature around a 19th century horse and his master carrying the mail coach from Bristol to London, based on the first trial mail coach run from Bristol to London which took only 16 hours, a remarkable speed for the time back in 1784. But, the story will based in around 1830’s were the Great Western Railway will began to open and time going form Bristol to London would have reduce the time, were the horse and the mail coach it’s in last stages of possibly its final journey. While throughout the animation you will be listening his thoughts of the horse in its pain of the long journey and joy of possibly of its last time doing this journey. The animation will end in London passing St Paul’s Cathedral in the background.

For this idea, the process/techniques I will be using is Adobe Illustrator, Flash and After Effects for a 2D style. This technique will be used because is will suit the style I will be using, this will be quite simple to style around, if this any faults with the client doesn’t like, this can altered without problems.

After talking about it to a few people, I have altered the story to this:

Will feature around a 19th century horse and his master/driver carrying the mail coach from Bristol to London. But, the story will based in around 1830’s were the story starts from the outskirts of London. Finishing from a long journey to get the post from Bristol, when a problem occurred, when a wheel from the rear of the mail coach falls off. And the master/driver has to figure out how to fix the wheel, while the horse looks disapproved of his master/driver actions. The wheel is fixed to fish off the delivery. The animation will end in London passing St Paul’s Cathedral in the background.

For this idea the process/techniques I will be using is hand drawn, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash and After Effects for a 2D style. This technique will be used because is will suit the style I will be using, this will be quite simple to style around, if this any faults with the client doesn’t like, this can altered without problems.

So this is my story above for this project, now I have to some development work for the next few weeks to come.

Bye.

Mood-boards and early sketches for new project

Posted on July 8, 2013 by jonnyh5

For the first time in a wee while, a new post. This post is a start of a new project, basically working with the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) until of middle of June. And this project is to produce an animation for under a minute, which connects to the theme of ‘near and far’ and is inspired by research from the The Royal mail Archive and BPMA Museum Collection.

But the moment here is some Mood-boards and early sketches for a new project on what idea I might have for now.

There will be more posts to come this week, which includes concept art, story and storyboards.

Bye.

Animal Walking Part 3 (green screen included)

Posted on March 17, 2013 by jonnyh5

Third post of my snakehound walking. This is continue from the first and second posts.

I had another go of redoing the snakehound walking (13/2/13), this time I scanned the frames into Photoshop, then put into Flash and trace over the frames in Flash.

And then in Flash, I colouring in I added a grey-snake skin texture to my snakehound walk.

After, that was completed, I opened up After Effects. Got the footage of my friends acting out what I wanted to with my creature such as walking it and running with my creature. I remove the background by Choose Effect > Keying > Keylight (1.2). Then in the Effect Controls panel. In Effect Controls panel, I clicked onto screen colour to remove the green in the background.

After that was completed, I imported the snakehound walk then place it onto the timeline, then save the file export the file. Got some feedback, there was a few things to improve on as the footage below shows.

I went back into Flash, improve the walk once again, the back on the snakehound was the main improvement to the previous walk.

Then I got the run-cycle drawn and imported into Photoshop, then put into Flash and trace and coloured in the frames in Flash. And exported as a flash movie to be improted in After Effects.

Then I got all the files into After Effects, which includes a new background. Placed them onto the time time includes a dog leash, which is been done by using a png file and using the pin tool in four different places.

After this was complete. I exported the file as a quicktime file, got some feedback, I needed to added a shadow.

After I added shadow and then soften the shadow, I exported the file as a H264 quicktime file for the finished video below.

Overall a touch challenge to complete the walk and run cycles, did take more time as I planned. But, I felt that I done a good job with the walk, run cycles and green screen overall within seven and a half weeks.

Bye.

Lip Syncing challenge

Posted on March 12, 2013 by jonnyh5

For this project is lip Syncing, this time is two different animation. One lip sync is randomly picked from the British Library sound achieve from the speech from Lord of the Rings creature J. R. R. Tolkien. And the other lip syncing is our choice.

For the J. R. R. Tolkien audio, my audio was: “one of my friends Hue”

I started off and got an x-sheet put the speech down I which frames I need to animate the audio.

Afterwards, I created the character in Adobe Illustrator.

After I completed designing of the character in Illustrator, I went into After Affects to do the animation.

After I placed the lips are placed in the animation, I exported the animation for feedback.

For feedback, I needed to make the chin to move more with the vowel characters and play more with the shape of the eyes. Got back into After Effects and emended the problems which need to fix.

After more feedback, I need to slow dow the pace of the lips, so the audience will know what his is saying.

For my personal lip sync, I used the Budd’s speech from Kill Bill 2 were he says:

“That woman, deserves her revenge and… we deserve to die. But then again, so does she.”

So I started off with the x-sheet put the speech down.

Then I gone into Adobe Audition to tidy up the audio. Then afterwards, once again I gone into Illustrator to create the character.

After the character was created I gone into Flash to do the animation.

Got some feedback, I needed to slow down the pace of the lips and also silhouette the teeth and keep the rabbits front teeth throughout the animation for the animation below for the finish product.

Bye.

Jonathan Hurlock

Life on an Animator, Illustrator and Film Maker

Rough Cut Review for animation

Coachmen and Footmen for forth coming project

Creating and animating a Horse

Storyboards and animatic for forth coming project.

Concept art for forth coming project

What’s the story?

Mood-boards and early sketches for new project

Animal Walking Part 3 (green screen included)

Lip Syncing challenge