De0999 Blog

I decided to change the name as the other one didn’t quite convey my idea.

My final animation. It took one day to film, about 5 days to edit in Photoshop and about 2 weeks to draw all the characters featured. Overall I am pleased with the final film, if my other projects had been less time consuming I might have included more thorough movements, such as longer and more detailed walk cycles.

When I was planning this animation I considered the fact that creating some of the effects I wanted would be very difficult when purely using felt and paper. Because of this I chose to take some of the images into photoshop instead to edit. For things such as club lighting, the rope for the swing and some general alterations to the scenes. 

Some of the images captured from Dragon frame to be edited in Photoshop, put together into an animation in Premiere Pro and eventually to become my final cut out animation. Over 30 sketches were drawn of characters, over 15 of the central character. Felt was used for the backdrops to provide contrast to the very devoid of colour characters. The felt also added a texture to the backdrops. Something missing from my previous cut-out attempt. 

The second draft of my storyboard to better illustrate each scene. To do this I added colour with characters coloured only for the purpose of helping them to stand out from the backgrounds. I have also added some basic descriptions of what goes on in each thumbnail.

My second character. For him I wanted him to be big and bulky, plus very fierce looking. To do this I made his brow very low and his eyes slanted instead of ovals. As he will only ever be seen above waist height there was no need to draw feet.

Character one, my main character and her design stages. I wanted her to look young whilst still looking like a teenager/young adult. I started by sketching some faces based on an anime style and then I tried building a body from those faces. The characters in this animation will have no colour as I intend to use colourful felt for my backdrops and objects in my scenes.

I’m undecided of what style I wish to do my animation in. I enjoyed the cut out animating very much but I would be interested to try model making also; though I am aware this will be very time consuming. 

 In all honesty I did not like the song, but for this project it is not a matter of whether I like it or not. Possibly even my dislike may help me to create a better story from it­.

The song I was given to study and write an essay for.

My walk cycle, came out like he’s skipping but at least he walks.

My film of my hand drawn squash and stretch principle.

This is my final animation. The first stop-motion animation I have ever made. I really enjoyed the process, it was hard and took a lot of time but was very worthwhile.

I have settled on the title ‘Free Bird’ to represent the characters, Jim and his bird at the end of the animation when they are both free and content in their beautiful wilderness. I won’t lie, a lyric from the band Lady Antebellum may have inspired it.

My first cut out for my animation’s original character. As with my backdrop he was coloured with pro markers and outlined to set him apart from the background. The style was kept simplistic to allow me to duplicate the character multiple times quickly, without getting bogged down on intricate details that would be difficult to replicate accurately in the time span I have had to work with. I’ve taken to nicknaming him Jim.

Paddington Bear the cartoon. Created in 1975. With two forms of stop motion used. Using cut outs for the human characters and a puppet for the bear.

The first drawing towards my cut out animation. Animation is yet to have a name but this is to be my backdrop. You'll notice it is based on the sketch I previously uploaded. Because my characters are to be in a similar style to the original Paddington stop motion cartoon, outlined in black I didn't want the backdrop to take away from the focus on them, thus no black outlining has been used. The entire drawing was completed with promarkers.