Bronwyn Hayes

https://tusmm-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/r/personal/k00301489_student_tus_ie/Documents/Animation/Nursery%20Rhyme%20Project/Group%201%20Animation%20Presentation.pptx?d=w4679a112116940909f274bb6e634c88a&csf=1&web=1&e=JE2iAx

For the paintings I actually drew them quite a bit bigger in a different page and them brought them back into the original background. This was so I was able to get a good level of detail but not have it looking messy as the smallest brush size was still too big for the paintings if I did them in the small size they ended up as.

For the third piece I knew it would be good to have an interior shot as it helps for the viewer to figure out where the location is supposed to be. I added cockle shells to the banister of the stairs and the door seen in the back section. Also the wallpaper added in this second picture was actually a pattern Maya had created. We felt it worked perfectly to show it was a non modern monastery with possibly even outdated wallpaper and stairs. As I was running out of time for this piece I wasn’t able to get the colour down in the way I had hoped but still tried my best to make it easy to understand the layout of the interior. Adding some biblical paintings definitely helped for the viewers to understand it was a monastery and not possibly the interior shot of the detectives office for example. I do wish I had more time to complete this as I had wanted to add statues and other little Easter eggs in the piece.

I then moved onto the exterior shot of the monastery door. As we had all discussed in the group we had wanted to incorporate the cockle shells in plain sight like Easter eggs for the audience. I thought adding them as the door knockers would be a fun way to add them as I hadn’t added them to the bell tower shot. I used the same process as the prior piece but did have slightly more detail in this one as it was a shot that would have been used for a good few frames.

The first background I chose was the close up shot with the bell tower. I thought that having a close up shot would be good for visual clarity. I started off by doing the Linework. I did struggle a bit with this as this is not normally a style of Linework I would do but I did enjoy trying out a new style. I then found a brush that had nice textures incorporated into it and used a limited colour range so that the textures could still be seen. The final step was to figure out where the red would be suitable to go. I was thinking as I read the script that the close up shot was of the bell ringing so this would have been the shot right as the bell was moving.

As Maya had completed the storyboards I was then able to move onto the background designs. I looked at both the script and current storyboards to see what backgrounds were needed. I also had to take into account about camera angles and the possibility of zooming in/out or panning right/left. From there I did a basic simple sketch that I could then bring into procreate and make a final concept background to present for the pitch.

I then completed the moodboards and stuck them onto the wall with the start of the story idea. This helped to get the ball rolling on how we all wanted the show to look visually. As we had decided to have it a limited colour palette I tried my best to find photos that were similar to that. Any pictures that had too much colour I turned them black and white so I could see the tonal values of them.

Once the ideas had been completed everyone was assigned a role. I was assigned to create moodboards, background design and relevant props needed within these sets and backgrounds. I started off by creating a good few background moodboards as I had an idea of the visual style but I wanted to get reference from tv shows, movies and real life. I was mostly looking at compositional ideas as my focus was the backgrounds. I knew if I had the layout of the backgrounds correct I could focus then on colour. As our show was going to be a limited colour palette consisting of black, grey, white and red with possibility of other colours making appearances at times, the textures would have to make up for the lack of colour. I then went onto a wallpaper website and compiled a series of 70’s style samples that I felt I could use as an overlay, floor or wallpaper design.

For the final project we were separated into groups and give a nursery rhyme, time period and style. From this we had to come up with a pitch for an animated series. My group was given the rhyme of Mary,Mary,Quite Contrary as a 1970’s thriller. So for the first day and a half we worked on decoding the meaning of the rhyme so we could use that as the basis of the show. I found out that one theory is that is was a rhyme about Catholicism and that the silver bells were the Sanctus bells that altar boys use. The pretty maids were nuns. Another theory is that it was based on Mary Queen of Scots. The silver bells in this on represented cathedral bells. The pretty maids was in relation to the ladies in waiting or also referred to as “The Four Maries”. This then sparked the idea to have to story set in a monastery with 5 Maries as it incorporated both ideas. From there we could look at the rest of the rhyme and decide how to add some of the other lines into the the storyline as we had the base idea sorted.

I was having an off day at drawing so they aren’t my proudest sketches but I had fun trying to get the general shapes and lines of these animals down.

But as I didn’t have this extra time I am happy enough with the way it came out. I do feel for the amount of time I spent on it only having less than 3 seconds of footage to show for it is a bit disappointing but that’s what animation is.

From there I added my background I completed, the audio file (I had to re-record this too as I had made mouth movements I hadn’t said in my recordings whoops), the character without the mouths and the individual mouth shapes.

Finally I moved onto the mouth movements. I first wrote the sentence I was going to say and then from there used my camera to look at how I was saying it to figure out the mouth shapes I’d need to make. Once that was done I did the same as the character build and started off with paper as a size and shape guide and then cut the black of the mouth out with felt. I then glued the layers of teeth and tongue using fabric glue as it was too finicky to sew by hand.

By Sunday day 3 I was able to move onto the finer details like adding the eyes, nose, nose piercing, eyebrows and stain to the cheeks. I did end up having the stain from the cheeks bleed into the eyes but luckily I had leftover white fabric paint from a previous personal project so it was quite an easy fix. All that was left once returning to college after the weekend was to stuff the character and sew the hair and face together.

I used a combination of backstitch and tacking stitches depending on if the fabric would be facing the camera or not.

I started off the skeleton of the head by using cling film and wrapping it with masking tape so the clay would have a smooth surface to stick onto. I drew out my design onto a piece of cardboard for size reference and shape reference. Half way through I had to change the masking tape I was using and this caused major issues. I couldn’t get the masking tape to even stick to itself so I knew at that point that the clay wound stick properly and that I would have cracking and issues with it down the line. Just like the background I had to go back to the drawing board and figure out how or what I could do to change the idea and have it still work out.