#interdisciplinary project

During the production process, I still felt a bit nervous and worried that I might not be helpful to the team. So I took the initiative to offer to try making some 2D animal animations.

After discussing with my teammates, I was assigned to create the animations for the dragon’s eye, a bat, and a little travel fairy.

To be honest, I didn’t have a very clear idea of how 2D animation production actually worked. At most, I just knew the basic idea that 2D animation is usually drawn frame by frame.

So at first, after looking at different videos and reference images, I started by sketching a rough version of a simple dragon blinking animation.

(Quick side note: during this process, I learned that a dragon’s eye movement is actually very similar to that of reptiles or crocodiles! I thought that was a really fun little piece of trivia, haha.)

After I finished that version, I felt like something still looked a bit off, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

Later, after doing some research and watching a few videos, I learned that there are actually 12 basic principles of 2D animation. I also found out that the timing — the spacing between each frame — can really affect how smooth and lively the animation feels overall.

So, I made a rough attempt to adjust the dragon eye animation I had sketched earlier. Basically, I just made the "eye open" part stay on screen a bit longer.

At the time, I thought it was fine because it was just a rough sketch — I figured I could leave the detailed adjustments for when I did the final coloring.

In traditional static drawing, this idea usually works. But back then, I didn’t realize how much trouble this mindset would actually cause me later on.

Before moving on to coloring and clean line work, I made a more detailed rough version of the animation.

This time, I didn’t just extend the open-eye frame — I also adjusted the timing between the opening and closing frames to make the dragon’s blinking motion look more lively and natural.

I was pretty happy with how it looked, so I started coloring and doing the clean line work. But that’s when the real struggle began.

While I was halfway through coloring and doing the line work, I realized that during my earlier rough sketch phase, I had only focused on the blinking motion — opening and closing the eye — without thinking about how the surrounding skin of the dragon would also move along with it.

For the animation to feel more natural and alive, the skin around the eye should shift slightly too, rather than just staying like a static background.

At first, I happily tried adjusting the size of the dragon’s skin midway through the frames. But then I realized that in 2D animation, randomly tweaking even a single frame can have a huge impact on the overall smoothness of the animation.

This is exactly what I meant earlier — I shouldn’t have assumed I could leave detailed adjustments until after coloring and line work. In reality, for 2D animation, it’s best to lock down all the movement and dynamics during the rough sketch stage.

Once you start doing clean line work and coloring, making changes to the motion becomes really troublesome and time-consuming.

At the time, I had to slowly fix and adjust the scaling of the dragon’s skin frame by frame while doing the line work and coloring, to make the motion look more natural.

It was a tough lesson, but honestly, a really valuable one. It made me realize how important it is to finalize the movement properly during the rough sketch phase when working on animation.

After finishing the dragon eye animation and learning so much from that experience, I moved on to creating the animation of bats flying out of a cave.

This was also my first time animating multiple objects at once.

The first challenge I ran into was understanding the structure of bats and how to properly animate their flying motion.

After doing a lot of research, I found a website that was super helpful — it gave me a much clearer idea of how bats move when they fly and helped me understand their overall body structure better.

Once I had a rough understanding of a bat’s motion and shape, my second challenge came up.

I wanted to show the bats flying from the distance toward the audience.

Getting the flapping motion right when the bats were still far away took a lot of trial and error.

In the end, I discovered a really simple trick: by flipping the bat's frames horizontally back and forth, I could easily create the feeling of the wings flapping when the bat was still small and far away, haha.

Of course, this trick only worked while the bats were far off in the distance.

Once the bats got closer, the real challenge was making sure I animated the wing flapping properly, frame by frame.

I had to clearly define the order of the wing movements to create the feeling that the bats were flying toward the viewer — otherwise, it would just look like they were floating forward instead.

In the end, when I finished the full animation, I was actually really happy with how it turned out, haha.

But during the coloring and line work process, I gained a whole new level of respect for all 2D animation artists.

Coloring in 2D animation is so detailed and requires so much logic and precision — even a small mistake in color or lighting on just one frame can have a huge impact when the animation plays!

Finally, I started working on the animation of the little fairy appearing.

During this process, I really came to appreciate how useful motion guide lines are in animation.

At first, I wanted to show two little light balls coming together and merging into the fairy. But trying to draw the movement of two light balls by hand was actually really difficult — it was super easy to mess up their positions and hard to maintain the animation's 12 principles at the same time.

Using motion guide lines made a huge difference. They helped me quickly sketch the movement paths and made it much easier to spot and fix anything that looked off. (And honestly, watching the light balls follow the guide lines was strangely satisfying, haha.)

After the fairy appears, the part I spent the most time adjusting was the moment when the fairy blinks and its body squashes down slightly.

During the rough sketch phase, that movement felt really stiff and awkward, and I wasn’t sure how to fix it at first.

Later, by adjusting how much the fairy's body deformed and tweaking the timing between frames, I was able to more or less get the playful feeling I was aiming for — it made me laugh when I finally saw it working!

But once again, during the clean-up and coloring phase, I found myself feeling even more respect for all animation artists. You not only have to clearly understand the relationship between each frame, but also have to be super familiar with how light, shadow, and object forms work together.

It’s honestly such a challenging craft!

Conclusion

Although the production time for this project wasn’t very long, I feel like I managed to try out a lot of creative approaches and types of work that I had never attempted before.

I also unexpectedly realized that I really enjoy seeing my own drawings come to life through animation!

Reflection on My First Experience with Photobashing and AI

After facing setbacks with my first photobash attempt, I realized my biggest problem was that I didn’t take the time to calmly figure out what kind of image I actually wanted to create. Instead, I rushed into combining photos without a clear plan.

Another mistake I made was not paying attention to the original lighting and perspective of the photos I was using. Because I didn’t properly adjust these elements during the process, when I combined different images together, they ended up looking very mismatched and unrealistic.

So, for my second attempt, I decided to slow down and rebuild everything from the ground up with a calmer mindset.

Even though the final result still wasn’t perfect, it was definitely a lot more successful than the first one.

Working Under Tight Deadlines

Looking back now, there are still so many areas where I could have done much better. But because the deadline was so tight, I had to move on quickly and start working on the second and third concept images.

What made the second and third images different was that our group's theme was to create a roller coaster ride inside a cave. However, it was really hard to find cave photo references online that matched the angle and feeling I had in mind.

So I thought, "Maybe I can try generating some images with AI that are closer to what I’m imagining, and then photobash them together?"

With that idea in mind, when I started making the second cave roller coaster concept, I first used ChatGPT to generate a few reference images.

(All three images above were generated using ChatGPT.)

Using AI to Support the Process

After getting those images, I started trying out different ways to combine them. However, because the time was really tight, the results didn’t turn out as good as the first image. Now that I look back, there are definitely still areas that could be improved.

That being said, during the process, I really felt that using AI-generated images for photobashing was actually a pretty good emergency solution when you're short on time.

To be honest, it's really hard to use AI images directly because they often have a lot of mistakes. Personally, instead of spending time learning how to perfectly prompt AI for better images, I would rather spend that time painting and improving my own work.

But even so, AI images did save me a lot of time that I would have otherwise spent searching online for the right reference photos.

Final Rush and Reflections

For the third concept image, I also used AI to generate the pictures I needed first, and then photobashed them together to create the feeling I wanted.

By the time I finished drawing the storyboard and creating these three visual concepts using photobashing and AI, it was already morning — time to go to class, haha.

(All three images above were generated using ChatGPT.)

However, once I started typing prompts and saw the results, I quickly realized that AI still has a long way to go before it can truly replace concept artists. AI doesn't have an aesthetic sense — it's just a tool. To get an AI-generated image that actually matches what you have in mind isn't something you can achieve with just a few simple prompts. You still have to spend a lot of time experimenting, adjusting, and tweaking your inputs to get a somewhat decent result.

When I realized that, I thought, "I might as well spend that time painting — it would make me much happier!"

That's why I’m really glad I gave photobashing a try. Photobashing feels quite different from traditional drawing, and I found it super interesting! It felt almost like making a scrapbook — cutting and pasting different elements from various photos together until I could create an image that matched the vision in my head.

But of course, this technique also really tests your experience and sense of aesthetics. Since you're combining multiple photos at once — each with different perspectives, lighting, and textures — blending them together into a clear, beautiful final image is definitely a major challenge!

Interdisciplinary Project – Reflection

Since we just finished the Interdisciplinary Project, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what I did during this assignment, what I learned, and what areas I found myself lacking in.

What made this project different was that it was a group assignment where we had to work with classmates from different specializations. In our team, we had one student from 2D animation, two from game art, one from digital illustration, and me from concept art. The goal of this project was to create an immersive dome film. Honestly, throughout the process, I was constantly worried that I wouldn’t be able to contribute anything meaningful. But in the end, I actually learned a lot and had time to reflect on many things about myself.

Mood Board and Early Challenges

First, I want to talk about making the mood board. At the beginning of the project, we had to discuss and agree on what kind of immersive film we wanted to create, and then present that idea to the teachers during class.

One of the first challenges I faced was communication. As the concept artist in the team, it was naturally my role to make the storyboard and visual concepts for the film. But because my English still isn’t very strong, I found it hard to keep up during our group discussions.

Thankfully, most of our communication was done online, so I had help from live subtitles. I also used an app called Otter to record the meetings and turn the audio into transcripts. After going through the transcripts myself, I would send them to ChatGPT to help organize the ideas. That way, I could clearly understand what the team had discussed and use that shared direction to draw the storyboard that the team needed.

Time Pressure and Trying Photobash

The second big challenge I faced was the tight deadline. We only had three weeks for this project, so the whole production schedule was really rushed.

After our group discussions in the afternoon, I had to organize all the ideas we talked about and then immediately create the mood board before the next class. This mood board included both the storyboard and the visual concepts for the film.

Honestly, I was really panicking at that time because I had never been in a situation where I needed to produce so much in such a short amount of time. After I quickly finished a rough storyboard, I started thinking, "Maybe this is a good chance for me to try using photobashing?"

So, I started working on my very first photobash. Unfortunately, the result at the beginning wasn’t great.

I think there were two main reasons for that. First, I was feeling really anxious and rushed at the time, so I couldn’t fully focus on learning how to use photobashing to create the image I had in my head. Second, I wasn’t familiar with photobashing techniques yet, so it was a huge challenge for me to find the right photos, combine them properly, and then blend in my own painting on top.

Trying to make the final image look good, clear, and believable at the same time was a lot harder than I expected.

I took the Myers-Briggs Personality Test a few years ago, putting my personality type as INTP (short for: Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Prospecting), which revealed to me what I already know about myself and much more that I didn’t. 

Among them there were a few that I feel applies when it comes to working within a group, both positive and negative.

INTP types are rational and impartial individuals who enjoys intellectual pursuits and prizes independence. 

Known for their open-mindedness and are highly receptive of alternate theories so long as they are supported by logic and facts.

Capable of spotting out problems and developing a unique and viable solution for them easily.

Have a tendency to move quickly from topic to topic whenever they get excited with an idea they have without fully explaining their first one before moving on to the next.

Tends to be extremely restless and have a pervasive fear of failure, leading to excessive worrying over their own thoughts and ideas.

Believes that honesty and truth are the most important things.

As an INTP, I am extremely open and enthusiastic of other ideas, willing to happily go along with them and enjoys throwing ideas around with the other people in my group, trying to see if it could lead to inspirations or even other ideas. I am also objective in my view on things, rarely allowing personal feelings colour my opinions, meaning that for the most part, I am able to keep things in perspective.

However, the downside to being an INTP is that I have difficulty focusing on a single thing for an extended period of time, which leads to forgetfulness of even the most obvious and basic things. I am also aware that I am quite withdrawn when compared to other members of my team, not speaking as much as the others.

With the additional information I got from the Belbin Quiz which places me as a Resource Investigator (appreciated for their enthusiasm and optimistic nature) and Teamworker (cares about others and able to adapt to and do what is required of the team), I am able to successfully spot out some of my strengths and weaknesses and hope to find ways to enhance the former while working to overcome the latter.

The Plug and Bulbs, flashing light bulbs suspended overhead . . .

. . . The Origin of the World Bubble 2018, another light projection projected onto four different walls in a crossroad . . .

. . . Frictions, a light projection simulating bars that conform to the surface of the building it is projected onto . . .

. . . and the final exhibit that I saw before the night ends, and by far, the most impressive in my opinion, Voyage, a light show, also projected onto a building and conforms to the shape of it, that tells a story backed up with music.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time at the Lumiere Festival and is saddened that I couldn’t visit all the countless other installations that are available as I am not free and just do not have the time to see the whole festival.

Although there were many, while pretty, that do not fit into what I am supposed to do for my Interdisciplinary project, there were others that did spark certain inspiration and ideas in me that I feel could be used for my group’s project.

Namely they are the wall projections as that is what my group, at this present stage, is planning to do for our assignment. The way in which they design the projection to conform to the various shapes on the building wall is fascinating and I feel it could be an avenue that my group can explore.

Next up is the Droplets, where coils arranged to resemble water ripples are set up around a dark area, which lights up whenever the sound of a droplet hitting water is played, giving the impression of glowing ripples in a lake of blackness . . .

. . . the Grabber, a projection screen suspended in midair by a crane, with images projected onto it . . .

. . . the A-Bit Immersive, basically the old video game ‘Pong’ projected onto the side of a building with each paddle controlled by a person through a motion sensor . . .

. . . along with countless others such as Cosmoscope, a massive sphere with many different layers of light and steel . . .

. . . Shaida Walking, a light board that plays a loop of a woman walking . . .

Written by Nicky and Hannah

On the 16th of January, our group decided to meet up and experiment around with the projectors that our Interdisciplinary Project lecturers rented out for us. We then brought them to an unused classroom in the Arts Building and started playing around with it such as trying to project the lights onto the corners of the walls, playing around with angles and distortion to see if we can create interesting shapes and images, and overlaying projections from two different projectors and see the outcome.

During the process, the one that caught our attention was when we were layering two images from different projectors over each other, then blocking the light from one of it, thereby revealing the second projection underneath the first. Thinking that that would be a cool concept to play around with, we began discussing ways that we could execute it.

Among the suggestions offered was to utilise it as a way to portray the old and the new, example: have the first projection be an image of maybe modern day buildings and when someone steps in front of it and blocks a portion of the projection, reveals the second one underneath from the second projector showing buildings with more traditional architecture.

Our second idea involved using an animation to travel through real images on a set of stacked cubes that would tell some kind of short story.

The third idea centered around using a mannequin with a garment on it and projecting on it to show images and patterns. We thought about using an animated background and incoporating some of the other elements as well.

As a group we all listened to each other, and built on each other’s ideas. We worked to make sure each person was heard and contributing. We worked really well as a group, and had great communication.