#practice 1

When it comes to 3D printing I know next to nothing. My knowledge of it so far has come from tabletop gaming such as Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons. 

As all of these briefs so far have been mainly focusing on my designing skills, this brief is making me focus on also using 3D modelling to create a final piece that will eventually be physically printed and made, and this is terrifying. 

I started by using one of the ideas given to us from the prompt sheet, being prosthetics. This lead me to remember a beautiful leg prosthetic that I found on Etsy (below), which is exactly up my street in terms of aesthetics and design, merging modern knowledge of prosthetics and the classic baroque era detailing and paint work. 

I started to research various prosthetics, mainly focusing on legs, the anatomy of the leg, and how prosthetic limbs actually work. Not only were there other historical pieces, but I also found characters with prosthetics, either historical, fantasy, or futuristic, and this broadened my research to fashion design incorporating these limbs into fashion shows and costume pieces.

In media such as OverWatch and Mad Max: Fury Road, the concept of a prosthetic is to act as a limb, however it is to also add to combat and the overall aesthetic of the worlds they create, for example, Mad Max: Fury Road has a character, Furiosa, with an artificial arm which is made, seemingly, of car and mechanical parts, tying in with the environments and themes of the film, and in Overwatch, most of the characters have an artificial limb in some way or another, and these choices aren’t distracting in any way, they bring backstory to the characters, and they are not limited in anyway due to their missing limbs. 

My research into characters, I decided to create a skin for a character in OverWatch. I am not a fan of Blizzard as a company in any sense, however, OverWatch has been in my life for a long time and is one of my favourite games, especially when I’m stressed and need a break ! 

The skin designs in OverWatch are some of my favourite designs ever and they are always fun and use the original character designs so well, and the character’s are never lost in their outfits, and I wanted to give this style of designing a try, and eventually create a prosthetic for the 3D portion of this brief, and this will save me a lot of time, as I am not creating something completely from scratch, which also takes some of the pressure off of myself.

Choosing a character was difficult, as I love all the designs, but looking through the original character models and concept art I had a bunch of ideas for every character, and so I decided to narrow it down by looking at the details and basing which character I could redesign on my own skills.

My favourite characters, in terms of design, are Bastion and Echo, two sentient robots, Roadhog and Mei, however these two don’t have prosthetics or “robot” parts but they do have fun and interesting accessories and details, and Pharah and Junkrat, two characters known for their distinct looks and way of fighting with explosives. All of these characters could be designed in new ways, and would fit with my style of designing.

I started off my designing by using the base pose model of Echo, one of the humanoid robot characters, because her design would fit best with the idea of the Baroque prosthetic, which I believe is a good starting point to avoid getting overwhelmed, and progress from there.

I eventually kept with this character and decided to do multiple designs of her rather than one design for multiple characters, just so I could stay on topic, and focus better.

Using the reference images I created 3 different designs that I feel would work within game, and still keep with the Overwatch style. 

Going through from left to right, I started with the Baroque idea I had, and taking references from the era from various pieces of furniture and architecture I created a design which is simple, yet the details in the arms, wings, and torso make it feel a lot more historical and regal.

Next I created a hummingbird design. I wanted to make this design drastically different from the first, with bright colours, feathers, and changing the face and head design to the bird itself. This design was fun to create, and I feel as though this design would work best in game as a skin and I feel as though it matches the games style and colours really well.

The last design was my favourite overall, as this kept the same body style as the original character, however the porcelain design makes it pop more and makes the design feel busier than it is, which is definitely something I love. I added gold accents and cracks to the design to break up the blue and white, and all in all, this design catches my eye more than the others. 

Citations and References:

Vintage and amazing orthopedic devices by stefanstar2003 on Etsy (2021). Available at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/stefanstar2003?awc=7432_1636461587_d0419be3f4f3c47308ec86fd7e7694f5&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=affiliate_window&utm_campaign=fr_buyer&utm_content=452659 (Accessed: 9 November 2021).

Nast, C. (2021) This Chinese Jewelry Brand Turned Prosthetics Into Wearable Art, Vogue. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/article/yvmin-chinese-jewelry-brand-prosthetics (Accessed: 9 November 2021).

Almost Genius: Women’s Prosthetic Limbs as Fashion Accessories (2010). Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/1662265/almost-genius-womens-prosthetic-limbs-as-fashion-accessories (Accessed: 9 November 2021).

Prosthetic legs – The Museum of Savage Beauty (2021). Available at: https://www.vam.ac.uk/museumofsavagebeauty/mcq/prosthetic-legs/ (Accessed: 9 November 2021).

artificial limb Archives - Catherine Jenkins (2014). Available at: http://www.catherinejenkins.com/tag/artificial-limb/ (Accessed: 9 November 2021).

Furiosa's Prosthetic Arm - Mad Max Costumes (2021). Available at: https://www.madmaxcostumes.com/mad-max-fury-road/imperator-furiosa/furiosa-arm/ (Accessed: 9 November 2021).

Blizzard reveals Overwatch 2 art for new Toronto map (2020). Available at: https://www.dexerto.com/overwatch/blizzard-reveals-overwatch-2-art-for-new-toronto-map-1447631/ (Accessed: 9 November 2021).

Wade, D. et al. (2017) Blizzard Entertainment Overwatch Art Blast! - ArtStation Magazine, ArtStation Magazine. Available at: https://magazine.artstation.com/2017/02/blizzard-entertainment-overwatch-art-blast/ (Accessed: 9 November 2021).

Reflective Blog Post 1: Red vs Blue - Finished Animation

This is my finished Animation from the Red vs Blue brief. I am relatively happy with how this turned out, however there are still a few aspects that could be improved.

Things to improve - Feedback from 1-1 and in class:

* One aspect that could be vastly improved is how the characters are composited with the background.  Due to how my characters were exported from Toon Boom to Premier Pro (the software I used to edit the video assets together) there is a pixelated line around the drawings that I could not fully get rid of when keying out the background. The issue I had was if I made the keying too strong the colours of the animated frames would be distorted and they would appear slightly transparent, this less aggressive keying however has left a small but noticeable outline around each of my drawings.

* If I had more time on this project I would have also liked to include shadows on and around my characters. I feel that this would improve how the characters and background work together rather than the characters looking like cut outs over a flat image.

* At one point my Blue character does not move in time with the background and they slide from one point on the ground to another. This also detracts from the believability of the animation .

* I should have been more ambitious with some of the character movements. I focused more on getting this project done on time rather than experimenting with the character acting and having fun with the technical aspects of the film.  For example I could have played with the long gangly arms of the red character more and implemented real world references of Orangutans into their movements and mannerisms. If I were to expand on this film I would do a lot more visual research and create much more elaborate, engaging and exaggerated  characters to really showcase their different personalities in the film.

* One criticism I received about the films narrative was that the blue characters change of heart (from being hostile and guarded against the red character to the two becoming friends). This was a change I tried to rectify by adding in the head scratch scene but since this is the main turning point of the narrative I may need to make this more apparent. I could probably do this by exaggerating the character movements in the animation to add to the visual storytelling.

Things I liked/ Positive Feedback:

* I’m happy with the fluidity of the animation in this film, although the movements could be more elaborate and the characters more expressive what I have here does look like a finished product in terms of animation.

* My narrative was understood and the general tone of the film and how the characters were conveyed came across well. The personalities of my two characters were obvious to my audience and the low angle shot I added of the Orangutan (the red character) as he looked down on the Blue character was successful in highlighting their size difference and in portraying these characters as very different from one another.

Characterization and Character Performance:

Wells, P., 2009. The Animated Bestiary: Animals, Cartoons, and Culture. 1st ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

If I was to move forward with this idea I would like to make improvements to the character performances, particularly the performance of my Red character. I am happy with the expressions and mannerisms of this character, and feel as though his calm performance contrasts the feisty nature of the Blue character he is trying to befriend, however, the characters movements do not resemble that of an orangutan.

Pages 94 to 98 of The Animated Bestiary goes into detail about the use of anthropomorphic animals as characters, describing Disney’s Donald Duck as having quote: “A big mouth, belligerent eyes, a twistable neck and a substantial backside that’s highly flexible” and concluding that these features make duck characters ideal candidates for animation.

Similarly I could have taken advantage of the unique characteristics of Orangutans when animating my red character such as their long gangly arms and their tendency to use their hands as feet. This would have added a lot to my red characters performance.

Wells, P. (1998). Narrative Strategies: Acting and Performance. In: Taylor & Francis, ed., Understanding Animation. London: Taylor & Francis Group, pp.104–111.

This section of the book titled Acting and Performance went into a lot of detail about characterisation through character performance and motivations that drive character. The chapter cites Stanislavski who breaks down performances as having one of three different sets of objectives,