Editing Gifs

For a bit of fun I decided to stick some gif of characters onto animals, which were surprisingly well received. They didn't take long; the hardest part was finding clean, usable, images that worked well enough for the gifs.

The bear/panda doesn't work completely well from the side view, getting in the way of the arm. If I used more frames instead of just moving that one I would have been able to get around it, but these weren't really meant as a proper finished thing.

I had to edit two images together for the grinning face, as the hat was just two different on the two images. It wasn't very hard to do though, and works a bit better I think than using two different ones.

I really like how this one came out - the images are clear, and I think the expressions work well for comedy reasons.I just flipped the characters head as he fell at the end but I think it works fine since I made sure to keep the eye detail on the side it was supposed to be on.

This one is my most well received gif so far at 1,892 notes at the time of this blog post. The images aren't the clearest and move around quite a bit, but I think the timing works well. I made sure to remove the head where the cat's tail was this time so that the gif worked even better. I think it probably does help that the cat gif matches the characters'personalities anyway, which is probably where most of the notes came from.

After learning tracking in one of our sessions, I tried it on a gif. I don't really like how it came out - I feel like the jerkier movement actually works better for these gifs, although this isn't the most exciting one to do it on. I feel like using Photoshop rather than After Effects gave these a sillier feel, which is kind of the point of these gifs, so I know to stick to that if I make any more in the future.

Colouring Style Experiments 2

 I recently started watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure thanks to my flatmates, and it's one of the craziest yet greatest things I've watched for a while. One of the things I love the most in the ridiculously exaggerated muscles and face details, and the crazy colours and scenes it has.

I thought that it would be fun to do a couple of silly sketched from it, but then I thought that I might as well try to add some colour to them.

I didn't want to go too crazy just because I'm still not that comfortable with colouring more normal things, but I still wanted to have fun with it. I didn't have many ideas by way of a background because I really draw them half of the time anyway, so I made a lot of odd shapes on PS and used different layer types to make some weird effects. I went a bit crazy on the saturation at first, and it still felt weird having the shadows a deep red, so I put a layer of purple over the image as well to make it work with the background and to lessen the contrast. I actually really like how it came out, even if I am used to a lot more contrast, and I decided to leave it there before I either ruined it or made it go back to more of a usual boring colouring style that I'd be tempted into doing.

I did a second one based off of another character in the show, but this time I kept the contrast. It doesn't look quite a crazy, but I do like the defined black lines along with the block colour shading. It was interesting trying to adapt to a more JoJo-like style, but I had a lot of fun especially with the bodies. I would definitely be tempted to do more of these, but also maybe finding a better compromise on contrast and saturation of the image first, because the colours aren't really that JoJo-ish in the end.

For the latest one I picked characters who always have great poses for a bit of extra fun.  I toned down the background a lot, using mostly the characters' repeated patterns as the main background bit and adding a few other shapes to make it more interesting. I tried to avoid outlines for the most part, just to see how simple I could make it otherwise. I still needed lines in parts, but I tried to incorporate them much more into the shading and make it fit in better. I added a white outline again to make the characters stand out from their background, which I think definitely works best. I do like the vector kind of look I achieved with the jacket on the left character that I did with the pen tool in Photoshop, although it might be worth trying out Illustrator if I want to do more things like that. I do enjoy line art though, so I will probably do more of that again in the future. These have all been fun to do though, and have helped me to think more about colours and different things when drawing.

Making a Showreel

Since we have to make a showreel soon, I decided to do some looking around for tips to see what I can do to make it more interesting.

"How to make Demo Reels - Vlog 09" - ECAbrams
'like a delicious sandwich' - good way to envision what you are putting into it. Excellent bread = excellent sandwich - great end and start. Something unique to the piece/best stuff at each end. Should impress people with skillset.

'Make someone excited about your work' so make sure to put in contact detail in and a half or less. Fairly steady counting beat. Music that sounds like it was made for the piece or vice versa. Make sure what you are good at takes up a good chunk. Consistent quality, not consistent style; variation/versatility is good. 'Don't make it a bunch of little sandwich' have enough cuts so that the same thing isn't too close to each other i/e multiple cuts from the same film. If you don't have enough material to fill it up, make some. Boring minute, or exciting 30 seconds? Don't feel you have to show everything you did - everything you did is not your best stuff.


"6 Tips from Recruiters Who Look at YOUR Animation Demo Reel" - Animation Mentor

You have 30 seconds to make an impression. Don't waste too much time on name/introduction. Start with a simple title card including your name and contact information. Move to best shot and then follow up w/other relevant shots. End with contact info again. Do not exceed 1 or 2 mins. Recruiters would rather see 2-3 really strong performance shots than everything you’ve done in school. Tailor your demo reel to the studio you are applying for. Character driven places prefer unique ideas and non-cliché acting choices. Know your audience. Everyone has a different type of sense of humor. Stay on the safe side when choosing your shots for your demo reel – being offensive reduces your chance of getting hired. Be aware of trends - don't do what everyone else is doing. Animate something unexpected.  Also show that you can animate different types of emotional beats.

I feel like I have found some very important things to concentrate on here, which should help me make a more effective showreel. The parts I have bolded are what I think are the main points here to take into consideration, so I will try to apply these. I don't have a lot of animation to choose from since animation is not my focus, so my showreel won't be too long either way but hopefully I can find the best parts out of all of them to use.

Colouring Style Experiments

I thought that I should probably actually start colouring in my stuff more, rather than just sketches or unfinished things all of the time, so I decided to do a few more colouring tests.

Something that I wanted to try a lot more in my art is using gradients; they can do a lot to help with lighting, as well as making things a lot more interesting. I got a little bit carried away with this on, including with saturation, but I do like the effect of shading without the block colours. I think that for the bottom right character this was more effective, as the gradient doesn't make any parts of the face too dark or light to see, and you can actually notice it enough, unlike with the other two on the right hand side.

I then tried using gradients much more subtley; I feel like this image could be a lot more exciting if it at least had some shading too, or more contrasting gradients, but I do like the change in shades of pink on the hair; I feel like that is the most effective part of the image, so I'd like to try that idea out more.

I used a lot more gradients on this character, specifically the skin. It id by far more effective than the top two, although it does like somewhat airbrushed. There is some block colour shading too, but it isn't that noticeable, and maybe making that darker or more contrasting would benefit the piece. I also used a gradient on the hair after putting down a layer of block yellow. I don't usually use colours that are that different on pieces that I do but I decided to be brave after the last image, and I do like how it came out. I made sure to make all of the other highlights on her more yellow tinted, so that the lighting looks a lot more consistent.

I also tried a few more random colour effects just for the sake of it. I would probably do well to try some more ways of choosing colours, like sticking to a more limited palette, and only using different tones of the same colour. I am happy with my colouring progress so far though; the latter is much more effective than the first illustration I did, and through trying these methods I have a lot more ideas of how to improve in the future.