Apply Animation - Final video

Heres my final animation for the Apply brief.
My animation has changed alot from the final storyboard through how I added an extra scene and drew a monitor in which it was shown. I felt that this worked well as it made the story more interesting and engaging to the viewer. If I had more time with this animation, I would focus more on the zoom in, into the characters waiting for the Pumpkin, overlaying animation to make it move more smoothly.
Through Group critic, I found that I also needed to slow parts of the animation down and add more frames for the crying part for the pumpkin near the beginning of the short. There was also positive feedback through the use of colour and storyline.

Apply Animation - Surprise! (Making of)

Making my Apply Animation via Photoshop was an easy process to gain both good lineart and colour to the 5-10 second short. By using Photoshop, I can use the Frame by Frame animation, making it easier to make slight changes to the frames or reducing/increasing frames to make a smooth animation.
Through out the animation, I found it easier to separate parts of the sequence with in group folders, this helped me to keep my work organised and not become confused with which frame I would be working.

Here are a few screen shots to show how I edited my frames:

I first quickly sketched out the frames before editing the lineart. It is easier for me to sketch in a big brush size as when editing I can clearly differentiate the sketch and the final ink.

To edit the lineart, I first lower the opacity of the sketch layer and ink on top.

Comparing sketch to final lineart

 

Final lineart - I worked mainly on a basic 4pt brush to get the detail of the characters.

I purposely separated the foreground and main characters lineart and coloured this separately so that I can later blur the characters in the background to create a better sense of depth and focus the attention on the main characters.

Comparing the background colour - before and after

 

Final edit, adding a slight Gaussian blur.

Apply Animation - Storyboard

For my initial idea of the surprise theme, I quickly sketched out the key frames of the short and was able to easily see and plan the animation through the use of these thumbnail storyboards.

initial storyboard 1

In these thumbnail storyboards, I vaguely considered the angles of each frame, which I need to consider when I create the final storyboards. 

initial storyboard 2

When creating the final storyboards, I thought about the distance between the character in the frame and the objective, for instance, looking behind the character, zooming out, low angle or close up, needed to be considered.  The angle of the frame and the expression of the character can help to create an atmosphere or strengthen an emotion that you want to get across to the audience, for example, to portray happiness, you would use a close up to show the expression of the characters face, or to portray depression/sadness, you would use a high angle of a character curled up in a corner of a room.

Part 1

Part 2

Apply Research - Looking at Animations that incorporate Photoshop

To gain inspiration for my Apply animation, I scoured Vimeo and Youtube and found interesting animations that had incorporated Photoshop into their work.

Mac 'n' Cheese from Mac 'N' Cheese on Vimeo.

This first animation is very detailed and holds a digital painted quality that is aesthetically pleasing and works well with the plot and style of the animation. The movement of the characters flow well as there are no jagged movements and the frames of the movement aren't visible to the eye.

Rabbitkadabra! from Rabbitkadabra! on Vimeo.

This animation is created through the use of Maya, Photoshop and other digital software. The style of the animation is cute through the portrayal of the soft lit scenery, characters that have big eyes and detailed appearance, eg texture of clothing, added freckles, etc. I found this video inspiring through the expressions of the characters and the plot of the animation, as it absorbs a happy ending which is appealing to a young audience.

The "A Fox Tale" animation is created through the use of Photoshop, After Effects and other digital software which creates this soft CG animation style that reminds me of a less textured Kung Fu Panda. (I also think its due to the kung fu/martial arts action scene in the animation that reminds me of Kung Fu Panda)
The animation is aesthetically pleasing through the use of the frame angles, close ups, long shots to make parts of the animation dramatic and the illustrative style used.

Apply Animation - Leek the Pumpkin reference Photography

To understand the character 'Leek the Pumpkin', I wanted some reference as to draw the head. As it was Halloween not so long ago, I used my primary photography of the pumpkin I carved as reference.
Using this reference helped me with the shape and lines with in the pumpkin head. For my designs, I will change the amount of light shown in the eyes to a darker hue and only draw a flame on the candle as the source of light. This is to make the character seem more cartoon like and cute; if I were to add a lighter hue with in the eyes and mouth it would make the character seem less aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

 

Apply Animation - Surprise!

For the Apply brief, I was given the task to create a 5-10 second animation that absorbs the theme of one of these words:

Surprise, Lateness, Love, Hate, Longing, Happiness, Fear

Instantly, I created a mind map, jotting down ideas for each word. I couldn't decide between two key ideas which really stood out to me, these ideas branching from surprise and longing.

initial mindmap - generating ideas

 Longing -

• Setting, cold winters day, snow everywhere, little girl walking home with her parents.
• A little girl sees a teddy bear in a shop window and wants it, looks up at the mum, she shakes her head, looks at the dad who gives in and gets her the bear.

Surprise

• Setting, rain on windows, stuck inside the house.
• Its Leek the Pumpkin's birthday and he's upset as he believes that no one remembers his birthday however he hears something from behind a door which he opens to see his friends with birthday gifts and cake. 

When drawing initial sketches of both of the ideas, I felt that the Longing idea would take more than 10 seconds to give the viewer the full story and would be designed in a more detailed style to show how cold and wintery the scene is.
However the Surprise idea would allow me to easily add or remove parts of the story and simplify the illustrations. With this theme and use of my own characters, I felt that I would be able to produce a good animation through the process of Photoshop, Frame by Frame.
This process would allow me to easily add colour and change slight movements through using a graphic tablet.

I first created character sheets of the Scientist, Leek and the Skull boy, before creating the final storyboard. Creating the character sheets first helped me to understand the designs better and keep for reference.

'Leek' the Pumpkin

No one knows his real name
(Nickname: Stein)
The Scientist 

Cyrus
(Nickname 'Peanut')
the Skull boy

I wanted my characters to absorb the same style of characteristics of the two main characters, Leek the pumpkin and The Scientist, through how "halloween" and "Frankenstein" like, that the characters emit to the viewer. I then created another design, of a boy with a skull mask called Cyrus, which I felt matched well with the previous characters through the theme and style of illustration.