Saturday 29 November 2014

Moo - Business Card Compositions



After the feedback I received in Responsive earlier this week, I looked on Moo's website (http://uk.moo.com/) to see what business cards they offer. I drew them all out onto one page to get an idea of the variety of sizes they provide (left)

This gave me a better idea of how the cards should be displayed on the table, so I was inspired to design 6 different possible compositions I could use in my final piece:

I will take them all into consideration when thinking of potential card designs.










Animation Tests

Within the past few days, I have done the initial animating on scenes 1 and 3. So far I think they have both turned out quite well.

In scene 1 I need more movement in Moom's body to make it slightly more lively, and I will change the position of the hands slightly so they look more natural.



So far in scene 3 I have only moved the arm, which is the most important element of this part of the animation. I timed the movements to my audio, so that I can envision how the rest of the body will move with my voice.




Wednesday 26 November 2014

Setting the Scene

Now that my idea for Character and Narrative has been finalised, I'm almost ready to start animating!

Before that however, I have to make my props and set the scenes where my animation will take place. His body language and movements are very important to tell the story, so I will use my reference to get the positioning right.

Here's my first scene in development:

This is roughly the position I want Moom to be in - sat on the bed leaning over slightly with a tired facial expression.

The eye lids will be on show, roughly a third of the way down his eyes, and a quarter of the way up from the bottom lids. I think this combination works the best because as you can see bellow, his eyes look puffy which gives the impression of tiredness.

The rest of his body should be hanging down, his shoulders will be low, the hands will rest on his knees with the backs of his hands facing towards each other; His back will be arched over to suggest that he's struggling to keep his head up.

The facial expression for every scene.

I will make his teeth invisible for the final piece, so I can focus on the positions of the mouth without the teeth sticking through his chin...










My second scene will be the most difficult to complete, because the broom is made up of separate shapes, and I have to use the parent tool to move the broom with the hand. I added in a couple of panels in a portrait position to give the impression that he's inside a room.

Scene 2
Scene 2 with background panels.

My third and final scene requires a cloth in Moom's hand. I will have to use the parent tool again to allow the cloth and hand to move in sync. I then put the character in the starting position of the first frame, and set up the camera angle ready to animate.

Scene 3.
Positioning of the body.
Scene 3 camera angle.

Now that my character is set up in all 3 scenes, I will start animating them!


Wednesday 19 November 2014

Development of 'Moo' Idea

After looking and brainstorming through my initial ideas for this brief, I storyboarded my favourite idea:


I want Moo to be portrayed as a professional company yet creative and fun at the same time, so I think my idea works well to demonstrate this. 

Here are some designs I could use on business cards that I would animate:



I will take everything I've done so far to the next Responsive session, which will be about giving and receiving feedback on everybody's work so far.

Saturday 15 November 2014

Initial Ideas for 'Moo'






Inspiration for 'Moo'

Since I've decided to go with the Moo brief, I will need some ideas towards a final outcome. After looking through various pieces I'm starting to get an idea of what I want to produce:

The character design in the animation 'Dumb Ways To Die' is cute and simple with soft colours and round figures. I feel this look appeals to a wide audience, so I think it's worth considering for my designs.



The cartoon network ident uses a variety of drawing styles; using the same colour pallet links all of the styles together. The transactions are so smooth throughout the sequences merging them into one; I feel I could create an ident like this one with similar intentions - to merge all styles and types of businesses that Moo sell cards to into one sequence to show how lively and open Moo are to ideas and designs. (Allowing me to try out a variety of styles and set up an animation sequence!)
This ident is a very different style to the actual shows that are broadcast on Cartoon Network but this animation still works - I think if I pull it off right I could combine a variety of styles into one sequence.


Cartoon Network Summer Ident 2013 from CRCR on Vimeo.

My Pinterest mood board, which contains illustrations/art that have inspired some of my ideas:
http://uk.pinterest.com/alexneild/responsive-inspiration/


Animatic

After making my final storyboard, I went on to make an animatic to work out roughly how long my actions are going to take.



My lines need to by tidied up, and I will decide on a font to use after I have developed my animation further.

I think I have timed it pretty well, however I will need to start my final piece in order to determine if I have got this right or not.

Friday 14 November 2014

YCN Brief Analysis

After reading the briefs with the questions in mind, I have decided to take part in the Moo competition.

http://www.ycn.org/awards/ycn-student-awards/2014-15-ycn-student-awards/briefs/moo 

(Their website): http://uk.moo.com/

To analyse the brief, we were given these questions to answer:

What are the 5 most important words?

  • Playful
  • Passionate
  • All industries
  • Striking
  • Appeal

The 5 most important considerations?

  • Do my styles/designs appeal to their target audience(s)?
  • Does my idea encourage the audience that they have creative freedom with this website?
  • Is their new tagline 'Design Works Wonders' portrayed well?
  • Does it to show that 'Moo' are a playful, open, helpful, social and encouraging company?
  • Is the advertisement fun but professional at the same time?

Once I had established these answers I went on to consider:

Who is the audience for this brief?
Mainly business owners from companies that sell a variety of things such as; food, fashion, health and fitness etc.

Who should the audience be?
Anybody that wants to sell themselves; people from the creative industry who need business cards or need to sell their illustrations/designs, down to lawyers, or anybody who wants to work with clients.

Who could the audience be?
They could be family-orientated citizens who want to buy greetings cards (so anybody from all ages)

What do they do?
They design business cards/greetings cards to sell to people who are running a business.

What do they want to be?
They want to be creative, fun and encouraging to anyone who's in the business industry. Their customers want to be unique and able to sell themselves in their own way (summarising themselves into one business card).

Now that I have an idea of what the brief wants me to achieve, I can start researching and developing my ideas ready to pitch in a couple of weeks.

Sunday 9 November 2014

11 Second Club

One competition that I would love to do towards 'Responsive' is the 11 Second Club.
This is an organisation that releases an audio clip every month for artists from anywhere to make a character animation fitting to the clip to be entered and potentially win the monthly competition.

The new task for November 2014 has been released:


It seems straight forward enough, and it allows me to use any technique I want - so I could either develop on stop motion/2D animating (the mediums I'm most comfortable with) or it could be an opportunity to practice 3D animation, to experiment and see how well I can achieve what I want.

I have also considered their previous competitions, to see what techniques other people generally use and if there were any other clips that gave me ideas;

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/july13

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/september14

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/january14

I found a few that I like more than others but they've shown me that most people usually make their animations in either 3D or 2D drawn.

This gives me the opportunity to create something different to try and stand out from the rest - but I think ultimately the best option for me is to try a few of the competitions, rather than just one, so I can properly compare techniques and see which medium I'm best in.


EDIT:
Due to me focusing on other projects, unfortunately I was unable to have enough time on this month's task. i will listen to the next sound clip released in January and improve my time management skills in the new year.

Sunday 2 November 2014

Final Storyboard

After simplifying my ideas, I have designed my final storyboard and concept art:


I am happy with how this idea has turned out, because I believe having only 3 scenes will make it easier for me to focus on combining lip syncing and actions into longer sequences, rather then constantly changing the angles and cutting from scene to scene.
Having fewer, longer sequences will make the story slower, which should reflect the mood of the character (how tired she is); this should make the story more consistent and allow me to see how well my animation flows.
I will animate the title sequences in Photoshop, but the rest of it will be done in Maya.

These are my props. They will look slightly different when I make them 3D in Maya, but I tried to make the designs as simple as possible:



Now that I have my designs and idea in place, I can start building everything in Maya and start animating soon!

Saturday 1 November 2014

Lists...

After taking my 3 chosen briefs to the session, I have been given the task of re-reading the briefs considering these points as to what I want to get out of this module and any competitions I enter (the class were split into groups to create these lists with multiple brain power):




And to consider the motives behind the companies who set up these competition briefs (our tutor asked every group to contribute different points for each list):




After taking all of these lists into account, I have decided to pick the 'Moo' competition, since it sounds like the best overall!

http://www.ycn.org/awards/ycn-student-awards/2014-15-ycn-student-awards/briefs/moo

Now that I've picked my brief I can get started on ideas generation to try and win this contest!