Backgrounds and concept art

Ok youve designed your characters now you need to get your backgrounds designed and some concept art giving a feel for what your animation would look like. to do this choose key scenes from your animation and illustrate them!







The next examples is a really good way to show that you have used reference and thought through your background designs Have a look at it and I suggest maybe trying to put together similiar piece for your own animation ideas.






Below are some very detailed designs from the Halo series of games.






Designs below are for comercials made by some design agencies.

The next two designs are for James Cameron's latest film 'Avatar'

Below are some concept designs from a 3D animation that an artist is producing.

These last two images are concept art from Disney's sleeping beauty. the final film ended up looking very different but the feel was still the same as in these designs.

So while im away you need to get well into producing your art work, so that when i return i can help you out with making your ideas look as great as possible.

Mr R.

Character and concept designs

You should be in a position now to start working towards you final designs for your 3 different ideas for an animation, to complete unit 1 you must have produced art work for each of your ideas. Ive included some designs from a graphic novel im illustrating to give you a idea of what i mean and also some great examples of character design work done for animations and computer games,

I hope you notice how different each of the character designs look to each other. the theme and mood of the animation you plan to make will influence how you present your work, so keep your designs inventive, creative and exciting!

have a look at the examples below and if you need to go look for other examples either on line or in some of the 'making of' or 'the art of' books that get brought out when films are released.

Design sketches from 'the forgotten'

Character designs from Wolfenstein 3D




Characters from the Number 9 film by tim burton



Designs for a web games characters

Designs for a Red riding hood animation.

Designs for a Goldilocks themed cartoon.

So there are just a few examples, its up to you to make sure that yours look just as good and fit the mood of your animation.

Thumbnail sketches

You will soon be finishing off the rest of your project research work, which means we can start on the designing cool animations part of the course.

Your first design task is to produce 2+ pages of thumbnail sketches. these could be quick character designs, ideas of scenes or shots in your film or basically any idea that you have on how you might make your film.

Its important that you arent focusing on one idea too much at the moment, as I want you to produce 3 different ideas or versions of your idea as your final peice for unit 1.

Making your thumbnails look good!

While thumbnailing and the genral roughing out of initial ideas is always going to look a bit scruffy, I still have high expectations of what I want your sketchbooks to look like. I want every page to reflect your creativity and imagination.

To help you make nice looking thumbnails I've sketched out some roughs for a design job I'm currently working on. Ive drawn all the roughs in biro (its my prefered choice for scribbling down ideas) and then taken them into photoshop to add a few greys to them and arrange them in a way so I can add notes next to them.

Ive added the images to this blog for you can have a look see at what I want your thumbnails to look like.

I will run through the process of adding the greys and preparing your sketches in todays lessons.

You task

2+ pages of annotated thumbnail sketches for your initial ideas.

Artist research

Your task now is to research into artists who's work can inspire your design work.

To make sure that you meet the full criteria of the course make sure that you at use the following types of artists;

2D artist
3D artist
and an artist or the art work of another culture.

I want a page for each artist and it must have the following information on it,

• Some examples of their work
• Who they are
• What media/materials they use
• What techniques/technologies used by them
• What makes their work distinctive, what is their style?
• How do they approach their subjects or briefs/ (this might need you to kind of say how you think they do.
• At least one example of you trying to reproduce one of their pictures/ or a section of their pictures
• What you like about their work and how you could use it in your designs.
  
  Try and use the following key visual language words (the exam board want to see you understand them so use them in the right places and when appropriate!)
  
  Form. Shape. Line. Pattern. Texture. Colour. Depth. Tone
  Perspective. Structure. Weight. Mass. Space. Volume
  Proportion. Scale. Balance. Movement

Deadline

By the end of today you need to have completed the following;

Sketchbook research into a similar project using the internet and printed sources.
Your specification in your book
A mind map

And your animation tests;

Squash and stretch
Walk cycle

Mind maps

Your task for this week is to mind map out your ideas for your animation. I expect you to make this look as visually appealing as possible, Ive included so examples below of good mind maps to give you some inspiration.

Remember the mind map is a great way of showing the moderators and me your working process, and that you are full of ideas. Also do not be affreaid of doodling in small sketches to illustrate the way you are thinking, this is your mind map of your project, let us see how creative you are!

Some starting points for your mind map are:

• Target Audience, then make branches off describing who they are and what they like and want to see.
• The Product/event, this should include information on the product/event, what is its message? Does it have an established style already, what are its aims and goals etc..,
• Media, How are you going to make you animation? You already know that we have Toon Boom Studio, but how else could it be animated? List the different ways you could do your project.
• Artists/Designers, Who have you looked at already? What other artists work could you be influenced by, how could you use them to develop your own ideas, how would be the best way to animate work like theirs (link to your media branch) how might changing the context of their work aid your project ( for example taking an illustrators style and using in as a starting point to help you design 3d models for a stop motion animation)
• Style, this will link to a lot of the other branches what feeling do you want your animation to have? How will this link to your target audience. How could you animate the feeling/messages you want to show. Link this to Media etc..
  

Just a reminder!

this friday You must have in: Squash and stretch, Walk cycle, your planning into similiar projects from off the web and in books and your mind map.

Techniques; Squash and stretch and the walk cycle.

Ive been pleased to see how some of the research into similiar projects is coming on. keep up the good work this first project is going to rely heavily on your sketchbook work.

Ok moving on, I want to put up some things to help you guys with learning the basic techniques of animation.
last week we got started on squash and stretch and you should at least be ready to capture your frames onto the computer now. this week I want to start on your next technique,

the walk cycle!

as luck would have it I found a great website that tells you everything im going to show you for these first two animation techniques, take a look and read through the tutorials if you get stuck or need a different explanation of what you need to do.

http://www.angryanimator.com/word/test/

Your task for this week is to make a walkcycle,

here are the requirements

Your character must keep its volume the same, I dont want it slowly shrinking or growing!
Your character must walk across the page, not on the spot!
I want a movie file of the squash and stretch and walk cycle saved on my animation harddrive before the end of next week in a folder with your name on it!

Mr Reynolds