Reflective Analysis.

Over the course of this academic year I have gone from knowing little to nothing about animation techniques to exploring a whole new range of skills and methods for bringing my ideas to life. Despite the fact I have missed many sessions this year due to personal issues, I truly feel as though I have learned a lot that can be utilised and built upon in the following year.

The first two projects were very good for building up some confidence in my basic skills—I was able to learn the principles of animation and experiment mostly with traditional and 2D animating techniques which got me into the swing of it: for example creating loops using hand-drawn frames and by rotoscoping in Photoshop. I felt as though I pushed myself quite well by adding a digital scrolling background to my walking loop, and even though it wasn’t entirely smooth and was missing many elements I’d hoped to include, I know I would definitely like to practice with timeline animation in Photoshop more. In the second project I greatly enjoyed drawing up my storyboard as my greatest strength lies in drawing, painting and storytelling, while at the same time it was challenging to successfully convey my story in so few panels. I definitely feel as though this project built on my already-confident drawing skills, and provided me with an idea that has the potential to be developed into a detailed plot later down the line.

In the following projects I was introduced to Cinema 4D for the first time, and despite approaching the software with trepidation at first I found myself steadily growing used to the method of rigging characters and building models out of ‘cut-out’ assets and in 3D. My first full skeleton rig came in the Character Design unit, a project which again helped to strengthen my skills in illustration and the development of personalities for my creations. I learned new skills in order to do so, mostly through using the pen tool in Illustrator to create nice, clean linework. Additionally this was the first time I’d ever done a professional character sheet, and it was good to see that my design and backstory came together so well. Even though my 3D model was unfinished and the rig slightly off I was pleased I’d at least managed to get my character moving and posing as I’d imagined him.

The two projects I just handed in were very experimental, and again built heavily on drawing skills and branching out further as far as animation technique goes. The life drawing harked back to the fundamentals of drawing—capturing form and light and shadow with free movements and using different media. This is something I would like to do a lot more often in my free time too. I missed rather a lot of these sessions too, but was able to make up some of the work by observing books and other reference photos and tackling it in similar ways, for example by limiting the time spent on sketching a single pose and using different techniques of drawing and shading. I also enjoyed drawing the morph for this project, and though I’d like to have gotten around to trying a more complex transformation I was quite pleased with how my first ended up.

As for the E4 project, I found this very useful in that we were encouraged to tackle it as a live brief; therefore we wrote a project proposal and gained peer feedback on our ideas, worked to self-set time plans and under a time limit. This meant that we had to strongly consider what methods we would use, and which would be the most time efficient to produce a piece of work in the time limit. For this project I deliberately chose to do a stop motion piece using Dragon as I’d rarely gotten the opportunity to thus far, and decided it would be a nice, short piece to start with. Nonetheless my idea in itself was complex and busy, so there was a definite element of challenge in the production. My downfall was in planning out exactly what I wanted to happen while shooting in time-lapse—I greatly underestimated how long I would need to make the motions stretch out for so there were points where I panicked and was unsure what to do next. I would also possibly leave more time for a drawing part at the end next time, and I would definitely like to have the time to properly edit the video afterwards to get the grainy effect I had envisioned.

Many of my projects have been unpolished by the end, but overall I have mostly been pleased with the results and the fact I learned new skills along the way. Now that I’m at the end I have a clear view of my strengths and weakness, and how I will improve for the coming semester. I have a very wide range of influences, my drawings and ideas are always strong, and I feel passionate about them until the very ends of the projects—however I always wish I’d been able to fully realise them at the end. I’ve pegged this as a lack of confidence on my part, along with a proneness to becoming discouraged and distracted in the face of difficulty. I know that I need to just keep going at these times because I always find myself pleasantly surprised by what I’m able to do and how quickly when I put my mind to it. My family and friends are also impressed by what I’m able to do, even if I myself know it could have been so much better, so this summer my intention is to keep practicing what I’ve learned and build on my practical skills for next year.

Finally I’ve been thinking about my opportunities in the industry. As an illustrator, it’s occurred to me that I could gain recognition by selling art at anime/comic conventions or doing online commissions—also by going to these events I have a greater chance of meeting others in the industry and keeping up to date with trends. As an animator I intend to finish off what I’ve been unable to this year for my portfolio so I have something to show to potential connections I may meet in my chosen fields, and also so that I have a showreel I can submit to festivals.