My Ghost train animation

Well everyone I have now just finished my second year in Uni and here`s my last animation project of the term.

 In this animation a humanised diesel express train has an alarming encounter with a mystery steam train one night, which strangely vanishes when the diesel attempts to stop itself. The diesel is confused until it rounds a corner and sees that part of the track ahead of it has been damaged and washed away by a landslide. The diesel panics and just narrowly manages to stop itself from plunging over the cliff.

We then discover that 70 years ago in that same spot, a steam freight train had an accident by plunging to its death after it failed to notice the huge breach in the track in time. As a result the ghost of that steam engine still haunts that section of track to warn and prevent any other trains from having the same fate (which turns out to be what the express diesel train saw at the beginning).

 I did this project because Trains have been one of my favourite hobbies since I was a child and I`m happy to have done the project. Although I didn`t manage to finish all the animation on time I still feel quite pleased with it and I hope you`ll all enjoy it too.

I had my assessment today and I passed really well, I haven`t had the grade yet though but I`ll let you all know when I get it.

 NOTE: I know there isn`t any smoke coming from the steam engine, I ran out of time before I could add the smoke in.

 

 

Above is a rough animatic video which I put together to see if the story would work with the original storyboard an rough sketches I did (I had animated a few scenes when I did this animatic).

Also as you can see in this animatic there where scenes at a big railway station that didn`t make it into the final product, first at the beginning where the steam engine starts off, and then mid way through when the diesel express train tells the other diesels it`s horrifying encounter with the steam train (and one diesel remembers hearing about a steam engine`s accident in that part of the line years ago and tells the others that the steam engine`s ghost continues to haunt the line to this day). There was also another scene at the end showing the ghost train steaming and disappearing into the night.

I was going get these scenes into the final product, but because I`d spent so much time doing the research and rough sketching, I ran out of time before I could animate them. But in future I`ll make sure that I get all the research done much sooner so that I can get more of the actual animation done.


Below are my character designs.

The first image above shows the design of the trains from the side views. The second image below shows the original facial designs of the trains, the designs had to be changed due to copyright issues with "Thomas the Tank Engine" and another train cartoon.

The third and fourth images below show the following facial designs. The designs on the right of each image are the final designs I went ahead with.

 

 

 

 

The two images below are the character sheets, which show the different poses and facial expressions of the Steam and Diesel train.

 

 

 

Well I cannot believe it, but on YouTube this animation of mine has had over 800 views in just 2 months, I`m very greatful to everyone who viewd it!!!

Also before I forget, I got a grade B for the video. I feel really proud to have had this grade after all the hard effort I put into this animation.

My Life drawings

Now here are some of my life drawings. Durin the first term we`ve had life drawig sessions once a week. Durin these sessions we`ve have a model to pose for us and we have short amount of times to draw each of his poses before moving to the next pose.

Below are some of my best life drawings, which depict all the following pose movmemnts. Hopefully these poses will help me out with my human animation sequences.

Drunk Drving animatic

Here`s an animatic sequence idea for a commercial, featuring drunk driving (with humanised cars). This is my idea of trying to get people to stop drinking alcohol before driving.

For those of you who have never seen an animatic before, it`s when you put a series of still images together in a video with the images being held on the timing of the audio (similar to how deleted scenes from animated films are put together).

 In the animatic a car (a little red Nissan) stops at petrol station in the countryside to pick up some fuel and carelessly fills himself up with Alcoholic fuel. Then as the car sets off again he gradually gets more and more drunk from Alcohol and gradually loses his focus and vision of the road. He gradually creeps further over the centre of the road and ends up crashing into a bigger car (a 4 by 4 Hyundai) on a bend.

This is another project of mine which I had to complete for my assessment. I worked hard on this animatic and I hope you all like it.

NOTE: I own all the hand-drawn images, but not the actual photograph at the end. I also recorded a few sounds myself while others where got from the “Freesound” website.

 Above are the original storyboard images which all drawn by hand and scanned onto the computer, they where then coloured on "Adobe Photoshope Elements" for the animatic. A few of the images where taken out of the final product to improve the flow of the motion and to avoid confusion. A blurry effect where also added to 2 of the images (again using "Photoshop") to show how increasingly drunk the drunk car was getting.

 

Also I altered the phrase (EITHER QUITE DRINKING OR DRIVING) at then end in order to give out a more powerful   message (DON`T TANK UP WITH ALCOHOL). I even used an actual photograph trace over for the cartoon image of the crashed car. Then i finally decided to use the actual photo in the animatic, fading from the cartoon drawing to the photo, to give  the message a greater impact to the audience that drinking while driving has real consequences.

 

Hopefully one day I might make this into a real public information film to make people think about drinking and driving.

Below are photographs of the actual Nissan (Top Picture) and Hyundai (Bottom picture) cars, which I modelled for the cars in the animatic.

Well everyone, I received a “B” grade for the “Drunk Driving” animatic, like my "Inspector Bluefin" intro. Once again I feel very pleased with the grade because I didn`t expect that I was going to do so well.

My First Perspective Animation

Well everyone, here`s my first piece of perspective animation. It`s turned out better than I expected and I feel quite pleased with it. I hope you all like it.

I started off by drawing some simple perspective lines on one piece of blank paper, then on another separate paper I drew some simple stick men, by carefully tracing the perspective lines to mark out the basic positions for each movement. I then produced the actual character motion, by tracing the stick men positions.

As you can see I`m animating the character getting smaller, walking away from the camera. But I had also originally planned to have the character walking back towards the camera, getting bigger (as these two images below reveal). But I decided not to go on with it as I found it would have been too much hard work and too much time consuming.

 

 

 

 

Animating Inspector Bluefin

I have now started to produce and animated sequence of my fish character. I am producing it as a cartoon introduction.

The images above are the original storyboard drawings.



The three videos below are early coloured footage's I have recently animated for the beginning of the intro, using the "Toon Boom" software. 

 

 

 

 

The first video shows a school of 4 fishes swimming past the screen. The other two videos also show the fishes swimming past the screen, but with bubbles added to the footage (more bubbles in each video).

 

In this video below, I have produced a fully coloured animated sequence of  "Inspector Bluefin" swimming towards the camera and holding up his magnifying glass to the audience. There are also meant to be some Bubbles in the scene as it happenes just as the bubbles in the videos above are clearing. But the bubbles will be added in the final editing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well today I had my first term`s assessment and I can tell you all it was very successful, although I won`t be given the full grade until sometime in February. I`ll let you all know when I get it.

 Anyway here`s the finished product of my "Inspector Bluefin" animation, which is produced as a cartoon intro to what could possibly become a real cartoon series in the future.

Inspector Bluefin is a heroic police fish who solves crimes, and keeps everything in order in the ocean. In this intro, as he is looking for trouble he witnesses a gang of Criminal fishes, who have robbed a local under sea bank. Bluefin then chases after them to bring them to justice. The criminals attempt to slow Bluefin down by throwing back objects like sea shells and rocks, but despite their best efforts Bluefin corners and captures them inside a trench. As the criminals are imprisoned for their crimes Bluefin is cheered and congratulated by the villagers for salvaging the stolen money.

I know the animation is bit jumpy in places but some things went wrong with the final editing. It could have been better if I`d have had more time to work on it, but I just had to get it done on time for my assessment. I`m very happy with how some of the scenes have turned out, while I`m not so happy with others. There were also meant to be bubbles coming out of Bluefin`s whistle, but I ran out of time before I could add them in. But so far I`m happy with how it`s turned out, I`ve spent many weeks working on it and I hope you`ll all enjoy it.  It has also become my longest and yet best piece of hand-drawn animation.

I was going to add a soundtrack, but I ran out of time. But in future when I get some time I may add some soundtrack.

Well everyone, I received a "B" grade for my "Inspector Bluefin" intro this week. I can tell you all that I feel very pleased with the grade because I didn`t expect that I was going to do so well.

 Anyway I just thought I`d post up this version (Above) of my “Inspector Bluefin” intro with soundtrack added to it. I still haven`t got a properly made soundtrack for the intro, this was just an old random track which I edited to the intro so that it could be shown at the university`s animation exhibition.

At the moment I feel that this track makes the video look more like a whole short silent cartoon than a cartoon intro and I`m not all that happy with it. But hopefully one day I will get a newly made soundtrack for the intro.

 NOTE: I don`t own the tracks. The comic chase music belongs to Paul Williams and I got the whistle and bubble sounds from the “Freesound” website. I also apologise if the whistle and bubble sounds are a bit faint, something went wrong during the editing. Anyway I just hope you`ll all enjoy it.

 

 

 

Inspector Bluefin (in 2D)

Now here are some practising 2D images of my fish character I did on "Adobe Photoshop". As I said in my previous post I have decided to animate him in 2D on "Toon Boom" as I prefer him better in 2D than 3D.

Creative Futures 2

My second year trip to the Bradford Animation Festival

 From the 14^th to the 17^th of November 2012, I went on a 4 day trip to the Bradford Animation Festival with my university group. While there, like in our first year we were watching a variety of animation films and cartoon shorts by different film companies. I enjoyed some of the animations, many that had good animation quality and interesting storylines to them, while there where others that I did not enjoy as much, such as when things in the animations get rather gruesome or if the quality of the animation`s story gets a bit dark and depressing. One example of these gruesome animations includes Swarming by Joni Mannisto which featured a boy killing and tampering with ants and insects, who then get revenge on him by swarming over him and eating him alive. And also Robert Morgan`s The Separation (2003) which was a gruesome Stop-Motion video about conjoined twins who decide to separate themselves, I felt they were certain scenes in it that where too frightening to watch.

We even saw a couple of full length animated films like ParaNorman, a Stop-motion film by LAIKA studios, Brave, a computer animated film by Disney/Pixar and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, a Stop-Motion film by Aardman Animations. I felt I really enjoyed these films as they had some very interesting storylines to them and they had great animation qualities. We also got to see some of the actual animators for some of these films, like Will Becher from Aardman Animations and Mark Shapiro from LAIKA studios. They would reveal the process and methods behind the making of these films, and towards the end of the lectures we got to talk to the animators to give them our views and opinions on the films. Furthermore we even got to see some of the actual Stop-Motion character models from the films, they were displayed by the animators in the main reception and we all got to take some photographs of them.

Overall I feel that I have really enjoyed my visit to Bradford, many of these professional animators we saw are working in areas of animation that I`m hoping to work in and by glancing at their techniques I feel that I have gained some ideas and inspirations for my future animations.

 

 

 

 

 

Fresh moving image festival

From February the 20^th to the 22^nd this semester I attended the “Fresh moving image festival” at my University. It was a festival where a number of lectures where being shown by many TV, Film and animation companies, many of which I attended. There were some lectures like the animation and Games lectures which I found quite useful and inspiring for my animation studies, while there where others like some of the TV or documentary dramas which I did not find quite as useful, as I felt they were not relevant for my studies. I also did not understand some of the stories which the dramas where telling, I found the atmospheres very distracting and very confusing.

Overall I feel that I have quite enjoyed the festival and I feel that I have gained some ideas for my future animation projects.

 

 

Creative Futures week 2

From Monday to Thursday, March the 4^th to 7^th I attended my second year`s creative futures week, where I attended a number of lectures.

I found some lectures like Melanie Hani`s “Heart Election Animation Research”, Linda Mccarthy`s “Making small films on a tiny budget”, and Jason Devitt`s “Make your own Damn movie” relevant and useful. They gave some very useful information which I felt where very important and relevant of how to make some well produced animated films, such as how to plan and develop a powerful story. They also gave me more ideas for my future animations.

They were also other lectures, like Aimme Henderson`s “Art to conservation” and Yasia Williams Leedham`s “Design and Illustration” which I did not find as useful since they represented different forms of art, like art sculptures and book illustrations. They were therefore not relevant to my form of study.

I feel that I have overall enjoyed the creative future`s week. After attending and gaining notes from these lectures I have gained some ideas and inspiration for my future animation projects. Furthermore I feel that I have now gained better knowledge and ideas of how I shall produce some of my future animation projects.