I believe my academic year went well,
overall. I did have some issues with managing my time beforehand, generating
more ideas than my first one, and with trying to do more than I am capable of.
I felt a few things worked well, I enjoyed 3D work much more than I thought I
would. I’d have preferred if I could have performed more coherently, though. I
have learned an awful lot, especially about the theory of animation. I’d
already had some knowledge about the methods of making animation, as I’m sure
most did, but I had very little understanding of animation outside of as an
industry. I discovered more about experimental animation, and the more artistic
side of animation. I think the thing I found most enjoyable will have been the
work on a 3D character, whom I took to calling “Thomas”, surprisingly. I
greatly enjoyed developing his character, and designing him. Creating him in
Cinema 4D was enjoyable too, modeling and rigging him. I feel my final
animations went well enough, though my 2.5D animation didn’t end up being as
long as I would have liked, and was more of a collection of shots than a
coherent animation. I also had some trouble with Thomas, in that some of the
techniques, such as the method of making a foot roll, simply did not work.
My animations tended not to look quite how
I imagined them. Sequential imaging had a slight change in that the fly only
landed once instead of the original twice, and the dragon did not awaken. This
was because I found I’d simply left the animating itself too late, and didn’t
have time to draw all the frames. I either had or learnt most of the skills I
would need for my vision. When I was creating Thomas, I learned how to model in
3D and how to make a character board, but I was already aware of things like the
importance of backstory when creating a character. I believe a skill I’d like
to work some more on is rigging and modeling in 3D, as I did have some trouble
with them. I’d also like to take a harder look at post-production, and learn
more about putting sound to clips. I’d also like to learn more about animation
in advertising and shorts, how people condense a story down to things like ten
seconds. I think I had some trouble creating a visual style, because I’d been
set in a certain style for a long time, and I also didn’t find much interest in
creating characters that looked outlandish. I prefer drawing things I can
recognize easily as human, and therefore show emotions. Mind you, on that front,
I’ve been encouraged not to stick to humans too much, and have taken to using
other things as characters, such as shoes.
I think my ideas held up quite well during
production, though they often needed to be changed to accommodate for different
things. Such as when I was making Triskele and ended up unable to create the
whole animation I had storyboarded. I feel my animations’ narratives are
extremely clear, as I have a good deal of experience in narrative and story
structuring, as I dabble in writing my own original stories, and have drawn
comics for a school magazine called “Kenton Komix”. I think my peers find my
work fairly good, though I have been told that I need to be more adventurous in
my work. I can be very set in my ways, I’ll admit.
One module I enjoyed greatly was the
character design, because that is something I am greatly interested in. I find
it fascinating to look at how to communicate a character’s past, personality
and purpose in their appearance. I also really liked it because part of it was
writing a character’s history out, which is something I like to do, in
roleplaying. Another thing I really enjoyed was researching into the history of
animation. Like I said, I didn’t really know about animation beyond companies,
such as Disney and Blue-Zoo. It was interesting to have my first introduction
to animation as a true art form be the earliest animations, where it was an art
form because people were still learning how to do it. I think this year has
gone well overall, with surprisingly few hiccups. I enjoyed most of the
modules, and the problems did not feel pressing.
Something I had a lot of trouble with this
year was a difficulty in getting feedback on modules after the hand in. I am
not sure if David never gave them, or if I was just unaware of how to access
them, but it has left me very unsure about how well I have actually done this
year. I think I’ve done alright, but I’m not sure, which I think may have
caused my mother a few headaches. Personally, I’ve tried not to agonise over
it, if I pass, I pass. I am also somewhat unsure of how my final marks are
meant to get to me, but I suppose that will reveal itself in time.
This year studying animation has alerted me
to many things outside of just work, as well. I was completely unaware of
things like Pictoplasma, which is specifically for character design. I had a
vague knowledge that animation competitions existed, but I had never seen how
one was really entered, or looked at them properly. I was never really aware of
the larger animation world, beyond corporate.
