Blog Post 2: BLUEPRINTS

I've been practicing my cartooning, and I think I have found a "style" that I like. Of course, said style must develop in order to incorporate all elements of the animation. Currently, I have a general design for people (it may remind some people of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" from way back when...). I have yet to figure out what the objects will look like, taking background/middleground/foreground into account.

Here is a page of my sketches. I don't want to give too much away, but these designs should be enough to give you all a taste:

***Note: for animation, the right drawing utensil is surprisingly important

As you can see from the picture above, I have an idea of how the scenes of the video will look. For many days, I thought about how to make the drawing process as efficient as possible. For now, my plans involve drawing the background on a long strip of paper and looping back to the beginning of the paper when needed. On that piece of paper, I will place cut-out figures or objects and move them independently. This way, I do not need to "draw" hundreds of frames; instead. I will arrange separate pieces and take photos of the different arrangements. Think of it like Flappy Bird, where there is a bird moving relative to a scrolling background and green pipes.

This presents a few complications. Firstly, I will have to cut out many forms of the same character to show them walking. I showed an example of this in my previous blog post. I will also have to create transitions between two different backgrounds (I have three pictured above). The perspective in a scrolling animation is limited; I will most likely insert close-ups to show more specific actions than walking or moving. This may or may not utilize a traditional frame-by-frame drawing method, in which I do not have independently moving parts.

Here is a cool video that I saw yesterday. While it is not an actual animation, it uses stop motion (and walking animation) extremely well. It was made by the YouTuber Ryan Higa:

While we're on the subject on that video, I should mention its use of actual real-life objects along with images. If convenient, I might incorporate actual objects into my animation as well.

Starting this next week, I will start to draw "test" animations. Perhaps I will draw 20 to 30 frames of simple images and piece them together using various software. I should figure out all the logistical issues before the final video comes together.

Some other things I've been thinking about/working on:

- Background music
- Color scheme
- Shading

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate any comments and feedback very much!

COMMENTS FOR CYCLE 1:
Commented on Brett's/Liliana's/Paul's blogs.

COMMENTS FOR CYCLE 2:
Commented on Felicia's/Christy's (Red class)/Noah's (Red class) blogs.

Blog Post 1: SQUARE ONE

Before I get started, I should mention the following two things first.

M GOAL: to attain mastery in the art of stop-motion animation.
MY PROJECT: to create a short video with stop-motion animation.

The vast realm of stop-motion is quite overwhelming upon first glance. One has countless options when creating a film using this technique. Just consider all of the possible ways in which the artist can express his thoughts...

     - LEGO (building images with LEGO bricks was a common suggestion)
     - Claymation (I tried using clay in stop-motion animations in a previous Enrichment class)
     - Photography (My dad is a photographer, so this would be a good option)
     - Drawing (I have experience in drawing and sketching)

I mentioned that I've had some experience with stop-motion. During middle school, I had a grand total of two stop-motion endeavors, the first being the Claymation video.

The Claymation was a music video for The Lonely Island's "Threw It On the Ground". My group had a great deal of fun animating a fake hot dog splattering in a clay figure's face, but the animation itself was rather choppy, to say the least. All in all, it was a decent first effort.

The second time I attempted stop-motion was not for a class. In a burst of narcissistic impulse, I decided to make a video game entitled "The Adventures of J. Shu". I will not name any names, but in my defense, one other person was also involved. For the character models, I had to draw a few frames of me moving. Here are some very crude samples (it's as good as it gets for The Adventures of J. Shu):

Deciding to take advantage of my artistic background, I chose to draw my animation. Thus, I had to consider the requirements of a standard stop-motion animation. A very smooth video should show 24 frames per second. If I were to create a 60-second video, I would have to draw 1,440 frames. Keeping the amount of time I have in mind, I decided to go with 12 frames per second instead. This will cause a slight decrease in quality, but drawing 720 frames is significantly more manageable. Perhaps, using a smaller frame rate may challenge me even more than 24 fps.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will periodically consult YouTube for both techniques and ideas. There are a seemingly infinite supply of fantastic stop-motion videos on YouTube. Here is one that I particularly enjoy:

(If the embedded video does not appear, go to this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv_TOkGtreI)

I have several ideas about the story line, designs, and methods with which I will create my final product. Once I finalize my plans, I will post my second blog post.