Character Design / Shapes

The way in which characters act, move and just generally look, gives the audience an idea of the nature of the character:

Characters leading with Chest:

            Superman

Batman   

If a character sticks their chest out, it shows them as a strong and confident individual. Here 'Superman' and 'Batman' both lead with their chests to promoted that they are strong and confident.

Characters leading with knees:

This character leads with his knees; this shows him as being a coward, as he is trying to get his body away from the action.

Characters who lead with their pelvis:

Characters who lead with their pelvis are considered lazy. Here, Homer from 'the Simpsons' is shown leading his body with his pelvis, showing he is laid back and not bothered

Characters who lead with their head:

Characters who lead with their heads, or who have big heads are considered intelligent. This works as people assume cartoons with big head have bigger brains, hence making them look more intelligent.

Use of shapes in Character Design

Circle

 - Fun, bouncy, jolly, round, no sharp edges, soft, worldly.

Circular or rounded shapes are considered to the friendliest as they have no sharp edges or corners. In nature, most circular shapes are soft and harmless; the evoke friendly and likeable characters

Square

 - Strong, stable, structure, even-handed, rigid, stiff

Square like shapes relate to straight vertical and horizontal lines. Communicates strength. They can be large and scary or small and nervous. Depicts steadfast characters which are dependable. 

Triangle

 - Sharp, pointy tall, accented, evil, quick, direction, sharp

Triangles have strong, angular lines; they are the most dynamic of shapes. Typically, super-villains are based on triangular concepts or depicted as triangular to show a sense of evil about them. The appear malicious, sinister and overpowering to show aggression. Often used when depicting antagonists.

Russel

Russel from 'Up' is a chubby, bouncy, fun character, who is always full of excitement and joy.

His character shape is circular, which comes across as friendly and harmless to the audience.

Shrek

Shrek from 'Shrek' is a dominant character; he is a strong, and courageous character, and this can be shown by his rectangular shape. He may be a bit fat, but his tall rectangular shape shows that he is dominant.

Gru

Gru from 'Despicable Me' is supposed to be shows as evil. His triangular shape shows this, as his tall physique, and broad shoulders make him look dominant.

Walking Bear in After Effects

Animation in After Effects - Walk Cycle

This short video is of a bear walking. I created this in Adobe After effects. In order create this effect, I had different parts of a bear made in Photoshop; Head, two Arms, two Legs and a Body, all in different layer in photoshop. 

I then opened each part of the bear on a new composition in After Effects; I then began to move the bears legs; on one leg I use the pin point tool to change the position of the leg at different points. I then used multiple keyframes, in order for the bears legs to move. Once that was completed, I copied the key frames into the layer of the other leg, and just changer the position of the keyframes, so that the legs would move alternately.

I performed a similar operation on the arms, using the pin point tool and keyframes to get the arms moving backwards and forwards alternately. In order for the movement of the bear to look natural, the movement of the arms and legs had to look natural.

I also had to make the bears head bob up and down whenever it had a bent leg. His boy would also move back and forth in order to make the movement of the bear as natural as possible.

This is an example of a walk cycle.

P2 - Animation Products Research - TV Series

TV Series

Archer (Premiered 2009) - Archer is an American animated comedy directed by Adam Reed and Bryan Fordney for the FX network (Sons of Anarchy, The Americans and Justified).
Archer is recommended for people age 18+ due to profanity and use of drugs and alcohol. The purpose of the animation is simply to entertain. It give an aesthetic value to the characters to make it more entertaining. I like the animation in archer for the simple fact that the characters have a high aesthetic value.

P2 - Animation Products Research - Short Film

Short Film

Geri's Game (1997) - the computer animated short film 'Geri's Game' was directed by Jan Pinkava of Pixar. Other short films by Pixar include 'For the Birds', 'Boundin' and 'One Man Behind'.
This short film is intended to be played in front of 'A Bugs Life' so the target audience is the same as any Pixar animated film; mainly for children but can also be enjoyed by adults. The purpose o the animation is to augment and emphasise; Geri's character is an old man, and the animation helps you to visualise this, as he is given a huge nose, arthritic fingers and plenty or wrinkles. I like it because the animation works well in the sequence to show Geri's Character.

P2 Animation Products Research - Film

Film

Shrek - The computer animated, 2001 film Shrek was directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson of Dreamworks Animation SKG. The great minds of Dreamworks are also behind films such as 'How to Train Your Dragon', 'Kung Fu Panda', and 'the Croods' among many other successful animation films.

The target audience for this film is varied; ultimately it is a film for young children, however there are many in-jokes that also make it an enjoyable film for adults.

The purpose for using this kind of animation allows the audience to better connect with the characters and to be better entertained; computer animation allows the artist to create a setting and characters that the audience can connect with. If Shrek had been live action, Shrek's character wouldn't have been as believable.

I like the animation in Shrek; the fire that the dragon produces may not be real, but it is engaging and can be pushed over the top with computer animation which I liked.

gif Task

We were tasked with creating some animated gif's inn adobe photoshop; this was simple. I downloaded three videos from youtube and imported each into after effects. I then previewed all of the frames for the clip in order to change speed and trip them down. Theses were my results:

file:///Users/student/Desktop/Animation/GIF%20Work/LeoGoingCrazy.gif

file:///Users/student/Desktop/Animation/GIF%20Work/MartinFreeman.gif

Pixar Research

Pixar Animation Studios Research

Pixar Animation Studios is an American computer animation studio that is based in 

Emeryville, California. The studios are best known for its CGI animated features 

that have been created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan. This is its known 

industry standard RenderMan image-capturing animation programme.

Pixar was first founded in 1979; The company first began as a computer division of Lucasfilm; George Lucas wanted to further explore the use of computer graphic in film, so he created a branch of his company which focused on developing state-of-the-art computer technology to be used for film.
Lucas Recruited Ed Catmull of the New York Institute of Technology, in order to develop this division of Lucasfilm.

In 1983, John Lasseter was invited to join the graphics group at the Lucasfilm computer division. The following year, he was hired full time at the division as an 'Interface Designer', and became part of the film making process.

In 1984, the division created their first group short film 'The Adventures of Wally B.' which premiered at SIGGRAPH.


Since the beginning of Pixar's existence, the company has gone on to create many many successful
and wonderful features; these include titles such as Toy Story, Cars, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo, which is to date the most sold DVD of all time. The partnership between Disney became strong due to this.

However, there were many disagreements and complexities between Disney and Pixar after the production of Toy Story 2; It was originally supposed to be intended for video release only, but was upgraded to a theatrical release. Pixar then demanded that the film should be counted towards the three-picture-agreement.


Pixar have created films that can be enjoyed by pretty much anyone. This means that every film they make must be suitable for everyone, a main reason being that young children cannot usually pay to go to the cinema. Pixar's films can also be enjoyed by adults for this reason.