Work in Progress: Background sketches

 

colour sketch of Sunny's bedroom

work-in-progress sketch of the classroom

concept art of Alistair's kitchen

sketch of Alistair's bedroom

Research: Background/Environments

In developing my backgrounds for my animated film, I've been looking at how other animators develop their own backgrounds for animated works. I've looked at feature films by Studio Ghibli, animated television shows by Cartoon Network and Disney Channel, and independent animators including students at Gobelins L'Ecole D'Image and Victoria Vincent. I have also included some videos by independent animators showing their work process. These videos gave me some insight into what one should and shouldn't include in backgrounds, and how to make them flow with the rest of the animation. 

The screenshots from various animated works below have been selected because of their particular use of colour, composition, lineart and detail/simplicity. I'm looking at how the characters interact with their surroundings, how much detail can or should be put into a shot, and how to keep shots interesting and dynamic. 

Studio Ghibli, Kiki's Delivery Service, 1989

Studio Ghibli, Whisper of the Heart, 1995

Studio Ghibli, Whisper of the Heart, 1995

Studio Ghibli, Howl's Moving Castle, 2004

Cartoon Network, Steven Universe, 2013-2020

Disney Channel, Gravity Falls, 

Gobelins, Contretemps, 2021

Gobelins, Contretemps, 2021

Gobelins, Golden Hour, 2021

Gobelins, Golden Hour, 2021

Gobelins, Louise, 2021

Gobelins, Louise, 2021

Victoria Vincent, Floatland, 2018

Videos on developing environments for animation: 

Experimentation: Lip Sync Test

 For my film, I have a lot of dialogue that I will need to lip sync. I've never done lip syncing before, so it was an interesting process learning how to do this. I first tried recording a video of myself saying the line I'm working with, and rotoscoping my mouth movements. As seen below, this wasn't at all successful. It looks awkward, the mouth movements don't sync up at all with the sound, and it's not very expressive. 

I found a YouTube tutorial on working with lip sync that seemed beginner friendly, so I followed along to that and developed my own chart of mouth shapes. I adjusted some of the shapes to fit more with my film's shape language. 

Here's the lip sync test that resulted from working with this method

This version is a lot more readable and flows well. I'll keep experimenting but I have a good framework for creating my lip synced shots now. 

Animation Test: June

 

I created the above animation test of Alistair's mom June twirling her dress. I tried this to see how long it would take to keyframe and tween a sketchy animation. The next step of this will be lining and colouring the frames. 
I took approximately 12 hours to animate this sequence, though some of this time was spent getting accustomed to Toonboom Harmony. Through this I have a better sense of how much time each sequence should take in my film. In my past experimentation with animation, I hadn't done much tweening, and I hadn't animated at 24 fps before, so this experiment gave me insight into the process. 

I think the twirl of the skirt isn't quite realistic, so I might need to try rotoscoping shots like this in future to get a realistic sense of the physics involved. 

Test: Scene 1 Shot 1

 

This is an animation test of Sunny in the opening shot of the film, opening their curtains to reveal their bedroom. This GIF plays with the colour palette of the film, the visual style, what elements will be visible in the background, and how the characters will interact with the backgrounds. 

By creating this test, I was able to learn that I don't want my colour palette to be so monochromatic, or so based in this yellow ochre hue. To evoke the softness I aim to capture in the film, I need to use slightly lighter tones and more variation in hue. 
I realised that the position of certain background elements, like their bed, don't work well, so this will need to change in future versions of Sunny's bedroom. 
I'm overall happy with the visual style - using charcoal brushes to create blocks of colour with slight variation and "messiness". With some more development I believe this will contribute to evoking the soft mood of the film. 
I've got a better sense now than I did before creating this test of how characters interact with background elements, and how colour and line quality can make them blend in or stand out from their surroundings.  

Experimentation: Colour Scripts

 

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

In a lecture about colour theory, I was introduced to the idea of a colour script, in which an artist captures the mood and colour palette of a scene in a rough image. We looked at Lou Romano's colour scripts for Pixar animated films. In these we can see the mood of each scene/section of the film, and this gives us another look at the way storytelling is deployed effectively through colour in the film. 

Lou Romano, The Incredibles, colour script

With this in mind, I put all of my colour script together to look at them in the context of one another. I may still make some tweaks to the mood, but this gives me the ability to see my film from a distance and imagine what it might look like by the end. I can also imagine what colour palette is needed when I design and create my backgrounds. 

Colour scripts all together

Research: Grease Tool in Blender

I came across this tweet in which an artist uses Blender's grease pencil tool to create a 3D object by drawing. I'm really interested in the potential of this way of creating backgrounds and animations. It might be useful to experiment with and consider how characters might interact with a three-dimensional environment - sort of bordering on research into hybrid animation. 

https://twitter.com/ukasz_rus3k/status/1475897845379121167?s=20

https://www.blender.org/features/grease-pencil/

Reflection: Creating an Animatic

 I've completed my first draft of my animatic for Together. This is my first time creating an animatic, so I've learned a lot through the process. Referring back to the storyboard and script helped a lot; this enabled me to visualise what actions and moods each shot would need to convey. In a conversation with my supervisor early on, we talked about how having all of these elements would mean that creating the animation is just a series of recreating and honing, rather than attempting to create something from scratch. Through this process I've definitely found that to be true, and I think this animatic will be hugely beneficial during pre-production in the next trimester. 

Project Bible

 

Development: Environments

I have been using an app (Floor Plan Creator) to visualise my layouts. The app has a 3D mode as well, which has helped with visualising the perspective for my environments. Below are the results of this experimentation. 

Floor plan for Sunny's bedroom created in Floor Plan Creator

Hand drawn floor plan for Sunny's bedroom with extra details. 

3D render of Sunny's bedroom using Floor Plan Creator

Sketch of Sunny's room using the 3D render as reference

Lineart of Sunny's bedroom

 I used a similar process for developing Alistair's bedroom layout and environment. 

Floor plan of Alistair's bedroom using Floor Plan Creator

Hand drawn floor plan for Alistair's room with extra details

Drawing of Alistair's room from my storyboard

Lineart of Alistair's bedroom with more detail

Through this process I have been able to visualise how 3D perspective works and how to fill a space with objects. 

Pose and Expression Sheets

 Below are my pose and expression sheets for my three main characters in my film. This process required a lot of experimentation and research to create, which I have documented on earlier posts. 
I'm really pleased with the results however, and I think these will enable me to think through my animation with much more ease than had I not created them. 

Taking reference videos of myself acting out the different poses enabled me to think about my characters in three dimensions, and consider how they interact with their surroundings. I was able to consider angles and cinematography, which I'm still new to and trying to wrap my head around. 

Pose Sheet for Sunny

Expression Sheet for Sunny

Pose Sheet for Alistair

Expression Sheet for Alistair

Pose Sheet for June

Expression Sheet for June

Experimentation: Pose Sheets

 

In developing my pose sheets for my characters, I created a reference video of different poses tailored to each of my characters. Above are some traced images from this reference video, using some of the key poses for my character Sunny. These display a range of their emotions and how they might look when expressing these feelings. As Sunny is a particularly expressive character, their emotions might appear more animated or lively than Alistair, who is more reserved. 

Using these traced images, I can stylise the poses to create a pose sheet for Sunny. I'll do the same process for Alistair and June. This process enabled me to visualise the poses of my characters more thoroughly than doing it from my imagination. I'm able to see how gravity and clothing change how the figure appears, and I'm able to consider how camera angles might alter how much of the face is visible, and how much expression is visible to the audience. 

Development: Expression Sheets

 Below are the sketches I used in development of my expression sheets. Using the pose sheet I looked at previously in my research, I considered what sorts of expressions I wanted to showcase for each of my characters. Sunny is an expressive character, and they go through a wide range of emotions in the film, so I needed to draw them expressing a wide range of facial expressions. 
I started this process using the simplified, cartoony style that I used for my animatic, but this changed when I referred back to a drawing I had done several years ago of a crying expression that I wanted to reference for Sunny. 

A drawing I did in 2015, which I referenced when working on my expression sheets

Looking at this drawing, and others of its time, I departed from the cartoony style and leaned into a slightly more detailed style for the rest of the expression sheets. 

Initial sketches for Sunny's expression sheet

Sketches I used to create Sunny's final expression sheet

Sketches for Alistair's expression sheet

Sketches for June's expression sheet

Reference: Character Designs, Poses and Expressions

In developing my character designs and reference material for my production bible, I've been looking at how other artists develop their own pose and expression sheets. 

Anatomy: 

Anatomy reference sheet

I used this sheet in developing my turnarounds, checking that my figures conformed to the anatomical guidelines above. This enabled me to confirm the proportions of my characters and create more accurate turnarounds. 

Expressions: 

Facial Expression Sheet

From these I'm able to gauge what expressions I could include in my own sheet, and what level of expressiveness to include. Looking at this expression sheet, I can see how some facial expressions contort the face, and what areas to focus on, such as eye shape, eyebrow position, and mouth shape. 

Poses: 

Character Pose Sheet

This pose sheet shows a variety of expressions and poses, and the way emotions are expressed through different poses. In my own pose sheets, I am incorporating emotion and feeling into my characters' poses. 

References:

Catrinella, L. (2017) Character Pose Sheet. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VRWyg (Accessed 11 December 2021)

Medlej, J. (2021) Human Anatomy Fundamentals: Basic Body Proportions. Available at: https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/human-anatomy-fundamentals-basic-body-proportions--vector-18254 (Accessed 5 December 2021)

Wong, E. (2013) Facial Expressions Buddy Sheet for comics/cartoons. Available at: https://www.deviantart.com/darkspeeds/art/Facial-Expressions-Buddy-Sheet-for-comics-cartoons-359562676. (Accessed 9 December 2021)