Lucy Gatenby's Showreel

This is my showreel for all animation work I have done for the Digital Animation Practices.

Updated Walk Cycle

I decided to put more work into my walk cycle by adding a background and turning it into a character instead. I did the background in photoshop and used my original walk cycle I did before as a template for my animal character. I repeated the animation a few times so that it was a continuous walk cycle. An improvement that I need to make is that you can slightly tell that it is a cycle as it doesn't perfectly walk realistically it slightly jumps when the cycle ends. Also I could perhaps include in-betweens, however I really like how the background makes it look much better and gives it a bit of character.

Feedback for Drawing for Animation Sketchbook

We had a seminar where we show and tell our sketchbooks and get feedback on where we can improve it before the deadline. I feel that with my sketchbook I do not have that much time updating my sketchbook however I really need to stay onto of it in order to improve my drawing skills.
The feedback that I got was that I needed to push the understanding of figures in action by studying more poses. I think I am going to do this by looking at figure books and doing more life drawing sessions. She said that I had a good sense of shape and a growing understanding of simple forms that makes my drawings really clear. The main thing that I need to work on is how artists display light in drawing as I think I go a bit over the top with shading most of the time. The session however was really helpful and eye opening.

Ranger Rick's Adventures -Boomer's Grumpy Day Storyboard

Here is the start of my final major storyboard, so far it is going very slow because I have decided to shade it with black and white. I have pushed the storyboard back a bit so that I have time to write my essay however now that I am cracking on with this, I am going to aim to finish it in three days. i like how its going so far although and I hope that I get the screen directions right as I have struggled with this before.

Deep Storyboard

 This is my storyboard for the Deep Project, in these images doesn't have the action or dialogue however in the real thing it does. After doing my storyboard Derek gave me some feedback during the seminar on how I could improve and what mistakes I made. I was spent so long on the drawings that I forgot about the important things like screen direction and objects that seem to disappear in the shot. Mainly I have to look over screen direction for the next projects and I have to focus on how the camera moves as in some shots it doesn't make sense. However he said that I had good numbering and interesting ideas.

Monty Walk with Maya - Week 5

I am happy with how my monty walk has turned out, I found the feet the most difficult part as the control panel that controls the heel, ball of the foot and toes was not quite cooperating with how I wanted it too. However I realised it was because of the knee positioning so I changed it. Also next time I would do more walking paces because I haven't done that many, I think that was because I found it quite difficult. I however like the character of monty how it walks and leans side by side.

Normal Walk and Character Walk - Stop Motion

Basic Walking

This was final product of many attempts of getting the puppet to walk realistically. I really struggled with the puppet as some of the ligaments were loose and whenever I tried to fix it it would only get worse. Also the puppet kept falling over or I would accidentally hit the camera and then have to redo the whole of the walking. However this is my final attempt and Im pleased with it even though it is not perfect. The things that I could improve on is taking even more frames so that the walking motion is smoother, also lean the back backwards a bit as the puppet is quite hunched over. As I am finding stop motion quite difficult at the moment, I think I am considering not to do it next term.

Character Walking

I prefer this walking compared to my previous one due to the large steps that the puppet takes, it seems to be more realistic and smoother between each frame. I like how the character walk is long lunges and and long arm movements too. I found it easier to do the character walk in comparison to the basic walk.

Constraints and Lifting a Box with Maya - Week 8

Todays lesson was quite difficult but once you get the hang of it it became easier, learning how to program the constraints was the hardest part. As we did the walking with Monty last week, walking up to the box was much easier and I think that I have captured the feminine side of the character with how it is walking. I would quite like to do another one to get used to the constraints side, maybe create one that really emphasises how heavy the box actually is.

Elongated Head Turn - Week 7

We had to do a second head turn except this time we had to make it a quick elongated head turn. Looking at references from comedy cartoons such as Warner Brother's Looney Tunes, we could see frame by frame how the animators managed to get such quick body moments as they use elongated in-betweens. I tried my own version however I think that the in-betweens needed to be even longer as it is happening all so quickly. I also think that I need to animate his facial expressions a bit better as well. I find hand drawn animation quite difficult at the moment unfortunately, so it was quite hard to correct what I'm doing wrong as the animation happens so quickly.

Updated Stop Motion Ball Throw

After being disappointed with my first ball throw, I decided to change it and improve it because I thought there was very little anticipation and action. I decided to exaggerate the anticipation by properly lunging my puppet before actually throwing the ball, then when it does it balances of one leg and the body weight changes from one leg to the other. I am much happy with this ball throw compared to the other and I'm glad I changed it.

Falmouth Harbour Painting - Drawing for Animation

I had some free time today so I wanted to get back into my painting which I really enjoy doing. I went to Falmouth harbour and it was such a beautiful day and therefore I thought it would make a beautiful painting. This would be great to add to my drawing for animation portfolio as I haven't done any painting so far either. I worked on a A3 canvas which I find hard as I'm not used to working such small scale, therefore I found it hard with the detailing in the boats but I'm happy with the landscape overall.

Mery Poses with Maya - Week 7

In this weeks Maya session we got to play around with a character called Mery, this was really fun to do as I got to see how you can change and manipulate a rigged character. I actually didn't find this that difficult as I learnt how to key frames really quickly so I could create a Mery pose quite easily. I think I managed to capture expression well with her face, I didn't realise how many controls animators rigged in a characters face, the was quite time consuming getting the perfect facial expression.

Life Drawing 4

This week in life drawing we had a female model so it was nice to see how the figures differentiate from each other. At the beginning I needed to loosen up a bit so we started with some quick figure drawings. After loosening up we had to choose a coloured chalk but no one that is similar to the paper so I chose this nice orange. 

 Charcoal, white and orange chalk

I think this piece is my favourite life drawings that I have done as I like how the orange chalk has become the mid tone and contrasts with the black and white. I think that I need to work a bit more on the hands and practice them in my sketchbook, as I find it hard to keep the proportions. 

Charcoal Pose

With this 10 minute pose, the proportions are not quite right, I find that the spine is not quite in the right place or the centre of gravity. I could of done it much better I think next time. I think what I need to do is step back from the canvas and look at my work as I am more likely to spot the mistakes.

Sitting Pose

We had time for one more life drawing, as before the face that I drew made the drawing worse in my opinion so I went for a simple look. I started incorporating the orange chalk into the figure, however I did not have time. On the other hand the proportions are looking much better then my previous drawings.

This was the last life drawing session, I have enjoyed it a lot but found it difficult with the proportions of the figure. I also want to learn eventually how to draw without reference therefore I am going to keep on practicing my figure drawings.

Water Splash TV Paint - Week 6

I found this weeks TV Paint task quite difficult because it was hard to visualise what an actual water droplet looks like and then having to animate this step by step. After watching lots of videos of what it looks like for a water droplet to hit the water, I was gaining a better understanding of what it looks like for when it comes in contact with the water. I also looked at step by step hand drawn animations of a water splash, as I wanted to see how an artist illustrates them. This website was in particularly useful in how a wave is formed.

After sketching out a rough idea of how an wave is formed, I was happy with how the wave was formed and how it gently falls to the surface of the water. I began colouring it so that you could see the foaming of the wave and how it blends back into the water when the splash has finished. I am really happy with the finished piece as it has a great flow and when the ball hits the water it has a realistic impact.

Stop Motion Week 4 - Throwing a Ball

We are using the puppets this week again but this time to make it look like it is throwing a ball, it needs to have good anticipation and build up for it to be realistic.

Throwing a Ball

I found this weeks really challenging to create a realistic throwing action, I think that I need to include more frames as it is very quick and jumpy. I also think because I positioned the camera sideways this has made it look like he is not putting much power into his throw. I tried this quite a few times in the session but this was the best one I came up with. I think I will look at peoples on Friday and see where I went wrong. Then I can redo it.

Walk Cycle TV Paint - Week 5

During this lesson of TV Paint we were learning how to do a basic walk cycle. This had to be carefully made using the trace and place method in order to get a realistic walk. To help me with this I looked at Richard William's Animators Survival Kit, this was really realistic as I could see frame by frame how someone walks and then translate this into my own work on TV Paint. I found it quite difficult to make it a continuous cycle as you have to make sure that the beginning and end of the animation matches up seamlessly.

I am quite happy with my basic walk cycle, as it is clean and crisp, and the movements are quite realistic to a cartoon character. However I think I am going to refine it and make it into more of a fun character and do a background with it as well.

Maya Week 4 - Beaver in a 3D Environment

This week we were asked to put the principle of overlapping and follow through to use within an animated character. In this case it was the choice between a fox or a beaver. In lesson we experimented with the different segments of the character and saw how when you move one part it in turn manipulates another part of the tail. After getting a better understanding of how to get a good animation of the tail, we had to situate the animal in a 3D environment that it can play around.

I placed different cuboids to represent stairs so that it climbs up to reach a spiralling slide. I found it quite difficult to get the correct animation for the overlapping/follow through of the tail, especially when it was climbing the vertical stair case. I need to develop on creating more realistic of how a animal moves such as tail movement. I am happy with how it spirals down the staircase. I feel like this week my Maya skills have developed really well.

Stop Motion Week 3 - Puppet Reaching Down to its Toes

After being inducted on how to use stop motion puppets we were asked for it reach its toes including a little arm swinging. I was quite excited to try out the stop motion puppets however I think it will be also quite challenging as well to get the timing right. This was my result:

Touching Toes

I am quite please with how it has turned out because I like the timing of how the arms reach the toes. I also made sure that the head was the first thing that moved like we do when we touch our toes. The thing the I should of done was make the arms have a longer swing when he is bent of because I had made them quite small. It was quite an exciting experience using the stop motion puppets for the first time.

Life Drawing 3

This week we had a different male model for life drawing. To start the session we did 2 minute poses which were dynamic but very quick so we can briefly get the outline but still have the arcs of movement. We then did 5 minute poses with the model holding an umbrella. I like this one because the three drawings side by side make it look like an animation in itself.

After we got to use brown paper which was a nice change, with the paper we had to use different coloured chalk as well these had to be light tones such as whites, yellows blues which would contrast with the black chalk. We got give 30 minutes for this one. I found it quite difficult to get the proportions correct as looking back I can see the arm is slightly forward from where it is meant to be and the face is a little inaccurate. However I was more focusing on the colours and the light/dark areas of the skin.

Brown Paper Exercise

Moreover we then were asked to draw the model using negative space, I had never done this before so this was very new to me. If you get the shapes of the negative space correct then is it suppose to make your drawing's proportions more accurate. I was quite happy with how mine turned out. After we did another quick dynamic pose with a tennis racket. I have noticed in both the heads are a little too small.

Finally to end the session we did another dramatic pose on black paper with white chalk. I was more happy with how this weeks piece has turned out compared to last wee. I think I have given good muscle definition with the white toning of the skin. I was unhappy with the hand as I pt too much black in it so I was trying to correct it but in the end it just kept making it worse so I left it. Overall this is my favourite drawing that I have done in todays session.

Black and White life drawing

Head Turn - TV Paint Week 4

This week we were asked to animate a head turning. After the animation principles lecture, I need to take into account overlapping and follow through. I also knew that when you turn your head it doesn't turn in a straight line, the nose moves in the pathway of an arc. 

After watching AMB Animation Academy's Video it inspired me to create a girl turning her head because I want to animate her hair so that it had the overlapping and follow through action. This was my result:

Head Turn Animation

This head turn took me longer than I expected, I first sketched the face on lots of frames so that I get a smoother head turn. I still feel at places the head turn needs to be smoother but it just took me so long. Next time I would also colour it in more properly rather then just colouring the hair and shirt. I am pleased with the final result as I found it really difficult keeping everything in proportion as sometimes it looked like the face shape had changed or the nose had and therefore there was no consistency. I really enjoyed using the cintique to get a more accurate line drawing, I felt this was easier to use then my normal tablet. 

The hair's overlapping and follow through was a bit of a problem for me because I feel like more frames are need to get the swing of the hair to be more accurate. This is because it ends very suddenly and doesn't quite have the same natural element as our hair has. I know this for the future now when I come to animate hand drawn characters. Overall I have learnt that you must animate in arcs, and that hand drawn animation is very time consuming but the results are rewarding.

Squash and Stretch Ball - Week 3

With this weeks Maya exercise we had to animate a squash and stretch ball around a room. After hearing the principles of animation lecture, squash and stretch is a key feature within animation to over emphasise the character and its action. This is why I wanted to learn how to emphasise the squash when the ball hits the surface and the stretch when it leaves the floor. After experimenting last week with a ball bouncing on the ground on maya, I was a bit familiar with the keys on how to record the animation.

First I key framed how a ball would be thrown across the room and then have it bounce against the remaining of the other walls, what I found difficult however was the timing between how a ball would hit one wall to another. For example when it would bounce against one wall it, it would then bounce in the direction towards another wall and then on the floor. At first I mucked up the timing as the transition between the two bounces was too slow and therefore it looked unrealistic, but I realised how to fix this so it now looks much better. I also likes how it looks with the squash and stretch.

TV Paint Cuboid Man Week 3

During our TV Paint tutorial lesson we had to animate a cuboid figure looking over his shoulder and then jumping over an obstacle. I manage to get the rough outline done in class and then outside of lessons I refined the line and made the frame work more realistic with the timings.

I wanted to include as much squash and stretch within my animation, looking back on it now I should have put more squash when my figure is landing from its jump. However I think that from the hand drawn animation, it has brought basic shapes to life and has given it character.

Falling Balloons and Heavy Ball Stop Motion Week 2

This week we had to animate a plasticine blood falling and then bouncing on the ground. I started by drawing a line of what I thought was going to be the path of the balloon. However drawing the fairings was really difficult to judge as I couldn't quite imagine the timings of a balloon falling because of how lightweight it is. This was my result:

Balloon Stop Motion

I am not too happy with it, as the timing is completely wrong, therefore I am planning to re do this later on when my skills have developed a bit better. Looking at others more realistic stop motion balloons I have figured where I have gone wrong; I need to have tighter fairings that the corners of the path so that it is slower when it falls.

The other stop motion task we got set was a heavy ball that is dropped from a height, this I found was easier then the previous task:

Heavy Ball Falling

I think I have got the timings much better in this one, you can tell that it is heavy by the little bounce that it does when it makes contact with the ground. Also I made sure the fairings where large when it is dropped so that it hits the ground quickly. I think I need to practice more on my timing with stop motion as they need to be more realistic in order for it to be animated well.

Stop Motion Week 1 - Pendulum

This week we were given the exercise of animating pendulums, we had to do a free swinging one, and a pendulum from a grandfather clock.

The key for this exercise was timing between the frames, we had to make sure that we placed the coin in the right timing in order for it to look realistic. Using DragonFrame for the first time was actually quite self explanatory and I didn't have much trouble with it.

Free Swinging Pendulum

Grandfather Clock

Life Drawing 2

This week we went back to life drawing with a male model. I have not don't life drawing with a model in a while so it was nice to get back in the routine of doing it. Once again we did various exercises to help develop our figure drawings. I really enjoyed this session as I believe I have produced some nice drawings.

Dynamic Poses with Sport Bat / Racket

More Detailed Life Drawing

Life Drawing 

Where every 2 minutes we would stop and pass onto the left persons drawing and work on theirs and repeat this several times. This ends up with a drawing composed from lots of different people and it ended up with something that I would have no idea that it would look like that. I really like this activity and it was quite a fun exercise.

Black and White Drawing

We got given white chalk and black charcoal and had to do a long half an hour life drawing. I found that it was quite difficult to find the light places in the body and then translating this into black and white in my drawing.

Blind drawing

This is a drawing where we had to only look at the male model and then draw without looking at the paper. We had to do this for five minutes which I found too long as I had finished mine really early. I am happy with how this turned out though cause it does vaguely the model as well.

TV Paint Bouncing Ball in a 3D room

In our first tutorial on how to use TV Paint, we had to simply animate a 2D bouncing ball. We had to draw this frame by frame so that we could begin to understand how the software works. At first it was  difficult to take everything in at once and getting to know the interface. After overcoming some errors  I was able to grasp the programme more easily and understand it better.

We got set the task to trying to draw on TV paint a ball bouncing around the room. We got given this video as a reference:

I found it quite difficult to keep up with the fast pace of the video, however I decided to copy it step by step so that I knew exactly how to create a realistic animation of a ball bouncing around the room.
This took me one hour and a bit, however once I got the hang with how the software work it was much smoother. This is the finished project that I had done:

However the brief does say not to copy the video step by step, also not to stretch the ball so keep it round. The reason why I decided to copy it was to just understand how the program works and learn how to use the shadow. I was planning to copy the video, and then produce my own 3D room with a more circular room. This was more like a practice run so that I can understand the physics of how a ball bounces within a 3D environment.

After reading the brief and realising that I needed to go over it again but not including the squash and stretch and make it look less there the example video. I drew my own visual 3D room and tried to draw frame by frame the motion of a ball bouncing against the walls of the room. This was quite hard to visualise as I was trying to get the framing right that as it bounces off the walls the ball would be travelling faster which means shorter frames. As it decelerates the frames would be longer to show that it is slowing down.

Overall I am enjoying getting to know how TV Paint works and look forward to developing my skills within 2D animation.

Life Drawing First Lesson

I have done life drawing once before however I found it quite challenging to say it was my first session because it was all about movement. The model was running around everywhere which I found hard to keep up. Therefore I was excited to get back into life drawing and having a relaxing session with a fresh start. Even thought the model called in sick, we still had fun with drawing each other and drawing lots of different body variations.

Firstly we began drawing Cecil the skeleton who was in fact a girl, I had quite a difficult angle to draw from as Cecil was very slim from the side. However I started with drawing a vague outline and the started to work on top of it with various different charcoals. Eventually I built up the rib cage and made sure I had a good range of tones to show every crevice of the skeleton.

Cecil the Skeleton

Drawing a skeleton was a good start as it allowed me to see how the human body was made up and I can apply this to the other of my life drawings. Next we had to draw various poses only using three lines, this was useful for animating because you need a basic outline in order to compose a realistic figure.

Three Lines Challenge

On some of them I added an extra line because I feel like it would make it easier to see what they are posing. This exercise will help me for when I draw a line of movement in animation then work up a the different sections for the body. Two volunteers were posing using each other to create dynamic shapes. I used similar lines from the previous exercise to help me to construct these shapes as well. They were really quick sketches but they were useful as I can see myself working into them and producing realistic art work.

Dynamic Quick Poses

Finally to finish we did some detailed life drawings which excites me the most as I really wanted to observe the model as close as possible so that it is really realistic. The first pose of the female student siting on the chair was really dynamic as I wanted to make her look as elegant as possible. I also used the charcoal in places necessary and try not to over use it. Secondly the male model did an heroic pose, I wanted to make his proportions as precise as possible. I could really see him as an animation character, I really enjoyed drawing that pose and could see me including it in my own animation work in the future.

Female Student Drawing

Male Student Drawing