Video Demo

Video Blog, Thought Id try something new, with doing blog posts, so heres a video of me talking about a scene that I'm animating and a few other things. If this is a good idea im going to incorporate this format on future posts.

Demo Reel and Blue skies internship

Ive been thinking alot about life after University. The most important thing that i want to get out of this last year is to build a strong portfolio of character animation.

Its going to be tough and ive already started iterating on the old Demo reel I showed to Zach at animex! I've complied all what I consider are the best peices of new work into one video here.

Jack Stollery Animation Demoreel 2.1 from Jack Stollery on Vimeo.
Im hoping to really improve upon this current one at the moment, as I still think that it needs improvement. as it stands.

Also, this Demo reel is going to be sent off to blue skies studios, who are looking for interns at thier studio.

March Update

Two recent developments have happend in the last week. Both good and Bad.

Bad.

I've been looking at the progress of the animation. and its looking like I'm not going to make the deadline for the finished film at the rate of the animations being completed. So Ive made the decision to create a short trailer of the film that creates an idea of the story and to showcase my 2D animation skills.

Im both somwhat relieved and slightly annoyed with myself.

But in order to excel in what i want to get good at in the future ive dedicated the time to use this to practice animation.


Good

New scenes. Nathgug looks up at the interviewer just realising hes being spoken to.
inbetweening on this particular scene was a nightmare, every stroke exactly the same as the previous frame. but the end result was worth it.

Jill gets stunned in this next scene when Blazer looses control and without any provocation shouts at Jill for sucking on the pritt sticks.

Primary aim: Make Jill the complete opposite of Blazer; As CUTE, ADORABLE, INNOCENT and SWEET as possible.

 

And on the last one, scorch being bored and flicking a peice of snot off his fingers without a care and no regards for interview etiquette.

 
Thats all now, more to come on the progress of the trailer very soon...

Creating the very first Scene

In the very first scene, the orcs have stodged back from battle, dirty and tired. Only to find a huge bill waiting for them. This is the first scene to really make an impression so its got to be striking. The doors burst open to reveal some very angry and tired orcs.

Obviously starting off with a storyboard we have to get the composition right.

Animating a Door opening forcfully is a very difficult task without a guide. So I made a 3D mockup in 3D and tried to line up with the perspective.

It was very challenging but in the end I ended up with this which im using as a frame of reference to animate over the top to save on figuring out the perspective. The reason they are different colours is so that its more clear which door is which

And here we have the plate on top of the already existing sketchy animation. To properly match it up with the background I used a warp tool to fix the points so it match the door in the background. Only problem is that when the red door falls it gets horibbly distorted. This can be easily fixed when comming to the final frames.

Character sheets and tests

So over the past few days I've been working on final animations for the film, overall going really quite nicely, But what I realised when animating Karen the hair dresser is that I needed frame of reference from this character. So I created a character sheet for her.

Now its much more eaiser to bring her quirky, bright character to life.

Not only for the face but for the body proportions aswell. Labeling the height in heads will help keeping the character "on model"

Here's the latest animation Test for Karen.

Mid feburary update

The backgrounds for Shorc film are just as important as the actual animation itself so before I start a scene I look at the thumbnails for the animatic and start painting away using that as a guideline.

The biggest challenge is to keep the colours consistent with the environment in the other shots. Also Some backgrounds will be completely blurred to focus on the characters.

Luckily, backgrounds are not taking up as much time as thought, this project is about animation yet the backgrounds still need to be done with consideration and thought.

Also I went to the Animex 2015 festival at teeside university. A really really good experience, it was a two day series of talks animation figures in the industry, various visual effects studios and animation studios including Double Negative, Liaka, Disney and NPC. My four favorite talks were from Ed Hooks, Disney, Liaka and Double Negative. I thought it was funny how Ed talked about how BigHero 6 was an hour an 40 long commercial with no acting whatsoever and then the last talk of the whole event was by Zach Parish talking about finding the characters and the acting in Big Hero 6.

During the evening there was a networking session for people to socialize with the studios, I managed to get my work in progress animation demo reel reviewed by Zach Parish, head of Animation at Disney animation studios.
He gave me alot to think about, his comments were to generally clean up and polish the work before it goes onto a demo reel, and make sure that every pose in every frame is solid so that the silhouette reads clearly and further more to not allow the computer to do the inbetweening, going back to the comment that every pose in every frame needs to be realistic in everything, the arcs and follow through.

I do feel much more pumped to get my skills better and I feel that this has helped alot!  

Quick update, heres some of the new animatic frames that im doing today, were also going to record voices on wednesday!