Fimo Fun

So, recently I remembered that I have a huge box of Fimo polymer clay under my bed that I haven't done anything with since the first year of Uni. It seems a shame, since I really enjoy making stuff with it, so I've been making little figurines of various things for the past couple of days. 
I reckon as well that this could potentially be a way for me to make a bit of extra money, so I'm going to be making some beasties to sell in my Etsy shop. I'll also be taking commissions on them once I've worked out the logistics of it, so if anybody is interested, watch this space!


I figure that its good to have a variety in what you do, and I'm going to try and keep up making stuff like this in the evenings so I can use it as a bit of a break from animation, but at the same time be doing something creative. I'll post some of them up here when I do them. For the mean time, enjoy Mr Boney!- A skull faced boy made for Becky (did I mention the skull glows in the dark)


Sarah

Allons-y!

Just a quick post to say that I am still doing stuff! My uni project 'Cub' is continuing fine, and some of the shots are looking pretty good now. Unfortunately, I suffered a personal loss a few weeks ago, and I've lost quite a lot of time from my schedule while I've been dealing with it. But now that I've started up working again, I'll be able to update here with some new stuff very soon.

Anyway, I thought it was about time I posted something here, so I thought I'd just share this doodle I did while I was watching Doctor Who last night.

Until next time,

Sarah

Gotta draw 'em all

For a while now, I've kinda wanted to draw all the Pokemon, and I decided this week that when I have a chance between doing Uni work and such, I'm going to try and work through them and doodle them all. Well, I say all...nowadays there are 649 Pokemon, and I think that's a bit too ambitious. I'm going to draw the first 151 (so from Bulbasaur to Mew). I'll keep posting them up here as I get them done.

Sarah

The stripy nightmare begins

So, production on 'Cub' started week before last and I'm beginning to really appreciate how hard I've made everything for myself. Keeping track of stripes and whiskers and fingers and toes is proving to be a bit nightmarish...anyway, I think it's do-able.

I had a rushes panel on Monday with the lecturers, and they seemed reasonably positive about the project (if a little concerned about the timeframe I have in which to finish it).

I was struggling with a tiger walk cycle last week, and doing lots and lots of drawings that I just wasn't happy with. One of my tutors, Teagan, suggested that I took some time out and just drew lots of pictures of my tiger character to get more to grips with it, which really helped me nail down the cycle.

Also, the wonderful Jacqui Davis has been hard at work on the backgrounds for the film, and they're just wonderful! Totally perfect...you can see them all here.

All my second years have been doing an excellent job! Elodie has done some designs for the toy tiger the boy plays with at the start of the film (which are here), as well as an amazing piece of animation, and Lauren has been doing some designs for the deer. 

I'm getting quite excited now about seeing the project come together, and I'm going to try and keep the blog up-to-date with developments

Sarah

New year, new project

So, I'm about to start production on my final film for my Uni degree. Scary stuff, but I figure it's going to be fine...I've set my sights quite high, and have already managed to turn a simple idea into a relatively complex operation! The good news is that I've been lucky enough to get some very talented people to help me out with it all.

I'm currently working on my storyboards for the film, and hopefully they'll be completed in the next couple of days, so that I can get my animatic done before next week. 

I'm also working on a project for The Dove Service- a local charity in Stoke-on-Trent. A team of us are working together to create a new, animated, section for their website which they hope will appeal to children and young people who are visiting the site.

On top of all of this, I'm also trying to put together an application for the Disney Talent Development program- because you never know, do you- which means that I'm going to be trying to get lots of life drawing done, as well as trying to polish up some of my work from last semester and doing some examples of lipsync to put in there.

So it's all go! I'm going to find the time to regularly update the blog as well, so hopefully there's going to be a sort of production diary going on here. I'll probably post again later in the week with more information on the projects, as well as hopefully some extracts from the storyboards.

Sarah

Onomatopoeia

This week's micro project was all about sound; more specifically, onomatopoeia. I have to say I wasn't really looking forward to this one, as sound isn't really my forte, but I actually think I enjoyed this the most out of the three! 

We were asked to choose at least 5 onomatopoeia, record them, and then create an animation which used them all together. Mine were Plip, Rustle, Thud, Click, Whoosh and Splosh. I decided to animate a person throwing stones into a pond, who is then met by a big monster, who also throws a stone in the pond, making a big splash. I like how this one turned out, though I hadn't had such bad shoulder pain one day that I had to stop and go home...I think there are definitely areas that I would have wanted to improve upon. 

So, that's the last of the micro projects. I can't say I'm not relieved, but at the same time, I think I learned a great deal from doing them, and I definitely think it's given me a much better idea of the quantity of work expected when working in industry. It's going to be so strange working on the main project now, having a whole eight weeks or so to complete it. I think I need to get back in the habit of drawing rats, too. I had it pretty much down to a tee over the summer, but now because I've been doing other things, I'm finding it harder to get them to look natural.


I've also got to try and remember that I have two other modules to be getting on with, which I'll probably write more about in the next few weeks. Anyway, till next week

Sarah

Quarreling Hippos

So, for this week's micro-project we were each given a proverb from a different part of the world and we had to create a short animation illustrating it. Mine was 'When two hippopotamuses quarrel, don't put your oar in'. I decided to take it quite literally- two hippopotamuses having a girly fight over something, man comes in and tries to separate them with his oar....but then gets sat on!

I'm pleased with how a lot of it came out in the end...in particular the girly fight, the way the characters step back when the human pushes them and the high-5 at the very end. I think I never truly appreciated until now how much you can do with holds and cycles, and still come out with an engaging piece of work!

There are some things that I would like to have changed though- for a start, I orinigally wanted the animation to begin with one of the hippos shoving the other (in an attempt to provide a reason for the fight breaking out in the first place). I think this would have made the whole thing stronger, but decided that it wasn't necessary, especially considering the time constraints. I'm really keen to ink this and scan it and colour it properly to create some showreel-worthy stuff, so I might make some amendments as I do that.

Also, the reason that the video is so blocky and layered, is because I used so many cycles, and animated each character on separate pieces of paper for the most part. I worked out how to cut them all together in Digital Pro without having to vectorise the line, but it wasn't a perfect solution.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the animation, if you've got any feedback I'd love to hear it

Sarah