The Betty Smithers anthropomorphic character

I have developed this design in photoshop for the Betty Smithers Mascot.

Post it notes

I have drawn one minuet post it notes using biro to capture life in movement. 

Digital paint

I have designed one of the life drawings on photoshop to emphasise negative and positive spaces.

Betty Smithers

I have drawn character designs for the Betty Smithers Mascot

The cemetery

These were drawn at the cemetery in pencil of the cemetery building and door. 

Flickr account

For all the life drawings and character design I have put all on
http://www.flickr.com/photos/art_rachelhunt/sets/

The train station

This was drawn in a 2B pencil of the train station in perspective. This was a 5 Minuet drawing to capture the train.

This was a 30 minuet drawing of the train station in 2B pencil using a technique of shading and grading in perspective.

 This was also a 5 minuet drawing of one of the train station doors. This was drawn in biro using a technique of cross hatching.

The silhouette character

This was designed using Photoshop using silhouettes to create a character.

Life drawing seven 29th November

This was life drawing session seven on the 29th November. This was drawing with white chalk and charcoal. Drawing in scale using linear curves with the white chalk for 15 minuets and 30 minuets. To start the technique was finding the largest curve and then drawing the smaller curves in the drawing to how the figure was positioned. I enjoyed this technique as I found this was more relaxed than the other techniques so far.      

Life drawing six 22nd November

This was life drawing session six on the 22nd November. Drawing with charcoal on brown parcel paper using letters to draw in proportion. I found drawing the letters around the figure allowed me to draw in scale. As I saw the letters not as single objects, connected to the figure.    

Life drawing five 15th November

This was life drawing session five on the 15th November. Constantly looking and drawing as the figure was in motion, drawing the key frames for five minuets. I found when drawing the figure in motion was difficult to draw the whole of the body so I was only able to capture the head and shoulders which show the movement. Also when there was movement overlapping I found it was difficult to see what I was drawing as it became darker and looked similar to a scribble. From this technique as an animator I found that animators need to draw quick to beable to capture the motion of the figure to draw the inbetween frames.     

 

Life drawing four 8th November

This was life drawing session four on the 8th November using light blue and dark blue pencils for 3, 10 and 15 minuets. This was drawing the box to gain perspective and scale accurate. 

Life drawing three 1st November

This was life drawing three 1st November using black and white paint. Painted with card sticks and fingers to blend the paint together. When using the paint I found drawing the proportions difficult to the legs and feet. So the foot looks scaled bigger than the rest of the body. This wasn't one of my favourite life drawing sessions because it was messy and uncontrollable creating tone with the paint.     

  

Life drawing two 25th October

This was life drawing session two 25th October still drawing in linear, which was drawing in to perspective using a box.

 

This drawing was smudging the charcoal as the background and then using the eraser to draw the figure in scale using the box to create perspective. Applying the charcoal on top of the frottage using linear and the white chalk to create tone. finally, using a larger charcoal to shading in the background making the figure stand out.        

Life drawing one 18th October

This is the first life drawing session on the 18th October, scale drawing in linear using charcoal. I found the charcoal doesn't smudge as much when applying to the brown parcel paper. Also charcoal is quite forgiving. So when changing a line to the drawing just using your fingers can smudge the charcoal which more saves time than using an eraser. When having only a few minuets to draw the whole of the figure to scale. 

The introduction to my essay question

The draft for the introduction of my individual essay is focused on how an anthropomorphic character can imitate human characteristics without dialogue can appeal and relate to the audience.
How does the 3D feature film Ice age’s character Scrat use anthropomorphism to appeal and relate to the audience?

Ice age Scrat also appeals to the audience as we can understand the characters body language and facial expression which create empathy for the character. The animals face has been morphed in to a more human face to relate to the younger audience. As most 3D feature films are aimed at children, but appeal to older viewers as well, this makes it more of a family film.
I will attempt to answer this question using keywords such as body language, facial expressions and realism within 3D feature films. I will research within anthropomorphism to discover how 3D feature films imitate human characteristics to appeal to the audience using animation principles such as exaggeration to also create an interesting character. Another animation principle that is used mostly with anthropomorphism is squash and stretch to create a certain amount of realism in the animation. This is one of several of the Ice age Scrat short films showing the techniques used within animation principles such as exaggeration to appeal to the audience. From the facial expressions and body language we can relate to the emotions of the character without speech and is still interesting.

Within 3D feature films animals with dialogue has been used more frequently such as shark tale and Madagascar. Ice age Scrat is different to the other characters and doesn’t have dialogue and the audience can only relate to character from the body language and facial expression, which can create a sense of realism with the character, unlike the other characters. This can create a debate that even without dialogue the character can still appeal to the audience. Even though, to appeal to younger viewers animals with dialogue may make the animation easier for the child to understand.

Bristol Encounters

The 15th-18th November I went to the Bristol International film festival to research about animation techniques and how animators work. One thing that I found interesting was the cartoon saloon which was 1hour30mins with Tomm Moore, creative director of Cartoon Saloon, presented an insight into the award winning studio, one of Ireland's leading animation companies.
Cartoon Saloon currently develops and produced feature film and TV series projects while also producing short films, television commercials, graphic novels and children's books.

One of the animations I enjoyed was Tomm Moore's The secret of Kells 2009. This animation had been influenced by the the book of kells using celtic art within the animation. As he explained that the animation film title would be more appealing to the audience as The Secret of Kells, instead of The Book of Kells. He also expressed about the character designs and how development was taken place such as colours that would stand out more. The scenery was also developed as it was originally abstract trees. This may not appeal to the audience so it was changed to seem more celtic keeping a little realism within the animation.

Another animation was Damned which was 8mins-director, animator Richard Phelan. Animated an over- ambitious beaver who goes too far, when he gets the chance to realise his ultimate dream. I enjoyed this animation because it uses anthropomorphism showing a cute beaver with human characteristics suggesting emotions through facial expressions and body language. As the beaver got the chance to build the ultimate damn. Soon realised he had to sacrifice his dream to save others. This allowed an audience relationship with the character because everyone has dreams, but some dreams are just too big.

Presentations

During Presentations
One thing that should happen during a presentation is to engage the audience with relevate information using interesting examples showing enthusiasm about the topic.
One thing that should not happen during a presentation is to read constantly from notes. This prevents audience interactivity as there is no eye contact with the audience. This also suggests that the reader is not well prepared for the presentation.
One interesting thing I have learned about anthropomorphism that I found out about in the presentations given on Wednesday was how frequently anthropomorphism is used in the media to appeal to a demographic audience. Anthropomorphic characters seem like they are used to appeal to children. But this is not the case anthropomorphism may appeal to an older viewer as well, depending on the personality and life storie of the character. This allows an audience relationship, knowing the characters emotions using body language and facial expressions; to advertise, entertain and educate.

3D Feature Films

The assignment was to choose a particular genre; 3D Feature Films for a group presentation. The group consists of Jamie, James, Jack, Megan, Emma Richard and Rachel(Me).
We named ourselves MERGE; using our initals, this actually spelt MERRJJJ. As we brainstormed we thought it would be best to use the traditional spelling.

We have set up a blog so we can share any research and discuss ideas
http://merge3d.blogspot.com/

The focus of our presentation is based on how technology has developed to capture the actors movement to create an anthropomorphic character. So we researched in to past, present and future. This allowed us to discover how technology has advanced; whether it is used improve or just make 3D feature films different.

Anthropomorphic character

For the animation research project I am focusing on the genre of 3D feature films. I have decided to choose Scrat from Ice age as my anthropomorphic character. Scrat is a sabre-toothed squirrel who is obsessed with acorns, putting his life in danger to obtain and defend them. This character has his own stories in the film causing interaction with the other main characters.

Within the film I don't remember hearing his name, but somehow we know it. Scrat is an anthropomorphic character because he has human characteristics with his facial expressions and body language, as we always know what he is thinking and his emotions are without dialogue... As it is mostly screaming with Scrat as he is constantly in humorous and painful situations.

For the essay question I will focus on a question using the anthropomorphic character Scrat. While deciding on a question I found that throughout Ice age Scrat uses mostly body language and facial expressions which suggest physical and social behaviour, social context, social interaction,relationships and personality.      

• How does the character Scrat use anthropomorphism in Ice age?
• How can we relate to the Ice age character Scrat?
• How does Ice age use appeal with the character Scrat to create anthropomorphism?  

The Three Blogs

The blogs I like are:
http://www.andywhiteley.com/blog/
Andy Whiteley is a 3D computer graphic artist/ animator who works mainly with modeling, texturing and animation in maya. This is a 3D animation blog represents how stop motion styles can be portrayed using CG animation techniques. I like this blog as it shows how animation has changed and advanced from stop motion to computer animation.  

http://parkablogs.com/content/blogs-of-pixar-artists-and-animators
This blog portrays blogs and websites created by artists and animators who work for, or have worked for, Pixar Animations Studios. Not only is this blog Pixar artists, there is a link for Dreamworks artists aswell. I like this blog by the use of colours and sketches that Pixar and Dreamwork artists have produced.

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/
Andreas Deja has spent 30 years at disney and is now focusing on his own animated short films. I like this blog as it shows mostly wildlife illustrations. The traditional 2D drawings of disney characters using different techniques such as linear sketches and animated pencil tests. This blog also shows other animator/artists such as Tim Burton with wire sculptures for stop motion.