Chloe Marr

EvaluationFor the final major project, I had to produce a story using one of the six themes given to us on the brief. These themes were Time, Identity, Future, Evolution, Destruction and Culture. We could choose whatever type of animation suited us; 2D, 3D, stop motion etc., so I used Adobe Photoshop for 2D animation (rotoscoping). However before picking which technique I wanted you use, I thought of numerous ideas for all of the themes and then picked my three favourite ideas, developing them further to help make my final decision.

For the theme Time, I’d designed a few characters and environment ideas. The story of this being about a small child finding a time machine but then breaking the universal clock while on his travels. This was one of my favourite ideas that I had developed, the other two being Identity and Future. I liked the idea of the time machine owner having to catch the kid as well and the universal authorities, and possibly practicing with character lip syncing to audio, since I haven’t actually done much of that yet.

The story for Identity was about the struggle of a brainwashed victim as they have to come to terms and deal with what’s happened to them while trying to understand and remember who they are. This was an interesting concept but I felt a repetition with my Aimless Shadow character from the beginning of this year for my 3D project. For my final project I definitely want to do something different or something I’m not used to, which leads to my last idea.

My final idea, which I later decided to animate wasn’t actually a narrative, it had more of an abstract setting. The idea is about a moving hand with a forming family tree that blossoms at the end of a song. I chose this because it was a style I hadn’t done before and how I planned to animate it was on a software I hadn’t used much for animating. So, I liked the idea of challenging myself and trying something a bit new that I wasn’t completely used to using. Thinking back, I regret making this decision slightly, which I will elaborate on later.

I didn’t actually know what I initially wanted on the hand at the beginning of planning this idea. I knew that I wanted text or lyrics involved and that the hand should have decorations or designs forming on it while it moves. It was only after looking at different songs with various genres, vocals,

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instruments etc., that I analysed the lyrics and came up with ideas that could be on the the hand or related to the hand and the Future theme. For example; Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me ideas of the hand releasing a bird (possibly origami), or a bird being drawn onto the hand and from the wrist to the top of the finger, it’s flying and then is later released into the background. These were all really interesting ideas to try and choose from, however I finally decided to pick Beautiful Tree by Rain Perry. I felt that the lyrics, vocals and instruments created the right vibe that I wanted the audience to feel and it also inspired me the most.

During my project, I experimented with both texturing and drawing hands on Photoshop while also trying out different background/environment ideas. I didn’t know what I wanted as an environment, but I definitely liked concept of an earthy green theme. It was only when filming my reference hand in the back of my garden that I liked the windy plant feeling. I took a lot of various location shoots, whenever I saw something with amazing natural lighting or that looked great in the wind. After limiting my background ideas down to my three favourites, I decided that I’d have the three different pictures as the background throughout the animation.

I blended the pictures with the other environment practicing I had done on Photoshop using the opacity, to add a textured appearance, however I didn’t like this as it looked too over the top and overcrowded. I decided to just keep the three pictures and on another Photoshop layer, blend a green tone onto the pictures.

Chloe Marr

After choosing my background and I having my reference footage, I then decided to rotoscope my animation. Luckily, my client showed me different Photoshop brush tools I could use, so instead of animating with just one default brush I used and practiced with other brushes like Enhanced Chalk, Lovely Bristle and Flat Horizon etc. Originally I was just going to have a simple realistic hand outline, but while animating, I liked the idea of quick green flashing where both the brush outline and the hand colour tone changing to become green. The green would then last longer the further into the animation and at the end as the tree blossoms the hand colour finishes green. Also, the different brushes could show the difference between firm and sketchy, relaxed or sharp strokes, so I enjoyed this comparison since I feel like that as well represents a family unit.

This wasn’t the only thing that changed, while practicing the lyrics on Photoshop, I explored with how the font would look after turning or moving with the hand, as well as the size, shape and angles of the lyrics. I

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knew which font I wanted to use for the animation but I thought it would be better to look at websites like DaFont as well as the various fonts Photoshop has to offer, just to make sure that the font I was thinking of was one I definitely wanted to use and would look best on the animation. Also when animating the font, I adjusted the panning for the lyrics and also rotated some of the words, this wasn’t originally planned, but when animating I found out I could alter these settings, and I liked how it worked with the reference footage.

When using the reference footage on Photoshop I learnt how to rotoscope on different layers, adjusting and relinking the media layers, and the best ways for me to complete each frame outline (Zooming In/Out, Rotate View Tool, short keys etc.). My reference layer actually had unwanted audio on it, so I also learnt the best and quickest way to mute audio on the layers, this made playing back and comparing the animation better since I could hear the music layer more clearly.

I also changed which hand I was going to animate, originally it was the left, but I switched to the right hand. This was mainly because when I was filming the reference footage, the right hand was easier to focus on and move around, I was going to transfer the footage to make it look like the left hand on Photoshop but I actually liked it a lot more as the right hand. This didn’t actually make much of a differences in terms of was it harder or easier to animate or produce, I just I liked the positioning a lot more and the general appearance of the animation.

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In this project, I did in fact learn more about using the software I was animating on (Photoshop), especially the key shortcuts, different types of layers and the best ways for me to adjust them, altering text and texturing, and most importantly how to render and export my animation. At the beginning of this project all I wanted to do was challenge myself a bit more by doing something a bit new and different to what I was used too. I feel like I have definitely done that, although whether it turned out great or not is debatable. One thing that mainly stands out to me that I learnt and helped me a lot is the Rotate View Tool (R), it sounds a bit dumb but when I was drawing and going in depth with the hand outlines, this tool helped me a lot when making the right type of brush strokes. Maybe I should just say all the tools were essential (because they were), but this tool just made everything a lot quicker and easier, allowing me to draw more naturally.

Another thing that I’ve learnt that also relates to the Photoshop tools, and that I have briefly mentioned previously, is the brushes. I was initially using just the default Photoshop brushes, which was fine, I didn’t have any actual problems with them. However, in my second client meeting, my client suggested and recommended different custom brushes that I could download and use instead. This wasn’t something I had actually thought about or considered doing, but after showing me a specific brush tool kit, it didn’t take me long to practice and experiment with all of them. I had known about loading custom brushes onto Photoshop, but it wasn’t something I had actually done before, so that helped me learn a bit more about the types of brushes there are and gave me a lot more options than I originally didn’t consider.

I especially liked using Enhanced Chalk because of the thickness and flow, and Structure Debris because of the shade and tone of the brush. I will definitely be practicing with these brushes on Photoshop for my mini projects and private work, as well as any future animations I may also create. At some point I am looking to update my brand logo (and/or ident), so experimenting with these brushes would definitely improve recreating the design. Since my logo is structured more like a signature, the brush and brush strokes are essential, so further practicing and researching into custom brushes will be quite critical when designing my logo and thinking about how to layout my ident.

When talking and having meetings with my client, we went over various stages through the project and he gave me lots of feedback and often directed me with the planning of my animation. I’ve already mentioned how beneficial it was to not only research different Photoshop brushes but

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use a set of really nice brushes that my client recommended. My client also recommended using a brush pen for when making my beat boards for my animatic, and I actually really liked using a brush pen, I also used it for some of the hand studies for this project.

My final animation didn’t turn out how I imagined it to be, I was aware of the time I would have to rotoscope and the difficulties of only being able to rotoscope at college, and the knowledge and awareness that rotoscoping is a very long process. I did have numerous problems with the software; not being able to use custom brushes on certain macs and the text type always chancing etc. However, despite these I fixed most of the problems that appeared on Photoshop, and I did like challenging myself and working outside my comfort zone; using an animation technique I’m not used to, software I don’t necessary use for animating, a more abstract story instead of a narrative.

There is one bit of my animation that I actually really like, the part where the hand closes, turns and faces the camera. Although this is a very short part of the animation, it was the first part that I animated since I really liked the natural twist of the hand and wrist. This part of the animation really tested me to begin with since I learnt a lot about the settings and presets of Photoshop when animating this part.

It was only after completing this section, that I then started to work on other parts of the animation, like the beginning. This was mainly because at

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the time I thought it would be best to only animate the more interesting and crucial parts of the animation, then after them animate the rest of the hand. This may not have been the best way to animate hand, looking back I probably would have been better animation both the beginning and end frames, and then doing every other few frames, just to make the drawings consistent, since the overall animation relied on the reference footage more than I originally planned.

I also didn’t get to animate much of the vines and decorative designs on the hand, or animate the blossoming tree like I initially wanted. This was due to be spending too much time animating the hand, organising the timing of the lyrics and fixing all the temporary and often repetitive problems on Photshop, and the more time I spent doing all that, the more I rushed the branches in the beginning and had less time to add the tree in the end.

Overall, despite the animation not ending out how I imagined it looking at the beginning of this project, I’m happy that I got to try something new and interesting. Normally I like to stick to stop motion or 3D animations, which I love and are often extremely difficult to do, but being able to use Photoshop and rotoscoping, admitting not being the best method to use in a time restricted situation was a lot more educational that I assumed it would be. If I ever get Photoshop on my private computer, I will definitely using it for future animation projects and for trying out and learning even more things.