vimeo.com/danielgies
I knew this character was going to take a long time to rig and animate correctly so I had to create an animation around 1 character with limited movement, because he would not be able to turn past 90 degrees. I was confident that the character would influence the story.
I created a test character head using some of the skills I learnt in the tutorial and was amazed at how smooth the animation looked. This raised my confidence in creating a believable character to animate with.
I created a test character head using some of the skills I learnt in the tutorial and was amazed at how smooth the animation looked. This raised my confidence in creating a believable character to animate with.
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I wanted to create a character who could act and hold a scene by himself , so the top two names that come to mind are Charlie Chaplin and Rowan Atkinson. I used to watch Mr Bean alot, as a child and still do. I also took influence from his style of acting, I saw a making of Mr Bean and saw just how much of the show is improve by Rowan. The show usually contains simple goals, which are reached in a way that is out of the box and comical. Alot of the background and props are also influenced by the show. The wallpaper is a typical example, the repeated pattern sets the 90s stage for the animation.
I wanted to style my characters clothes on a modern gentleman. I did not want the animation to look too aged. I feel the mix works well. I really like the bowler hat and umbrella/ walking stick.
I started drawing sketches of the character so I could visualize the image of the character in my head. I had to then upload the face on Photoshop and break the pieces of the face up into different layers. The hair was the hardest thing to break up because I wanted the hair clumps to look seamless in the final. I colour graded the layers in Photoshop before importing the into After Effects to move them around in 3D space.
Final Design Sketch.
I continued working on the contrast and colour of the hair and face when I was constructing the face on AE, This project has to have the most compositions I have ever used in a project and it required me to use almost all the AE tricks i know and learns some new ones. I have full control over the eyebrows, eyes and mouth sync.
Final Character Design.
Im quite happy with the final design, its meant to look like its made out of textured cardboard. The final image is surreal but It fits the scenery and therefore makes a convincing animation.
The backgrounds were made with a mix of textures and photographs I took. In the above image, the rack with suits is a picture of my wardrobe and the wooden paneling are textures arranged in 3D space to get the shadow correct in After Effects. The pictured taped to the door was composited in Photoshop by combining a character i drew and painted with a background of a landscape, marked into a textured photograph piece.
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To finalize the images I colour graded the comp and added lighting in the appropriate places with alpha mattes. Once all this was done, I was ready to animate the character. The story was simple, a mans race against time to get ready for the moment the clock chimes so he can see the woman he likes. I thought an appropriate deadline for this animation was the clock makers competition that was soon approaching. I have created the animation and entered it into the competition, but feed back from my group indicated that i needed to make a few changes, which I plan to have ready for my final show.
Here is the piece I entered into the competition:
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Improvements to be made:
1.Variety of footstep sounds.
2. Some scenes drag, not enough happening.
3. Acting is not good enough.
4. Clock Sound building and animate second hand rather than minute hand.
5. Make clock 3D to emphasize second hand coming down.
6. Don't show credits until animation is finished.
7. Final tick on door opening.
8. Show that he gets close but never gets to kiss her.
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