James Annandale MSc Animation

 This MSc has been filled with ups and downs with regards to both the work and in my personal life - having become a Dad for the first time, losing my best friend to cancer and now getting married. There have been some pivotal changes in direction work wise - from wanting to learn CGI and Z brush to Motion Graphics combined with Futurist painting to Illustration and finally the desire to become a Character Designer and Concept Artist. When I decided the latter was now my main aim things started to fall into place and I was overcome not only with excitement and new found ambition but also the feeling I've made the right decision and I'm now on a lifelong journey of learning, self-improvement and discovery. I've consciously tried to listen to the feedback I've received and make the most of the professional insights from Kieran and the other lecturers throughout the course. Each time I've been given a piece of advice it has led to the development of new work or clarity...

For the final version of my portfolio I had a very in-depth critique with Kieran, he suggested I change the format from portrait to landscape so it would be more appealing on laptops and desktop. The font was also changed and the title pages removed to make it more concise and streamlined.  We also talked about the presentation and layout of the pages and reduced the number of characters initially shown. Overall I'm very pleased, you can view it below...

Looking back through my work from the MSc, I would have liked to complete more coloured artwork as well as having touched on some simple animation however the time just didn't allow for it. I did find just enough time though to watch this tutorial on animation assist in Procreate... I then started work on the design at the top of the page, which is a still image taken from a sequence. I plan to finish a full colour version of this animated clip once the course is finished.

After I reworked the facial features in the Briar turnaround Kieran suggested I also look into different types of lighting and try to improve the coloured Briar pose by creating a scene and adding some directional light.  This led me to watch another online course by 21 Draw... This was fantastic and gave me a whole new workflow to learn. I also researched some characters from Star Wars for reference... ...then went on to design the illustration at the top of the page.

  Above is an updated version of the Briar turnaround, after getting more good feedback from Kieran about the state of my portfolio he suggested I turn my attention to the face work in the turnaround - which was quite loose and suggestive at that point. It now looks a lot better and I'm happier with the result,  I'm now going to see if I can improve the illustration I did of Briar by looking at the lighting and possibly add some directional light, incorporating some of what I learned from my life studies earlier this semester. 

  Above is the finished illustration of Maddox in her battle outfit, it was a challenge and I still have a lot to learn about anatomy and rendering flesh and skin tones (and hair) but I feel this has come together nicely and is one of the final pieces to include in my portfolio. The sketch I started with can be viewed below...

 I then went back to the Briar turnaround and added colour. As stated in a previous post I'll be improving the faces of the front and three-quarter pose. I'm very happy with this otherwise.

 Here, it was time to explore what colour palette I should use to finish Maddox's design. Eve had told me she wanted her to have blonde hair and a dark top and bottoms underneath the dress. The refence she gave me showed a dark, velvety, blue/purple material so I stuck to these as well as trying green. In the end I went with the purple.

 This was a very enjoyable day, I worked on turnaround sheets for characters Briar, Katherine and Maddox (again at this point I hadn't decided Katherine was going to be removed). These were all quite challenging and I'll be returning to Briar's to work on her face, but very rewarding and I feel a success.

 Below is a sheet exploring outfit changes for Katherine, just like in the last post about the exclusion of the Mafioso muffin man I also decided to remove Katherine from the portfolio as the design was quite as dynamic as the rest.   I did however decide to keep Maddox in, below are costume changes for her character based on reference material Eve provided me with.

 I didn't end up including this character in my portfolio after advice from Kieran, however I had already played around with adding colour before this decision was made. Out of the two sheets, my preference would have been for either the bottom left or the bottom right colour palette on the sheet below.

 After working on Baron Samedi I turned my attention to Briar and using the same colour palette, alternated the colour of her clothes and travel bag. I kept it to one tone per colour for simplicity and was pleased with the result.

 Below I decided to explore some different coloured suits along with snake, even though I knew I prefered the top outfit this was a good exercise.

Having spotted several gaps in my work I decided to turn my attention back to Baron Samedi, creating facial expressions, poses and a turnaround sheet. The sheet below was quite challenging as he is wearing round sunglasses. It's not until you try to express a character's emotions through their facial expressions that you realise how important the eyes are in this process. I think the fact I gave him a large and quite expressive mouth helped make up for this. Below are two of several poses I wanted to play around with. Here the Baron is taking a good glug of rum and then sucking on a Cuban cigar, two past times he's notorious for.

At this point I felt it would be a good idea as well as a good leveller to gather together the art I had and mock-up a portfolio so that I could see a) how the work I had was sitting next to each other and b) where the gaps were. I split the portfolio in to sections and created title pages for each one, they can be seen below.