James Annandale MSc Animation

 After completing the Baron Samedi design I shared it with the group and also showed Kieran which led to a very useful discussion about things to consider and how to improve. Although he liked the work he gave me several insightful comments to think about such as making sure you use clear and readable silhouetting when designing your pose. This is key and is something I didn't do because I was using my own reference material which wasn't clear to start with. He also suggested that next time I do this instead of taking photographs I shoot a video and freeze-frame a single shot which would show a more natural pose. We also talked about lighting, a massive step forward I felt about the Baron Samedi design was my use of lighting. I really tried to illuminate the suit and create depth through the placement of it however Kieran pointed out some of the flaws such as using a soft, blurred edge on a shadow that should have been hard-edged. These were all great points and I really enjoye...

  Above is the final design, I used the Guassian Blur a lot in this on the suit and the spirit smog coming from the cane and in the large skull on the cane. Below is an alternative background, I posted this on Teams and people preferred the one above. Below is a 30-second time-lapse video of the painting process from start to finish, this is definitely the best character I've designed so far and I'm excited to see what else I can create for my portfolio. 

For my next character I really wanted to create a character based around skulls, when searching the internet I came across a character called Baron Samedi who I recognised from the James Bond movie 'Live and Let Die'. He was also featured on a fighting game Cameron had sent me a link for called 'Smite'. I researched the different incarnations and designs Baron Samedi has been given over the years and decided I wanted to start by creating my own reference material so using a broken brush handle, my own jacket and my partner Rach's daughter May's top hat (that was a helluva sentence!) I got Rach to take the following photograph... Then after some more research I found a more appropriate hat, face and also a necklace and superimposed them on to the image above, then started drawing... Here I had the bones of my design so I roughed out the following drawing keeping in mind the lesson from the last character about proportion... I wanted him to be tall and thin, I als...

 Having posted the design of Briar in the peer feedback channel I had some positive responses and also some constructive criticism which was very useful. Rahul mentioned that at first glance she looked older than 16 and this was due to the proportions being incorrect (he said a 16 year-old girl would only be approx 5 heads tall). I appreciated this feedback but found it a bit confusing as I have a book which states that adolescents are approx 7 to 7 and-a-half heads tall but I took the point on board and went back and measured my character more accurately, she was around 6 and-a-half heads high. I adjusted the height in Procreate to about 5 and-a-half heads which did look better...  Below I've placed them side by side for comparison. I'll let Eve decided which she prefers as it's her project. Either way this was still a very insightful thing to do and will definitely be something I'll consider carefully when designing characters in the future. Rahul also questioned the ...

  Although I'd suffered a little hiccup in the progress of designing Briar I was really excited to start adding colour to the line design. The first thing I did was select a basic colour palette and fill in the main large areas... I then changed the layer type to 'Luminosity' to check the values worked well with each other... I was happy with the above, so duplicated the layer and converted the layer type back to 'Normal' then went onto to select a base colour for all the other parts of the design. Then I chose one tint and one shade for each base colour and displayed them to the right of my design for easy access, then used each on a separate layer. I also used the same technique I discovered last semester when creating a glow for my sword design (selecting Guassian Blur, then duplicating the layer twice and changing the layer type to 'Add') to create a crimson glow around the bow staff. I was really happy with how this developed... Lastly, I've recentl...

 Next up I re-watched part of Randy Bishop's online Character Design course on '21 Draw' to see what he said about creating an expression sheet and I referenced some of his work on facial expressions when creating them for Briar. This was one of the most challenging but also enjoyable pieces of drawing I've done for quite a while! I found myself making the expressions as I tried to draw them which took me back to drawing as a child, it was tough trying to keep the facial feature recognizable and on key but very satisfying when I'd finished one that I felt expressed the correct emotion. Here is what I came up with...  Then I went on to use the initial front-on head-design to create a sheet of varying mouth shapes incase this character ever needed to be animated talking. Again this was something I haven't drawn probably since I was last in University 15 years ago and was very enjoyable because of this. I Google searched some mouth shapes then incorporated them int...

Eve sent me a link to a YouTube video about using a bow staff (because that is Briar's weapon of choice) which was really good, I also thought I'd use the face of the instructor as a starting point for my design of Briar's head. Below is a picture of the instructor and above my first sheet of head designs. Starting top left I worked my way right trying to iterate as much as I could while keeping the same style of hair... I continued to play around with the design changing the shape and height of the forehead and hairline as well as the angle of the nose and mouth.. I then asked Eve for feedback and she chose the design to the far right on the top line of the first sheet but asked if I could make the forehead smaller... Eve then chose the head four along from the left and I went on to design another hair do for one of the other outfits for the character.