Harries Does Animation

2012-02-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

Finally got some beauty renders completed in Maya for the Yin and Yang characters, I've modelled and textured the wooden apple in the animation as well but am still struggling to get a decent render of it. Maya keeps crashing, no doubt there is something I am doing wrong, shall update as soon as I have it sorted.

2012-01-27T10:07:00.000-08:00

And yet again I find myself having to apologise for the lack of updates, apparently this whole 3D modelling thing is actually quite difficult. I've finally finished modelling and texturing Yin and Yang for the 3D portion of my film. These guys may not look like much, but being my first attempts at 3D rigged models from my own design they took me blooming ages. Learnt a ton doing them, Yin (the bottom image) still needs to be rigged which is why he is looking rather stiff, but Yang's completely finished now.

2012-01-18T15:34:00.000-08:00

I completed this animatic a while ago but have only realised I didn't upload it onto here. It is still very rough, purely designed to just give me a general feel for the different shots I want to include and the length of the final animation.

Sorry again for the lack of updates, I'm still struggling with learning Maya as quickly as I can. I wanna do another Brain Fart Bill, and a Vlog and other such madness, soon hopefully, just gotta get over this hurdle.

Oh quick note on the animatic, all the black and white parts are going to be 3D, the blueprint coloured parts are going to be 2D digital with a blue print design, and the red parts are going to be 2D digital coloured in.

2012-01-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

Just realised I never posted any concept art for Yin so here are the pair together. Need to update this bad boy more often, am desperately struggling to learn Maya. Is like walking through sludge, but I think the sludge is starting to thin at least.

2012-01-05T07:54:00.000-08:00

Some concept art for a mini animation/kinetic typography piece I am working on, still in very early days but hopefully it'll help my 2D digital skills.

2012-01-04T06:37:00.000-08:00

Today's slice of awesomeness comes from the sculptor Edouard Martinet who takes everyday objects he finds in flea markets and car boot sales and makes creatures out of them. These are seriously amazing, would love to do a CGI animation with similar designs one day....you know....when I don't suck at Maya.

Here is his website for more.

Enjoy!

2012-01-03T00:57:00.000-08:00

Ah so Santa came and went, I got slightly plump, it's the year the world is gonna end and I'm updating again! Just some preproduction work I failed to upload last year, we go into production from here on out. 'ARGGGH!' I believe is the term.

2011-11-22T14:58:00.001-08:00

Some style exploration for the 2D version of the Yin and Yang short; not focusing on characters too much at this point as much as a visual style. The animation will have to be vector based as I am going 2D digital and without outlines. So I need to do some digital explorations but for now just looking at how simplistic I want the proportions of the characters to be.

2011-11-22T02:15:00.001-08:00

One of the challenges I'm gonna have to face with the 2D character of the Y&Y short is to draw him at multiple points within his life, whilst bringing physical traits through each version to make it believeable that it is the same character. The lovely lump of gorgeous above came to mind when I thought about this of Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's UP.

2011-11-22T01:51:00.001-08:00

Ah student halls, where fire alarm buttons are like flames to the mothy fingers of drunken youths (it went off twice since 3 this morning, have got myself a grump on)

So here are some model sheets for the robotic arm, I may need to come back to this when I get into Maya to model and do some more angles, detailed views, etc. But I have a special kind of hatred for the tediousness of doing these so am leaving it be!

2011-11-20T13:23:00.001-08:00

Here is some initial sketches for the robotic arm/cannon (depending on what I decide to use) that comes out of the Apple and spits out Yin and Yang. I think I'll end up going for the arm; I have purposely left most of the 3D elements of the animation quite simplistic, as I am still very new to Maya, and don't want to over complicate things. This arm however will probably be the most complex geometry within the short. I want to do it as much as an exercise as anything else and I think that I will end up using it, or parts of it, in another animation.

2011-11-18T03:51:00.001-08:00

Here is some concept art for the Yin and Yang short, Got my oober computer back!

2011-11-17T12:35:00.001-08:00

2011-11-12T19:54:00.001-08:00

After having roughly 2 billion crashes on my laptop whilst trying to get this done I have given up, I've gotta get on with other stuff, this will have to do for the pitch tomorrow. It is obviously unfinished and without a scratch track but here it is all the same.

2011-11-11T14:27:00.001-08:00

So since the uuber (uber? oober? pick your favourite spelling) computer decided to die on me I have been frantically trying to redo as much work as I can for my first animation hand in assessment on Monday. Which includes my animatic. Because I had to take my old laptop out of retirement to do this it means I am having to suffer through crashes galore and weirdly the only way I can view the animation I have done without the frame rate doing a tap dance is to load it on to the net. So I thought I'd dump where I am up to on here, this is a rough of the first part of my animatic without sound. It needs tightening up but shall have to do for now.

I'm gonna have to be pulling a slight marathon of work over this next weekend just to have something to hand in on Monday, so I may be updating a fair bit over the next couple of days.

Back up your files kids! Else face the wrath of insomnia!

2011-11-07T17:08:00.000-08:00

Wanted to share one of my favourite (yet sadly least updated) YouTube channels. It is from a company called story corps, who travel around America collecting slice of life stories from normal people and animating them. Some of the stories are insanely touching, below are a few of my faves, but they are all awesome, check them out here.

My blog is gonna be out of action for a little while, me and my computer had a little falling out which involved him blowing up. Should be back in a little over a week!

2011-11-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

So have been slightly neglecting this blog as of late but it's been a rather hectic week.

I've been telling people that I wanted to do some Kinetic Typography since getting to uni and have mostly been getting blank stares. Basically it's a fancy way of saying 'words that are all moving and stuff'

Anywho here is my first stab at it, audio is taken from a Vlog of the author John Green

Music is taken from Vimeo's new music store thingy
"Time to Move and Motivate" by The Insider (http://www.cheshiremusic.net)

2011-10-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

2011-10-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

A video with some really awesome views on storytelling, watch all 4 parts!

2011-10-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

Just a quick test with Toon Boom, trying to figure out how to work the program.

2011-10-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

Where I am learning Maya from
escapestudios.co.uk

2011-10-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

More EscapeStudios.co.uk stuff, they provided a lamp to rig up and have a play around with.

2011-10-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

So I'm currently doing some style sheets and concept art for the animated short I am proposing which I'll try and upload at some point but just wanted to share a couple of artists I came across whilst looking for reference.

Pascal Campion
Blog

Brittney Lee
Blog

2011-10-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

Click to make big...

2011-10-08T11:13:00.000-07:00

after effects awesomeness

http://www.videocopilot.net/

Day and night short...or you know...if your cool like me then it is called night and day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJgGe2Q750A

2011-10-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

Learning Maya

I meant to post this yesterday but apparently Youtube feels that 3 o'clock in the morning is an ideal time to run maintenance checks and I couldn't upload the video....the fiends.
So the uni is signed up to escapestudios.co.uk which is an online learning tool for Maya. As I want part of my animated short to be 3D I've desperately been trying to work through each tutorial and learn as much as I can as fast as I can so that when it comes to going into production I'm not just sat there twiddling my thumbs. Below is a compiled image of all the tutorials so far.

It is all pretty much click-by-numbers stuff and I didn't create any of the textures or anything but in terms of geeking out over the software and learning what it's capable of I feel like I have at least made a first step. If anyone ever needs a hardback chair modelled, gawd dammit, I'm their guy!

2011-10-03T05:50:00.000-07:00

Click it to make it big...

EDIT: Apparently Blogspot isn't a fan of super long images and has shrank it down to a smaller size, sorry about that, hope it is still readable.

2011-10-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

2011-09-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

Nocturna has got to be one of the most underrated, underseen, under-really-known-about animations out. It was released in 2007 in Spain and made as a collaboration between roughly 2.5 billion little separate animation studios throughout Europe and the U.S.A. It does to the process of bedtime what monsters inc did to the idea of scary things under your bed. Every part of going to sleep is all controlled by this fantasy other world; from your hair getting messed up to the dreams you have, each element of nodding off is carried out by a specific inhabitant of the world of Nocturna.

Trailer

I discovered it whilst looking for traditional 2D animation studios and coming across a small studio in Barcelona called Headless Productions. They did a bunch of concept work for the film (seen below) and animation of the cat shepherd (who is an awesomely designed and animated little lump of randomness). As far as I can tell they have a staff of about four but are putting out some insanely cool stuff, check out their show reel.

2011-09-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

One thing that perhaps I should be more worried about than I actually am is that due to the rather ass backwards way that I have plonked myself into 3rd year animation I haven't actually had a whole bunch of animating experience. I switched over from illustration halfway through the 2nd year before taking a year out to intern in London. The result of which being that I am going to have to learn a whole bunch of things from scratch as I go along.

Which is where the above guy comes in, we are still in insanely early days as far as finalising an idea for an animated short goes but I wanted to try to create a character that isn't going to be overly complicated to animate but still has a lot of, well, character. The above guy is my first attempt.

2011-09-27T05:09:00.000-07:00

Click To Make Big...

2011-09-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

Its always a weird one writing the first post of a new Blog.
As it spits and splutters its way into world wide web life I can never really think of what to say. I suppose an introduction would be the smartest thing.
So...hello! My name is Daniel Harries, I'm a third year animation student at the university of the West of England (that other uni in Bristol) and this Blog is set up to accompany my final year of blissful ignorance before the student bubble pops and the real world comes flooding in to kick me in the shins. On here I am going to dump all the processes I go through to complete my final short, a few aimless doodles, Vlogs and comic strips.

Expect spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and cringe-worthy stabs at some form of humour.

Enjoy!