Reflect initial thoughts

I immediately thought of a powerpoint incorporated into a demo reel that involves all my work from the past year. I wasn't sure on how I would present the text and talk over the presentation as well as.  

I thought about having characters holding picket signs with information or questions that I would be talking about. Another idea would be a character flicking through a book, each page showing a small picture/screenshot of what I have done in previously.  

Mindmap

I started thinking about less animated movement in the presentation, and thought about illustrations that would have slight movement in them which I became inspired by Rebecca Mock. This made me think about how i could incorporate the use of comic panels, much like the animated comics that are out at the moment, but taking influence from slight movements, but more than one thing moving. In most of my work I have jut focus on the main action and nothing in the background which I think I need to work on as it the small parts of the animation help to make it feel complete and flow.
With this comic idea, I thought about having a character walk in and out of the previous work, for example, the character could climb out of one panel and walk into another which would be a later piece of work, much like a moving timeline. 

Quick notes

Rebecca Mock

I was considering what to do for my animation part for the reflect presentation so I began to look for work to inspire me, and I stumbled across Rebecca Mock animations for the New York Times.
I admired the painted style that Mock has used as it elegantly uses shadows and lighting to the images advantage giving it a realistic approach that feels comforting and homely.
I quite liked how so many small parts of animation that were subtle put gave depth to the illustrations which I felt that I could incorporate into my illustrations for the reflect presentation.
For example I could draw a character working at a computer and have the character continuously drawing whilst the light from the screen changes on their face , the mobile phone ringing, have the character nearly falling asleep, etc.

Rebecca Mock is a freelance Illustrator and comic book artist, where her work has been shown in the New York Times and on Adventure Time comic covers. She is currently working on a graphic novel titled Four Points written by Hope Larson.

Tumblr    Twitter    Website

Breach of Copyright?

Chris Foss is an illustrator who illustrated comic books however his work that he had created for a mens magazine in 1970s, was replicated by a British artist Glenn Brown, naming it "Ornamental Despair" in 1994, who sold this at an auction in London for $5.7 million. Foss commented that he knew it was an exact replica through how his original piece had to be cropped for the comic panel and Brown had drawn the cropped image. Brown had not only replicated Foss's work but other not well known illustrators and copied the work of Anthony Roberts, another sci-fi artist and sued Brown for breach of copyright, costing Brown £140,000.
However it is debated whether or not that this is a breach of copyright, through how the design has been painted and looks slightly different from the original image, however I believe that it is a breach of copyright as Brown had stolen the idea and visuals from another artist, there's no debate about it, even if the image is painted so that it looks slightly different, it is still the exact layout, idea and format, and to try and pass it off as one of his own works is theft.

Bahi JD - animating Space Dandy

Bahi JD is a freelance animator/illustrator/character designer that has recently worked on an anime series 'Space Dandy', a huge hit in both Japan and the Western culture, to the extent that both the Japanese and English dub was released at the same time; it was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe., who directed 'Cowboy Bebop', 'Samurai Champloo' and 'Kids on the Slope'.

Whilst working on Space Dandy he worked via internet, sending work through email and communicating with the directors and other animators, as he finds working from his home environment more comfortable to work in.

Interestingly Bahi JD creates his pencil tests using the program Flash and his Bamboo tablet, and uses the program just to simply draw with out any effects or other special option. He only uses flash as if it was a computerised version of a light box.

"- but in the anime industry, digital animators mostly use Flash. For some examples, Gosei Oda, Norifumi Kugai, Shingo Yamashita and many other animators work in Flash. Sometimes when I want to add a special brush stroke for some frames of my animation, I'll use Photoshop. But usually my animation line is totally completed in Flash, from rough to final lines." - Bahi JD interview with Anime News Network.

He only uses flash for line drawing taking the finalised animation to be completed in the programs, Photoshop and After Effects.

He drew 1,893 drawings for episode one of Space Dandy alone.

Space Dandy episode 1 - Live with the flow, baby

"My lines in Space Dandy episode 1 were traced over again throughout the process, and I compared it with my original lines and it was exactly the same—the rest of the team did a fantastic job of preserving my original lines. It must've been very difficult work for the person who traced them, because I drew lot of dynamic lines." - Bahi JD interview with Anime News Network.

Space Dandy episode 1 - Live with the flow, baby

I could only find a pencil test by animator Yutaka Nakamura, however the visual is amazing, just seeing the movement planned out is awe inspiring and how they plan, with the addition of colour coding and registration marks.


Bahi JD has also worked on other anime titles such as 'A Better Tomorrow' and ' Kids on the Slope', among creating animations for music videos, he is currently a freelance animator at Studio 4°C, Studio Bones and Production IG, all popular animation studios in Japan.

Pencil test - music video short

Finished scene - music video short

Interestingly Bahi JD started his animation career by animating this short on Youtube, which he had animated using Easy Toon and created whilst still in high school. (EasyToon is a program that allows the user to create small gifs, created by Keijiro Takahashi). Even though the visuals look rough and messy, the flow of the animation runs quite well and works with the sequential frame.

 Interview with Animenewsnetwork - Tumblr - Twitter