Ronnie Leah, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester.

 After learning about the importance of composition, I wanted to go back through my storyboard and recreate the shots in a way which followed the rules of composition.  I watched loads of animated fight scenes in order to see how composition is used between the characters. Below are some of my favourites which I referenced for my own compositions.  This is the first shot I created after researching composition and depicts the two characters meeting for the first time. Just like how we have been doing in class, I decided to pick a keyframe for my first composition. This is a very important moment within the animation as it is before the action between the two characters begins.  The idea of this shot is that it is a face off between two characters who have been brought up to be enemies by their environment. Both sides are highly trained and believe their method is the only one which can work. The shot is framed around the main character as he looks off to the other si...

 In order to show the conflict between traditional and technology I have to create a world which can convey this effectively.  I have talked about how I want to take a more abstract approach to for the final version of my animation, however for now I wanted to take a look at how this world is structured in order to get a clearer idea of how the two worlds interact.  I completed several thumbnails which show the idea of a mountain surrounded by a overpopulated city.  I completed the drawing below in order to develop my skills at drawing cities buildings in perspective. The idea was not to focus on detail but solely perspective to see how buildings are placed in order to build up a city. The buildings closer are meant to represent buildings which may have been their in a modern day Japan. As the need for buildings had become more of a concern, and with the rapid development of technology, the buildings have become larger and larger.  I noted down ideas which would...

 In todays lesson with Justin, we looked at drawing 1 point perspective in greater detail. In order to create a perspective drawing of a room, you first need to identify what will appear in the room. Consider interesting spaces as well as what sort of person is living within the space. Once this is identified it is useful to draw up a floor plan detailing the measurements of the room as well as objects which will be inside. The more detail in the floorplan, the better the 3D image will be.  Grids are useful as they help to define distances Once the floorplan has been drawn up, the next thing to consider is the scale of the objects within. It is useful to visualise this by using an elevation drawing. This is done by taking a cross section (wall) and then a grid for the objects to show their scale. You can draw an image of a man in order to help with scale of objects. People are roughly 1 and a half metres tall.  Now that all elements of the room have been identified you ca...

 Life Drawing Lessons  Life Drawing Lesson 1 Life Drawing Lesson 2 Life Drawing Lesson 3 Life Drawing Lesson 4 Character Design Lessons Character Design, Heroes', Villain's and Sidekick's Character Design, Props And Locations Character Design, Animal Anatomy Reflective Statement After completing each life drawing lesson I feel that my drawing skills have greatly increased. I have learnt to be more observant of my surroundings when drawing and not worry as much if the drawing is not going the way I want it to. There is always an opportunity to fix the problem if you continue to draw what you are observing. A line might not be drawn the way you want it to, however you can use this information in order to draw the line correctly the second or third time. It was an interesting experience drawing a live model as its something you rarely get to do. I found it useful for the lessons as we could actively engage with the model and see them in different poses and lights. This gave me...

 Today was my first character design lesson. We started by learning about the  The first task was to take a well know Pixar character and change its art-style, while still keeping the fundamental which make the character iconic. I chose to do Woody from Toy Story. I attempted to draw him in a stylized, cartoon art-style.  As a second attempt with the same character, I tried drawing Woody as the comic relief character. This meant simplifying his features I learnt that strong characters are normally designed with square shapes, villain characters are designed with triangular shapes and friendly characters are made up of circular shapes. This is because squares are solid, heavy looking shapes, triangles are pointy, sharp, looking shapes and circles are safe looking shapes.  With this in mind, the next task required that I took Woody and attempt to turn him into one of the three types of characters, using the information learned. I decided to make woody look like a villa...

  In todays lesson we looked at props and locations for characters. For the first task I got the theme of Greek warrior. I had to draw tools which would be associated with the character. This was hard as I dont normally draw Greek objects, however also made it more interesting as I had to think more carefully. I based my designs off of Greek mythology. Justin explained that I should try to avoid drawing generic props and give them a deeper meaning in their use.  After designing the props the character would use I then had to design where they would live. I had to take into consideration what their personality might be like and what I think they would be doing.  For the last task I had to humanise props found in the room of a house. I chose the kitchen. I attempted to humanise an oven, making its personality angry. The pots are meant to look like its eyebrows, the door is its mouth and the buttons are its eyes. When it gets angry the pots on its head boil. 

 Today we looked at animals and how their anatomy works. Justin broke down the fundamentals which make up an animal and then tasked us with drawing the animal he assigned to us. I got a rhino as my animal. I found an image of a rhino online and began drawing. I broke up its key joints to start with in order to get an understanding of its size. I then connected the joints with lines and fleshed it out.  Justin then explained that many mythical creatures found in character design are mainly derived from animals in real life. I was then assigned 2 animals, a Polar Bear and an Otter, and had to turn them into one creature. This was harder than it seemed, especially considering the difference in the two animals. I decided to identify a common theme between the two which I could use to link into its design. I found that both animals are suited to swim in water and so I could use this idea in the design. For the final task I had to make an animal which was suitable for an artic envir...

  On the left of the image below is the warmup drawing I drew while waiting for people to turn up for the session. After that we had a demonstration explaining the task. This would have us draw without letting the charcoal leave the paper. My attempt at this is to the right of the image below. I found it to be harder than it seems, especially with the pose the model was doing.  Below is a 30 minute drawing I did of the life model. I tried to use different tones in the drawing in order to display shape. Below is a 15 minute drawing.  For the last task we had to split up parts of the models body into individual islands. This was to help with coordination as it required you to visualize how far apart each island would be from one another in order to complete the drawing. We were encouraged to constantly switch between each island in order to give a fresh perspective on what we were drawing and then correct any mistakes. 

 In todays life drawing lesson we alternated between two different tasks. For the first task we were given 30 mins to draw the life model in different poses. For the second task we had 1 minute to draw the model in different poses.  We alternated between the two tasks throughout the day and I managed to produce a lot of drawings as seen below. I feel my approach to drawing the 1 minute drawings, effected how I drew when I had 30 minutes. As I had such a short amount of time, I had to focus on the essential shapes I could see and draw the quickly. This meant when I had 30 mins I still looked at the same essential shapes, however this time actually had enough time to improve upon them, forming a more complete drawing. I feel this task greatly helped me with my observational skills. 

 This is the warm up drawing I drew while waiting for everyone to turn up.  Today we did a drawing exercise where we had 1 minute to draw a pose and then it would be switched. The two poses would then be alternated every minute and this was done 6 times, with each pose being seen 3 times. You had to correct your drawing each time the position was changed back as the pose was never exactly the same.  We now did this exercise again, this time only having 30 seconds to draw. we were told it didn't matter how the drawing turned out, but instead for you to realize how you draw. This helps to identify any mistakes to may be making. I had 5 minutes to draw the images below.  I had 15 mins for each of the drawings below. This time I didn't want to focus on shading and really tried to focus on the shapes of the body. 

 This was my fist experience drawing a live model in the life drawing class. Although I was nervous before the lesson, I was also excited to learn more about the human form.  We were first tasked with some quick drawing exercise to warm up and to also give us new ideas of how to approach a drawing. The image to the far left had to be drawn in 30 seconds and the image to the left in 60. This task forced us to be more observant as we didn't have time to switch between drawing and looking at the model, we had to do both at once. I struggled with this at first as I was overthinking the task, causing me to draw a minimal amount, however felt as though me second attempt was much better. We were then tasked with drawing the next two images with our opposite drawing hand. This meant for me drawing the images with my right hand as I am left handed. Although this task sounded daunting at first, I found the results to be better than I expected. This task teaches you to allow yourself to ...