Pencil Test

I have burned my little pencil test to DVD and nearly finished writing a critical evaluation. Today is the last day before the hand in date tomorrow so I am just collecting my work together, tying loose ends and making it presentable for handing in! I am happy with what I have done overall but as always I wish I could have done more with the time I had. I think I have fulfilled the aims set by the module guide and also my own aims, however.

This is the last post, then. Bye!

Useful Site

Found a brilliant web page!: http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?cat=3&paged=2

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page 2

It has a lot of the original design sheets and storyboards (I think!) drawn by the directors. I will print some of these out and put them in my portfolio.

& a blog about 2D animation: http://www.darlingdimples.com/index.php?s=disney

List of Oscar Winners for Animated Short Film
1931/32 (5th)
Flowers and Trees — Walt Disney, Producer
1932/33 (6th)
The Three Little Pigs — Walt Disney, Producer
1934 (7th)
The Tortoise and the Hare — Walt Disney, Producer
1935 (8th)
Three Orphan Kittens — Walt Disney, Producer
1936 (9th)
The Country Cousin — Walt Disney, Producer
1937 (10th)
The Old Mill — Walt Disney, Producer
1938 (11th)
Ferdinand the Bull — Walt Disney, Producer
1939 (12th)
The Ugly Duckling — Walt Disney, Producer
1940 (13th)
The Milky Way — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
1941 (14th)
Lend a Paw — Walt Disney, Producer
1942 (15th)
Der Fuehrer’s Face — Walt Disney, Producer

& A site I want to check back later...

General Update

I should edit my blog to add that I am no longer going up to Scotland over the Easter break and am no longer working due to the death of a close family member. It has been a traumatic week and my project work has definitely suffered and will continue to be affected over the coming fortnight. However, I'm carrying on when I can and if things get too much I may ask for an extension. I have an exam close after the hand in date for this and the animation module though so an extension might be useless.
I am going back to Newcastle and into uni this week to photograph my work and see how it runs on Velocity. I also hope to complete my paintings on acetate before coming back to be with my family.
On a lighter note I am beginning to feel like I have researched well enough to go on and create my own hand-drawn cartoons from imagination. The project has definitely opened my eyes to this form of animation and given me the confidence to create my own. I will probably practice my own animated drawing over the summer break. I think that my final year program of work will definitely have benefited from this project.

Acetate

I have begun painting screen captures from Bambi onto acetate.
I chose three screen captures from different scenes that used layers in different ways. One is of Bambi and four birds, one is of two characters conversing and the other is of a character inside the scenery. I have studied them closely and have decided how I think Disney have layered the contents of the scene and then attempted to replicate the screen capture.
So far I am happy with what I've produced. It turns out gouache paint is tricky to use but does produce the brightest and most opaque result. The paint actually shrinks when it is painted onto acetate- some colours more so than others (eg red). I think this may be because the paints I bought were very cheap in comparison to what you normally pay for goache paints (too much for my student budget!). To get past this problem I have been mixing small quantities of acryllic paint into the guaoche paint to stop it from shrinking. Acryllic paint is often used on acetate in the industry but it is much less opaque and needs a lot of layers, which can be painstaking.