Reflect: Further Progress

One of the things I wanted to mention in my presentation was my trip to York with Maressa for the environmental storytelling brief. I thought this was a really fun brief and thoroughly enjoyed producing work for it. To represent this in an image, I decided to draw me and my sister at the top of Clifford's Tower, making sure to finish the drawing with the circular border to keep the style of my presentation consistent. 

I really liked the drawing and for my own personal use I decided to extend past the circular boarder to finish the whole picture as if it was a photograph of us together. 

Another point I wanted to talk about in my presentation was that I had had many breakdowns/rough patches throughout the year. I thought this was one of the most important things for me to talk about because I have struggled at times but I have managed to get past the problems I have been having and pull through with my work and issues. It's something I have been battling with for a while and I'm slowly (but surely, hopefully) getting better at keeping cheery. 

I didn't want to draw something that wasn't as bubbly as the rest of my images as I didn't want to dwell on the hard times, instead focus on the overcoming of these rough patches. I thought of drawing a short animation that featured me banging my head on the table. I thought this was a nice way of showing my frustrations but does so in a way that could be quite comical and lighthearted. 

I didn't do any planning with this animation, I just went ahead and drew it and I think it turned out okay. Whilst I was drawing I tried to think about the twelve principles of animation to help me animate this action well, in particular Anticipation, Overlapping Action and Timing. I wanted it to seem as though the character was really slamming her head on the table rather than just resting it there, so I made her drag her head back and really push it down by drawing less inbetweens from the upright position to with her having her head on the desk. 

I initially just drew the main body of the character, leaving out the facial expressions. I was going to include these after I had finished the main bulk of the animation but I quite liked the look of it without the face. To me, it helps portray the mood as the face is just blank. Having said this, I think it would be beneficial to add these features in, but at this moment in time I don't feel it 100% necessary, so if I have a spare moment I may return to this and add them in.

Once I had finished the animation I tried putting the content inside a circle like the rest of my images so far, but I didn't like the look of it so removed it. To me it felt too cramped and brought attention away from the animation. It works well for my stationary drawings but just not in this case, so if I am going to draw more animations for my presentation, I shall keep the style consistent by having all GIFs/MOVs without a border.