Lille: Marathon de Animation Day Two

What. A. Day.

I've barely stopped working all day (and I started nice and early at 8:30am), as it's been a mad rush to finish our animation. But we managed to get it done, with only a minute or so to spare until our deadline.

Our Final Submission

The day started off great. I'd come into the studio to a folder full of components to animate that Paul had spent the previous night making. This meant that I could combine both mine and his components in After Effects to make up the street that was going to be one of the main focuses of the animation. I had tried to work in Paul's style of working when creating my own components so that they would fit seamlessly in the composition, and I think we had managed to do a good job. I'm very happy with the outcome of this scene, as it doesn't look flat and it feels that the character belongs.

The stress came from straying away from the timings and the planning set out by the animatic. Theo and I had very different ways of working, and because we had such a small time frame to get the project finished, there wasn't much room for discussion or error. Theo animated all the character movement, and whilst I was impressed with the work he had done, some of the sequences were much shorter than expected. I also had to work out the timings for the animations he sent me, as he wasn't experienced with working frame-by-frame in Photoshop and his exported work played far too quickly. Though it wasn't ideal, I just had to run with it as we didn't have much time. I tried to put the sequences together in After Effects the best I could, and I just simply extended other scenes, making longer than expected (mainly the scene with the side-view of the street, and the character walking down the street towards the camera).
Another thing that proved to be a problem was the way that Theo had animated the character getting hit by one of the objects. Again, we were really impressed with the motion, but it wasn't produced at the angle I was expecting. We originally agreed to have the character shown from the side, so the falling back would be parallel to the camera in the scene. This way it would be easy for me to simply add the weapons flying in from the side in After Effects. The new angle, whilst more dynamic and interesting, made it much harder for me to work with the weapons. In the end I simply opted for animating/positioning the knife frame by frame in After Effects over the top of the image sequence of the character. I masked out the parts that shouldn't have shown through. This certainly was not the most optimal method of animating, but we didn't have time to re-work the character animation, or come up with another solution, and in the end it seemed to work fine anyway.


Overall I'm really pleased with how this project has gone. I've never worked so intensely in my life, and I'm proud of myself and my team for turning the animation around so quickly. There are certainly things I would have liked to have changed had we had more time - for instance, I would put more effort into making the backgrounds more consistent throughout (the start street Paul produced seems a little out of place when compared to the building designs in the following scene), and there are some background animations that would have been nice to implement that were scrapped - but I think we've done very well.

Lille: Marathon de Animation Day One

Today was day one of two of the Marathon de Animation that I signed up for as part of Féte d' l'Anim'. Before today's briefing I knew nothing about the event other than I'd be animating something as part of a team, and what days I was going to be doing it. I soon found out that we were going to be given an image that had been designed by an industry professional, and this image was to be the start and end of our animation. We could do what we wanted with the animation, so long as it was 1080p, 16:9 ratio, 25FPS and 10 seconds long...

...and we had less than 48 hours to do it.

I was teamed with Paul, an illustrator who had graduated from LCA, and Theo, a French animation student. This proved to be an added challenge due to the language barrier (though Theo spoke very good English, there were miscommunication issues), but I was very excited to work with new people in an actual studio. It was definitely something I've never experienced before.

Initial Storyboard Thumbnails

We were able to come up with an idea for the animation relatively quickly; we opted for an animation that mimicked old school cartoons such as Popeye and Mickey Mouse. I sketched out an initial storyboard, and when we were happy with the shots, I made up a quick animatic in After Effects whilst Paul worked on background design, and Theo on the character.


Today has definitely been a stressful one. Due to the short deadline, I'm feeling a massive pressure to get the work done, which is only amplified by the fact that I can't do much until other components have been made and sent my way (I'm animating them in After Effects). It's also been quite stressful because I have had to take on jobs that weren't originally assigned to me, and we only have a day to turn this animation around. It's been great to experience a new way of working that is out of my comfort zone, as it's really challenging my animating ability, but I think i'll be glad when this is over and I can go back to animating in programs that aren't set-up in French.

Let's hope tomorrow goes well.

Smitten Fox: Discussion of Progress

I had started to work colour into the fox design and I had opted for quite a realistic style, when I realised I hadn't discussed how they wanted the final finish to look like. I showed them both my progress so far and explained that this could be an option for them - quite a lifelike fox - or if they wanted I could experiment with different styles. For instance, watercolour, block colours for a more cartoon look, or a looser colouring style.

Fox Logo Progress

They were really impressed with the progress that I had made, and they were happy for me to continue working in the style I had opted for. Then they asked me how I would incorporate their company name into the design. I had visions of the text being sat alongside the fox, and very roughly showed them what I meant and how it could look. I outlined that we would be able to experiment with different fonts and they could decide on what they liked best.

Example Mock-ups

Cameron had a suggestion of having the name in/on cardboard in a similar way to Little Big Planet's logo, and asked whether this would work/I'd be able to do this. I told him that I definitely would be able to experiment with this, but that he should consider how they were wanting to present themselves; cardboard has connotations of being quite crafty and is a cheap material. This might portray them in a different light to what they were hoping for, and a clean font would have different connotations. This might make them seem more professional than quirky. I left that with them to think about, but told them I'd be happy roughing up different ideas if they were unsure. Ultimately it is up to them and what they choose to go for in the end.

Little Big Planet Logo

We also briefly discussed the size of the logo. At the minute I am working on a large scale to accommodate the level of detail I had opted for with the design, but told them there is always the opportunity to scale down. I also told them that I am going to stick to working on separate layers, so that there would be the opportunity to re-position elements to make their branding appropriate across a potential promo pack. For example, a letter head could include the company's name along the top of the page, and have the fox sitting in one of the bottom corners. I also discussed the option of having a big logo that could be used on a larger scale, for instance on channel art, banners or websites, and then having a small logo that could be used for social media icons. The smaller icon could simply be the fox's face.


They both seemed really impressed with the insights and ideas I had for their company, and are excited to see how it will turn out. I let them know when I would next be able to work on the project and get back to them with progress, and they told me not to stress as they're not working with a deadline. However, I still would like to push to get this finished, as not only will it be a job out of the way, but it will also leave them with a good impression of me.

Update: They have both since informed me that they will not need the logo finishing until a couple of months down the line, as they both have other commitments they need to put first, and know that I too am in the same position. This has taken some weight of my shoulders, as I can now focus on the things I need to produce for submission/uni. I have informed them both that I shall continue with the logo once uni is out of the way, and they said that this was fine, and that they can't wait to see the outcome.

Smitten Fox: Taking on a Brief

I had met two students at Leeds College of Music when I had gone to meet students to potentially collaborate with for Extended Practice, and though we didn't end up working together for my film, we did exchange contact details and connected with each other on social media. Recently they have got into contact with me saying that they were impressed with the work I was posting to Instagram, and they were wondering if I would be interested in designing the branding for the musical they had written and produced.

The company they had put together to distribute the musical was 'Smitten Fox', and they were hoping I'd be able to design a logo for it. The design they were after was pretty self explanatory; they wanted a fox character looking smitten. Though I wouldn't class character design as my area of expertise, I was happy to take on the brief as it was a good opportunity for me to get work/name out there, as well as a chance to transfer my digital skills to something other than animating.

They were unsure whether they wanted to have just the one character or a fox couple as their logo, so I got started with sketching initial ideas to see what they thought.

Initial Sketches

As they had told me they liked my drawing style on Instagram, I tried to keep the characters looking quite true-to-life as this is how I have worked digitally in the past. I showed them what I had managed to come up with so far before I carried out any further designs, to see if this is what they were looking for. They said they really liked the first fox that I had drawn, and when I asked if they needed any more sketches in order to make a decision on what they wanted, they told me no and that they were happy for me to go ahead an develop that design. 

Which is what I shall do. 

Brand Me: Revamp!

I decided that I wanted to set up my own website, but I thought it would be best to re-design my logo before I did. Looking back at it now, it's a little outdated. Though I am happy with the design and the colour scheme across my social media, I feel my drawing skills have improved greatly since then so I have decided to simply redraw my portrait.

New Logo

...Compared to my Old Logo

I think my new logo is miles better than my old one. I prefer the more intricate linework in the hair (which reflects what I like to do as an artist) and is overall much more crisp and clean. It also looks more like me, which is a bonus, and a clear indicator that I have improved with my digital drawing.

Updated Channel Art - Tumblr

I have since updated my social media pages where appropriate, and incorporated the logo into some of my backgrounds.

Lille 2017

A couple of months ago, an email was sent around asking whether students were interested in going to Lille to take part in Fête de L'Anim', specifically to attend a video mapping workshop and meet/work with professionals in the industry. I immediately agreed. I have very little experience with projection and video mapping, but I thought this would be a great opportunity to meet new people and network, as well as widen my skill set.

I have since been taken off the Video Mapping workshop to participate in the Marathon de l'Anim, which I'm happy with as this workshop focuses more on animating, which is more tailored to what I want to do.

Now that a brief itinerary has been set to me, I think it's best to start researching the event. I should look to find out what exactly it is that I am going to be doing, so I can prepare myself to work, but also to find out WHO is going. That way I can find out what kind of work different practitioners/companies have produced, and see who is worth trying to approach and network with whilst I'm there.


I definitely need to remember to take my business cards.