Their style is perfectly clean and shiny, and I’d love to be able to model exactly like them. They consistently use features like prominent eyebrows, lips, nose and cheeks, which really brings their gallery together, as well as beautiful gradients.
A successful artist based in Mexico City who teachers blender with another simple style, making for adorable creations. I purchased her character modelling course so I’m looking forward to trying that out.
She evokes childhood nostalgia of old video games through these little creatures, using fuzzy textures and round shapes combined with harsh patterns. She then sells these as sticker sheets.
We have 2 months to create a 20-second long animation, in groups of 2-3. We had to use words from the cloud as a basis, and create something with a beginning, middle and end.
Me, Keyleigh and Iqra decided to make a 2D animated feature about a shape-shifting magical girl who hops through 3 different lands to make a delivery – each one being set in a different environment, character form and one of our art styles. Iqra was first with underwater, then Keyleigh created a mythical forest, and I was last with outer space.
I also made moodboards for our character design and art style inspirations, then created concept sketches based off of that. I was very inspired by the webseries ‘Bee and Puppycat’ which features lovely round shapes and a simple style. I consulted my teammates and we liked the dress and spaceboots of the first girl, but the colour palette and puffy hair of the second girl. From this, I finalised the design, and they used it to base their designs on.
The next stage was planning out the contents of the animation. Since we were splitting into 3, I had roughly 7 seconds to showcase my part. I’m also going last so I had to show the ending, the conclusion, of her bringing the stars to space. I came up with this storyboard.
The final planning stage was to make an animatic, which I did using the panels from above. This was helpful as I realised I definitely needed to condense the content down in order to fit my timeslot.
And then it was on to finally animating. I used the inbetween method on Photoshop and Premiere Pro, before piecing it together with my group members and making music on Garageband. Here’s a shot that I ended up really liking.
We have been tasked with creating a 30-second short film, animated in any way, that showcases our ‘point of view’ – namely, an issue that we feel strongly about, no matter how big or small. The intention is to make the viewers feel something, and also accumulate what we’ve learnt so far, in regards to how we’ve enhanced the way we see and approach things.
I made sure to drop by Wednesday’s life-drawing sessions whenever I could. They were extremely helpful in learning human anatomy (which is crucial to know before you stylize your art), as well as other nuances of illustration, such as foreshortening.
Finally, we needed to make a 15-20 second long animation that conveys the theme “connection.” This was done in Adobe After Effects.
First I story boarded out my ideas. I kept imagining having a door that opens and light spills out. I figured that there can be a new world behind the door – somewhere bright and warm, unlike the bitterness we feel in the UK right now.
Similarly to Premiere Pro, I struggled a little with using After Effects – I’ll definitely take time to practice and get to grips with them.
First I used PowerPoint to brainstorm ideas. I made a mind-map of landscapes I think would be achievable, then moved onto a mood-board. I ended up focusing on the cat cafe and the crane game, as the other two might be a little overdone.
I think how well I get used to Maya will affect which one I pick, as the machine is probably more difficult than the cafe. Although after sketching out a 2D plan, I think I prefer the crane. Maybe I could even combine the two somehow (e.g. cats inside of claw machine).
So, I did actually combine the two. Once I found a rhythm with Maya it surprisingly wasn’t so bad – albeit still very difficult. I modeled a claw machine using tools like booleans and extrusion, turned polygons into a cat house, then coloured with standard surface shading. It’s a program where you have to trust the process, and it totally pays off when you add lighting and it renders like magic. In the future I would like to make a model with more protrusions and bevels so it’s a little less flat, and possibly use an external program to paint over it. I would also add floor shadows and play around with sample settings to eradicate graininess.
Here are some screenshots of the process. The left crane is a scrapped first try.
With a similar group of 7 to last time, we had one day to make a small film where we imagine the origins of Elephant and Castle and how got its name.
Ours was about a hubristic elephant king, who wanted to grow bigger than his castle, big enough to carry it on his back. However, he grew so big that he exploded, and his body parts became the Elephant&Castle we know. We created this castle scene using a tower of boxes inked with the elephant’s story on the walls, and an origami elephant on top that could be pulled out with string. In the bottom, there’s the modern landscape.
(Video filmed by Ayan, props made by the whole group).
Our goal this week was to make a turnaround sheet for a character we create.
We had a few exercises in our first lesson. We created 5 character outlines based on adjectives, focusing on the shape language. Then we did ‘steal the shape’ where we used the shapes of everyday items to inspire rough character designs. Lastly we did ‘inanimate to animate’ and transformed objects into characters themselves.
Now onto the main design. We had to choose between the following prompts: – The concept of ‘winter’ – The song ‘Down Under’ by Men at Work – A scarf I like the idea of picking something to do with winter, but also incorporating the scarf somehow as I like the colours and pattern.
This is a character designer whose work inspired me:
She has a sharp and angular style, as well as shiny lighting and shading. She has an extensive and impressive portfolio of designs. She made me start thinking about doing a sword-wielding character.
Here is my brainstorm!
I really couldn’t decide which one I liked more, so I combined them. I had the idea of the warrior wearing the deer skull as headgear, as it seems as if she’s flaunting her prey. Maybe she even slaughtered the spirit, in her story. I also imagine the scarf as some sort of precious blanket to her that she wears as a cape to keep safe. I did some different iterations of her character, testing out clothing and making sure the values work well.
I’m very pleased with the final outcome! I based the forward facing pose off of my original sketch, then used gridlines to carefully create a side facing view. I paid close attention to the silhouette too, as it’s important that your character stands out even in their simplest form. Next time, I might taper the line-art a little to give more dimension.
This is a collection of some of my favourite artists.
Namely, people who have influenced my art style, whose creations and stories I am invested in, or I simply just aspire to be like (or people whose art I can just stare at forever because it’s so aesthetically pleasing).
This is Yoyo, who made the animated GIF I use as my blog background. The little sequences she makes are so simple yet effective, with varied textures and often featuring photos from her travels combined with little creatures. I had the pleasure of meeting her recently at London Comic Con, too.
Alaine is a mainly 2D animator who has worked at Netflix and Warner Bros. The fight scenes that she animates are impeccably smooth and dynamic, with on-point timing and posing. Her use of a 3D background in the first GIF is also very impressive.
Sad-ist owns a widely successful Youtube Channel where she makes skillfully choreographed episodic animations – complete with colour, and voice acting and soundtracks – totally by herself.
An artist with a stunning and expressive painting style, full of life and colour, who’s had a steady online presence since their days making Youtube animatics.
He is a Manchester-based MA Animation graduate who runs an online shop that sells ‘Sneezies,’ which are adorable hand-made yeti plushies, based on a design from his thesis film. They’re extremely heart-warming and unique, and sell out very fast.
She is a Japanese designer who lovingly crafts childlike toys based on everyday items, often using felt. She is criminally underrated with under 1000 followers. I hope that she decides to sell some of her creations one day.
Kiwi also makes plushies, alongside other mixed media things like stickers and collages, with everything being sweet and kidlike in nature. I’m not sure if toy-making is ever something that I’d dabble in myself, but regardless I have a great appreciation for it.
Established Artists
Naoko Takeuchi
The creator of the beloved Sailor Moon manga – one of my all time favourite series, and whose dreamy art style captures the essence of the shoujo and magical girl genre. Having been made in the 1990’s, it was all cell-animated, giving it this sort of charm that sets it apart from a lot of modern shows.
Studio Shaft
The anime studio whose unique style sets them apart from any others – the above GIF’s are from Madoka Magica, which uses cut-outs and physical elements mixed with 2D animation, making for a visual heaven.
