LAUAN601 - Weekly Blog

 Over the past weeks, I have been working on and improving upon my practical response to my essay. I have been illustrating faction flags, writing information about the 'World of Solios', as well as creating a survey for primary data.

Faction Flags:

Ashenmar Empire

When creating this flag - I researched and used various different modern day flags, as well as navy insignias and coat of arms. I wanted to make this flag look more modern to highlight how technologically advanced this faction is compared to the others that make their homes in Solios. 

The blue colours represent the ocean. The white in the center represents unity across all the territories within the Empire. The gold represents the city of Ashener at the center of the island continent, and the grey represents the coal, oil and gunpowder used to develop their industries. The anchor is designed to highlight their naval origins and culture, and the cross-rifles and star are meant to highlight their military.

Warriors of Rend

For this flag, I decided to simplify the design to two basic colours and imagery. The flag depicts a dragon-like creature being impaled by a sword. By using a simplified design, I wanted to get the information across that this faction's culture is quite simple - they respect strength and battle across all else. The red represents the blood of Rend - a colossal lizard creature in which the Warriors draw their strength from. The black represents the ground and mountains that they make their homes in. The dragon's head represents the colossus Rend, who the warriors slew thousands of years ago. The sword represents the will to fight and slay their foes through strength and power.

The Chosen

The Chosen are a highly religious faction, and so I wanted to restrict myself to basic shapes, such as the crucifix in Christianity and the Star of David in Judaism. The emblem on the flag depicts one of their temples in the center, which represents how all of the Chosen are centered by their faith, and all are meant to be as equally close to their god, Esylio. The warm white represents unity and the power of the sun. The triangle of pale orange represents the light of the sun that shines down upon them. The deeper orange and the blue represent the sunrise in the east.

World of Solios

Survey / Survey Results

Blue

Yellow

Green

What went well:

- Primary data via the survey.

- Well designed and thought out faction flags.

- Plentiful information about the world.

What to improve:

- Make more flag designs.

- Go into more detail about the world.

- Think of more questions for primary data.

LAUAN601 - Weekly Blog

 Over the last few weeks I have been very busy writing the first half of my essay and beginning to construct a brand new fictional world, as well as completing the illustrations that I have been working on previously.

Essay Writing

I have finished the first part of my 601 essay. In this section, I have talked about the origins of Worldbuilding, what it is and what categories of worldbuilding there are. I have used multiple case studies, such as Lord of the Rings, Spirited Away and Avatar: The Last Airbender to illustrate my points. I have also looked at Thomas More's 'Utopia' and discovered how Worldbuilding has been used to influence real life events and people.

Landscape Illustration: Desert

I have finished painting this piece and added some sun effects to make it stand out. I have tried my best to stick to a certain colour palette to keep the tone warm. I have also added many highlights to contrast against the darker colours against the setting sun. This piece is meant to represent a Western / Fantasy world.

Landscape Illustration: City

For this illustrative piece, I have decided to depict a dystopian city. I have done this by drawing ruined buildings and using symbolism to show the viewer that this world is not a good one to live in. I have also used a monotone colour palette to further emphasize the dreary atmosphere. 

Landscape Illustration: Mountains

For this illustration, I have tried to depict a calming and soothing atmosphere. I have done this by using a softer colour palette and a bright morning sky. This piece is meant to be part of a fantasy or adventure genre.

Worldbuilding

Over the past week, I have decided to create a brand new fictional world from scratch. I have written quite a lot of information regarding this world, and have created a world map of the world I have dubbed 'Solios', which references the sun.

Map of Solios

In this map I have named every landmass and every major city in the world. I have also drawn mountain ranges, dense forest areas and regions of the world. I have begun going into detail about the species, cultures and factions of the world, which I shall continue to develop.

Concept Art

This artwork is a concept I created for one of the species civilisations. The species in particular live on floating islands that remain in the sky due to their worship to a sun deity. While just a rough sketch, I have tried to display as much as possible without explaining every detail, but I will try to develop this further if I can. For now, I am going to try and sketch other parts of the world.

What went well:

Great detail used in the world map.

Clear examples of worldbuilding in practice.

Plenty of research done into creating worlds, as well as the history of worldbuilding and its practical applications.

What to improve:

More first-hand research required.

Continue to develop world.

LAUAN601 - Weekly Journal

 Over the past week, I have been working on my practical work, as well as starting my essay draft and forming an email that includes questions for a professional story-writer.

City Scape

I have begun sketching out the details of my city-scape piece to prepare for the painting segment. This is will take a while, and so I think I will only be making two big pieces: This piece and the desert piece. If I have enough time, I will continue with the third Idea - which is the jungle horror piece.

Desert World


For this piece I have been working on the colours and shading of the foreground, midground and the background, and I feel that I am close to completing it. I will be focusing on the essay writing throughout the next week, but I will also be working on this.

Presentation Update

I have more or less completed my presentation of different worlds as part of my research, and from this I have found different categories of worldbuilding, which I shall be writing about in my essay.

Essay Writing

I have begun writing my first draft for my essay, and I will continue to do so over the next week. I have structured the essay beforehand and hope to stick with this structure I have made for myself.

Questions for Christie Golden

These are draft questions that I will be asking the story author Christie Golden in an email regarding worldbuilding. Hopefully she will answer them and I will have first hand research.

LAUAN603 - Pitch Presentation

LAUAN601 - Weekly Journal

 Over the last week I have been working on landscape sketches for my practical response. I have begun sketching two specific types of landscapes and have decided their themes.

Desert World

For this piece, I want to depict a fantasy desert area. I have begun doing this by creating large fossils on the mountains to show great fantasy beasts that have died. I have also done this by creating a sense of scale with humans, which can be seen on the right of the left-side plateau. I will continue to develop this through tidying up the sketch and adding colours fit for a fantasy-style world.

City

This piece is still a very simple blocky sketch plan, but my idea is to create a futuristic dystopian city. I will depict this by using very dark moody colours with bright neon to contrast against it. I will improve upon this by adding far more details.

Research

I have also been developing my research and exploring my subject further. I have been looking at different fictional worlds and creating a PowerPoint outlining what makes the world building so immersive and enjoyable. It is still a work in progress.

 

What went well:

- Well composed early sketches

- Well structured analysis of different worlds

What to improve on:

- Contrast and compare the different worlds

- Sort worlds into categories

- Give the illustrations more details.

LAUAN603 Journal Update

 Over the past week I have been looking at various western icons and watching films and videos on the Western genre to understand what goes into making a Western themed film. I have also been creating studies of different symbols that are commonly found in Western films.

Research: Western Videos

The Neo-Western Genre in Movies

Film Genre - The Western

13. The Western (MIT OpenCourseWare)

The Most Badass Scene in Movie History

These are a few videos that I have been watching in order to gain a better understanding on the Western genre. I will be regarding these when creating my project.

Western Studies

These are a few studies I have made that relate to Westerns, for example the hat and the revolver. It would be worth drawing more of these in different variations in the future.

Image board: Demons

Since my animation will feature many fantasy elements, such as demons and creatures, I will be looking at different depictions of such beings in media, history and art.

LAUAN601 - Research

 Over the past week I have been researching various different areas of my topic in order to triangulate and articulate my points precisely.

Worldbuilding

Mes en Scene

Storytelling

Immersion

Bibliography

[W.I.P]

LAUAN603 - Statement of Intent

LAUAN603 - Image Boards

 For my Extended Practice module, I want to focus on world building and storytelling, much like in COP3. Over the holidays I have been thinking about what I want to do specifically, and I have chosen to look at the Western genre and combine it with fantasy elements. For this project I want to work by myself and be my own director and producer. I have been doing research on the genre and collecting sample images that may be useful when designing my characters, environments and writing the story.

These ideas may change during development, but this is the general direction I wish to work in.

Statement of Intent

This is the statement of intent for my analysis on World Building and Immersion.

Time Table and Gantt Chart

 Today I have been working on a Gantt chart and a workable time table for my COP3.

Gantt Chart

Time Table

I have tried my best to sort out my work days as efficiently as possible, while also referring to the Gantt chart.

Early Ideas Presentation

 For my LAUAN601 essay, I want to look at World Building in animation, and how to create an immersive world for fictional stories. To begin with, I started by researching different sources and then creating a power point to explain my ideas and what I want to explore.

Ideas Presentation

Research

Work I've Done Over the Holidays

World Building

Artworks

LAUAN504 - Evaluation

My evaluation of LAUAN504

Competition Brief:

The competition brief was a mixed experience. We chose the Burger King D&AD New Blood Awards for our brief. Being director AND producer for a group of two, it was quite easy to achieve my creative vision, and I believe that all in all the outcome of this brief was very good. Working together with someone who's strengths I knew was very helpful for the outcome of this brief. Initially there was complications, as we started as a group of three but one member left very early into pre-production. Because of this, we switched ideas to something slightly more suited to the both of us, alternating our style to something we both enjoy more.

old

new

With this idea switch we leaned onto something a lot more over the top. While we didn't produce too much work, I believe that the work we did produce was good enough or even very good in the circumstances. The time management on this project wasn't very good however, as I feel we could have produced more work for the time we had. I feel that this brief also improved my creative decision making, which I will be working on in the years to come. In addition, I have become more accustomed to online competitions now, which is incredibly helpful. I will be entering competitions where I can over summer. Overall, I enjoyed this brief, but it was quite frustrating at times.

Documentary Brief

First of all - due to the Covid-19 outbreak, I feel that the quality of this project was hindered due to complications of working conditions and being away from university. Some things were cut from the final project due to time constraints and limitations, despite the deadline extension. An example of this can be seen in some of my scenes:

For example, in this scene I wanted to also animate the roman logo on the banner, however I needed to move on from this scene by the time I finished this portion. This is one example of the hindrance I experienced during the creation of this documentary.

Despite this I feel that this is my best work so far with a group project. I enjoyed making the backgrounds and animated scenes, and I am very happy with the final outcome. Because of this project I have produced various background illustrations which I am greatly fond of.

This project has GREATLY improved my time management due to my role as producer. Admittedly, this is the first project where I've made a gantt chart, and I feel it's helped a lot. I will be using this method a lot more in the future.

LAUAN504 is, without a doubt, the hardest I have ever worked on animation projects in these two years. Compared to LAUAN404, the workload was far higher and in a shorter time frame, not to mention that I also had to work on another module simultaneously. Working on 2 different projects for this module has really pushed not only my animation skills, but my time management and producing / directing skills. In addition, due to the outbreak of Covid-19 and having to move away from university, it was quite a struggle to keep ourselves on track and to achieve our highest potential for this module, but in the end I feel I have achieved a lot.

LAUAN504 - Compositing, Final Animation and Press Pack

Over the past couple of days I have been finalising the compositing for the final production. I edited all of the scenes together with sound effect in adobe premiere pro. I also re-recorded all of my lines.

Compositing:

Final Production

Our final production is a 02:07 long animated documentary film about Boudicca, the Warrior Queen.

My contributions:

Producer

2D Animation (Scene 3, 4, 6, 10, 17)

Background Illustrations

Character Turnarounds (Romans)

Narrator

Compositor 

Press Pack

LAUAN504 - Journal

Over the past week I have been working on compositing all of our scenes together, including the music, sound effects and the various scenes and clips to create the final product of the animation.
I began by compositing scene 2 together. I made none of the animations, only the background, but I composited everything together.

Scene 2 Compositing:



I keyed out the green screened animations that my partners made and added them to the background. I then rendered the video.

Scene 2 - Rendered:



After rendering the video I scrolled the background, which will be seen in the final product.

Scene 17 & Credits.

I rendered a video for the final credits and scene 17.




What went well:

- Well composited animations and keyed out greens screens.
- Good use of timing with the credits.

What to improve:

- Timing of the upward pan on scene 17.

LAUAN504 - Journal

Over the weeks I have been working on my final scenes and the final background of the animation.

Scene 10:

For scene 10 I had to create various alterations of the Iceni warriors for the background:

I also needed to make roman warriors in a side-view testudo formation:

After creating these I added them to the road background and ordered them similarly to how the next scenes placed them:

Finally, I put the image in premiere pro and added a slow-zoom out for the final product.

Boudicca Statue Background

This is my final illustrative work for this project; the statue of Boudicca. First thing I did was get some references for the statue.

References:




I then sketched the basic shapes using this as a reference:




Finally, I cleaned up the line work and added colour and shading for the final production.






What went well:

- Well drawn and consistent anatomy on the Iceni and Romans.
- Good shading on the Boudicca Statue.
- Well constructed scene with the Iceni Warriors.

What could be improved?

- Tidy up the placement of the Romans.
- Add more variations to the Iceni Poses

LAUAN504 - Scenes Test

I decided to create a scene test with the animatic by adding the completed scenes together to see how it would look. I did this by combining the scenes in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Scene Test:




I made this scene test on the request of the director in order to see how the scenes look side by side.

LAUAN504 - Journal

Over the past weeks I have been working on my own animated scenes for our documentary. The scenes I've been working on are scenes 3 and 4. I decided to make scene 4 first because I felt it would have been easier to make.

Scene 4:



I created this scene using two different backgrounds:

Background 1:




Background 2:




I then animated a flag pole over the background.



I edited the scene in Adobe Premiere Pro.


Scene 3:



The first thing I did was create a walk cycle for the roman soldiers.

Walk cycle:






After that I altered the colour palette and duplicated the cycle, and then adding them to the background.




What went well:

- Well timed walk cycle.
- Well-composited scenes.
- Good movement on the flag.

What to improve:

- Movement on the roman.
- Colour of the roman.
- More detail on the flag.