BA Animation

Jia Wei (SENA) 20014098

Working Outline

• Witch and Cat (Character Design)
• Time Travel (Inbetweener)
• Goblin Game (Character Animation)

1. Witch & Cat

• Character Design: Witch and Chef

(Character Portrait)

( Character Pose and Expression )

My main job in this group was character design, I designed the main characters of the animation, the witch and the chef. In this part I tried to blend the Chinese style with the western witch, and the mystical costume design of ethnic minorities.

• Character Design process and drafts

( Character Sketch and Costume Sketch)

Taking into account the fact that the witch needed to look more matchy-matchy with the chef’s outfit, I chose complementary colours to bring about some visual clash. (Orange and green, yellow and blue)

• Character Details

• Witch’s Wand

mystical magic from the ethnic of Withthe East. To make it easier to incorporate magic into her cooking, the witch fused her wand and cooking spoon into one.

• Witch’s Cloth and her hairpin

• Chef’s Clothe and the stuff in his bag

• disparity in height

• The Witch’s Past （She used to be a normal human)

• The costume when the witch cook

• Witches use magic to make magic potions (innocuous) of various ingredients

• The witch’s kitchen has a golden toad cashier. (not used in the anime)

• Animation test (Sketch and Keyframe)

Wand Movement Test

Witch Cooking sketch

Spelling Test (My favorite)

Old Spelling Test (element 1)

The angry cat (Chef)

• Extra Work

In order to ease the workload of the background painter, I tried to learn to create 3d backgrounds to blend with 2d animation.

3d scene I made (use Blender)

The gray model of the restaurant

The final look of the 3d restaurant

Final animation combine 3d and 2d

2. Time Travel (Yanbin Group)

• Inbetweener

test one

final one

3. Goblin Game (Andrew group)

• Character Animation:

• Character dead animation
• Draft:

• Final:

MY PART: Character Design and Animation

Character Design

Early character design by Victor

Early Character Design by Yourong

MOOD BOARD

FINAL CHARACTER DESIGN

Ghost Chef:

Yuyang told me that our chef is a wandering soul who takes his most precious possessions with him. So I designed a package for him with photos of his family and the tools he uses to cook. I designed a costume for him in the style of the witch’s costume. I wanted him to look tall and friendly, so he looks much taller than the witch.

Witch:

We did a lot of setups for the witch, and now this character setup is a combination of Yourong, Victor and my idea together. The style has become more unique from the western witch at the beginning to the oriental witch. The witch’s hat and robe have also become a Chinese bucket hat and water sleeves.

Bottle Idea

To design the witch’s bottle, I incorporated ingredients, potions and bottles. And I think witches can also grow bottle ingredients with magic. Like fruit bottle trees, vegetable bottles. Because her magic is unique, so she can make special dishes, including spices is potions too.

Animation test

More idea…

Animatic by Yuyang and Yourong

Reflection

I have learnt a lot during the first term of the Food and Bottle Project. In the Food and Bottle group, our group had some conflicts in the discussion. So at the beginning we had some fights. Because each of us had a unique idea, we couldn’t come to a consensus, which led to a fight during our group discussion. But after we all calmed down, we told each other what we really thought. We are actually very good friends. We didn’t want to make everyone unhappy because of the group work. Then we rewrote the story and divided the work between us. It was a different experience, but it taught me a lot. First of all, when we work in a group, we should know that we don’t all have the same idea, everyone has their own unique ideas. We need to take the best of them and discard the worst, rather than forcing everyone to understand our own ideas. We should patiently listen to the ideas of the group members and seriously express our own ideas. We can make the work better together.

Storyboard Animatics

For this project, I plan to focus on the dance of Dunhuang in China or the Twenty one Tara of disaster resolution. This will be a strict animation that popularises some cultural knowledge to audience. So I must understand the details of these cultures and deeply study the meaning of stories, colours, costumes and implications in these cultures, to escape the intellectual errors appear in my animation. I choose some documentaries to learn from them and get inspiration.
I will record the part that I want to the documentary and the knowledge of this part, and then investigate this part carefully. For example, if I want to do Dunhuang dance, I will search the history of dance, costumes, hairstyles, makeup and the morals of dance first, then I will try to draw my characters and first storyboard. Actually, for this project, I specially signed up for the Dunhuang dance class of UK China Performing Arts every Saturday. I hope that in this class, I will deepen my understanding of Dunhuang dance through the dance movements I learned by myself and appreciate the beauty of the teacher’s Dunhuang dance as a student. When the storyboard finished, I want to watch some of the animation made by others to inspire me. I can study storyboard, color and scene in their animation, after this, I want to improve my storyboard and character. Then I will begin to create my test animation for ten seconds, it will be the main part of my animation. I want to arrange the music of this animation by myself, and then I want to find a classmate from the music department to help me make it to a song and add it to my animation. If I can’t find the background music of my

classmates’ cooperation, I will use plan B to choose a studio to make paid music.
In my usual painting practice, I like to practice women’s facial features and movements. At the same time, in this project, I think the shaping of women will become my advantage. Whether it is Dunhuang dance or Buddhist culture, these arts are gradually disappearing. So I want to use this animation to promote the unique ancient colour matching and the softness aesthetics of women.

Jia Wei, Yourong Gu, Mengchao Huang

My part final work 2