More animal research

I'm now looking at how owls move in order to get a better insight for the new character in my animation. These videos were really useful because of the slow-motion shots of the barn owl flying. I could really see the fluidity of the wing movements and the out of focus background has inspired me for my animation to maybe use a similar technique to draw attention to the animal more.

The bottom video was great to see how barn owls come in to land/strike, as it's a very different wing motion.

Up, Up and Away

Since moving away from home for uni, I've missed my boyf a lot. Everyone can agree that long-distance can be a bit crappy. This is the logical conclusion I came to for solving both the distance and height issues in one fell swoop...

 

The Trampapoline Attempt

I'm approximately 5ft1. My boyfriend however is 6ft5. It feels as though I am a whole person shorter than him. As a result, even a peck on the cheek becomes something akin to a military operation. On the plus side I never have to worry if I can't reach something in Tesco.

Anyway this is a long-running joke now between us and we get excited when we find a set of steps in town or a ladder etc. So I began making little flipbooks for him on special occasions, to document our ingenious methods of attaining the same level of height. My first was called 'Yellow Pages', and shows us both gathering phonebooks for me to stand on, like in the old Christmas advert. Unfortunately I don't have that one as a Quicktime but here's the second instalment...

Latest Progress

Just a quick post to share how the animation is going so far. I still need to tweak the colour a bit at the start and with the squirrel's tail but it's getting there... The cloud at the end also moves like lightning right now so if I can find an ingenious way to fix that then I will too.

More animation inspiration...

Stop, Look & Listen

 

I've started to introduce a spiky little friend for Mr Squirrel into my animation now. So, I've started looking at animated and real hedgehog video. I remember these Stop, Look and Listen road safety adverts from my childhood. The animations are very stylised and not realistic at all, but I love the way the little hedgehog rolls in the first video, and it was something I was considering including in my animation already. The pace of my cartoon is more sedate though so I'll probably have a slower, more controlled roll.

 

 

 

 

These hedgehog characters were originally drawn and designed by Joe Simpson in watercolour, but were then adapted to cel for animation by Mark Shepherd, still keeping the watercolour backgrounds. They have been produced by Maria Manton (creative director & producer), Slinky Pictures.



A moment to adore Nicola Bayley's cats...

To be able to draw like this woman is my ultimate aim in life! From an animation perspective at the moment, the fluidity and sleekness of her cat drawings probably comes from a strong familiarity with the creatures. Having an animal as a pet, and thereby constantly around you must give you an edge when coming to draw their likeness. Especially with animating, I've found that the more you look at the animal the better you can draw it and focus on its muscles and movement.

After all, Da Vinci used to examine cadavers to understand the human body more and how it moved/supported itself. I'm not saying I fancy cutting open an animal to understand its structure better but familiarity is definitely key.

So, and ode to Nicola Bayley and her beautiful illustrations. Her brushwork is so delicate, nearly pointillist in style that it truly reflects fur and textures to a tee. These are just a few of my favourites, The Mousehole Cat being a book dear to me since childhood...

Crazy Squirrel Lady!

I've begun the animation stage of the term now and although it's pretty heavy-going with the amount of drawings we have to produce, I'm loving seeing them transform from a stack of drawings into a moving image. So far I've only got about 7 seconds of animation to show, and it definitely needs a bit of tweaking with the colours especially, but I think it's starting to look like a real animation! I keep imagining it being played to Grieg's Morning Mood, but unfortunately I'm not proficient enough to know how sound should be added yet. I chose to do my animation on a red squirrel rather than a grey because they are a dying breed of a British native and deserve to be documented. I recently watched a BBC programme on Britain's wildlife and without extra help they will definitely vanish from the UK.

So this is it so far, as well as a few squirrel-related videos from Youtube I've been looking at for inspiration on how my little creature will move. Enjoy!

 

Stuart Brown TEDtalk about the importance of playing.

Brilliant talk about the importance of playing and how it affects your intelligence, creativity and social skills. I love his description of playing through your body and how it's not just humans who feel better after doing a little dance or skipping down the street. My rabbit, Mr Rufus, (seen here in all his fluffy glory)

likes to do these strange little hops and backflips when he's let out in the garden for a run. I can think of no logical explanation for them, except that he's having fun, like a kid trying to do a cartwheel.

Special little bunny!

Life Outdoors.







I come from a fairly outdoorsy family; most people view our lifestyle as a similar one to the couple in that old TV show 'The Good Life'. We're pretty certain that our neighbours, although interested by us and our various animals, are also slightly ashamed of our house and its lack-of-keeping with the rest of the street. I'm starting to think that when they say, "Isn't it lovely to hear the sound of a rooster in the middle of town!", what they really mean is, "If that rooster wakes me up at 5am one more time I will set the cat on it and hurl eggs at your house!"

 

Anyway this love of the outdoors extended to myself and my sister when we took up jobs at our local Botanical Gardens. This is a quick pen and watercolour sketch I did of Ness Gardens, where I used to work in the tearooms. We would often serve wedding parties down in this secluded spot and it holds fond memories for me, midges and wasps aside!

 

Vintage to a Tea

This was a pencil drawing of three of my vintage teacups stacked together, which I then photographed and edited so the image looks more aged than it is. Hopefully some photoshop tutorials at uni will mean I'll get better at the editing side!

Afternoon Tea for Two



Afternoon tea with the homemade cakes, scones, vintage china and real tea leaves is something truly British that I absolutely love. For me, there is no nicer way to spend an afternoon than by finding a quirky little café in which to indulge yourself, people watch or read a good book.

This teacup was drawn in biro using a continuous line technique and then stitched into on my sewing machine and coloured using fine tipped pens. Holding it up to the light gives it a lovely magical sparkle. :)

My drawing was based on these vintage teacups given to me by a lovely lady who I used to wok with. She collected loads for her wedding and then gave some to me to save them from gathering dust in her loft.

Hello Technology!

Having always been scared of anything technological I've finally decided to give this online doo-dah a go, so bear with...

To begin... This is Mr Whale. (Say Hellooooo)

 

Mr Whale is a relic from my days working in a café with some pretty amazing but terrifyingly freaky people. (We all used to greet each other with a "Hello Mr Whale" and now I forget why, it's just how it was.)

 

Being around cake all day, but not being allowed to eat it will send some people a bit doolally.