Part 4 of The Reedy Boy

So I've finally finished the massive Arts Council funded project, The Reedy Boy. I've loved every minute of working with such a lovely pair of talented guys. I think without such hardworking, supportive people around me I wouldn't have managed to get over 45 minutes of hand-drawn animation produced in just under three months. It's been a crazy level of commitment, and the learning curve has been steep as anything. In this last week I've learnt how to mask videos, composite photographic elements with hand-drawn images, create sunbeams and glowing fire embers in After Effects, composite real film and digital animation in with hand-drawn animation... to name just the things I'm most proud of/are most useful for the future.
Anyway, here's Part 4, The Final Chapter, The Finale, The End.

Sneak Peeks

I thought I'd show a little sneaky peek of the final part of my collaborative animation project, The Reedy Boy. This was an animated scene that I edited some more before including in the final film, but I think it's quite sweet and pretty as it is. Never animated snow before. I only discovered afterwards that I could have used the After effects snow simulation to achieve this blizzard but I quite like that I drew the snowflakes myself, maybe in the future I'll combine the two techniques if I have to create a snow scene again. 
Part 4 of The Reedy Boy comes out tonight on Youtube!

Sketchbook Throwback

Leafing to the back of an old notebook to try and find a spare bit of paper to scribble on, I came across this drawing and note from the summer. I thought about making myself a collection/encyclopedia of 'How Shit Moves', so that whenever I learn how to animate a specific movement, walk sequence etc, then I won't forget. Now this all seems far too organised for me, but maybe it's a little & often side project that slowly fills out to become my ultimate animation guide. Think I got this idea from my flatmate's methodology and process files for her Textiles in Practice course. Collaboration comes to the rescue yet again! 

Experiments with doodles

I've been learning all about how children's drawings develop recently; reading a book called Artful Scribbles which examines the process and psychology associated with it. I'm currently animating the progression using a single, continuous line style that morphs from a squiggle to meandering lines, to a circle etc. I love the shapes and lines more and more now, they're like the basic building blocks for all drawings. I've been trying to find ways to combine them into my animation as an added layer of texture/interest/symbolism. 

I attempted a couple of combinations of figures and patterns, using the claire house color scheme (although I think these hues are just a bit too vibrant, and I'll lean towards a more pastel scheme for the animation itself). This is one of them (plus a close-up), which I thought could maybe hint at the worry/stress experienced by the parents after a child is diagnosed. I thought using the child's own squiggles and visual language was an interesting and alternative way to this, rather than necessarily relying on facial expressions all the time. These were done in gouache paints and black fineliner pen. 

Design Academy

Had a wonderful trip down to London yesterday to present to the Design Council our pitch for the Design for Care challenge. Was really rather nerve-wracking but somehow we managed to make a great impression and my team were offered a Special Commendation for our pitch! We were given these cute little certificates that reminded me of primary school. Gonna put mine on the fridge! 

I did actually learn a lot on this programme though and it's made me more aware of the employment options available to me when I leave uni. I guess I'd never really thought of myself as a 'Designer' and instead just as someone who draws and animates, but actually all the creative thinking practices I've learnt and developed over the course have given me the brain of a designer/creative problem solver/lateral thinker. 
The programme has definitely made me realise how much I can do to help solve social problems or make a difference, even if I sometimes still feel like I 'just draw'. I'm really happy that there seems to be a place for creative alternatives to problem-solving, because it fits so well with what I'm learning about for my dissertation too. I think I can find a way to make a change and still include my animation practice in the future. 

Design for Care

For the past two weeks I've been working on a Design Academy brief titled, "How can we help people stay independent for as long as possible?", and I've been collaborating with 3 other girls from the School of Art to try and design a solution using creative and lateral thinking processes. It's been really interesting to see how a design course such as illustration could lead me down a path to problem-solving for the care industry. 

This has linked very well with everything that I've already been looking at in my dissertation research and my authorship project for Claire House Hospice. I've realised in the past few months that I don't want to just create something that is all about aesthetics, I want there to be a deeper social context to everything I do. All my dissertation title might claim differently, I'm aware that illustration or art alone can't change the world, but I do think it can genuinely help people. 

It can do this in more than just the obvious NPO/care/community services driven way as well. I've always been friends with people in bands and have a list of ever-growing music videos to complete; of which one is an EP based around the topic of depression. People find solace in all sorts of places; in music, art, conversation, or in the hope of my Design Academy team, in community-led garden projects. 

Focus on the fun

When making something so emotionally charged as an animation for a children's hospice charity, it seems to be really important to be able to acknowledge the full range of human emotions. This film needs to be empathetic, but in doing so I need to be able to find the fun. Claire House is a place for families and children to feel safe and supported and receive care, but also a place to embrace the joys of childhood and parenthood, however fleeting it may be.

Being an animation student, I regularly find myself having been sat hunched over a lightbox for long periods of time and needing to get up and move. When this happens I normally refer to it as the need for a "30 second dance party", and a few months ago I decided to capture it in animated form.
This is the kind of thing that I need to focus on with the family I am assigned to; their quirks and jokes, their ways of finding the joy in the small moments shared together, all their little ways of being human and happy and together, because Claire House doesn't have a one-size fits all approach to their work, and neither do I. I want to make this as much about the family themselves as about the work Claire House do.