Callum and Hayley Collaboration

Hayley sent me some pictures of their sets and it looks so great! The atmosphere is built up so well with other little props and texturised so well. I am happy with the props I did because they sit so well in the set and matches the aesthetic they want especially the portraits and the fireplace. It is very happy to work with Hayley and Callum.  I learnt that referencing is very important especially in stop motion because every prop has a chance to interact with the character and will be very noticeable if the style are not matching. What is more, measuring the props in the puppet size is more difficult than I thought. I started at the time when the puppet still not yet done so I could only based the furniture on measurements from Hayley instead of testing the puppet. The chair turns out a bit small for the character and it can barely sit on it. Therefore it might be better if the puppet is made first and we can measure the actual character instead which would help producing preciser and functional props easily.  

[Extended Practice]scene6 2

I love how it turned out I think the shapes are placed in the right plave also with a few real photos collage. Althought it diverges a bit to my concept art, it looks good and still maintaining the aesthics through out.


IThe character are done in photoshop frame by frame. I have not done frame by frame for so long and it is a bit rusty to start off but I managed to get all the key frames right so it became much more easier and quicker later. There are repeating frames when the character is in still in order to give that sketchy look. Comparing to just have a single frame for that, multiple frames give 'life' to the character and just like heart beats of them which are there to make them less dull and constantly thinking.

[Extended Practice]scene6

I want to show the environment as well as informing the audience about where the characters are at and other tiny details of the settings. Therefore it might be best to have a wide shot also panning to show more content. Like before, I become so depended on the Vanishing point tool in Photoshop which makes drawing perspectives much faster and more efficient but I was not planning to make it 3D this time. Instead, I want to make 3D layers in Aftereffects to show depth by distancing the layers.

I am very proud of how it turns out. I think the wires and the pipes polish the scene and the small details makes the scene less boring. I will also put in a lot of textures and collage to finish off the scene.

IOne thing I encountered is that when I put all the layers in AfterEffects, the distance makes the layer at the far back so small and the ratio gone very wrong. It happens in every layers too. What I did was enlarge and repeat the layers in order to fit the composition but it was not as good as drawing the scene in the correct size. Next time when I am planning to do similar thing, it is best to draw the back layers in a larger scale in order to be more flexible in position or maybe just draw in a bigger canvas in general. I love how the scene turns out, especially the blurred wires that are positioned at the closest to the camera which add so much textures to the animation. I think the clip will be improved even more when the characters are added and I cant wait to complete it.

[Extended Practice]Character Design(2)

I complted more charcter design for my Dad. I tried patterns on him and an outfit according to a photo he gave me but I do not like them that much. I thin the patterns are quite distractive especially the strips shirt. The middle one is alright but maybe not using red but another colour...however after all I do not think patterns are good ideas to use on characters. The last one is not preferable either because he looks like a PE teacher. So the firstcharacter design was much more better.
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I finished the rest of the character design of Rambo and the bad guy. As Dad told me, Rambo is muscular, a bit taller than him so he has bigger chest and more muscular arms and legs. He also has a square face shape to fit his body and with brighter tones of colour compare to the other characters. I like all the tests and I need to ask for more feedback from the class. Let them help me to decide.

For the gangster, I use darker colours also with bright red shapes on the shirt to show a status of dangerous. He is very skinny and tall. Also wears oversized trousers and top so emphasising on his body shapes even more. 

[Extended Practice]scene4

The pictures above showing what the typical tile in the old apartment in Hong Kong. I think the photos inspires me to use a aged filter or a different tone of colours compare to outside the building in my animation since I want to show a contrast of where the gangster stayed and how dangerous it is.

Also the tiles pattern in the gangsters' hiding place.

In my storyboard, I pictured the room as a very messy but yet quite empty. Not much furnitures but only contemporary supplements such as finished lunch boxes, water bottles, cigarettes, rubbish and 2-3 mattresses but no bed at all according to the news cut.

At first I was sticking to the originally greenish-tiles also animated a water droplet dripping in the water bottle to add some moving elements to the scene so it is not just a still picture. I think the image speaks itself and make it quite clear that it is a scene showing indoor especially with the shadow casted by the window. However after putting the rest of the clips together, I think the green makes the scene very clam and not intimidating at all and what's more importantly is the idea of making colour takes over the animation. Red is for the gangsters and blue is for the officers as I decided in the character design so it is important to keep this through out all the scenes.

Therefore I used hue to change the colour into red-ish purple. I do not want to use bright red because I want to gangsters to stand out in red but not the floor but I think it did the job explaining the dangerous area especially when there's a clip following showing what the bad guys are doing in the apartment.

[Extended Practice]Animatic

I have finished the animatic! It is edited in Premiere which allows me to cut clips and sound tracks more effectively than AfterEffects and it took longer than I thought matching the voice recording with the images. What is the most difficult for my animation is to create the subtitle for it. 

I found that there are lots of problems in the grammar between Chinese and English. Not only talking about the meanings of words but also the order of the words. What I mean is for example: I go to school on Monday but in Chinese we could only say Monday I go to school. These kind of grammatical order affect the order of images... by which means the images might be differ from what the subtitle shows. I hesitate whether I should make a subtitle matches my Dad's speech or a subtitle matches the scenes... This is needed to be discussed with Mike and sort out who my target audiences are.

Original script

Corrected Script

Nevertheless, I asked Hayley if she could check my spelling and other grammatical mistakes and so she did and help a lot in finalising the script. There are a few sentences she swopped which will probably have a big different in the animation so this is what I need to rethink about the order of the images hence creating a more cohesive story.

[Extended Practice]scene3(?)

This is supposed to be the third scene but I hate it so much.

1. The perspective is messed up, probably because of the grids in the Vanishing Point. The images on the walls are distorted and not shown clearly.

2. The camera moving too fast. There are not enough time to receive that much information in such short period of time. All the contents are gone just under the blink of an eye.

3. Useless scene? I found that the turning round at the end is quite pointless... The message is unclear and it is almost unnecessary to have this scene or should change the way of introducing the crime scene in first person perspective.

I tried to slow down the camera but it just does not work at all. The major problem is the content not the camera so it is time to rethink about the scene...use it or not. If not, is it ok just have the two running scenes to lead the audience or do I have to remake another one to make the introduction more cohesive? However for now, I just want to stop a bit because I feel a bit defeated so maybe start working on the other scenes first so I could come back to this with a better mood.

[Extended Practice]scene2(2)

To improve the previous scene, I create a 3D lantern in After Effects which I hope to add more details to the scene. To do so, firstly created a side of the lantern in photoshop and colour it after. Transfer the file to AfterEffects, multiplied it four times so as to make it 3D. 

I also added tassels using Duik to introduce the floaty-ness and the light-weighted characteristics. It turns out very good and I am so amazed by the look of it! This method has not failed so far since last time I used it in the Lifting Tower Brief. The 2-3D aesthetic is very flexible when creating cross dimension work which improve the visual as well as texturised the scene effectively.

I can also adjust the position of the lantern to fit the scene so that the two lanterns can be different in angles and size, also various direction of the tassels. I absolutely adore this version more since the lanterns improves the scene so much also I included more textures of the bricks using the reference photo so the whole outcome is more completed with better quality of details and more colours.

[Extended Practice]scene2(1)

I started animating the environment scenes using the experience on the first test and making them into 3D. Hopefully it will look good when the clips are sewed together and lead the audience to the crime scene as well as introducing Water Head Village.

I love this photo I took at Water Head Village so it is going to be referenced for scene2! There are a lot of traditional decorations shown in the photos like the red couplets, lanterns and temple. A narrow street is compacted with a bunch of traditions and information of HongKong therefore I want to include these elements in the animation.


However, like the problem I encountered before, it is impossible to create a narrow street full of details in 3D in After effects because the content will be stretched and blurred. Therefore I decided to give it more space as the details are more important. Similarly, I created the grids using 'Vanishing point' in Photoshop and building the environment according to the perspective which could avoid wrong ratio and other perspective problems. Additionally, I cut the red couplets from the photos and merge it with the drawings in order to embrace the collage aesthetic. It turns out brilliant with the brick wall and looks really authentic.

So this is the finished street view.... but it is a bit blank.

So I draw some bushes and placed it in front so when the camera zooming towards the end of the 3D room, there are more textures and layers to look at, increase the visual effects.

Here is the final look. I like the trees which block the way at the beginning. They also narrow down the street a little bit. However the colours are not so attractive and I think it it lacking of details. The 3D space is not built as good as the previous one however I could not figure out why... is it because of the shallow depth? or the length of the 'walls'? I tried to relocated the walls but only made it worse.. therefore I will leave it like this and add more details instead like the lanterns and bricks.

H.P. Lovecraft animation Collaboration

I managed to keep collaborating with Callum and Hayley's group on their sets while focusing on my own project. They gave me the storyboard and mood boards so I can add more stuffs to their sets with the victorian styled furnitures. I was down London a couple of days and so I went to British museum and looked at furnitures at that time. 

I wrote down a few furnitures that we could add to the sets in order to improve the feel of victorian period like big old clock, typing machines, lamps and candles etc.

Look how beautiful the details are! I really want include such essences in the sets although everything is tiny.

I have been working in the stop motion room for a few days, painting Hayley's desk and chair. We decided to apply dark brown to mimic the antique look of Walnut/Rosewood. In order to improve the look, I apply a thin layer of glue on top to give it a shine coat as if it is waxed and well polished. I enjoy painting so much and it is essential to relax from my project. I could improve the furnitures by giving them more tones of colours, drawing wood patterns and add handles to the drawers which make it more realistic and divine.

Keep Painting!

So when I was home that night, I painted the chair and four little portraits by watercolour also made a cushion for the chair.

Love crafting so much! I love how I could use my crafting skills in animation and help others for their project. Luckily my painting skill is not rusty at all! Nevertheless, there are still quite a lot of props to make so keep working!

[Extended Practice]action test(2)

I am so unfamiliar with guns and I hate drawing machines... but it is impossible to avoid drawing guns in my animation so I could only force myself to do so. It is very difficult to draw the volume and texture of it and I always know that drawing 3D objects is my weakness. Nevertheless, I managed to sketch a gun according to photos and understanding more about the look and the parts of a gun. It is undoubtably that more practices are needed!

After combining a lot of reference, I finally have a character holding a gun, aiming. I try to animate a armed police. To be honest, it is not as difficult as I thought it would be. Looking at the mirror really helps. I like the quick move at the end which enhance the whole action and at the same time make a contrast between the anticipation at the beginning. I really satisfied with this test which would probably be used in the animation. 

I place the animation above scene 1 just as to have a quick overview of how things would look like in the animation.  I like the simple outline of the character but definitely need colouring because the character kind of disappear in the background. It will look better if the character is not see through. The 'shapes' I used in the character design could be edited later in after effects which improve the aesthetic and cohesion of the scenes.

[Extended Practice]Action test

It happens that I need to learn about the guns and other weapons the officers used at that time because there will be close ups and focus shots of hands and the guns. So without feeling like a criminal searching guns on google, I found out the guns they used at that time and actually found more reference of how to draw a gun and pose and such. 

I don't really know guns and drawing objects, I hope I could somehow finalise the gun without giving it too much details but at the same time show the difference between new guns and the guns at that time. I will emphasis the shape, the trigger and the handle possibly.

To hold a gun, one hand hold the handle firmly and another hand hold the bottom of the handle to stabilise.

A lot of videos demonstrate the mechanism of the pose for example what pose is the most effective and efficient when you have to draw the gun quickly. I think I could also get similar reference from films but understanding the basic of drawing a gun would be more useful because there might not have the exact angles in the movies for me to copy from. Also now I learn the pose I could draw it out myself. 

For this test, I want to quickly try out a drawing gun pose which copying exactly from reference. I noticed that the shoulders move a lot and the body slight tilts. There are only 2 frames to draw out the gun, making it a fast and strong pose. I repeat the first frame and the last frame a few times in order to achieve the authentic and roughy look. It can be improved by slightly better quality lines and improve the pose by making it 24 frames per sec or I can ask someone to act this out from me for better reference. Not sure if I will use this test in the animation but it is still worth trying out!

[Extended Practice]Artist research: Stella So

Stella So is a Hong Kong animator and illustrator. Her works is very local and cultural, showing a lot of traditional transports and buildings. I love her work from the choose of paper to work on. She uses a type of paper what we used to practice writing when we were small and the colours of the paper already is a filter to the illustration. Colouring only the most important 'characters' of the work allows them to stand out from the crowded background also highlight the hero of the picture.

I want to learn from she style and the way she sees Hong Kong. I think the detailed drawing and simple colouring could bring that simplicity of the morning of Water head village and the quite environment before the crime. Although the buildings in the village is not as fancy as the tall buildings in central Hong Kong So draws, I could paint the windows and embrace this style through the whole animation.