Another way to learn interconnective skills like storytelling or character design and a software or style, is to have side projects that allowed me to experiment and get to know my own narrative voice and let me make mistakes without much pressure and change to a different approach at the middle of the project if I found it more fitting. Versatility is also a key point in the industry job since it increases the employment rate and a necessity for a job where each project requires different approaches narratively and technically.

These same side projects where the ones that more often sparked my own curiosity to start a discussion with professionals, because having more ground on the subject was a big improvement considering the beginning of the MA, when the lack of experience made the talks  more superficial with a lack of real purpose.

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When I watch an animated series, the first thing that I ask myself is if it makes sense to it be an animation. Not everything does. And some stories are just animated for no reason. 
This is one of those series in which the animation is one of the main story components. it would be nearly impossible to make such bold contrasting scenarios, and touch the humor on it so smoothly with scenes full on drama.
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The design, the scenery, this entire world makes sense visually and is not that easy to achieve.

Now they have a new season and so far I can tell that it wont be disappointing.

This is a series based in composition and strong sense of action. Atmospheric with this glimpses of humor even in darkness treating serious moments as heavy and full of emotion. A series that also has the main character wear heels without being degrading. 

This one is in my top 10 series of all time. And I am going to keep studying it for its humor, storytelling, composition and design.

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.Passing a weight between characters.
Even tho I like the subtle things in this one, overall I am not happy with the movement itself. It has too many inconsistencies.

But I want to name what Chris calls housekeeping. 
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For working with two characters it is necessary and make things easier. Having two timings make thing messy, but the moment I know what I am doing I can worry about inbetweening.
Also timing the small actions such as the grabby hands or the gentle push of the object to child; has a lot of acting by itself and acting is something I really like to do (that is why i am still stubbornly wanting to be an animator, even tho I am slow animating).

This week task: Lifting a heavy object.

I find myself driven to traditional pen a paper, light box and pencil test animation. It makes thinking about the timing, planing the movement more tangible than being able to try it all the time, like it happens in digital animation.

Even with the weird snaps in the neck and the nailed knee, I can tell that my guy, this guy is lifting something. 

Also getting use to draw the thing you are going to draw seems REALLY useful, mostly if you want to think about movement and no how you were drawing hands or heads or something.

First animation exercise: A water balloon rolling down stairs. Or better, a weird slug.
That is the definition of failed warm-up.

The idea of these exercises are getting us to think about animation, movement by itself. And also to give us the bases of animation in general (be it d@, stop frame...anything).

Even if it feels like a failed animation, the means to get there are also important knowledge and with this I wrapped the idea of timing.

I took some of the characters of Percy Jackson and the Olympians book (that I recently read) and decided to design them and make animated head rotations to see how the designs and the style would work animated. Also as a practice to get use to TVPaint software setting myself a goal of making two characters a week in any free time I got between university projects.

Rough design of the characters from the book:

Animation:

This can be the first time I've been animating human characters and not faceless puppets for animation practice. I was aiming to improve:

• my use of TVPaint, an important software for animators that I came across until this year.
• feel comfortable using a cintiq
•  recognize how I work best animating

Several things I realized on the way:
-Working myself around the shapes of characters I designed fir animation made me realize that the construction is essential to keep consistency, even in the details. 
-Testing how the design is fit for purpose was a really important practice. Having to decide abandon details or solve curly hair.
-The face feature I found more difficult to keep in consistency were the eyebrows. Until I realized how the layers worked on TVPaint..
- It started taking me 3 hours getting satisfied(~ish) with the rotation and at the end I could work it in around 1 hour.

Organization as key to achieve...anything
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Working on several different projects at the same time during my MA led me to the first and more important lesson: organization is vital. As I have noticed in my research, storyboard artists (and freelance artists in general) need to be perfectly organized to tackle all the challenges of a production and keep the pipeline flowing, but the concept goes further, since work needs to coexist with independent practice, study and the ordinary life. The ability to multitask is appreciated in this scenario, and it’s something the industry values greatly, but, at the heart of it, what counts is efficient scheduling, skill that I had to learn during the first months of the MA.
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The time I spent getting to a workflow and learning how to prioritize aspects in a production or in my own projects was worth it, since now I know the way to perform more efficiently without stressing over getting things done.​

I personal use minimum 2 Schedules, Personal and Professional Practice Schedule

Refers to software training, practice in animation principles, life drawing, colour studies and speed painting. It also includes the MA lectures, industry scoping, readings about animation, composition, storytelling, and interviews with professional artists 

Tips:
- Work smarter not harder, meaning that there are several resources online for scheduling from the web, from your phone...even from excel.
- Some use and only use the classic pen and paper on a notebook. But working on several projects even more if they are collective projects using online ways of planing is a probably a smart option, in my opinion,
- Excel is a perfect tool, only by the fact you can use tables that are already there, and that Drive from Google and Microsoft and probably more services have their version, that can be updates online.

By this moment I am fairly used to organizing important data in my online schedule, since I can adjust it and , overall, be more professional about important data.

And Remember

Following a schedule also implies knowing when it requires certain flexibility to respond to the different problems that each project may have during their production.

I’ve always knew I was interested in narration through images, being this the center of my practice for many years. This is why my research into the animation world started from knowing what role in the immense pipeline intersection my innate interest in drawing belonged to.

My final decision of becoming a storyboard artist for animation came after a long process of first, to understand how things actually work in the animation industry; second, to explore the scope that the different positions in an animation crew have, so I could see in which one I could really feel satisfied; and third, to identify the type of projects I would like to be part of.  But it is, as alway,s a decisions that should be made alongside practice considering that in a creative career is not only important to know the aspects of the work but also to have the experience of doing it.​

My initial research led me to find information first hand, communicating with storyboard artist from around the world via email,  about what is to be a storyboard artist in the industry. WIthout leaving aside other tools like books such as Levy, D.B. (2006) Your Career in Animation,  and even more online resources like  Creative Skillset  (2016) Animation Job Roles (animation) and the pages of the same animation companies, they usually have no secrets about what they aspire to get from someone applying to any of the different roles in their studios.​

After coming through with my initial research on how the animation industry works ,my idea of storyboard changed and I started to perceive the possibility of a professional development in this area. For being a storyboard artist in animation, generating clear images for the rest of the team to work from is a priority.  For this reason, as Richard Williams says in his book The animator’s survival kit (Williams 2001, p. 23) “Drawing should become second nature, so that the animator can concentrate on the actual actions and the timing of them and give the performance life”.

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Reference:
​ I took video reference for makings believable limp and not make it look like an animation mistake, that can happen quite often with limps)

Video reference -> making the walk cycle a Loop -> add details

I made a quick sketch of   any variation I could think  for a corpse.

Main Selection:
I choose the designs that where closer to what I was looking and more appealing.
I like the idea of this magic - spirit light inhabiting a corpse 

For Animation:  testing the pipeline

Thinking about the animation, how  I had a deadline to submit it and that I could only work in photoshop I tested for a way to color while saving the major part of inconsistencies and to make no background.

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Animation Clean up:
It is a long process, but the best way is to go by steps in all frames While doing it, I keep checking how is it looking without any background and also correcting things I find looking weird from the previous steps. (I think it could be more efficient with some adjusts from the beginning)

The Mask of the Necromancer
The mask is an artifact used to revive a corpse moving it by its bone; the mask generates and artificial breath of life that inhabits the
​ corpse until it falls apart or the mask is taken away.

Getting started with storyboards is not exactly easy, since there is not just one way to do storyboards.
They are made for the production you are in and they all change with the type of production.
That is why this is a great book to get into the technicality of storyboarding.
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​Bold, incredibly graphic with illustrated examples and to the point.
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This is part of the content list:

Personal Highlights.

• It discusses client boards and how to make the easier for the client. Including a checklist that goes from taking notes and double checking in the first briefing, Getting copies of reference material from the client,  getting the mails and phone numbers from anyone that can answer your questions,  and working from sketch - aproval - clean up - aproval - then color and details.
• Shooting Boards and how the have technical details and having in mind that this is the closest it goes from doing the actual film and it usually implies working with the director. 
• The language of storyboarding detailing the importance of Screen direction, framing expressions, cuts, camera angles, camera movements, composition and arrows+written anotations.
• The cuts section, and one i was more looking forward to understanding, is pretty detailed with visual examples. and includes the entire list from Jump cut to inserts, wips, cross fade, and montage (that before they all mixed in my brain, but the exampples are so clear, it make them easier to identify and then, to use)
  
• Moodboards: including color, casting, and location.  Floor plans, reference material, costume references and even stunt scenes. Some of them are things that the Art Director provides but the sb artist can also make suggestions.
• some tips on how to read the script: first read all of it to get the sense of the story, a secon time making notes with questions and ideas, and highlight key passages or scenes.
• Special section in Animation Storyboards:  Freedom with gags and meeting with the director are more frequent, and the drawing style should match the one of the animation. The layout often comes from the storyboard. The most important thing for working in a close team like the one in animation studios is  C O M MU N I C A T I ON

TVPaint practice with walk cycles. 

Getting used to new programs. TVPaint is really versatile but sometimes it makes it really difficult. So it is better to make repetitions.
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Same story with walk cycles, and using some reference for them.

25 fps in ones

These are in two's

Now with some performance from Jim and Bee. (father and daughter).

Big changes in the Pokemon animated series in the new season and I again, was kind of divided between if it is good or if they are going for a more careless approach since with this series sometimes money overwrites anything else.
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I am a big fan of the anime and I've been watching it for years, so I am pretty familiar on how pokemon has changed. For me it has been 14 years of watching the anime.

The last season was an incredible surprise, some episodes being so well crafted that you could see the long production they went through. And even if they repeat animation, they also did fantastic thing that I never saw before. With pokemon everything is difficult because one of the main reasons the series is still going is because it drains money of the fans. Money everywhere, game merchandising series special tv shows. For me it is a real transmedia series and somehow it does NOT make less of each opportunity even when more conservative people start arguing of the ruin of the series just for some new deign or because it is aimed for preteens and the characters reflect that.

I was asking myself this the other day, part of me enjoys the more personality in one of my all times faves: pikachu. But i also was concerned about the entire idea of they just changing for the sake of change.
Now that I know it is about 3D - 2D animation software upgrades and their real way to try to use this /in a series that each season has over 30 episodes/ it is amazing to know they are still going up and up.

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Lecture and Seminar to generate Ideas and the backbone of classic storytelling.

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PROCESS FOR BRAINSTORMING

 There is no such thing as an useless commentary or idea while brainstorming.
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Looking for a concept that is 

                       VISUAL - SIMPLE  - EMOTIONAL
BONUS:

Launch of the Collaborative project between UWE and  The Royal Academy of Music.


Abstract Animation           Site Specific                             Installation Art

This is the best use for my last experience and add it to animation projects
"cats make you want to stay in" : my past installation art + animationproject
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3 weeks project to make an hybrid 1 minute animation short between 3 people.
​ It must include DEATH

BONUS:

I would go back any time, there is so much to look at, the people working in the tour make the experience really amazing and worthy.

​First approach, practice and understanding techniques for animation. Working with sound, different media and setting booths and cameras for stop frame techniques. 
- Software: Stop Motion PRO (Eclipse)

I had to find the balance between working on all the aspects  at the same time to develop my portfolio with a variety of skills  and be a storyboard artist at the standard of the industry.  And...I had to deal with the fact that I didn’t have the experience nor the knowledge of how the industry worked from the inside. This led to a lot of self doubt about the quality of the work I was making at the same time I was presenting it as final pieces.

Storyboard artist for Dreamworks Animation, Kris Pearn, points how his practice as storyboard artist for animation feature films is shaped by his ability to understand the animation process and how storyboarding is about solving problems before they happen in a more developed stage of production. He also mentions that storyboarding is the practice of “communicate with pictures as fast as you think”. (Peran, 2014) The skillset for a storyboard artist in different parts of the industries includes good draftsmanship and ability to adapt to a wide range of styles, animation principles, strong team-working and communication skills and be familiar with relevant graphics and editing software that nowadays it is Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, and half of the companies ask for specific software like Toon Boom Storyboard Pro and TV paint, as well as strong storytelling abilities shown through a portfolio and showreel.

I saw this interview   Kris Pearn, storyboard artist. Interview by Rob Garrott. Artists and Their Work: Conversations about Mograph, VFX, and Digital Art

​The interview is not online anymore but it changed my perception on the actual job that I might be interested in. It was enlightening to see a storyboard artist do a storyboard and step by step how he developed it at the same time he was talking about being a storyboard artist and what it implies in a bigger production. I started to realize that even listening to what a storyboard artist does and his daily life process, really was something i could see myself pursuing as an artistic career.