Inktober

To build up my Instagram account, I participate with a challenge called the Inktober challenge, where people produce a drawing with ink based on the daily theme. Here are some of the drawings I did during the challenge.

Thanks to Daniel who made a 3D model of my drawing in Zbrush, I am interested in trying to model in Zbrush as well, as it helps me to understand the transformation between 2D designs and 3D models, therefore can broaden my knowledge within 3D game production if I am working within game studios in the future.

Studio research

As the first presentation for PP3 creative strategy, I researched on studios around the world mainly in China as I intend to work in a Chinese animation studio at some point in the future. The studio I am most interested in is Wolf Smoke as the style of their animation and character designs is the direction I would like to go for, therefore I will be definitely traying to contact them. Most animation studios in China, as I researched, are relatively new and full of new blood, for instance, b&t and Colour room. They have all been making impressive films and some of them has been selected by Annecy festival. I intend to visit studios if possible when I go back to China in Christmas.

Creative Strategy - Study task 1

12 Networking opportunities:

Off line face to face:

Leeds International Film Festival 2-17 November 2017

Manchester Animation Festival 14, 15, 16 November 2017

London International Film Festival 1-10 December 2017

Cardiff Animation Festival 20-22 April 2018

Annecy Animation Festival 11-16 June 2018

Taichung International Animation Festival October 2018


Online:

Artstation

DeviantArt

Behanced

Linkedin networking

Character Design Refrence - special guests and other character designers.

Illustrationage

CG Society

PPP2 Self-evaluation

In Personal, professional and practice this year, I overall enjoyed the module, but it did not went well enough for me on several aspects. It is a summary of self-practices of me during the year.

As for networking and interviewing, I intended to approach a few of practitioners mostly character designers and character animators, through E-mails and social networking for more than once, but unfortunately did not get responds from most of them. I want to improve my communication skills in order to get in touch and networking with more practitioners that I could gain experiences from.

I did not recorded all of the films that I seen during the course of researches on other modules, but only the ones that gave me support and inspiration during the other modules. What I could have improved is to save future reference for me on inspirational stuffs other than animated films.

What I hope I would improve in ppp in the future is that I can write more critically on references and effective self-evaluations for all of the modules.

Creative Presence Report

A interview to a Chinese visual design practitioners work for animation and games, I translated after the interview. https://issuu.com/yixingqin/docs/creative_presense_report

Sketches for practice

There are all character sketches I gathered that I have done from the year to identify my change of style and improvements.

Proposal for Level 6

I made a 10 page ISSUU page for context of practice module in level 6. It is the research plan for the summer before next year, and the first time I tried to make a proposal for a module. In additional it is the first time I write academically in 6000 words. I want to make the response to the module a complete pre-production plan with a animation based on them. It would be based on animation documentaries.

CoP Visual Research

The sketchbook follows the route of research I took when writing up the essay, I gathered the stills from animation in either genres or length. I wrote up annotations of the reason that it inspired me and supported me on the argument I made in the essay.

Self-evaluation of the Responsive briefs

I think this is a module with a large flexibility as the set briefs are not specified, therefore it gives freedom to us especially helped to shape our individual directions, to give us a chance to practice skills that we have passion in and would probably do in the future. I enjoyed the module a lot as we can choose our own set of briefs and respond to it, and on the other hand, in the collaborative brief part, I am able to practice my skill of communication, collaboration, and organisation.

The set of briefs I chose are mostly character design challenges as I responded to 3 character-design challenge among all briefs that I have responded, which is also what I am most interested in doing. The submission of the first one I did back in February was late, where I did not take a screenshot as well, therefore I did not miss any of the other deadlines to prevent late submissions happening. The other three briefs are all animation briefs, with the 11 seconds club challenge being the main project for the studio brief 1. I did three of them in three different styles and methods, traditional animation papers, digital compositing and assets in After effects, in order to test that which one works for me the best, and to gain experiences for all of the skills. In conclusion, I think I have made the right choices of briefs to respond to, I had chances to practice different skills both digitally and with traditional methods. What I could have improved is to respond to more briefs that covers more skill range, and to manage time more efficiently to prevent the situation of not submitting stuff on time. I wrote short evaluations for each of the animation or character design I did, and I found that it is a great way of keeping up to date, to give the project a proper finish and to look back seeing the improvement that could be applied to it.

The second part of this module, is the first time that I work with other individuals of other courses beside the collaborative team in the other animation brief. At the first we were asked to present our skill set with four images composited together on a sheet of A3 art board, and to choose a brief on either D&AD or YCN. I was firstly considering between quite a lot of briefs as I can find my individual roles to contribute in all of them. But eventually decided on two briefs to present on the interests’ sheet. Both briefs require animation skill, which is the role that I can possibly take. Finally, I decided to respond to the brief set by Hasbro, to create a new board game facing teenagers aged 16-26. The biggest problem that we all faced was the communication between us as we are from different courses, and we did not arranged enough seminars to discuss the progress of each of us, therefore it lagged the speed of me to complete the final presentation video. Another improvement is that I could have do more research of the background of the game company to produce minor details to the game itself to embrace the culture of the game industry. Eventually we gave it a nice finish and submitted the video along the design boards in time, overall I am pleased with the final outcome, it demonstrates the role and the concept of the appearance of the card game, which on the other hand, I like the idea as it is an engaging game, and a resolution to the life spam of card games, with constantly produced booster packs.

To conclude the process of this module, I have responded to several briefs both individually and collaboratively, I kept my blogs up to date to record the process I went through and gave myself evaluations for the purpose of reducing problems and pushing the quality of works higher for future references. There is still a huge space for me to improve myself, such as on self-management on all sorts of aspects, and the importance of communication especially being an individual with vital roles working in a creative group, that if the team members can work efficiently with the right directions after an agreement approved by all of us. But in general, the module has given me a very helpful guidance to my self-interests and clarification of the roles that I could be taking in a team.

Highlighting the main briefs that I have been responding to:

Life is a Pitch

Our collective is a group of 6 of us, we intend to make a cinema experience with VR goggles. We devided our roles and I am going to be in charge of collecting and making the art book.

Satoshi Kon

During the research of the construction of the sketch book in context of practice, I discovered more on Satoshi Kon, who has been one of my favorite animator for years. I have looked at his layout art and was lucky to find some of his storyboards for the animated film he did. The complexity of the scenes is one of the reason that made his films feels as a movie shot by live camera with actors. I gained a lot of inspirations by studying his pre-productions work of the way of layout especially.

Mononoke

I included Mononoke in my research visual sketchbook for the context of practice. It is an animated series with contrasting abstract background that matches with the theme of traditional Japanese ghost legends. The character design is very unique and interesting, with beautifully illustrated details on both the costume and accessories.

Swinging the Lambeth Walk

The abstract animation Swinging the Lambeth Walk demonstrated a deconstructed set of shapes, which in the intro of the animation, referred to a ‘colour accompaniment’. In my opinion, the stage that layout gave to an abstract animation is on the entire screen, with a highly freedom to play with shapes and colours, to express emotional feeling through these two elements, therefore it can be an individual art form as itself, different to character animations.

Big Fish & Begonia

Big fish & Begonia is a Chinese animated film released in 2016, which entered the competition in animated films in Annecy 2017. It is animated with delicate and vibrant backgrounds, the characters with strong characteristics made up this story, and on the other hand, showcase a mixture of a lot of ancient Chinese legends. The weakness of the animation is the storytelling in my opinion, it does not demonstrate the story clearly with the narration. What inspired me of this film is that the beautiful illustrated background and how the scenes are constructed onto them, meanwhile the music and soundtrack, are delicate and professional as well.

Coraline

I discovered this stop-motion animation when I was looking for narrative animations. It tells a dark fairy tale between two worlds which are reality and a illusion world connected by a small door. I have not been doing any stop-motion before, yet the aspect that inspired me is the style and the story telling. What I like about it is how the two worlds are connected by a small door, and the difference between the character in the real world and the other world with minor differences but can still be determined as the same character.

A story about my uncle

A story about my uncle is a game released on Steam and spent around 6 hours to finish the game. What gives inspiration on the game is the layout in most of the scenes as it is a game based on floating objects that leads the journey of the main character, and the character design for the side characters. The design of the scenes are especially memorable as it is unique and different from on another, each scenes are different from the other scenes at the same time as well. It is cleverly designed and a combination of several elements that would match the theme well without any oddness.

Pear Cider and Cigarettes

This is one of the animation which got me extremely interested in animated documentary.It is nominated by Oscar, introduced the relationship between Robert, the director, with a ‘self-destructive, yet charismatic’ friend (IMDb, 2016) in a form of informal documentary, colours and typography demonstrated in the layout of the scenes have strongly emphasis characteristics with adult topics as sexual, addiction and brutal expressions, an unacceptable form of existence by the society. Scenes were used more than once, the switches between stages along the story line clearly demonstrated the transitions of perspective followed by the audience with the character himself.

Character Design Reference

Through the Character Design Reference, which is a regularly theme setting challenge of character design, I found some interesting character designer and illustrators, which inspired me and I am willing to get in touch for an interview. As for the questions I have been considered, would mostly be around self-selling and the presentation of the ideas.

Useful links I saved for myself.

https://grizandnorm.squarespace.com/about-us/

http://megpark.tumblr.com/

http://t-wei.tumblr.com/

http://www.silvertoons.com/portfolio-feature

http://ajharart.tumblr.com/

Sztuka spadania and Less than human

Fallen art(2004), a 3D short animated film. The highlight of the animation is the delicate 3D models and the narration of the story in a effective way, and most importantly inspired me with the color script mainly of dark and dull colors to emphasis the atmosphere. Therefore it reminded me of another animation called Less than human, that I have came across when looking at references for context and practice. Fortunately I found a color script for the animation that demonstrated how different colors are used in different scenes to show the change of scenes and atmospheres.

Father and Daughter

A delicate piece of animation showcased a story about the life time of a girl growing old waiting for her dad to come back from the other side of the ocean, but discovered an empty boat sinked in the dried lake where her dad left her in her childhood. I came across this animation during my research of context of practice. What I like about the animation is the water color effect background and the simple outlines.

Moana

Disney released the film Moana in 2016, a featured film that is about the adventure of the feminist character Moana finding the other character to protect her family.

After watching the animation, I researched for the character design as my specific interests, and recognized Bobby Pontillas, the character animator and designer in Disney who did the concept character design in Moana, and has been invited to the Character Design Challenge as guest judge as well. His design boards gives me references of the way to present series of character design that is based on one conception of world.