Spaceship GIF

This is my attempt at creating a GIF.

The whole thing was made from scratch using photoshop and it consists of 20 layers each 0.1 seconds long.

 The beginning was very simple nice I just needed to create the basic assets as a foundation for the more detailed sections of he GIF, I first made the ship which I grabbed inspiration from Star Wars Rogue Ones gunship in terms of wings the rest was made from scratch.

The first thing I did was make a outline of the ships body, then I started adding things like the cockpit, vents, and reactor as well as engines on paper. After that I moved on to powerpoint and started making the outline of the ships body there in a separate layer.


I then moved on to more complex things like detailing the hull.
I also added two small lights on the tips of the wings to make it seem like a actual spaceship.








I then started making three different versions for the flames.


I wanted the flames to look unique and to be able to go from small, medium to large which I succeeded in producing.

The flames were all all made from the first one (the small flame in the middle) after which I moved on to the make the medium sized flame and then the large.

I first made outline of the onager sections then added the yellow and dark orange sections, after I was happy with how it looked I used the eraser tool to add a bit of a shade to the flames to make it look more alive in a sense.

After that I went through the challenge of creating the effect of it moving, I first moved the ship up and down in the layers to give the effect thats its somewhat hovering in space, then I started creating different STARS for the background so to make it seem as its moving.

During this process I had a lot of problems such as the stars looking too bit, not moving at all and over all the colour as well.

I created five versions of stars alone all of which were meant to work together in one gif, but it was a ugly mess of pixels that were mashed together which wasn't what I wanted at all.

In the end I started from scratch with the stars and made two completely new layers which I then used one after another in the animation.

The stars looked more like sticks which has a fading out effect at their ends which makes them look like they were passing by.

Strangely they were compared to gunfire rather than passing stars.

I then created a small purple comet of sorts to give that extra feel of being in space where asteroids and comets are common, it also had several versions of it, initially it meant to look more egg shaped with a more smooth cloud of smoke behind it.

But that was way too big and was very difficult to animate, so I went with a more skinny version that had a more dusty appearance with particles rather than with smoke, my inspiration was the red stone torch from Minecraft which I actually modified a bit to make it more round rather than square.

I also made several different versions of the particles so that whilst passing by the ship the comet looked like it was actually leaving behind particles.



The difficult part was when I had to link all of these factors into a gif, I had to start with a certain flame and make sure it end on the flame that was at the start of the animation and same goes for the stars and the position of the ship.

It took me a long time to make the animation seem seamless because I was always stuck at the fact that the ship was in the wrong position or that the flame or lights were not correct.

In the end I created the gif in a format of 2040 pixels and uploaded it to youtube and made it its separate form as a GIF.

Gifs

I looked at these gifs and I really like how they were made.

Video assesment

Its been a long year for me and I am now going to asses my videos and how my progress has gone so far over this past year.

Lets start with my very first animations:

This was my first animation, which I made using ink instead of a pencil (which was quite challenging since one big mistake could ruin the whole thing.

The animation was just about a dot doing something, we were told to make it do anything, even bouncing around was ok.

My idea was about a dot becoming something bigger which made it look like a seed growing bigger.

I made the animation on multiple pieces of paper, stapled it all together and the took a photo of each layer and assembled it into a video.

This one was made the same way but instead of ink I used a pencil, and the idea was to have a ball bounce around.


Animations made using photoshop:

This animation has the same concept as the one above with he ball bouncing, but instead of making it on paper I made it in photoshop and it was my first attempt at making a animated object in photoshop and it also had a small amount of physics.

But also pack then just to be on the safe side I included a line which you can see in the video which I made so that I knew where it would start, go and end at.

This animation was my attempt at making something explode, now its not necessarily a ball but more of a dot that again bounces but instead it explodes mid movement then continues to bounce.

Most people said its more resembling a flame rather than a explosion which I agree with.


Cut out animation:

This animation as says above was made using cut outs which were made out of paper.

This was made as a team with me coming up with the idea and the rest was made collaboratively.

The idea was that we would make a remake of 8-bit ping pong but using cut outs and it turned out ok, but one of my guys got his hand caught in the animation on accident.


Animated advert:

This was made by me over a two week period and it turned out well, the initial ideas was to make it 3D but I settled for 2D instead which was easier.

The animation was ok in my opinion I would like it to be coloured and a bit cleaner but for my first properly animated advert I say its alright.

The animation was made using photoshop and I then filmed and put the footage together so that it fits almost perfectly.

Then I recorded the dialogue and then added a few sound effects like for the shape bouncing up and down.

Max Fleischer

                                                                        Max Fleischer

Max is responsible for many famous cartoons such as Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye and even superman have all been his inventions and he is also responsible for creating Rotoscoping.
He is considered to be a pioneer of American cartoon animation in the 20^th century and it’s easy to see why.
 Rotoscope, created by Max Fleischer and his brother Dave, could project images of a film in an animation table. 
From there, the actions could be transferred frame by frame and incorporated on animation characters.
It was actually meant to enhance already made scenes, in some cases it can even be referred to as sketching since the animator would make the initial scene, clean it up and then just make another one of the same scene but change certain things like the hand could be slightly higher than in the last scene and this turned out to be a great success since he and his brother used it earlier before he ever owned a studio or in 1917 to be specific.

His out of the inkwell series is also quite a notable thing since all of his cartoons apart from superman can be found there, there even coloured versions of them. 

He is also responsible for making several small training films for the US army during WWI.

But he also has several books although they were not made by him they were made by his son who in his fathers memory made them so that people can learn more about his father and his craft:

Almanac of Famous People, 7th ed., Gale Group, 2001.

Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Gale Research, 1998.

Links:
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/max-fleischer

Animation and Computers

                         How computers/technology helped animation.

Computers have made animation a bit easier. Computer animation technology can help animators fill in “in-betweens”, create a multiple character scene, develop 3D illusion perfectly, simulate lighting setups, simulate materials, integrate virtual images with live action, combine live performances of an actor with an animated character and so much more. Computer generated animation can be two dimensional as well.

Computers also allowed us to use CGI which is included in practically every film. Computers also made it a hell of a lot more affordable for the artist to make a mistake in case they mess up, so if you do make mistake you won't have to start over completely in a sense. 

Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to the art of stop motion animation of 3D models and frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations.

Source links:

computer_animation.htm

http://www.cartoonson.com/how-technology-improved-the-evolution-of-animations.html

Carl Barks

Carl Barks "The Good Duck Artist"

Unlike many other artists working (all anonymously) for the Disney company, Barks did not mindlessly churn out condescending, forgettable stories of a childish nature during his 24-year stint on the Disney Ducks. He consistently produced delightful top-quality material, both in his scripts and in his art as well as in his dialogues, which echoed with deep human resonance.

As the creator of 'Scrooge McDuck', Carl Barks did more than any other comic book artist to widen the popularity of Donald Duck.

Among his many fans were George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg, who were inspired by the adventure comic books.

His stories were constantly reproduced in Disney comics across the globe, after his retirement in 1966.Barks is also in all probability, what with Disney being the world's largest publisher of children's magazines and books.

Barks' approach to creating comics was to never write down to his audience. In the panel above, from 1944's Frozen Gold, 'penicillin' and 'feted' could easily have been 'medicine' and 'honoured,' but Barks didn't feel the need for condescension.

It was Bill Spicer who first discovered that Barks was the "good duck artist" and sent him his first fan letter. He was so used to anonymity, he thought it was a joke. Western had never told him that he regularly got fan mail and that there had even been a reader rebellion in 1950 when his work load forced him to skip several issues of his regular Comics and Stories strips. He never knew he was famous. Anonymous, but famous none the less.

After he was "discovered" in the early 60's, he began to reminisce and socialize with fans. He was awarded the first Shazam in the 'Best Humor Writer in Comic Books' category in 1971. He recreated many of his most famous comic covers in oil for fans in the 1970's until Disney revoked their permission in 1976. He attended a comic convention in Boston in 1976 and was the subject of a major retrospective in the 1977 Comic Book Price Guide.

Barks was an enthusiastic user of Esterbrook pens. He particularly used a Nº 356 model to ink and letter his Donald Duck comic-book pages. 

"... I used a #356 Esterbrook art and drafting pen which could do everything from thin 'fadeaways' to broad accented curve sweeps on foreground circles such as the ducks' forms. The trick of breaking in a new pen, I discovered, is to soak it for several minutes in the ink bottle. Then wipe off the ink and the pen's varnish. For some weird reason most new pens then start out flexible and free-flowing ..."

I grew up watching his cartoons and the art style and the sleek movements and the way the characters acted made them feel like they were alive and that someone made them with a heart and soul in mind.

Source links:
bio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Barks#Professional_artist
barks.htm