Perception Or Illusion?

This lecture was about showing us how to see and think about things we wouldn't normally take notice of in our daily life. We need this skill because this is what separates us from everyone else as animators or graphic designers. For example a person walking in the street, everyone will not take notice of the details they will just make a quick note in their head that a person is walking on the pavement next to the road while creative people will use a skill that will make them think about excessive detail especially as an animator they will take note on that person's movement.

I generally focus on the little things including when people walk, by looking closely you can see that every single person has their own style of walking or movement even if it is just slightly different.

Narrative Design

Narrative design is how something is structured and presented to tell a story. Literally every film has the same structure: The beginning with a rising action, the middle with a climax and then the end with a falling action.

Allen Feldman said "The event is not what happens. The event is that which can be narrated."

Narrative as an animator is creating a narrative for an animation that solves a problem.

Nancy Duarte said "The audience does not need to tune themselves to you - you need to tune your message to them."

Rebecca Perez

Rebecca Perez works at Dream Works another company who make animated movies I love. Because I like these movies I decided to do some research on animator who works there.

Rebecca first became inspired to do animation at the age of 15 when she saw a commercial about a animated Listerine bottle done by CGI, later she discovered the animation was created by Pixar. When Rebecca was old enough she enrolled at the Ringling School of Art and Design where she received a BFA in animation but later on decided that she still didn't have the skill she needed to work on films so she hired a animation mentor. Rebecca's first job after education was at LucasArts where she had the job of 3D Technical Artist, putting completed animations into the game engine of the game the company was producing. Even though she wasn't working with animation she still could learn from the environment and study each process that happened in the gaming industry.

Eventually after building herself up Rebecca received a chance to work at Dream Works  where she worked on a number of movies:


Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)






How to Train your Dragon (2010)





Megamind (2010)



Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)



Turbo (2013)


I have seen all these movies and they inspire me to be an animator. All the movies from Dream works follow at specific style and have very interesting stories.

John Lasseter

John Lasseter is known for his 3D animation with Disney Pixar and taken part in the creation of amazing animated movies. I am a massive fan of Disney Pixar and have seen just about all of their movies so I have decided to look in to a animator who works for them. Most of John Lasseter's work is with Pixar but he has also been involved with other animations like Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.

John Lasseter was inspired by Disney's Sleeping Beauty and Disney's Sword in the Stone to become an animator himself. Lasseter started his higher education for animation in Pepperdine University but left shortly after, after seeing a better opportunity to learn character animation at the California Institute of the Arts. Here he was taught by 3 members of Disney's Nine Old Men team of veteran animators along side his fellow classmates who also become great animators including Tim Burton and Brad Bird.

After education John Lasseter worked for Disney for a short time before getting fired because he was caught promoting computer animation as Disney have a passion for hand drawn animation. Lasseter then went to work for LucasArts who wanted and explored in the use of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) but in 1986 this part of LucasArts was sold to Steve Jobs who turned the company into Pixar. John put his CGI skills at work for Pixar and directed some of the best Disney Pixar movies everyone knows and loves.

Toy Story (1995)

  


A Bug's Life (1998)



Toy Story 2 (1999)




Cars (2006)





Cars 2 (2011)




I have seen all these movies except cars 2 and I love them all. Pixar was the first animation studio to use CGI in 3D and make a full length feature movie from it. All the movies have a similar and obvious style to them and a Pixar movie can instantly be recognised. In the future I want to learn some aspects of 3D animation and Pixar is my inspiration to do so. 

Tim Burton

I am a fan of the horror genre and if there is a opportunity to play a scary video game or watch a movie that falls in to this genre I take it. Tim Burton is a animator who likes to explore with the horror genre through his animated movies, his movies aren't exactly scary but the setting and atmosphere are eerie and dark. Because I am fascinated with Tim Burtons style I decided to research his past to becoming an animator.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burtons first animated movie that he wrote and produced was for Disney in 1993, it was a stop motion musical based on his imaginative world and characters called The Nightmare Before Christmas. The cartoon received positive reviews because of its stop motion, music and original story making $50 million as a box office success.

James and the Giant Peach



Tim Burton's next film came out in 1996 and it was a mixture of live action and stop motion footage. The movie was based on Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and it was nominated for academy award for best original musical.

Corpse Bride


Tim Burton's 3rd animated movie was called Corpse Bride and this stop motion animation brought out his unique style of the dark eerie setting he is so well known for. The movie was released in 2005 and it was Tim Burton's first full animated stop motion feature length film he had directed himself. Corpse Bride was Burton's interpretation on light and dark through a musical.

Frankenweenie 



In 2012 Tim Burton brought out another stop motion feature length animation called Frankenweenie. Frankenweenie was remade from a short film Burton made in 1984 also called Frankenweenie, the idea came from a memory from Tim Burton's childhood when he was growing up with his own pet.

All of Tim Burton's animations are stop motion and he sticks with a constant theme and style of the setting and characters. I have seen Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie and these movies I enjoyed very much, the models and stop motion are very interesting to watch because I like to think about how they made it and analyse specific scenes. During my time looking at Tim Burton's work I have realised he is another animator that sticks with his own style with every project and I feel the need to do the same.

Hayao Miyazaki

I am very interested in Japanese cartoons and I spend some of my free time watching various series so I decided to do some research on a animator named Hayao Miyazaki who created the most popular feature length Japanese animations.

Hayao Miyazaki directed his first animated movie in 1978 called The Castle of Cagliostro and it won the excitement of film critics all over the world and it was heard that Steven Spielberg himself said the car chase featured in the movie was the best he had ever seen. Ten years later 1988 wasn't until his studio (Studio Ghibli) was recognised world wide thanks to his next movie My Neighbour Totoro. In 1997 the Studio Ghibli team brought out another animated movie named Princess Mononoke and this time breaking all of box office records and made $150 million in Japan. The next movie released by Studio Ghibli in 2001 was called Spirited Away making a total of $250 million and also winning the golden bear at the 2002 Berlin film festival. The Studio Ghibli team also made a ton of other animated movies in between these master pieces including: Castle in the Sky (1986), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Porco Rosso (1992), Whisper of the Heart (1995) and many more. Miyazaki more recent cartoons have also become very popular in the UK and the US as well as in Japan and these include: Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Ponyo (2008), From up on Poppy Hill and again many more.

The Castle of Cagliostro





My Neighbour Totoro

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Princess Mononoke




Spirited Away



I have watched Studio Ghibli movies My Neighbour Totoro and Ponyo and I loved every second of them. The movies all follow a similar style and when you see any footage from these movies you know instantly that it is work from the Studio Ghibli team. The animations are very powerful and offer a unique experience that no other animators can, to me these movies are a massive inspiration to who I aspire to be and encourages me to follow the path of an animator. 

Generating Ideas

I did some further research into creative thinking and techniques for generating ideas. I found a number of different ways that I want to try during my next project or brief.




Mind Mapping
Mind Mapping I would say is the most popular out of these six techniques of brainstorming ideas. I have used mind mapping in the past but I have not being a big fan of it but from this video and the other five techniques I think I will use mind mapping more often. Mind mapping involves taking the word of the topic and then branching off it coming up with other subjects that relate. This breaks down the topic hopefully creating a different view and approach which helps realising something that couldn't be seen before.

Right Braining
This technique interested me the most because I find myself to be a visual learner and I think it would be a fun way to come up with ideas. Drawing incomplete images that relate to a chosen topic and then redrawing theses images so that they merge together can trigger an idea as again something might be seen that wasn't obvious before.

Provocative Actions
This is also an interesting method for generating ideas. Maybe taking a scene relating to a topic or subject and do something that a normal person wouldn't do like use a object in a wrong way or differently. Like in the video turning all the chairs in a dining room upside down could spark an idea because this wouldn't be seen on a daily basis because this isn't how chairs are used. Also a out the box comment could be made which causes people to start thinking differently like What would happen if fish could build?

Break and Build
This technique doesn't really appeal to me but I will try it. By taking a general idea it can be broken down into more detailed pieces of information or it can be built up to a more simple viewpoint. This is another method of breaking down information or pulling key points to approach something differently.

Pessimist vs Optimist
I would like to try this because it does sound like a good idea. Two people take a role each, one person is the negative person who says they can't and the other person is positive and comes up with a solution on the top of his head until they come up with a solution. Starting with a statement the pessimist person starts with why it can't be done and then the optimistic person answers with a solution to the problem.

Randomness
This method also sees like a fun productive one. Taking a general topic and choosing a random object. Describe the random object in every way an then apply the descriptions to the topic so that it relates and creates something that triggers an idea.

I now have 6 new methods to try and experiment with to generate new ideas and hopefully at least one of these will be the best one I can use over and over again in the future.

Patrick Beaulieu

I decided to do research on animators who are involved with a type of media I am interested in, video games. I found an animator who works on video games at Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed and Far Cry) called Patrick Beaulieu and he took part in an interview about his career path as an animator while giving tips for people also interested in his chosen career.

Something that fascinated me and stood out the most about Patrick is that he accidentally went into animation as for his first job he was assigned an animation position without having any experience with animations or computers. In a short amount of time he learnt a huge deal of animation and learnt to love it. Following this he learnt the basic of 3D animation in a school named Institute Athena and then proceeded to teach himself.

Before working at Ubisoft and on video games Patrick worked for a company called Hybride Technologies where he would create 3D animations or special effects in movies. He was involved with popular movies including: Snakes on a Plane, Sin City and a feature length animation called Racing Stripes.

Now Patrick has his own website named Squeeze Studio (http://www.squeezestudio.com) where companies can hire him and his team to work on movies and video games. His company have a guideline they work with which I like the idea of: never jump into 3D without a 2D plan, trust the power of daily team review and have fun! Basically have a detailed plan, don't take offence from someone criticising your work instead take their word on board and adapt from it and finally enjoy what you do. Here is some of their work.


This is a 3D animation of a teaser trailer for the video game Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag's downloadable content called Freedom Cry.


 This is a short 3D animation trailer for the mobile app game called Titan Empires.


This short 3D animation was a test for the studio to see how the Angry Birds would look like in 3D as it is normally portrayed in 2D.

Overall from Patrick Beaulieu I have learnt a number of different things. A good animator is a passionate animator, a person has to be very interested and needs to strive a lot of work and a lot of time. A animator also has to be very social because the majoritie of the jobs are team based and a co-operating team is crucial to meeting deadlines and meeting professional standards. When it comes to criticism accept the good and the bad, people aren't trying to drag you down but push you forward. Finally it is important to be original because that is what employers look for within interviews, but also practice the cliche as this is the fastest and most efficient way to get better at software.  

Styles

In this seminar we discussed and explored styles. What is a style? What makes a style? Can you avoid being in with a style? Styles is an important aspect for someone who is creative and someone who creates various different things.

Styles is what puts anything into a category or group for example different social cultures. Goths, Emos, Hipsters they all have their own individual styles and it is not just their appearance that makes their style. The way people act and think also make their culture a style and a main part that makes them different from other cultures. Everything is a style and with cultures if someone doesn't want to be apart of any of the cultures what ever they then come up with will be their own style and a start of a new trend. This method of style with social cultures works with anything and everything no matter what it is, fashion, transport, different foods, choice of housing and living etc.

Styles for creative people is very important because it determines how your product will look and which target audience it will be aimed at. Animators will pay attention to detail on this subject as their animations and videos will be aimed a specific target audience so the style they choose and use will have to appeal to that audience. An animator is making a children's show they will be aiming the cartoon at 5 - 9 years old so the style needs to be very colourful and the lines used need to be thick as this will keep the look of the animation simple with little detail. Also the voice overs in the cartoon will need to use simple words and phrases to keep the interest and entertainment for the audience.

This seminar has taught me to think about every little detail I put into a animation because even the smallest of things can have a big impact on people's impressions. Also at the start of the project to choose a specific target audience so I have a style to aim for that pleases my the viewers the best I can. The most important point I have realised from this seminar is to come up with my own style so I can apply them to my own animations and then people can pick out my creations from anyone else's work so I would stand out.

Creating the Blog

Our first session on Process and Production was to create a blog where we can upload our development and research through the year on our course. Additionally we created an account with Vimeo so we had somewhere to upload our digital work like animations.

Step 1 - Creating the Blog

This is the first page after I clicked the sign up button on the Blogger website. The first part of the registration requires: my first and last name, a username so viewers have a nick name to know me by, a password to ensure I am the only person who can log into the account, my birthday, my gender, my mobile phone number and finally my email address so I can receive updates about my account.

Step 2 - Creating the Blog

The next step required me to create a display name for my blogger profile. This gives viewers a name when they want to know who wrote the blog posts and the name can literally be anything it doesn't have to be a real name.

Step 3 - Creating the Blog

This next step wanted me to choose a template design for my blog posts. A template design is made up of different backgrounds, colours, fonts and layouts. I chose a template called picture window which had a specific layout I liked and then I continued to customise the background and text with a black and orange theme.

Step 4 - Creating the Blog

The Final Step was creating the labels which I can then add to each of my posts to let viewers know what category the posts have come from. The two labels were Process and Production and Theory As Practice, so now my viewers can look at posts specifically under the process and production category or the theory as practice posts.

Overall I am happy with my blog. I like the look of the design and the colour palette I have chose. Most importantly my blog is up and running for my work and research.


Step 1 - Creating a Vimeo Account

The first step to creating an account with Vimeo I had to: put down my first and last name, input my email address and then a password I would use to personally log in to the account.

Step 2 - Creating A Vimeo Account

After putting down my name, email address and a password I basically have my Vimeo account, the last thing I did was go to my email to find a message from Vimeo to complete my registration which verifies my email address to prove I am a real user.

I like the idea of a Vimeo account as I have some where to upload my work and create a digital portfolio as I work through the years.  

Cinema 4D Introduction

In this session we were introduced to the software Cinema 4D a program where 3D models can be captured by static images or made into animations. During this time we learnt the basic tools and did some experiments to get used to Cinema 4D's layout.

In this experiment I created a cube and applied the bend effect to it. In the cube properties I added 10 segments to each of the cubes axises so the cube can become flexible and bend (without extending the segments the cube just stretches into a trapezium). Finally I increased the strength of the bend making the blue box on the outside curl round and because the cube is a child of the bend it follows making the cube bend as well.

The next experiment follows on from the bend experiment with adding the cloner effect to the cube. The bending cubes stacked on top of each other after I increased the copies of the object to 18 and then increased the distance between each object on the Z axis.

In the third experiment I created the RWBY logo with text and colour and then experimented with positioning of the camera and lighting to create some shadow effects. The four letters were in their own text layers so the colours could be changed for the each of them. Changing the colour of an object is easy by going into the basic properties of the object and choosing yes where it asks to use colour and then choosing a colour from the colour bar. Next a floor needs to implemented underneath the object so the light has a surface to cast a shadow on. After this I created a layer and applied a basic light to it so now I could move an object around the object that acts as a light source. Finally I experimented with having the light in different positions around the object and then rendered a static image to generate a shadow that follows the law of physics.



Cone Explosion from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

My final experiment was a very short animation of a 3D cone exploding into tiny particles and then forming back into a cone. I started by creating a cone and I applied a material to it to make it a dark blue. Next I added the explosion effect to the cone layer so the explosion would take effect on the cone. Then I clicked 45 frames on the timeline (this was halfway on the timeline because it was only a 90 frame 3 second animation) and then I clicked the circle next to the strength option for the explosion effect turning it from 0% to 100%, this would cause the cone to explode in 1.5 seconds. Finally I went to 90 frames and changed the strength to 0% so the cone would form back to its original self in the last 1.5 seconds.

This session as a whole really interested me and I really enjoyed it. 3D animation is a form of animation I want to follow so in the future I can say Cinema 4D is a piece of software I will want to use more of.

To improve on and something I will do next time would be experimenting with more material and trying to get a realistic surface like a style of wood texture or a metal texture.  

Richard William

In this lecture we watched a documentary about the life and work of an animator named Richard Williams. Richard was a very passionate animator and a perfectionist at most. He started a project in 1964 in his own animating studio which he self funded by making and selling adverts through the years. The animation he was making he named The Thief and the Cobbler and this cartoon was really complex and had masses of detail, also the animation attempted a style that has never being done like having backgrounds and camera movements that would only be seen in a real life movie. Richard was working on his project for about 22 years until he ran out of money where he then worked on the movie Who Framed Rodger Rabbit earning him 2 oscars and the additional funds to continue on his project. He also was given a contract and additional funds from Warner Brothers to complete his animation where the company would then publish it. Unfortunately he ran over his deadline in 1992 and with 15 minutes of footage left Warner Brothers were forced to take and finish the project without him.

This documentary really inspires me to want to create good animations and has taught me not to be perfect and few mistakes are allowed. When given a deadline it is crucial to meet it even if the project isn't the best it can be.



 

Photoshop Tools

In this session we explored the different basic tools in Adobe Photoshop to learn how to edit photos by using the non-destructive editing technique. In the future this would help us manipulate an image without physically altering the photo, which is useful if the contents of the original photo is still needed.

This image was edited using non-destructive editing. Without altering the original image in any way I duplicated the layer and edited that one. I changed the duplicated image into black and white, added noise that gives the slight grain effect in the background, added sharpness to make the image more crisp and finally I adjusted the curve of the image for the shadow effect.

The session has refreshed my memory of using Photoshop and the various basic tools it has to offer. Furthermore I have learnt and realised that it is better to edit a copy of the image above the original image so the original image is always there if it is still needed.

Alphabet Typography Ideas

In this session we had the task of coming up with ideas and plans for our own style of Typography. This would help and improve our creative ability as well as encouraging us to record all of our ideas.

My first Idea was using the Star Wars characters called Pit Droids and have them forming different letters of the alphabet. My vision of this idea would be having the pit droids get into their chosen position to form the letter, e.g. the image above are 3 Pit Droids forming the letter A, 2 are holding hands to make the arch and then a younger Pit Droid is holding on to the stomachs of the other 2 droids to make the bridge that connects the A together.

My next idea wasn't my best idea and was an adaptation of the first idea. I decided to do the same thing as the Pit Droids but use other droids from the Star Wars universe. Above is a image of the letter N formed by C-3PO, a battle droid and a super battle droid. To improve and expand on this idea I would make the droids have more interaction with each other so it looked like they realistically formed the letter than just have them standing there.

My final idea I feel was my best idea and it included forming letters from the weapons lightsabers from Star Wars. My vision for this idea was to have the lightsaber hilts where they are and then the lightsabers turn on one by one to eventually create a letter.

These 2 drawings were my animation plans. I drew every letter and then added arrows to them so I knew which part of they letter would appear first and which direction the would go in.

Typography Camera Animation

In this session we had the task of creating an animation using the camera tool to create the illusion that words were flying away from or towards the screen. before this however we chose some song lyrics or a quote to work with. This exercise was teaching us how to use the camera tool for animations in the future that involved camera transitions and camera movement.

Flying Typography Project from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

I have learnt how to use the camera tool on After Effects and I am vey comfortable with it. I can use the camera to transition scenes and move the camera if the animation needs to move around the scene or focus on one specific object. Also I can use the camera now to create the illusion that an object is moving by having the camera move instead.

Overall I am happy with this animation I had a slight problem with positions of text and the position of the camera where I could not make the letters clearly visible and this made it hard for viewers to see the letters made a word. Eventually I solved this problem and the work I resulted with was a success.

Improvements would be including more text and involve different kinds of movement for the text instead of the words coming closer to the screen.

Perception Drawing - 3D Objects

In this session we all sat around a table and drew 3D objects that sat in the middle. This task would help us with our perception and realism drawing.

My first drawing was of 3 boxes stacked on top of each other and this has to be my favourite drawing of the 3 because I feel I got the perceptive of the boxes from where I was sat bang on so it creates the illusion on a 2D surface that the drawing is 3D.

My second drawing was of a really old device which I drew pretty well but to experiment and try out shading I used 3 tones of felt tip grey to show where the shadows lay on the object. This helped with the 3D illusion because it shows where the light is casting down from during the time it was drawn.

My final drawing was a 3D model of the letter 'R' which I like and drew very well my only concern was one particular line which threw me as I just couldn't figure out what angle it should be drawn at to give the finishing touch of the 3D effect. Besides that I was very happy with this drawing.


Overall this session really helped me with perception drawing as I haven't really done any before this and when I come to use this technique in the future I will have some idea how to go about it.

Project Ocean Animation

In this task everyone created a sea creature and then animated them to move on a blue background. This session helped and reminded us how to use Adobe Illustrator, import files from Illustrator to Adobe After Effects and then use After effects for animation.

This was my chosen sea creature a clown fish which I created in Illustrator. At first I had problems matching the shape of the creature when using the standard shape tools, especially the tail. Another problem I ran into was applying multiple colours to one shape like the fish's body which is orange and white. However after some research online and watching tutorials I came across the "divide objects below" tool which allowed me to cut shapes into segments and depending on which shapes I overlapped allowed me to change the shape at one end to create a completely new shape. This discovery fixed all of my problems and helped me finish my clown fish.


The Clownfish from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

After importing my clown fish in to After Effects I had to move all the layers of the fish back in to position again like a jig saw puzzle because after importing the layers are piled on top of each other in the centre of the composition. Next I created a path running from the right of my screen to the left, this is what the clown fish will follow when it started moving. At the end of the path I moved the last 2 points on the timeline much closer together so the clown fish would speed up and zip off the screen, I did this because i wanted to capture the realism of the fish being scared. Next I rotated the fins making them sway from left to right which made the fish look like it was swimming. The tail of fish needed to move in towards the screen and then back away from the screen and the angle I found couldn't be captured with the positioning and rotation transitioning tools. Instead I used the puppet tool, I put a pin right at the edge of the tail in the middle and then one at the opposite end of the tail where the tail connected to the body. Now I could move the tail in a 360 degrees angle allowing me now to make the tail sway in and out of the screen. Finally I put tiny circles along the background which act like bubbles. I made them appear from the clown fishes mouth as it swims by and then for the rest of the animation they float to the top and fade away. To make the bubbles float to the top I started the point on the timeline where the bubbles would appear in front of the fish and then the other point at the end of the timeline where the circle will be at the top of the screen. When the animation is played the bubbles will now float slowly to the top. To make the bubbles fade away away I used the same points on the timeline that makes the bubbles float to the top. The first point I changed the opacity to 100% and then the on the last point I changed it to 0% so when the animation plays the bubbles disappear slowly.

Overall the session went great. I am most proud of the clown fish itself which I created in Illustrator because I learnt a new tool and strategy when it comes to creating characters and abnormal shapes. I didn't really have any other problems than creating the clown fish, importing and making the animation I found quiet easy. In the future I can imagine my characters for an animation will look much better as I now know where to start and what to do when creating them.  

Designing Typography

In this task we designed and completed our final idea for developing our own style of typography. The reason for this exercise was to help us to get into a routine that helped us come up with ideas.

This is my plan and template for my idea of an animation that creates typography through lightsabers. These lightsabers were created in Illustrator and the hilt and blades are in separate layers so they will be separate objects in After Effects.

Lightsaber Typography from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

My final animation included the blade of a lightsaber shooting out of its hilt and they were positioned to form 3 letters "A", "E" and "T". The lightsaber hilts were just simple grey rectangles but the blades were created in Illustrator using rounded rectangles that were given a colour. In After Effects I applied the glow effect to every blade which gave them the glowing outline to give the objects life. I positioned the hilts so when the blades extend out they would form a letter and then making the blades extend out included the transitioning opacity tool and the positioning tool. On the timeline at the first point I made the blade invisible and positioned it in line with the hilt and then a couple of frames later I made the blade completely visible and moved its positioning further out of the hilt, this created the illusion that the lightsaber was turning on by extending very quickly.

The animation and task overall was a success and I was very happy with its outcome. I didn't run into any problems when planning and making this animation and it ran smoothly. The task has definitely improved my way of thinking and planning when ideas need to be created. In the future coming up with an idea will be easier for me and much faster because I have learnt to throw out all and any ideas I can think of and then review each one to decide which will be the best. 

Design Cover Illustrator

In this session we learnt how to use different tools and different techniques in Adobe Illustrator. This helped us practice with the software and get familiar with its features.

I was introduced the pen tool on Illustrator which is used for making interesting custom shapes and drawing around images or other shapes. I took a image off of Google which was a cat with wings from a anime and I drew around him to practice using this tool. At first I found using the pen tool hard because of the way you have to click and hold the mouse then move the mouse to change the lines curve, but after some practice I got the hang of it and ended up with the image above. I feel the pen tool now I know how to use it will become incredibly helpful for me in the future.

Next I was tasked to receive a image of a sport where the image trace tool would be used. The point of this task was to create something similar to a advertisement that features a sport and the word on the right 'Enforcer' was going to be advertised. The text however used to be a different font and nicely fitted within the image but I had a problem with syncing my fonts so I couldn't use the intentional font. The image trace tool creates another layer and copies the image into tiny little sections of pixels where the user can then edit these pixels and change the style of the image but keeping the image the same from the point people can still tell what it is. The task lead us to make the image looked like someone has drawn and coloured it with crayon which gave it a nice effect to be advertised. A helpful tool to manipulate images but I don't think I will need it a lot in the future but if I do I am confident in how to go about this technique.

Overall I learnt the various tools on Adobe Illustrator and I am definitely more familiar with the software. If I wanted to improve anything in this session I would try and get the font for the word 'Enforcer' that I used to have and redo the image of the cat to see if I can have smoother lines.

Indesign Interactive Pages

In this studio session we took an existing album cover and using its typography we attempted to copy it while also turning the Indesign document into a interactive PDF. The task was to teach us how to use Indesign and its different techniques.

This is the album cover where I copied its typography. Once the word is on screen it is just a case of changing its width, height and spacing between each character to match up the original word. The exercise has taught me to change text very precisely by editing the number of pixels than just dragging the letters to any size.

 
Here I learnt how to set Indesign to create its own contents page on it own as you create new pages to work with. This technique is part of the interactive PDF as also when this is done in the PDF the different pages on the contents can be clicked to go straight to that page.

This page was created so I had something to use for making the contents page. Basically what happens is once this page has been named a title and has a page number it is automatically inputted into the contents page.

This last step I learnt was how to import a video into Indesign and then have it playing when the interactive PDF opened. Additionally I was showed how to bring up a control panel for the video while it was in the interactive PDF so the viewer could play, pause and fast forward the video.

Altogether I did learn how put together a interactive PDF using Indesign and I know the knowledge sunk in but I do agree that I struggled with a couple of elements to this lesson. First I found it hard to match the albums typography up with the original and secondly I got lost during the different steps to input the control panel into the video. But other than that I am more familiar with the software Indesign.

Project Typography Animation

In this studio session we had the task of choosing a font and then creating a animation with moving text that were facts about the typography itself. The point of this exercise was to teach us and help us understand different techniques that involves moving text.

Everyday Ghost Typography Animation from Sam Hepworth on Vimeo.

I am happy with this animation mainly because I know it helped me understand how typography on After Effects works. The 3 shots are very similar with the lines sliding in but this was my way of practicing moving objects and text on a timeline.

Improvements I think would be experimenting with more techniques and transitions for presenting text.

Drawing Inside

In this task we drew different perspectives inside a building. The reason for this was for us to practice and improve our realism drawings.

My first drawing was of a wall on the ground floor and I wanted to draw this because the ceiling goes in and drops a couple of times so I decided that this would be good practice for depth drawing. I drew in pen and then shaded in pencil to show the shadows that gives the drawing some 3D depth to it. I am very happy with this drawing as I did a good job of showing where the ceiling goes in and the rest of its depth.

My second drawing was of two people: one standing outside with a carrier bag I could see from a window and the other walking along a corridor on the first floor I could see across the balcony. I took a different approach and drew in felt tip which I enjoyed and was different to the usual pencil. I agree I struggled with drawing the features of a person but I did well drawing the overall shape and their hair. The guy walking along the balcony was behind glass that covered the lower part of his body and it was hard to show this with felt tip. The glass had a tint of green so I decided to keep his outline of legs and colour the glass in green to show what it was. Overall I am happy with this drawing but in the future if I was to improve this drawing I would go back and draw their heads and the hand carrying the carrier bag.

I am more happier with this drawing session than the last when we did drawings outside around the town because I tried a different technique of drawing and I think the drawings look better than the last.