Experimentation
call me the doctor mengala of animation cuase I'm experimenting in some weird ways
If you are so privy to want to see my experiemtns of what worked and what didn't work all that shall be talked about and explained here. With the experimentation themselves being shown. From the things that ended up going into my FMP to what didn't and why it didnt. Most likly you'll probably see more faliures here in this page then the sucsess's.
Clip studio paint
So now I'm not sure if this could really be classed as experimentation but it started out as that and developed into my process and will impact all my work going forward even work outside of my FMP and uni. So I do feel it pertinent to talk about. So when I started this project I also started using a new software that has now become my main programme to draw and animate on. Clip studio paint. When starting this project I had to do a fair decent amount of learning from watching tutorials but even more just by diving in and getting my hand dirty so to speak. I'm much more of a hands on based learner. So it was a lot of me going in not knowing what I was doing and experimenting and making stuff that would end up informing me how to use this software and in turn develop it into my own ways of making things on this software.
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A prime example I can think of that I learned when messing around on Clip Studio in the early days being the function it has where you can take your drawing and or images just your 2D stuff in general and manipulate it on a 3D plane morphing and resizing and repositioning the image. This would go onto help me when animating stuff such as turns and other things where the focus is shifting angles. When manipulating the image on a 3D plane it allows it to skew and bend in a way that looks accurate to 3D space. Of course you need to make alterations but it helps the process immensely. If you need a visual idea of this I encourage you to go to my animatic on my FMP page and look at shot 3, specifically with the fisherman rocking back and forth within the boat. I was only able to do that to make it look like he is 3 dimensional and has weight and form by manipulating the image on a 3D plane. Another shot where you can see this is the much quicker shot 19 where after the lamprey leviathan dives down to the depths behind him, the force of it sends him rockin in the water at the very beginning of the shot. Also only done via the 3D image plane manipulation. So what started out as me experimenting in Clip studio to learn how to use it went on to informing my practice.
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Another thing that came about from me experimenting in clip studio is realising that the software doesn't have a tween action. well technically it does but I don't really like it that much. Personally I feel that Adobe Animate is much better and easier to use as well as more initiative and simple just in regards to tweening. Anyway. Thus I have had to come up with ways around this by experimenting. and forming my own method based on such experiments. Those experiments being me trying to copy frames and going back to manipulate them after. Another thing I tried was simply remaking the frames but that just proved to be too long and arduas of a process. The one I went with is copying and then manipulating while it's extra time. I prefer those results to the ones from the shitty actual tween function that Clip Studio has. Maybe one day I may get a grasp of it but until then.
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Lastly I just want to talk about the guides that I have mentioned in other pages. Those guides are a direct result of me experimenting to see how I can get a good way to draw in perspective. Now I'm not saying I came up with this method. I'm just fond of using it. It's something that technically started all the way back to the end of year two when animating. It also is something I have been doing for years when drawing something static, so not animating but still drawing in perspective all the same. Iit all relies on the points at which your motion will start and end along the plane and the way the plane is angled. So first one has to figure out the plane and how you the viewer or the camera is facing it then you need to figure out the point at which the motion will start and end. Once you have that I generally draw a cylinder but it could be any shape in theory. I then use that hollow cylinder as my guide to draw within or around in some cases to get perspective in my animations. The two test animations I gave are prime examples of me experimenting with that in clip studio. You can see the hollow cylinder and the animated creatures following it along. Even more advanced stuff which I have only started doing in this project is having those perspectives move and shift sometimes in tandem with the camera and sometimes with the camera being static. On top of that when the camera moves that now also means that the plane is moving thus I need to animate that to. All these things have been made by me experimenting in Clip Studio trying out the line tool and the brush tool to best get an accurate guide, and then in turn using the 3D image plane function to shift it for my changing perspectives. So in a way it's the culmination of all the stuff I have talked about thus far showing the development of my experimentation to this method I now use.
pre production experimentation
So now I’m gonna talk about the pre vis experimentation. That came out in the from of the multiple concepts I made for the Ocean God. I mean God to me has always been pretty formless in it’s depictions or something that transcends forms itself so giving it one has infinite valid interpretations. Thus in order to get one I like I really got crazy and creative with my concepts. Having nothing off the table. I’ll quickly go through them and for notable ones give a brief description. 1. The Arm Squid. a phallic like squid with each tentacle having a hand at the end. It has a vile maw and many eyes. A quick side note a lot of these depictions will have vaguely sexual connotations as to me God has always been perceived with some vague creator imagery and the most established real life creation comes down to breeding, hence the sexual imagery. 2. The Blob, an amorphous mess of sea organisms. 3. Shell beast, The shell of the crab is the Ocean God itself. 4. The Abomination, this is a reference to John Carpenter's The Thing just using ocean imagery instead of messed up humans. 5. Tentacle Ball, a writhing mass of knotted tentacles with an inhuman eye at its core. 6. Oyster ‘N Eel, the Ocean God is bound within the Oyster shell and the Eel is its protector/caretaker, this one was a fan favourite when I asked friends and peers for their favourite concept. 7. Skull Crab, a Crab with its shell resembling that of a skull made of different sea creatures.
Onto the rest of the list now, shorter list this time though so will get through this quickly. 8. Upside Down Shark. So this started out with me drawing a shark then for no real reason decided to flip it belly up I then just added on extra details from there extra eyes, a spalyed rib cage akin to blood eagling a torture method of old, added some arms etc. 9. Pussy Squid. I mean this one was mainly comedic as the phrase "pussy squid" is just funny to me also just keeping at it with the reproduction references. 10. Mummy Marine Beast. So this by far was the most popular of all of them. I to really like it, it just had way too much detail to do a good animation in the time I had. I still may use this concept in the future though. I took a plesiosaur made it a mummy added some vague runes and cut off parts of its body giving it a disembodied eye for a head. 11. Mariana Trench. This one I sorta went with the idea of it being formless and said why don't I just show where it lives rather than have it seen. take the Alien route the less you show the better. On the whole the creation of these were super fun. Like I said some of these may be used for future projects? Still though when making these I didn't shut any idea down whatever came to my head I drew. The crazy ones, the wacky ones, The comedic ones and the down right lude ones all where good ideas in my book. As you will have seen though I didn't use any of these. But they really helped nonetheless. Some recurring motifs you may have noticed is a over abundance of eyes, This comes from one of my main inspirations for this project, H.P. Lovecraft who had a love of adding many of a particular body parts to his creation be it many tentacles, many eyes, many arms. There is also the sexual/procreation theme with all it’s sexual imagery and phallic and vaginal metaphors and references. There is also tentacles which to if from Lovecraft. Lastly there is this black gloo/mist/substance that a lot of the concepts have seeping out of them. This is something that I have seen before in many things I don't know where it comes from but to me it just exudes that there is so much raw power it can't be contained and is leaking out in the form of black mist.
So out of the 11 concepts I made I decided to take two of them and make them into fully fledged designs and all. So you can see those here. The first one is the second most popular one of the 11, number 6. the Oyster and Eel. So as you can see I went with a Moray Eel since they actually look rather menacing. Essentially having needles for teeth. They have cold eyes and a constant snarl perfect for my purposes. The second part of this design is much more simple. the actual god itself, the Oyster. Or atleast the shell of an oyster holding within the Ocean God. I made a note to say that no matter where the camera is the all seeing eye is always staring directly at the camera ergo the viewer. I mean it's a god it knows you're watching it. I also added the black mist/haze constantly seeping out of the crack. I kept the colour scheme for the oyster pretty realistic. I think if I could change it now I would probably add tattoos or marking/carving on the shell itself. Maybe add some bindings of sort giving away a bit of a bigger story about the god, how it was bound? Who bound it? But not too much of it. Leaving them wanting more I always say. The Eel I added a ton of blood red eyes and made black with grey accents. Each eye has mist pouring out of it. Think of it almost like how squids shoot ink. I also didn't want to show the whole Eel beast just the front end. Making sure the viewer isn't aware of the true scale of the creature. I want it to have some aspect of fear you know? I also did a rough idea for the cave in which it would situate itself.
So while this wasn't particularly a favourite of the people I asked this was one of my favourite for one big reason, its simplicity. Now to start if I didn't go with the design I did this may have been the second. It would of been very easy to animate, not saying I like things that are easy to animate I always like a challenge so much so I always challenge myself whenever I make something. Point is though that with everything else I had to do for the FMP and the time restraints this would of been a good fit for those circumstances. I also like how it has a lot of mystery. it’s the only final design that actually fits the idea of a formless Ocean God. All it is is simply an abyss, a crack with a bottomless depth. All one sees that has a form is an enveloping eye that sees all and one single tentacle creeping out the side of the trench. This is very Lovecraftian. The trench which it resides itself is rather bland, on purpose of course. You’re meant to meet the gods gaze not get caught up in the detail of the crevice. All I can say is I made it jagged to look like it had been ripped open violently to let the beast slumber within. It's meant to look univiting, and sharp jagged edges tend to do just that.
Fish animation test experimentation
So this test I would count as experimentation. For one because it's the first thing I ever animated within Clip studio so I was experimenting whenever I did something and also it was me really setting up my method of animating in perspective using my own made guides. As I mentioned the process I have made via experimentation is to first find the plane and how you are observing it then find out if the camera moves from there find the points as to where the motion stars and will end and then use those two point to make a shape any one in my example here I use a cylinder. Whatever shape one chooses you need to make it hollow and mark the point upon a 3D space in accordance to the plane. If the plane or camera changes, change your two points of motion accordingly and thus move your guide. Then once that is done you can animate the focus of the shot. Be it a person or creature, even an object or just the background or terrain itself. What I like about this method is you can basically apply it to anything you're animating in perspective.
3D perspective experimentation
I found this method by experimenting in three different ways the first method I tried was to use the shape creator tool in Clip Studio to create myself a cylinder now I realise there isn't a cylinder function in the shape creator but by creating some circles and a rectangle and merging them you can fashion your own cylinder. At that point I was also aware of the 3D plane manipulation feature. I got the cylinder and tried to manipulate it to look like your seeing it at a perspective I then made it hollow and while it technically worked it just didn't give accurate enough of a perspective to animate along as a guide. So that method went out the window. It’s very similar to the method I currently use the only real difference being is that this one uses the pre made shape function within clip studio, while it makes it somewhat sharper. I just didn't like that I had less control over it, I'd rather do it all myself with my drawing skills from start to finish, so while nearly identical this method yielded less control for it taking less time. But I just prefered the results yielded by my method.
The second method was to use the 3D model importer that Clip Studio has. Where people use the 3D model maker that clip studio also sells to make stuff which one can then install and bring into Clip Studio Paint and position and draw over. While it is useful and I can see myself using it in the future. when you do it in an animation it makes things way too complicated, and they didn't really have the things I was looking for in order to create a guide. I tried to improvise with other cylindrical shape based objects people have made but it never looked right so that method was also a bust.
Then I just said fuck it and tried the somewhat longer more simple method but I liked it the most as once it was done it was done. Also I'm in control through all of the process. So yeah that's how I experimented into doing this in Clip Studio. I have done perspective work before, it was slightly similar but on a much smaller scale. To contextualise last year for my term three project all I did in the way of perspective was use my characters in relation to the background to assume how they would be moving along it. And while I feel it worked for the purposes at the time now with these more grand scale ideas it won't work any more. So I had to experiment to create the process you now see in my animation tests. This will probably change and update as time goes on and as I use more softwares and their features but till then this works even though it may be slightly longer. I'm more pleased with it taking that extra time to yield a better result.
Royalty free music
So while this aint nessasrilly me doing any actual work, I’d still count it as me experimenting. so since I couldn't get a sound student to make any custom music for me my tutors said it was fine for me to just get some royalty free music. Thus I took up the search across the internet to find a ambient piece of royalty free music that I felt fitted my purposes. So I guess the experimentation comes in with me trying different types of ambient music. I was experimenting with what music I would use. While I wasn't the one making the music I was experimenting with the various pieces of music online. So I'm just gonna give you the five that I considered before I settled on that one you can here in my final edit.
This next track is also by António Bizarro, from his The Dark Room album. This one first caught my interest from its name. Marina, it's oceanic so I thought it would be good. I certainly prefer it to Tovah, the other choice from the same album. It's just as atmospheric as tovah but less dark and moody/brooding. In the background I think you can also hear the sound of the ocean so it both thematically meets my needs as well as being atmospheric. This was my second favourite only beaten by my actual choice that you can hear in my final edit.
Link
Next we have Healing by Sergey Cheremisinov. Again this one is very atmospheric which was the main criteria. I feel it's also not too bright yet not too dark at the same time seeking to strike a balance between happy and depressing. I really like the piano in this one. another really nice thing is that this one isn't as repetitive as the others. It ,to me atleast, has a clear beginning, middle and end. This was my third choice after Marina.
This next one is by Daniel Birch from his album Music For Audio Drama Podcasts Vol.1. It's the same artist and album as the actual song I chose for my FMP. Blue lobster wasn't one of my favourite choices, but I still liked it. Out of all my choices it was the weirdest. It was definitely atmospheric. But maybe a little too ambient. It has quite a nice blend of synth through which I am always a fan of some synth. this was my fourth choice.
So this first track here is called Tovah by António Bizarro from his album The Dark Room. To start it certainly has an atmosphere. That being said it wasn't very high up my list of choices. While I liked it, it was a tad too dark and melancholic for my purposes. So while it captured part of what I wanted it failed in other areas. hence me not picking it. Which is why this was my fifth choice.
This is Horses by Pictures of the Floating World. This one is definitely atmospheric but for me it's too cheerful. I want the atmosphere to be more one of mystery and awe rather than glee. It sounds kinda like something they would use at Disney. I could almost see this music being on top of the montage at the beginning of Up? The point is I think it's nice but not entirely fit for my purposes just cause it's a tad too cheerful. this was my sixth choice.
Relevance, reflection, application and future
Relevance. So the experimentation I'd say is relevant in two major ways. The first one being it helped me gain a better understanding of Clip Studio paint via my animation tests and also my hands on learning process of just trying things out and experimenting with different buttons, tools and techniques. The second is the pre vis experimentation. How it has developed and informed my practice in creating an idea and bringing it out to its fullest with life and vibrancy. So both a practical sense of experimentation leading to a better understanding of how to practically use Clip Studio and then also theoretically and practically how it has changed my methodology when working in pre visualisation in particular on character creation and development. Taking something from a one of sketch to having a character sheet and backstory.
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Reflection. Upon reflection there are somethings I realize now that I could of done better. One of the main ways I would of liked to of done better is again the timing. Other then that I would of liked to of finished my second animation test. The only reason I didn't was down to me prioritising the actual FMP animation over tests. Which I don't regret that decision but if I had more time, you know. Lastly I would have also done some more experimental stuff and do stuff like figure studies, shadow and silhouette studies. This would further a theme and reinforce my character creation and design stage. Other than that there really wasn't that much else that I can reflect on.
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Application. Well planning and timing wise I just need to be more thorough and come up with a more comprehensive plan. With specific dates and times to get stuff done by hopefully expediting the process and giving myself more time to do more thing in general thusly helping with experimentation. that would also give me more time to do more animation tests that I can finish and hopefully as a faster rate to. Ideally all my tests will be finished to completion too. I believe that being more efficient with my time via planning and thus having that extra bit of time to work on it would allow me to finish my tests. The extra time would allow me to experiment more on the previs stuff such as character design. Lastly via experimenting on a purely practical level in a very hands on way I have taught myself the basics of a new program which the applications for that are in theory limitless.
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Future. Firstly I would say that being willing and wanting to experiment and try new things, not necessarily things that will always work or I'll even like but being willing to open many doors and potential skills for me to learn and just add to the roster. The new program I can use for one is great on a CV, just anything that I can put on a skills list is great. The informing of my previs practice shall always impact my future not just as an animator but also maybe on the side as a character designer. While not being my main role it's something that I enjoy and feel as though I’m getting better at and as time goes on it could be something for me to pursue professionally as well as animation? Something to consider at least.