Parts 1 and 6 is all research and further research conducted around the topic of my Animation. This includes research on the different types of animation present in the industry and the target audiences they attract, both in relation to my animation.

All other parts refer to the animation production process, primarily the character development of my animations protagonist.

thank you =]

Not totally sure why the grey background has gone all dotted but just imagine it to be a block grey colour, you get the idea =]. I am tempted to add a shot of the shifty man that offers James the job in the mansion somewhere on here I think that it may make it seem quite cluttered as it is only a small 550×400 screen. I shall see how things go. Right! time to crack on with more animation! wish me luck =]

I’m very happy with how he has come out in the flash program and I think that he will now look very much part of the rooms for when I create the main interactive piece of my animation. Additionally, I have altered him slightly from my sketch and now have him looking slightly upwards. The reasoning behind this is that he now looks a lot more like he is actually paying attention to the ghosts flying around the room when the user clicks on they objects they are hiding in, as opposed to simply staring forwards.

My intention was to maintain some form of continuity from page to page as I had worked so hard to achieve in the previous website briefs, but with a slight twist to allow it to stand out from the html and php coded parts of the site. The buttons on the right will control what is played on the screen on the left (the screen will have something on it automatically when the page is loaded) and can easily be made smaller in order to accommodate for other projects I may attempt in flash that need to be hosted on here as well.

17/03/10 – A DRASTIC CHANGE

- So after re-reading the brief for our flash project, I realised that the flash encoded page on which our animation and storyboard need to be hosted has to match the theme of the PROJECT and not the SITE. Therefore because of this, I have made a couple of alterations to my original idea for my flash page and here is the outcome:

Say hello to my project protagonist…in flash!. Here is a simple animation to show you what my character now looks like after integrating him in to the flash program.

And a side shot of the very same character! =]. I’m very pleased with how he looks in flash and will now proceed to work on creating him in various action poses in flash in order to make him a tad more interesting. Stay tuned!.

Firstly, I needed to work out the sort of scale I wanted for my character:

As a rough guideline, I decided that this would be the sort of scale I would work off of when properly sketching my design. Additionally, I sketched various types of eyes to see which ones would work most effectively at trying to portray a teenage boy as well as an obvious cartoon style.

After this, I began simply sketching. This is the idea for my character that I have settled on.

After completing these sketches, I attempted adding a thick dark outline to the character to get a feel of what my protagonist will look like in flash:

As far as I can tell, my character will transfer over to flash well, whilst also maintaining some realism and detail in the character.

I then went on to experiment with different facial features that James could express:

GHOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSTTTTTSSS!!!!!

These are rough sketches of the ghosts that my protagonist must vanquish over the course of the narrative. These are very rough sketches, and the scribbling at the bottom of them will be replaced with a much smoother brush in flash or photoshop to give the the impression of them being apparitions.

In terms of the idea itself, my piece needs to follow the typical iconography of similar generic pieces. following the traits and archetypes of these will ensure that not only will the style of my piece carry a sense of authenticity, but it will also make the style of my piece much more recognisable to my audience.

The short animation ‘Vincent’ by Tim Burton is a prime example of some of the conventions that I hope to portray. The idea of creating a black and white piece is somewhat appealing, however in order to make my piece slightly more lively, I intend to incorporate colour, but with low contrast. Additionally, perhaps if I made my protagonist the only thing with brighter colours, it would help him stand out more to my audience. Moreover, Burton’s use of music in ‘Vincent’ highlighted the importance of not only including a soundtrack, but also one that reflects the changes in mood of the narrative. This is why I am paying special attention to mine. I am doing this through bolstering my knowledge with the program ‘Logic Express’. I have already had some previous experience with this program and intend to continue with it due simply to the fact that it allows for much more freedom in creating music, as opposed to other more restrictive programs such as ‘Garageband’.

Furthermore, I have also debated about whether or not I should employ a voiceover in my piece. This would address my audience far more directly in terms of transmitting the backstory etc. On the other hand, it may conflict with the other music I wish to incorporate and potentially detract away from the actual animation.

My protagonist, James Napier, is naturally the main focus of my piece. Therefore, it is important for him to be drawn well. The aim is to create a believable teenage character but in a distinctly cartoon style, making it easier to craft things such as movement and emotion. In terms of research on other cartoon protagonists, In intend to take inspiration from the drawing style of characters such as ‘Ben 10′, the newer crafted episodes of ‘South Park’ and older style cartoons such as ‘Top Cat’ and ‘Wacky Races’.

As for the ghosts, I want to maintain a consistent cartoon theme throughout the piece, meaning that the style of the ghosts should somewhat resemble the style of the protagonist in terms of drawing. My main source of inspiration on this are the ghosts from the vintage video game ‘Pac Man’.

Naturally, my versions will be much smoother and slightly more ‘life-like’. Hopefully, the simplicity of the ghost drawings in this style will mean that they will be easy to transfer over to the flash program, and will be easier to animate in terms of movement etc.

Finally, in terms of the settings, I intend to make all of the backgrounds completely fixed, keeping the focus of the audience primarily on the characters/action. For the opening flash sequence, the backgrounds will likely be simple block colours, bar the establishing shot of the ‘Morgan Mansion’. The drawings I’m currently working on have taken inspiration from my research in to generic cartoon horror scenes, such as the Nintendo video game ‘Ghoul School’ and various backgrounds used in the hit television series ‘Scooby Doo’.

Additionally, I want to keep them partially simplistic, allowing me to apply simple animations to them if I wish, such as on the establishing shot of the mansion in the opening sequence. This also allows for a somewhat of a ‘before and after’ shot, showing the change in the mansion after all the ghosts have been vanquished by the protagonist.

The next step is to mock up all of these drawings in order to work towards creating a storyboard for my piece.

1) Add a ‘flash’ section to the acordion on my portfolio, plus screen shots to add to the lightbox. Then have a link to a different flash encoded page e.g. firthdesigns.co.uk/flash

2) Re-code my portfolio page to include flash programming. Perhaps still inside the acordion?

3) Replace the acordion with a flash encoded piece, to include the flash project plus all other assignments