Turkey!

Bodrum, Turkey is beautiful. I spent a week there with friends, around the city. We stayed in Gumbet, in the Jasmin apartments for a very budget package holiday. The harbor and city were idyllic, the sky perfectly clear and the temperature very high and dry like a desert. The sea water was warm, as was the swimming pool. Suncream applications became almost habitual, they had to be. The evil eye was everywhere, in jewelry and trinkets, and all manner of decorations, you couldn't go anywhere without seeing it somewhere. The 'nazar boncuğu' in Turkish.


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The eye was everywhere, on trinkets like this.



Gumbet Harbor



The nearest beach to our apartments. I'm pleased with how well some of these pictures turned out. I do like photography and capturing the feel of a location through imagery.



The nearest beach wasn't too pretty once you looked close enough, the sand was more like builders sand that the regular beach sand but the views were still spectacular.





I had a delicious Turkish vegetarian casserole on one of the evenings.



Bodrum Harbor



Bodrum castle, or Castle of Saint Peter, and, according to wikipedia, one of the last examples of Crusader architecture in the East.



On the Sunday we went on an all-day boat trip around the local islands.



View from the boat



Testing out my underwater camera case off the shore of Black Island (or I think that was what it was called)






We stopped at some caves that we could go inside





Floor of the cave area



Pictures of the boat





We rode camels!


More underwater camera fun!







The firedancer that night was really cool, so is this picture as you can see the movement of his arms and the flamed sticks.



Beautiful sunsets





We came back one day and the maids had made swans with our towels because we were nice to them and geve them a good review.



RINGO!



This was so fun, I fell off, tash managed to stay on but barely. I think he was trying to throw us off with his mad twists and turns!



Bodrum Castle and the Museum of Underwater Archeology:












The peacock feathers reminded me of the evil eye. I told you, its everywhere.




Gravestones. I love the characters on them, they're all different and have their own personalities.




These theatre masks were great, they look as though they're in mid shout.




In the gift shop they had these miniature houses the detail in them is amazing, even down to the pack of cigarettes on the table!




These were also very cool, little stained glass figures.



Panorama of the castle roof.



Panorama of the apartment roof.


Overall it was a fantastic holiday, I'd love to do it again some time. It could be another possible location to use in my final major project. As there is so much regular imagery to use, it would be reletevley simple to get across. The white, square houses with flat roofs, the evil eye, the turkish flag, the dry desert surroundings, the clear blue sky and sea, the harbor full of boats...

Reviewing previous work

I was quite pleased with this animation once I had it completed, apart from the soundtrack, I need to get myself a better microphone or use the university's audio recording equipment. I like how the animation in it is subtle, but lifelike. On reflection though I could have done with a little more action.



I'm really happy with this animation, even now. The timing and weight of each object in the domino-effect chain all seem spot on. Looking at other peoples work has only improved my opinion of this one.



I loved working on this film with the rest of the group. I find group work rewarding as everyone can bounce ideas off one another and everyone is set towards a common goal. I fell into a fairly leading role in this project, I think I'm a natural leader as I'm good at solving problems, suggesting solutions that others could try. I usually fall into the leader role if nobody else takes it in order to motivate others. In terms of the animation in this, I think we did very well. We did not use tie downs, but perhaps we could have to eliminate the need for rigs. I like how the set looks, lit up with the lighting we experimented with. I'm pleased with how it turned out, especially the staircase, as I spent a good deal of time on it.



I love the characters created as an outcome of this brief. I think they fulfilled and exceeded what the client was asking for. Though I didn't complete any e-cards for him, I found the process rewarding. I also discovered that I could be very good at pitching an idea once I put my mind to it.



The speed and timing of this animation could be improved a lot but I think I managed to give the character sufficient weight.



I'm pleased with how I got across an emotion without the use of facial expressions, only body posture and gestures. I found that taking reference videos was really useful as part of the production process. I hope to remember that for my final year projects and on.



I enjoyed working with pastels on this one but it was very messy and time consuming. I didn't finish the animation but I like how the inverted colours came out. The small section of animation I did complete works well. I think I depicted the curious nature of a small child and how they are constantly asking for things to have, eat, play with, ride on, etc.






I found modelling and rigging a very tedious task and I'm disappointed that I didn't get to complete the final wire-walk animation. I love the character though. I wanted him to be the opposite of what you would expect for a wire walker, i.e. overweight and not very good at balancing- I think I succeeded on that front. I would like to complete the wire walk animation over the summer and experiment further with modelling and rigging. I don't want to forget the valuable skills I learned in this module.



I enjoyed this project, not least because I'm interested in science myself. I learned a lot of new skills in composting in after effects and would like to experiment further as I think I'm going to be using a combination of different media for next year, using what ever media is best to create the effect I'm after.

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I really enjoyed making a game on flash, I find coding rewarding for some strange reason, but only when it gets you the results you want. I followed a tutorial mainly, but where the tutorial ended I had to find my own way around the problems and discover ways to get the effect I wanted on my own. I found it interesting to look into new media and the way things are heading towards mobile and the web. Also finding it useful working to a younger target audience once I'd done the research behind that particular generation. I knew they play a lot of computer games as my brother does, so I structured the project around that and stuck to broadcasting media that allowed for audience interaction. I'm really pleased with the results.

Find it here.

Magician

Here's the fıle I sent to Ben (as its a group task) before I left for turkey, I'll edit thıs post when I get back to tell you a little more about it.

Edit:
I built up the layers, working over the rough stick man and building them up one by one. It took less time than it would have done, had I not had the movement figured out. I kept all the clothing on two layers (top and bottom) and kept them separate from everything else so I could easily change the colour and texture at a later date if I wanted to. I used toonboom as it allowed textured swatches. I used a canvas-like texture for the cloth, making it tillable in photoshop.




You can see the texture on the wizard's clothes in the full sized file: Here

To compensate for the hat being all black, I had to add other colours to it when the magician bowed so that you could still see the shape of it, I think I succeeded in (at least with the hat) making a 2D drawing take on three dimensional properties, having a top as well as a front and sides. I kept the triangle shape of the magician's face from the original designs. I'm pleased with how he turned out and I'm looking froward to seeing the whole group project composted together.

Character design

I wanted to keep the line and fill of my character fairly loose to keep it alive and not as smooth as it could have been if I wanted to use tweening in flash. I will be using frame by frame techniques, undoubtedly the line will jostle from side to side, but that is the effect I wish to create. I want it to look hand made, not computer made. One of the ideas was to have the animation techniques visual and show some of the procasses behind it.

I experimented with different fills but thought a patterened fill could work well in producing that 'handmade' feel, perhaps the texture of something like cloth.


In the tests though, the line and the fill seemed too exact, again as though a computer had done at least the filling in the outline. I like the style of quentin blake's illustrations and how childlike they are with the fill sometimes being incomplete and the line being loose and expressive, mistakes uncorrected.

I think it could be intresting to try and replicate his style and translate it to animation, only smoothing out the lines a little but allowing for movement from frame to frame in the way that his still illustrations are alive.