Nelly Luckett : BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester

After visiting the John Ryan exhibition and workshop, I worked on elements I gained from the workshop and have been drawing multiples of characters from different backgrounds to work out my style. The two initial characters I focused on were Ellie (little me) and Mr De Courcey.

Following last week’s session, and a conversation with Alan, I decided to create some GIFs to help me to visualise how the sequences might work. All of these files have the separate moving parts on different layers so they can be taken as photoshop files directly into after effects.

Over the last week or so I have been working on getting complete designs for my characters, as well as establishing spacing and layout for the environments.  I began by designing what the radioactive creature would look like inside the mannequin head, and below are my results. After some consideration, as well as talking to peers, I decided that number 47 would be the final design for my creature. I then decided I needed to draw the creature outside of the mannequin head.  The drawings were the beginning of me trying to establish the final body shapes and overall appearance of my two characters. The construction of the cat is slightly wrong as the elbow on the front legs is in the wrong place and the shoulders are not positioned correctly on the front view. I am going to fix it in the final character design pieces. I then began trying to figure out how the overall environment shots might look, in preparation for beginning to create lay...

So this term we have character design with Justin. This is comprised of two parts; set class excersises and working on our individual projects. Each week Justin introduces a new concept or element by setting us excersises. We then take these into our own individual projects.  We were each given a scenario from the below list and that was the starting point for our character. Week 1: Person/Animal This week was largely focusing on drawing from reference and capturing the character and style of a specific era, place or character. This would then develop into animals and creatures.  The era I was given was Regency England. It was lovely to look at all the furniture.  We then progressed onto animals and looking at how you put character into animals, without anthropomorphising the animals too much. I was given a zebra. I have to say looking carefully at animals in details can definitely change your view of the animals.  I then began to work...