A conclusion to my '5 Seconds a Week' project, before starting my next project.
Overall, I believe this project was a success. Comparing the progress of the project to my initial intentions: 5 Seconds a Week - Initial Ideas (wixsite.com) (read here), I was able to accomplish the majority of the points of what I wanted from this project:
Balance - between running my Esty shop and allowing me to complete illustrations to build my portfolio
Confidence - in my animation skills and my ability to continue to create art
Experimentation - I was able to work with new software, adobe aftereffects, use new techniques of animation, rotoscope and traditional animation.
Promotion - I was able to use my animation to promote an Esty sale I did back in November
Illustrations Pushed Further - I was able to combine both my illustrative style and animation to make my illustrations more appealing.
During this project I learnt many things as the project went onwards.
I was able to successfully combine my traditional and digital style through animation. I was advised to start creating my assets separately to the background, this allowed me to make backgrounds easier and more detailed. This process I will continue within the next project as it also allowed me to use Adobe Aftereffects to animate assets like the swinging of a plant pot or the movement of leaves blowing in the wind.
Looking through the work I created for this project, it has given me a direction for this new project and allowed me to have more of a focus going forward. The focus of the new project will be using tradionitional backgrounds combined with digital animation, to create a world for my characters: Veronica and George. This project will use the previous skills I've learnt during this project, to make a convincing world that these characters and other characters live in.
Another positive outcome for this project was one of my 5 second animations got featured in LCB Depots 'Graphics Exhibition'. The animation I titled 'Cat' was featured through both an online and in person exhibition.
Exhibition: lcbdepot.co.uk/event/graphics
As the project went on I did have difficulties which I had to overcome.
Previously for audio I had used 'Pro Tools' however this year it wasn't available. To overcome not being able to make audio from scratch, I had to find free audio which resembled what I wanted through 'Soundsnap' and also I contacted a music technology graduate for advice on sounds and, if needed, to contact him if I needed help creating the audio.
I often found throughout this project that it was hard to stay within the 5 second limit. A lot of the animations went over the 5 seconds due to getting the timing right and making the animation believable to an audience. To overcome this I approached the project differently and didn't aim for 5 seconds each week, but an animation which I could share and would be happy to put into a portfolio in the future. If the animation went over 5 seconds, I allowed myself time to do more preproduction work for the next project. In the end I had enough animation for submission, and this newer approach put less pressure on myself each week. For the next project, I will just aim for a good animation weekly rather than given myself a 5 second limit but I'll also make sure I don't overdo the amount of animation to make sure I don't burn out early on.
When I started the project, I found the animation and backgrounds not sitting well together and they appeared disconnected. To overcome this issue, I started animating the background as well as the characters, creating assets and arranging the composition in 'Photoshop' rather than traditional, and finally adding more texture within the character animations. In the next project, I want to continue making the characters sit better in environments, and I'm planning on adding more texture to the characters in the future.
Key themes I wanted to focus on this year were: Feminism and Anthropomorphism. The beginning project I believe was time for me to figure out a focus for the next project and now I hope to dive into these themes deeper by focusing on the world of George and Veronica.
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