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Aroma E2 – Smoke test animations
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Aroma E2 – Poster production
Based on the poster illustration produced by Sarah, I then produced these two call-out posters to seek Mandarin Chinese voice actors and sound designers/composers. On the VA poster, I placed the icon of the characters, description of ideal type of sound and reference, to allow the potential auditionee have a better idea on our requirements. Written in Chinese also helps to draw immediate attention from the mostly English used post wall, as well as filtering out those who are unable to speak Chinese.
failed print out
Adjusting via Acrobat
The original printout was a bit of a disaster, until I realized the printer I was using had failed to work and I should use Adobe Acrobat to switch the RGB colour model to CMYK instead, which helped me gain experience in printing and poster-making.
At the distribution process, I considered the likely location to attract people, their possible traffic, and the focal point of vision. While sticking it on the information board, I tried to stick it next to brighter, whiter, dominant posters, so our posters stand out more. Considering the traffic, I realized though facing the entrance is more common and easy to be seen, those who are busy entering are more likely to have tasks or lessons and are unable to stop and really care about that poster. When they leave, they may forget the poster and be unable to see it again. Therefore, I stuck the poster on the opposite side, so people can see it when they leave, which may be more relaxed and have time to stop and have a look.
Despite no sound artist responding to the poster so far, we did gain some voice actors, one even a professional, for our project. From the little conversation I held, I was told it was the character design that fundamentally attracted her attention, with she didn’t even check the animatic. This is a useful study of what attracts the general public, a much wider community than professional artists, and the main composition of our potential audiences. In future practice, the aesthetic and attractiveness of the character design may be more highly valued if the aim of the work is to face the general public.
Max’s reflection: Overall, I believe the production pipeline is well constructed and easy to follow. For further improvements, I may explore how can other animation software (ToonBoom Harmony, TV paint, photoshop) compatible with the current system, so each animator may use the software they are most familiar with to maximize quality and efficiency, industrial system in Japan, France, UK and US may be worth studying.
The newly updated production flow, I believe workable ideally, yet due to the production workload, it is unable to be well executed, as some junior animators may struggle at the rough animation stage and are unable to pursue it. Such a system’s efficiency may increase as the team becomes more professional and skilled. The problem of a lack of communication and cross-working made it hard for this system to work successfully. Given the circumstances, there is no time to practice and adjust to this system neither. However, this system can still be considered in future practice.
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Aroma E2 – Animatic
Process mentioned in the E2 PDF. This test shot represented the need for a lighting guide in the layout stage, as additional lighting may affect the composition, for example, the lighting from the window at the bottom right corner, which is distracting and unexpected from the layout stage, and eventually leads to rework of the background artist. It is also important for background artists to have a good sense of composition and realize the location of the focal point while working.
current outcome
This is one of the hardest shots of the animation made by me, as it’s a mixture of anatomical drawing, character performance and visual effects. Here is how I approach to the task
Primarily, I produced a layout sheet with a good amount of detail and sufficient breakdowns and keyframes to ensure the concept’s achievability.
Here, I used simple geometric shapes to test out how to make a solid object vanish like a smoke. I am more satisfied with the beginning part, as the smoke gradually rises and the object breaks down, but I think the final finish is too sudden and uniform, and I believe a more sectional varnish may be more visually pleasing
Then I had the second attempt, mainly focus on the change in varnish section, which indeed brought a stronger finish with rhythmic variants in pacing. However the beginning was rather too short, so for the actual outcome I aim to fuse the two.
Start with rough body only to ensure the anatomical structure is correct, before adding any details or smokes
After that, in-between can be given to the junior animator, and hair can be added and tested while waiting, ensures efficiency.
Eventually, the rough is made, note some in-betweens are already being drawn in clean, pixel lines when possible, to avoid time waste on inbetweening the rough, then trace it again.
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Aroma E2 – Animation (in progress)
Note: All of the animations shown here are either solely made by me or I have taken included but not only the key, breakdown, rough, and quality control. The in-between and clean-up works are given to Kiara Mulholland, Trisha Nicomedes, Thet Phyu Phyu, and Hunter Main.
Other than the problem and reflection already mentioned in critical appraisal, I would also like to talk some more technical discovery and reflection here.
Teammate’s clean up (left) compares to mine refinement (right)
Additionally, I found that inconsistency was an unexpected problem in the in-between/clean-up stage when checking others’ animations. The main reason for that is overly relying on the onion skin or rough drawings rather than flipping the frame frequently to see if it actually looks consistent when animated. Out of these, the eyes, due to their small size but crucial role in conveying emotion, as well as we human natural care for them, became the common element that went wrong in production. Therefore, I improved the pipeline by drawing the eyes-only in-betweens by myself to control the quality. And I believe that to avoid this problem systematically, it is necessary to highlight the need to use the “in-betweening” method even when cleaning up, and frequently flip the frame rather than rely on onion skin /light box.
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Aroma E2 – Layouts (Max)
The layout section I paid additional care to the relationship between characters and the backgrounds, that ensures background artist know the angle and what to be involved precisely.
original design of the character
Sarah’s version
The fusing process of me drawing a similar angled face and comparing the difference between each other, to find where possible fusing may be made.
Final outcome made by me
As I was refining the storyboard, to save time, I asked my teammate, Sarah, to produce those shots that were reserved from the previous version. However, I quickly realized her style ended up very different and disloyal (image 2) from the agreed turnaround style and proportion. It came to my realization that artists sometimes struggle to duplicate a foreign style, and the more skilled one is may further worsen the situation, as the inherent style becomes almost a natural instinct, making it objectively difficult to adapt, while their authenticity may also make one subjectively unwilling to adapt. Therefore, I realized that a compromise has to be made. Thus, the new version is produced, which I do prefer aesthetically due to it’s more stylistic outcome.
Yet despite the overall positive outcome, it is still a very unprofessional scenario. Had the storyboard not been delayed and production already fully started, such reworking would have meant major waste in production that is already being made. The main problem is that informal, unprofessional meetings often make a decision “read and understood” but not necessarily “agreed and confirmed”. This means that no work can be seen as set and final, which is fatal as a production pipeline, since the progress becomes untrustworthy and can be easily overthrown. It is more than a technical problem of trying to stick to the given design, but also to have a professional mindset of agreeing and being loyal to a ready-made decision unless change is necessary. Thus, I believe that in future team management, this problem should be made aware of and taken care of, and the ability to duplicate different style characters should be an important skill during training.