Creative Habit Final Update

Everyday I was to create a short animation based off of a song that has been stuck in my head. The main purpose for this creative habit was to just get animating again. My main focus is 2D animation, and I haven’t had a class for 2D animation since spring of last year. I always made up excuse for why I didn’t have the time to animate, but I wanted to use this project as an opportunity to get back into toon boom. This week was pretty tough. Getting everything finished was a challenge with all the other finals I had to do. It all worked out in the end, and I managed to get the last of my animations done. I’m glad I chose to do this as my creative habit, I may even continue to do something similar over the summer. Nothing is set in stone yet, but it would be nice to continue animating even while school is out of session. It probably won’t be an everyday thing, though. Maybe I’ll make one animation that lasts longer than a second or two.

Here is a compilation video of all the animations I have done, in chronological order. I thought it would be a good idea to show all the animations I did, instead of just a few, because the gifs I made were pretty slow paced. This video you will see all the animations at their normal pace, and they a little more bearable to watch.

These are the last songs I chose to animate, in the order they are in in the video.

Oh Land – Break The Chain

Cold hand surrounds me
I feel the walls around me closing in
And my chest is getting tighter
Cold winds are blowing on
What you left hanging in the air
And your words are getting louder

Phoenix – If I ever feel better

They say love ain’t nothing but a sore
I don’t even know what love is
Too many tears have had to fall
Don’t you know I’m so tired of it all
I have known terror dizzy spells
Finding out the secrets words won’t tell
Whatever it is it can’t be named
There’s a part of my world that’s fading away

The Wombats – Let’s Dance to Joy Division

Let’s dance to joy division,
And celebrate the irony,
Everything is going wrong,
But we’re so happy,
Let’s dance to joy division,
And raise our glass to the ceiling,
‘Cause this could all go so wrong,
But we’re so happy,
Yeah we’re so happy.

Sia – Chandelier

But I’m holding on for dear life, won’t look down won’t open my eyes
Keep my glass full until morning light, ’cause I’m just holding on for tonight

Matt and Kim – Get It

At 1 a.m. we go for gold
At 1 a.m. when we we lost control
At 1 a.m., oh yeah
God damn, god damn
We don’t want to go home

Of Monsters and Men – I Of The Storm

If I could face them
If I could make amends
With all my shadows
I’d bow my head
And welcome them
But I feel it burning
Like when the winter wind
Stops my breathing

The XX – Basic Space

I’ll take you in pieces
We can take it all apart
I’ve suffered shipwrecks right from the start
I’ve been underwater, breathing out and in
I think I’m losing where you end and I begin

Are these good animations? No, but I feel like I have learned to work faster, and that is something I’m pretty proud of. It was just really nice to get animating again. I feel like this project really helped push me to create new ideas for animations everyday. There is no doubt that this was the perfect creative habit for me, and although it had a rough finish, I had so much fun doing this project.

Creative Habit Update #3

Still managing to get an animation done everyday, even with with finals getting a little crazy. Doing this creative habit is sort of like a break from those finals. Sometimes I even feel like I’m putting this project before others, which is good but also pretty bad at the same time. With all these other finals I have to work on, I noticed that I’ve been getting to the studio later to work on my animations, good thing they are opened longer, because if they weren’t, I would have a harder time getting these done.

Walk The Moon – Quesadilla

I must’ve tumbled out of a plane
Cause I free-fell all year
My chute is blooming out like spring
And I’m nowhere now, but here

Sleeper Agent – Be My Monster

You can be my monster
And I’ll be your sleeping child.
If we keep the horror up,
Then we can go all night.

Foster The People – Beginner’s Guide to Destroying the Moon

Now I’m staring at the moon wondering why the bottom fell out
I’ve been searching for answers and there’s questions I’ve found
Open your eyes and share this burden somehow
Are you ready to drink or are you waiting to drown?

Florence + The Machine – Shake It Out

And I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t
So here’s to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I’m ready to suffer and I’m ready to hope
It’s a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat
‘Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Well what the hell I’m gonna let it happen to me, yeah

Fitz and The Tantrums – Break the Walls

Give me a sledgehammer and give me strength
Watch the world come crumbling down
Cut me loose I seek the truth
I bet the freedom, the freedom will carry me

Owl City – Tidal Wave

Help is on the way
I forget the last time I felt brave, I just recall insecurity
Cause it came down like a tidal wave, and sorrow swept over me

Mystery Skills – Turntable Turnabout (Money)

I need to stop worrying about the things I can’t control
I need to stop worrying about the dollars I don’t own
I gotta stop worrying about the things I cannot know
But sometimes it feels so good

Next week, for the final post, I won’t be making gifs for the animations. The last set of animations will all be included in the compilation video I created for this project. All of the animations will be in chronological order, so you will be able to tell when the last ones were done.

Creative Habit Update #2

This week I finally got the gif making thing down, so all of them should play smoothly in my posts from now on. I’ve been having a lot of fun with my creative habit so far. Going to the studio to work on them hasn’t become a chore to me, which is good. It really is something I have no problem doing everyday. This time all my animations are in order to the days I did them, I’m not sure if any improvement is noticeable, most of the improvement I see in myself is the fact that I am beginning to work faster, which is pretty good when it comes to finishing my animations in a timely manner. Also I am still sticking with the songs stuck in my head theme for my animations, I don’t think I’m ever going to change it, because it has been going pretty well.

Matt and Kim – Cameras

no time for cameras
we’ll use our eyes instead
no time for cameras
we’ll be gone when we’re dead
no time for cameras
we’ll use our eyes instead
I see flashes of gold

Sia – Breathe Me

Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I’ve lost myself again and I feel unsafe

Heathers: The Musical – Freeze Your Brain

Freeze your brain.
Suck on that straw,
get lost in the pain.
Happiness comes
when everything numbs.
Who needs cocaine?
Freeze your brain.

Black Kids – Hurricane Jane

Jane, I’ve made it plain
Although I’m faded as a ghost
I want you here inside me
Say the word

Two Door Cinema Club – Spring

I had watched you taking in the spring
through dusty sun-kissed bodies wondering
Between you and me
As if they don’t see this distraction
This beautiful view
This delicate you in the way

The Wombats – Your Body is A Weapon

Your body is a weapon, love
And it makes me wanna cry
My body is a temple of doom
Doomed not to be by your side
And I don’t come here for the exclusivity
I just come here for the view
And the minuscule chance of some close proximity
Or an awkward conversation with you
Yeah that’d be cool

Never Shout Never – Can’t Stand It

Let’s sell all our shit,
And run away
To sail the ocean blue
Then you’ll know,
That my heart is true

My goal for next week is to just continue what I have been doing. There is always an abundance of songs stuck in my head throughout the day, so I should always have something to animate. I have also already started a compilation video of all my animations, for the final creative habit blog post. The gifs in the last posts were not very good, so you will be able to get a better look at last week’s animations in the video I’m making.

Creative Habit Update #1

I decided to stick with my creative habit that involved making a quick animation everyday. None of them are complicated animations, and they all have 60 frames in them. The reason why they are not very complicated and more like an animatic is because I took this first week of the project to get use to using toon boom again. It’s been a while since I used it, and I was definitely a little lost on the first day starting this project.

The theme I wanted for this project was to take a song that was stuck in my head and some lyrics from that song to make a short animation based off of it.

These are all the animations I made, in no particular order to when I made them.

Ingrid Michaelson – December Baby

I wore the dress I thought you loved.
But my boots are filling with snow you shoved
Off of the car we climb into.
You finished first, I must catch up to you.

The XX- Heart Skipped a Beat

Heart skipped a beat
And when I caught it you were out of reach
But I’m sure, I’m sure
You’ve heard it before

Foster The People – Houdini

Got shackles on, my words are tied
Fear can make you compromise
With the lights turned up, it’s hard to hide
Sometimes I wanna disappear

Of Monsters and Men – Lakehouse

Oh, I miss the comfort of this house.
Where we are, where we are.
Where we are, where we are.
The floor under our feet whispers out,
“Come on in, come on in, where it all begins.”

Walk the Moon – Shiver Shiver

When you are close to me I shiver

Allen Stone – Sleep

Spend my nights howlin’ at the moon,
Never wake before noon,
When the sun, it rises,
Oh, it always rises soon,
‘Cause I spend my nights howlin’ at the moon

Passion Pit – The Reeling

We dug these holes we crawled into
Now they’re my home
Now here I cannot feel the wind
Can’t feel the rain or cold

I think this is a decent start to the project. For a little over an hour, I’ll work on these in the studio later in the day, when there are no more classes going on. It’s nice in there at night, when there is little to no people in there, it makes me less anxious. Right now I’m deciding whether I should stick to the theme I have for the animations or if I should try a different theme for the animations each week for the project. Either way I really like this one animation a day project, it feels good to get back to animating, even though my animations are not very good. On Saturday I went to the library and checked out The Animator’s Survival Kit, so I’m really pretty excited to read the, and start bettering my animation for the next weeks to come in this project.

Creative Habit Project Proposal

Originally I wanted to do a creative habit that involved sketching. Then I realized as much as sketching would be a useful creative habit, there was something I could do that I may need a little more. I don’t animate enough, I constantly make up excuses to get out of doing some animating outside of class, whether it be I already have too much homework to do already, or I need more practice before I could make anything worth showing. Well how am I ever going to make any animations worth showing if I don’t keep practicing on my own. My first worry about doing a creative habit project that involved animating, was if it would be possible to make one decent animation every day. The reason why it worries me is because it takes me a little longer to work than others. So I decided to look into it a little more, and I found a couple of people who have done a 30 day animation challenge, where they had to make one short animation each day for 30 days.

After watching these two videos, I realized that it isn’t impossible to make animating a creative habit, but a may be a little more challenging for me. The thing is I could really use a challenge right now, so I’m really considering going for it. However, I want this to make this creative habit a little different from just animating whatever every day. What I wanted to try is to take a song that I’ve been listening to a lot or a song that has been stuck in my head, and  make a really short animation based off that song, or lyrics within that song. This project could end either really well, or really badly, but despite what happens, I think I will learn a thing or two doing it.

Card Game Pipeline Project Final Update

I’m actually feeling a bit down knowing that the project is over. It’s been really fun working in a group with some really talented people, and I’ve really enjoyed running the project’s blog, too. Hopefully I’ve done a pretty good job at updating the people who read the blog on the progress of the game.

I wanted to share some of the cards that I created that I really like. 

For some reason I was really worried about how well I would do coming up with ideas for monsters, I thought they would look terrible. Turns out it was really fun coming up different monsters, and the items they came with. My only wish is that I could have worked a little faster. It took me way too long to figure everything out, but in the end I like how they turned out.

Our last team meeting was probably my favorite meeting of them all. Being together with the team, while being interviewed about the game was fun. We all got to share our thoughts about the game, and really interacted well with each other. Even though there were a few struggles with timing issues due to our spring break hiatus, we were able to get everything done. I really wish there was more time to work on the game, though. It has a lot of potential, and I think it will be a really fun game to play with friends.

Card Game Pipeline Project Update #3

During the course of spring break, members of the team had to start working on cards. We had to show the director at least five cards we worked on by Wednesday. It took me a while to come up with concepts for the monsters, but once I did, I realized I but so much focus on just monsters, that I forgot the item part of the card. After a while of brainstorming ideas for items, I finally came up with some item ideas for the first cards I made.

These are the cards that I had done over spring break, they are not amazing, but I thought it was a good start in the card making progress. I have started on other cards as well, but right now they are in super sketchy mode right now. It shouldn’t take me as long as it does to make these cards, but I’m working really hard to make them look pretty decent. This Sunday each member on the team working on cards has to have them completely finished. I have a lot of work to do, but I should be able to have them done, and ready to be printed. Can’t wait to see how the game turns out, this has been a really fun project to work on.

Card Game Pipeline Project Update #2

So this week, each member of the team was assigned a task to take on over spring break. My goal is to make fifteen monster cards, five for each location deck in the game. These locations include:

• Grasslands
• Desert
• Volcano

I have to make five monster cards that would look ideal to what kind of monsters that you might see in those locations. As far as sketching goes, the team has done a really good job getting sketches and concept art for the game. I have seen some really cool stuff, and I’m excited to see everyone else’s cards. At first, I had a really difficult time coming up with ideas for monsters. All the ideas I was coming up with at first were similar ideas to monsters I’ve seen in RPG games I have played in the past. I know I can’t be completely original, but I think some of the ideas I got are not too bad, and hopefully the team approves of them as well.

These are the sketches I have so far for cards, the first set of five are for the grasslands location, and the second set of five is for the desert location. I haven’t got any monsters started for the volcano location yet, it has been taking me a while to come up with ideas. Next week I will definitely have my final sketches of the monsters for each location, along with the items you receive when you defeat them, and also names and descriptions of the monsters. By the time we all get back from spring break, I should have the final sketches in color, I can’t wait to see how they turn out.

Card Game Pipeline Project Update #1

This is fun. I think the first week with the team went really well. We were a little all over the place with the ideas during the first meeting, but the meeting we had Saturday really started to put things into place as far as for how the game will work.  Niko had brought in the card game Munchkin, which was great, because it really helped the team start to come up with ideas of how the game would work.

I had done a little bit of research on card game mechanics, and important things to think about when creating a card game. It really helped me be part of the discussion, because it gave me a better understanding of what makes a game work. The article was called 10 Things Every Game Needs.

This is the list of things every game needs:

1. Goal(s)
2. Rules
3. Interaction
4. Catch-up Feature
5. Inertia
6. Surprise
7. Strategy
8. Fun
9. Flavor
10. A Hook

In the article it will explain what these things do to help a game be successful, and playable. I also looked at this website, to help me get familiar with the different types of mechanics for board games, so I could make some suggestions when we are discussing what we want for the mechanics. I know the website says board games, but I think it some mechanics work for both board games, and card games.

I also look at some Norse symbols I found on this symbolism website. Here are just a few symbols I thought might make some interesting cards if we are still going with the viking theme. There is a lot of information provided with each symbol, so I will just give the link to the page that describes the symbols.

Helm of Awe

Mjolnir

Nidstang

Shield Knot

Yggsdrasil (Norse Tree of Life)

Tyler and Niko came together and created the Style Bible to help members of the team come up with more ideas for the game, and give them some inspiration for sketching up some concept art for the cards.

Also I was put in charge of the team’s blog! Tyler and I got together, and worked together to create the first blog post. I thought it would be important to have him there to see what I am doing with the blog, see if he likes what he sees theme wise, and have a say in what information is put on the blog. So far it is director approved so you should definitely check it out. Running two blogs isn’t too bad, I just hope I don’t repeat the exact same information I put on one blog, on the other.

Pipeline Project: Card Game

I will admit that I was having a bit of a crisis when deciding which project I wanted to be a part of. Both the projects are really cool, and I was afraid there was nothing I could do that would benefit either of the teams. That’s just me being silly, though. The card game idea is the project I end up choosing after thinking long and hard about it. Seriously, it took me forever to choose, but this project really stood out to me, and I’m really excited to see what becomes of this card game.

As for my contribution to this team, I’ve actually been really enjoying this running a blog thing for class, and I think running the blog for this project wouldn’t be a problem. Just being able to help document the process of the creation of the card game would be awesome.  It would also be cool to be a part of the research, and coming up with ideas for the card game. The whole idea of seeing what goes into deciding how a game looks/works is very interesting to me.

This does not mean that I won’t include some of my works, though. I realize that I may just be being a little too hard on myself, and maybe there is something I could be of use for. Like concept sketches for the cards, or even the package design. Here are just are few examples of my work, some old, some new just so you can get an idea of what my work is like.

Most of what you are seeing are paintings, there are a couple other mediums, including photos, just in case I was assigned a role that would include taken photos of the project in the making.