Mike Inel

Mike Inel is an animator that uses a mix of  anime and cartoon style animation, one of the biggest reasons I got into animation was because of his animation called "draw with me".

The animation consists of two character that are separated by a glass barrier. The characters draw on this glass to communicate to each other because the sound does not reach the other side, one day the male character attempts to break through the glass to reach the female character, as he forcefully punches the glass cracks start to emerge and he manages to break through but the glass repairs it's self trapping and cutting his hand off.

This animation got me into how to produce an animation, and because I was interested by his style and I just got into watching anime I started to investigate how it all works. I learned many techniques but i still needed to work on my drawing skills in order to apply them properly.

Mike inel also produces artworks which use various colours and are well composed and are memorable. Throughout learning how to animate I found some tutorials by him which go into details as of what he does in order to create his animations and he uses various tools such as photoshop and After effects and Clipstudio. Each program is used for its own purposes and i hope to learn as much as i can about these programs.

heres one of my favorite drawings that showcases what i mean by memorable in terms of colours.

i love the colours in this scene and would like to experiment more with colours like this.

Hand practice

I've been starting to improve drawing hands, looking at my hands at different angles and drawing them as observational drawings is hard but i pushed myself to get the hang of drawings hands.

here are the hands i drew, each time i learned something new such as how the outer bit of the finger would be angled, here's a quick example of what i mean.

so as u can see the straight lines are at different angles and the bumps follow.

heres the hands:

I'm starting to understand the basic shapes of a hand and i think i will start to get better in placing the hand in simple and natural poses. once i start to get better i will look up references and be able to create a similar hand and pose it with ease since i had trouble with hands.

MAF trip

In the last three days I've been at Manchester attending Home for MAF (Manchester animation festival) during that time I watched many animation that were constructed really well, for example one of my favorite animation was fresh cut grass. The animation's narrative showcases a brother travelling to the city to find his older sister, the animation style was great because of the 3d elements and lighting used in each scene, also the character design really appealed to the audience because they looked adorable. It's a very nice story and I loved it.

I enjoyed the various different lectures from many animators who have worked in industry or have made their own established studio, each animator explained the difficulties of being an animator and how they produce their short films. They explained how they start with an idea which then becomes a rough storyboard, it undergoes many storyboards that gives everyone a main understanding of what is happening in the scene. All this then gets given to the animator teams which all animate various things at different departments such as the environmental animators do background animations.

I enjoyed the whole trip and would love to go back next year, and go through the experience again of watching short films that inspire me to make my own short film which I'm aiming for. By summer next year I'm hoping to make a short film before coming back for 2nd year of animation!

Thought bubble part 2

This blog is about the artists i met and became friends with at thoughtbubble, I'm only going to write about one artist because of the amount i can write for every artist i met.

Minyi

Is an environmental artist and developed many concept drawings which inspired me a lot, Each drawing I saw had a variety of details and colour variations, heres an example of her work:

this drawing is done using Photoshop with various techniques in order to capture the foreground and background of the environment, and the lights and shades are really well shown to help make the drawing stand out and have depth which is difficult to achieve. She gave me ideas such as looking at many photos and trying to build based on them photos, I hope to use all the advice and ideas she has given me in order to create similar backgrounds which show depth using lights, shades and composition of foreground and background!

I hope to make some interesting environmental concepts in future projects and in the year coming.

Thought bubble

The first day of thought bubble was great because i got to meet many people who are into making comics and manga's. The whole point of thoughtbubble is to showcase people who are in the business of making art or visual books.

So many people were at this convention which was why it was so busy, I manged to get to the artists I wanted to check out, Some of them appeared last year and the year before which I’ve met before, it’s nice catching up on projects they've been doing throughout the year and hopefully getting their name out as well as improving their art skills. Some of the artists also do animations as a side thing rather than wanting to do it as a main job which inspired me to keep trying my best to make it my main job.

What there was at the convention?

The theatre

At the theatre artists would go up on stage and showcase whilst talking about their art work and process that they take in order to achieve what they want on that piece of paper or whatever medium they use. Throughout the years I've gone to this convention I’ve learned many techniques and I’m sure to keep learning ways to improve my artwork.

The Halls

This year they used 3 halls and had to use a big tent because of the amount of artists who applied this year, each hall had artist selling work and merchandise. Every artist I met I'd ask for tips or advice on what to do in order to improve my work, with that said There are techniques which I never thought about such as doing shadow drawings which make a sort of thumbnail drawing which helps with proportions, this was really helpful advice and I’m hoping to explore this area and make some interesting concepts using these new techniques.

Bahijd

One of my favorite animators is BahiJD, his work is just so inspiring for any animator. he has a blog which he updates on anime production that he has been with, also he produces some incredibly interesting illustrations.

What i really like from his animations is that the way he animates, one example is this short scene.

Ive analysed many of his animations and a lot of them have a similar pattern, where there are a lot of speed lines and some things such as the arm when shes moving around looks disproportionate even if its in perspective. even though its like this, it still runs smooth because of the momentum and balance of the character which id like to learn and understand how its done so well.

his works really stands out in different scenes in most short animations hes worked on. and you can tell from the movement and the balance, i hope to learn these skills throughout the year and produce animations with equal balance and make it as smooth as i can.

Who am I?

Why you chose to study on this programme?

I intend to study how to create different types animations using the various programs  such as Photoshop and after effects.

Id like to learn how to actually construct a scene, and learn how to make my characters come to life within a scene.

I wanna learn new ways of drawing that can improve my own, along side the people who have similar interests.

I came to meet new people who have similar interests in animating and id like to work collaboratively to make awesome animations.

i came here because i wanted to make new networks and also make a studio where we can develop short film animations.

What do you want to learn during your time on the programme?

I want to learn about all the different programs there are to learn.

I want to improve on my 2D animation and be able to make smooth animations using photoshop, aftereffects and flash.

How to make straight on animations smoothly.

Id like to produce an effective way of making the audience have emotions with the character, and also produce intense parts of animation which consists of action sequences.

How to communicate with people around me and discuss about different ways to produce a sequence. And be able to work with everyone on the same wave length.

What skills do you think are your strengths?

One skill i have which is i believe is my strength is the ability to learn from other and incorporate what i see and develop it into my own personal practice, an example would be my landscape art is influenced by an artist i watched drawing online which she took us through the process of making a background using tradition skill and inputting them into a digital program like Photoshop.

Another skill that i have improved on over the years is learning how objects move with momentum which i believe is the most important element in the animation i make, without momentum many movements in an animation would look wrong or not fit the scene.

Being interested in landscape helped me learn how to develop depth using perspective, I've learned many things which have helped me in many ways to make a good and understandable background in perspective. I've also learned the different types of perspective like 2-3 point perspective.

Colouring is another skill which i have learned in my ways which include water colouring and digital painting. for example traditional painting techniques can be used in order to make a digital painting, which also allows me to blend colours and produce an effect of depth. One example of this is my final piece that i made, it showcases depth using only colours.

One of the skills i've also learned whilst producing landscapes is knowing how to compose a picture using the rule of thirds, and this helps to understand how to make a composition when i develop interesting backgrounds.

What things that you want to improve?

Id like to improve on my communications skills, which will allow me to be able to discuss about different project that we all want to develop and be able to give constructive criticism or advice to others when it is needed. Also i want to be able to communicate in a way which will allow others to understand what the aim is of the conversation whether it be on animation or not.

I'd like to improve on being able to draw faster sketches and spend my time getting better and improving on finishing projects quicker.

Concentration is something i defiantly need to improve on because this is what slows me down to the fullest and this leaves me with not getting work done. i hope i can improve on this as soon as possible so that i can make amazing animations.

I'd like to improve on producing new styles which will allow me to produce all sorts of content within my animation.

What ways you will evaluate your progress?

i will either take photos of my progression or scan the traditional work, as for my digital work I will take screen shots and present them in stages that show how i made it and that will also be helpful as a reference its self. After i have evidence of the work i will review how i could f made it better or what other way i could of made it which could be faster or more detailed depending on the work, this is possible the best way to go about evaluating my progress because i will be able to see stages of the work and think about what i can do to make it better if i were to do something similar