Evaluation & Reflection

https://www.professionalacademy.com/blogs-and-advice/what-are-smart-objectives-and-how-do-i-apply-them

week 1

My main target for the first week is to focus on the Context page mainly and the Pitch of the project. The presentation for the pitch was planned for that Thursday, however I couldn't attend, because I was feeling ill, as a result my pitch was delayed until next week which meant that I'll get my feedback from Mike and Deb later, and that could effect my project in a not so good way, as their feedback may be cruitial to the development of my idea, and if get it very late it may be too late or extremely hard to change things that could harm my FMP if I am advised by my tutors that my idea could be too much to bear, or they could give me some useful techniques to research and I will struggle to fit them in along side other ongoing work.

Mainly My goal for the week was to tidy the website, and prepare for the pitch and settle the context page, as much as I can. I added some sketches to support my idea, and to help me kick start the project. Did a test animation to help me with timekeeping, and speed up my process of research and production. Naturally without having done my pitch i couldn't add it to my context page so I had to leave that for later. Instead I added some research on transformations to my Research page, so I don't lose time not having done the pitch.

week 2

My main subjective for the week is to start with researching. The main thing that I am worried bout is the transformation. I still don't have an idea for it that is why this is the first thing I want to begin with. I looked a bunch of gifs of dragon transformations, from popular cartoons and anime. I included some non-dragon transformations as well, in order to add some variety and to open up to alternative ideas, and compare them. This took quite a long time to complete, as there were a couple of examples, and I really wanted to get the most out of them, at least what was relevant. Because of this however I didn't have the chance to look at some art styles, which I have planned to do this week, but it got completely pushed aside by the transformation research, as it was really bothering me, as I mentioned before.

I will need to fit the art style research somewhere else on the planning and production schedule and delay it a little.

Planning:

I have to start setting up the planning page by doing my production schedule, adding character/ background sketches and storyboard. I need:

sketches with 3 different styles of choice;
sketches of the background from different angles;
another version of my original storyboard, for comparison.

Originally I wanted to go with my normal art style, but then I liked the idea of going more cartoonish, but having better and finished animation, appealed to me more. So as my goal I am going to do sketches of Sunny in 3 different styles that I like (including the original one), and deciding which one appeals more too. I want this to be hopefully done at the beginning of the 4th week, which is when I plan to start production. And the same goes for the background and the storyboard.

Unfortunately, I didn't do any background sketches, as I was tied up with research on transformation, and riding up the context page, as there was still a lot work that needed to be uploaded there. I will have to do them later, however, I am not sure when I will have a free time window to do them. I will try my best to do them as soon as possible, or at least to prepare all the reserves I need to make the backgrounds, so I wouldn't have to worry about them later.

week 3

This week is my final pre-production week, where I had have to finish my initial research and planning and will be able to move to production. I had a couple of targets for the week that I set to help me with the preparation for production:

Research on how to animate in Adobe Photoshop:

I didn't know that I could animate in Photoshop, until my friend, Erin told me that she was going to look up some tutorials. I decided that I should research as well and do a little test in order to decide if I should switch to Photoshop for my FMP, or if I should stick with Animate. In the end, I decided to keep working in Animate since I am more experienced with it, in the animation area. I did evaluate why I chose to do so in my practical skills page, but basically the main reason is that managed to find a way to add the effect (glow effect) in Animate, and no longer felt that I will be in a great need to work in Photoshop.

Research on how to add glow effect in Adobe Animate:

A glow effect is what I want to add to the substance that will enable the transformation of the character. I want to give it the effect of heat, and the light goes alongside haet so I need to add a glow effect to it. That was something I was really worried about since I didn't know how I will add it to. I knew how to achieve a similar effect in Photoshop - I could use an airbrush or anything similar.

To tidy up and finish the Planning page:

I was distracted by the two pieces of research I had to do and by still trying to clear up the context page, so I didn't manage to completely set up my planning page. I did include drawings and little note that goes with them, but I need to add my production schedule and the storyboard to the page as well which I failed to do this week.

I still haven't done my pitch. I asked my tutor mike about it and he said that I don't necessarily need to do it, but he said I could add my presentation, to the context page, and gave me few questions I should think over based ton the pitch. So now that this worry is out of the way I can focus on the rest of the project.

week 4

For this week I plan to start production. I plan to start with the first frames of my storyboard and finish them by the end of the week. The same process will continue until week 8 when I plan to start the colouring, so I will have enough time to complete the whole animation 2-1 weeks before the deadline.

Goals for the week:

Get some photos to help me with animating the first scene of the storyboard;
Go to the library and get some primary research done;
Research on the 12 principles of animation
Research dragons, their anatomy and different designs.

On Wednesday at college, we were told that the college will be closed due to COVID-19 until the 20th of April. This wasn't such a problem for me since I have all the resources I need for the project at home, however, this will probably affect my communication with my tutors, and m classmate, so I and my friends decided to do occasional live chats, just to help each other with any problems we may face, and just to make sure we are focusing on work.

I managed to get all the photos that I planned to, I found a book from the LTC in college that helped me with better understand how to create appealing characters, with the correct proportions. I learned a lot of interesting new things and was reminded of things I didn't remember before. I particularly found the facial expression part very useful and interesting, since I have been struggling with that for a long time. I could use them as a reference, to practice the different expressions and changes in the features.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete the research on the 12 Principles of animation this week because I was busy with the other research and production. The plan to get some photos and got to the LTC was not in my Production schedule, so the 12 PoA had to be delayed a little. I am sure I can get it out of the way quickly and hopefully get back in track by the end of next week.

I had to delay the research on dragons because I do have sufficient knowledge about the subject so I don't prioritize it right now, and I am sure I could fit it in later on when free time comes up.

week 5

This week I had to pick up from last week's goal to look up the 12 principles of animation, and the Research on dragons is going to be delayed since I don't consider it a priority, I already have a lot of knowledge in dragons, their anatomy, but I will need to look different designs at some point in order to show how I came up with the ides for my dragon design.

The goals this week have changed quite significantly compared to the planned, but I don't worry too much, especially about the research, as I have all that I need for now. the rest of the pages, like practical skills page, and problem-solving page are being updated quite often (practical skills being updated almost daily).

I still need to add the storyboard to the Planning page, which I haven't done yet because I was being distracted by the other pages. I created a new storyboard, with fewer frames but more clear, since after the research I have a better idea of how I want the transformation to look, so I updated the storyboard, accordingly.

Summarised goals for the week:

Finish the Research on the 12 principles of Animation
Start the new scene, where the wings of the character form.
Add the final storyboard to the planning and production page, and compare them.

I managed to finish the Research on the 12 PoA and add the storyboards to the planning page for comparison, and I also managed to do some tests to help me with the next scene.

I did start the new scene, as I planned to and I hope to get it done as soon as I can because I feel like I might fall behind if I don't speed up.

I added storyboards, the new and old, and talk about both of them, I compared them and takes about the changes I made and explained why I did those changes. In my opinion, the new version of the storyboard looks, great, with one downside being that scene 4 is not detailed enough. This is because I wasn't sure what to do with it, I had the idea in my head but it wasn't very clear. This will prove to be quite an obstacle when I get to animating it, but I am positive that with could of attempts and a video that I plan to look at in the future, will help me to get a better idea for what I want scene 4 to look like.

week 6

For this week I want to focus mainly on production and documenting it. There is some catching up to do especially after the new storyboard since I did some changes on it. I will try to catch up with tutorial I planned to look up during week 5, like "smear frames" and sound effects, but since I don't plan on using smear frames at the moment, and I will have to postpone the sound effects research or do it in the meantime since I don't consider it a priority at the moment. What I really want to get done is the animation. I am going to research on tweening very quickly, and will also try to get as much animation do as possible.

Goals for the week:

Focus on production ( I have to get to frame 20 on the storyboard in order to catch up)
Research on different types of tweeting (I have already done "Motion tween" in the previous project, so I don't need to worry about that)

I encountered a big obstacle during the production of the 2nd scene. That was the part where the scene had to zoom out in order to show the length of the wings. That took a long time to sort out, which unfortunately meant that I didn't manage to get to the end of the 3rd scene. This also means that I am falling behind by a whole scene. I hope to have 2 scenes completed by the end of the 7th week, and then continue with the last one during week 8. This will mean that I will have 2 weeks to colour and do background, which I hope will be enough, and if not I will have to choose between doing a background or colouring and not both.

Because of being busy on Problem-solving page and practical skills page, I couldn't do any research on tweeting as I planned to do. This means that I will have to delay that to week 7, alongside other researches that I have to get done for the week, and all the practical work.

At this point I have left the idea of adding any audio to the animation, I just think I wouldn't have enough time to do it, though it was always just a possibility because I didn't have particular audio in mind anyway.

week 7

I got a lot of catching up to do this week mainly on production and practical skills as I have uploaded a lot of screenshots of production but I didn't do any writing.

Goals for the week:

Finish scenes 3 and 4;
Do some background sketches;
Catch up on practical skills;
Research on tween and camera tool

The main priorities for the week are production and practical skills page update, but also I need to get the tween research and the camera tool research done as soon as possible to.

Since week 6 I have started to do small checklists almost daily to help me with the organisation of my work. I always end up with a bunch of piled up work, though I have managed to get stuff done so far, however, once production and practical skills page became too much I started to jump from one thing to the other, and that way I got tangled up in even more stuff, so it became quite tricky to get one thing done. This is why I started dining the checklists and so far they have been working out great. I write done all the things that I want done, and what I think is outstanding. I like to do most of the writing first as I need a fresh mind for that, and sometimes it is hard for me to focus on it so most of the time I want that out of the way first unless I feel like I need to finish a particular thing in production, for example, the scene is almost complete, and I just need to adjust it a little, or if I think I am taking too long on a scene.

I managed to catch up on practical skills page and also finished scene 3. I managed to finish the entire scene 3 for two days and am working currently on scene 4. Catching up on practical skills together with the research on Camera tool and Tweening took me approximately 2 days or less to complete since there was a lot of writing to do. I managed to squeeze a little mood board of art styles on the research page and managed to quickly point out what I liked about them and quickly discuss why I think they are prominent. I placed that research at the beginning of the research page right below How to animate in adobe photoshop because that is where it should have been originally, but I never got time to do it

By the end of the week, I managed to be halfway through scene 4, which isn't too bad considering scene 4 proved to be quite a time-consuming scene, considering that I had very little of it in my storyboard.

In addition, I did a perspective sketch of the background, but I haven't had the chance to put it up on the website yet. I will probably put the sketches on the Planning page, and go over them in Practical skills, very briefly.

Overall I managed to get most of my goals for the week done, which I am very happy about, because that makes week 8 less stressful and busy, even-thought I still need to get 1 and a half scenes done by the end of it, which I really hope I do.

week 8

Thanks to having caught up a lot last week I feel a bit more relaxed and confident that I will get the animation done by the end of this week. Main goals for the week are:

Completing scenes 4 and 5;
Adding the "How to animate transformation tutorial" to my Research page;
Catch up on Practical skills.

I plan to put my main attention to production, similar to the previous week because I need to finish both scene 4 and scene 5 by the end of the week, as it is very important that I start colouring by week 9. Even though scene 4 ended up being quite a time consuming, I am positive I will be able to finish both of the scenes by the end of the week.

On the 16th of April the COVID-19 lockdown was extended until the 7th of May, but looking at the current situation, it looks like it might be extended again. Again, I don't have an issue with that I have all the resources I need for my FMP, but this way we receive less feedback from our tutors, even though the whole class has been added to Microsoft Teams 2-3 weeks ago and we can contact our tutors through Outlook.

With scene 4 I had to go back and change could of things that I didn't like, which kinda delayed scene 5, though I managed to do most of it during this week, and just had to add a fade effect on Monday week 9. I hope this wouldn't impact week 9 in a bad way.

Since practically skills page is being added to almost every day, it becomes overwhelming to keep up with it, however, I try to be as diverse with my work as possible. I would on 5the animation, then I would update the practical skills page or the Research one, and I try not to stay too long on one, even if something new pops up. The checklists proved to be of great use because I have all my goals on a paper and I can change my priorities dependent on the situation.

I did add the Video tutorial to my research page, and I felt relief because this was something I planned for a long time, and because of the changes to scene 4 I thought it was finally the best moment to add it. Since by now I have watched it a lot of times, it was quite easy to write about it and explain it, which I usually find challenging with most researches I do, the most notable being the 12 PofA. I found the video very useful as it had covered various themes, and all of them were relevant to scene 4, and even other scenes could benefit from that one tutorial.

peer assessment

As an opening for week 9, I asked my friend Erin to give me some feedback on my project so far, and she asked me do give feedback on her one. We communicated through Amino, and here is how it went:

Here Erin commented that my animation wads looking brilliant so far. I was happy to hear that, and that encouraged me to put even more effort into my work.

In the next comment, she says that my English on the site is really good and then said that it is better than most English people (English is not my first language). I was always worried that I might have issues with my grammar, even though I am using Grammarly to correct most of my mistakes, and this comment reassures me that I was doing well.

Here Erin is giving me feedback on my Context page. She seems to have liked it a lot, and in particular liked that I showed my skills through the realistic drawings I did, and also that I showed my inspirations for the project nicely. She says that I don't need anything else added and that the page is looking good.

She sent me a photo of y practically skills and pointed out that I had quite a few spelling mistakes, and that I would want to go back and fix them. I usually don't go back to check my stuff, so I found it very helpful that she found this since the whole sentence was full of mistakes. Erin also said that that was the only case of spelling mistakes she found, which is great and means that my grammar is good and that Grammarly is helping out a lot!

Here Erin says that my Research page is really good and that I have a lot of primary research, and she says that is really good. She stays That is I had any other references I used for drawing parts of a scene it would be a good idea to add them to the page and to explain how they helped me. Except for the photos and research I have on the page, I haven't used any other references, I just followed what I already had o my storyboard, but this is a piece of good advice, and I will apply it when I start colouring because I am sure I will need lots of colouring references.

Erin said that my problem-solving page is very detailed and that I showed how I solved each problem and she seemed to have liked that I have included a lot of screenshots of my problems, and she said they helped her have a clear view of what was happening. She said he can see that I don't have many problems and that there could have been minor problems I haven't documented, though she says that I might not have had many problems through the project. I think it was quite useful that she noted this because I often do forget to add small problems because I fix them very quickly, although I really didn't encounter many problems.

Erin sent me a photo of a part of my planning page that had left for later. She said that she thought I might have forgotten about it and didn't finish it. I do remember that I haven't done this yet, this is where I must discuss the design change of the character, and compare the sketch I had on my context page and the drawing with the new design. I did found it useful that she pointed this out because it reminded me that I still haven't done it.

Here she reviewed my Planning page. She said the page is really good. She mentioned that the storyboards were on the page and clearly explained what will be happening in each scene, so the viewer can understand what I am trying to show. She said I could add each of the animated scenes so far and compare them to the storyboard and say if I like them or not, and see if I have changed anything. I think that is a good way to show what has changed throughout the project, however, I plan to do that after I have coloured and added the background to the animation because that way I will be able to truly judge what I have made.

When it came to practical skills page Ering said that it was super detailed, and she said she loves that there is nothing I need to add to improve it. She suggested that I could use this page to check if I had any minor issues that I can add to my problem-solving page. I think this is quite a useful suggestions, and I would definitely go over the practical skills pages to check, and maybe I can find something to add to problem-solving!

And finally, for my Evaluation and reflection page Erin said that she loved that I wrote as I went each week and that it is quite good. She suggested I could talk about the new skills I learned each week, which is actually a great suggestion, and how this new skill will be useful in the future.

I found this peer assessment quite useful. I think that a third party view is quite helpful and often can be very critical, which is always good. In times like being in lockdown and having little to no direct contact to peers and tutors, it is important to seek feedback from others! I am planning on doing more peer assessment near the end of the project, maybe week 11, where the animation and the website are close to being completed.

week 9

Week nine goals are:

Colouring scenes 1, 2 and 3;
Talk about the character design change in Planning page;
Add research on scene fade;
Get some colour references.

I believe that scene 2 and 3 are the easiest ones to colour since the character is pretty much static, and only the wings/ tail move and they are not even that complicated movements. I think scene one is not going to be too complicated as well but instead, it would be quite time-consuming. I want these 3 scenes coloured and finished by the end of the week, because I know that scene 4 would be quite challenging one to do, Not only is it going to be time-consuming but also complicated with all the tweeting and masking I have to do.

The character design change is something I needed to do when I was adding the storyboards to Planning, but for some reason I forgot, I had the drawings ready and was reminded by my friend Erin, with whom I did peer assessment, that I still need to do that. I realised that it is not such a big problem to not talk about the character designer change from the pitch to the final idea, but I want to do that just for myself because I feel like it is important to show how I got from the original to what I ended up currently. Thankfully I managed to find time to get this done. In fact, this was one of the first things I did for the week. I added images of what inspired the new design and mentioned why I felt the need to change the design. I really liked being able to show my inspirations, and e

Thankfully I was able to colour all the first 3 scenes. As I expected scenes 2 and 3 were very quick to do and simple. Scene 1 was a bit more time-consuming but it wasn't too complicated, however, I postponed drawing the yes on that scene again, because of how much writing and practical work I had to do. Now I don't know when I will be able to go back and get that done since I had to postpone it for so long. That is something I can't avoid, so I will try to get it done in the following 2 weeks.

This week I was mainly applying what I had previously learned. I managed to quickly get some very useful colour references since I haven't done much colouring previously, finding good references was very important. The ones I got were quite simple and straight forward, that is why I really liked them. I was worried about being able to save colours that I want to use in the future in Animate, and surprisingly, after some digging into the switches and colour panels in Animate I found how to save swatches for later use.

week 10

My main goals for this week are:

Finish colouring scenes 4 and 5;
Document the progress on Practical skills.

I know that colouring scene 4 will be quite time- consuming and tricky that is why I wanted to mainly focus on finishing that off and having the last 2 weeks to think about ways of presentation and to tidy up the website.

Thankfully I managed to finish both scene 4 and 5 by the end of the week. It is great that the last few weeks I have managed to complete most if not all of my weekly targets, because that means I am keeping on track and am following my production schedule. Scene 4 took most of the week as I expected it to be, however at the end I had just enough time to work on scene 5 and finish colouring. Because I finished on time I would have next week to tidy up the website as much as I can and to do the shading and render the file. I am quite happy with how both scenes worked out after colouring. I view scene 4 as my best scene simply because of the sheer amount of time I used on it, and because I managed to do it the way I saw it in my head, or at least get as close as I could with my skills.

During colouring, I encountered two minor issues that I documented in problem-solving. Because they were quite simple, I fixed them quite quickly. By documenting in detail those problems I can avoid them or have the solution to them, most of the minor problems I documented appeared throughout he production few times, and because I already had written about them I could refer back to "problem-solving" page in case I didn't remember the solution.

After the colouring was finished I added all the screenshots I took of the process to practical skills and explained the process. There was a lot of writing to go through especially with scene 4, so I was progressing and writing bit by bit.

This week I didn't have many targets because I wanted to mainly focus on colouring and finishing up scenes 4 and 5. Thanks to having very little things to do I successfully completed both of my targets, however, this means that week 11 and week 12 would be quite busy, but I knew that that would be the case so I did my best to separate my targets over the two weeks so I would be able to complete all before the deadline on the 15th.

week 11

This week I need to:

Update my production schedule;
Add shading;
Catch up on evaluation for week 10;
Fix the eye of the character in scene 1;
Research ways of presentation.

At first, this seems like a lot of goals for one week but they are all quite simple and will not take a lot of time to complete. I want to get as many of these goals as possible finished by the end of the week, so I can focus on my final evaluation during the final week, and do some final touches n the website.

I had to update my production schedule periodically throughout the project, however, I didn't do so because of how much I was distracted by the production and all the other pages. Even though I didn't update my schedule periodically I had a plan of when I wanted to finish something and if I did. It was all written in my notebook, so that way I was following a scheduled plan. When I went to update the schedule this week, I found it quite easy since I had everything written down, that way I avoided forgetting anything that needs to be added to the schedule.

I left out weeks 1 and 2 because there was nothing to change there, and instead focused on the rest of the weeks. For the most part, I had to change just minor things for example, that I have done something extra that week, or that I did research a week after I had to. However, there were also big changes I had to add Originally I must have finished animating during week 7 and should have started colouring since week 8. However because of the delay with scene 2, and not having a very clear plan right from the beginning. I planned to separate all the scene through the weeks I had, but since I didn't know how long will one scene approximately take I just had the general goal to finish by week 7. However now that eek 8 was no longer going to be for colouring I was left with 2 weeks to colour the whole animation, and it proved to be all I needed.

As a second target, I had to shade the whole animation and also finish it in one week. I was sure that I would be able to finish it by the end of the week, and thankfully I did. I wanted the production to be finished at least one week before the deadline. I combined the goal with the one where I need to do the linework of the eyes in scene one, with which I started first, and then I moved to shade. Completing both targets took me 3 days, which also includes adding things to problem-solving.

The shading was quite simple, and my goal with was to only add a little in order to get so refinement, but not too much. I am pretty happy with the result because it is exactly what I was aiming to achieve. my references held a lot when I was deciding what things I should shade so I have some shading but not an excessive one. The process was quite quick because of that and as a result, I managed to complete it by the end of the week.

Unfortunately, I didn't catch up with week 10 evaluation, because I started the week 2 days late, after getting a break and not feeling very well. I expect the week 10 evaluation to be quite short in comparison to the others because I didn't do much other than work on colouring, so I am hoping that won't take too long. I would go back to week 10 and complete it before starting the Final Evaluation next week.

My last goal was to search up for ways of presentation. I revisited my Behance, which is one website I plan to use for a presentation. Ather platform is Youtube. before the deadline of the project I will do my best to create a new channel and upload my animation there. I would continue my research as I upload my animation to my presentation page.

peer assessment part 2 (Final)

My friend Erin mentioned that my evaluations for weeks 10 and 11 were very short and that would want to add more to them. The evaluations are short because they are unfinished. I hadn't had time do finish them because of practical skills, but I will need to get them done now, because now we are in the last week, and I should be starting to think about the final evaluation.

Here she said that she loves the animation and that she also likes the transformation part (scene 4), and that is is really smooth. I am really happy she likes it because it really took a long time to do, both animating and colouring, and I am happy that it has been appreciated.

Here she found a spelling mistake on my practical skills and send a screenshot to show me where. I immediately went to fix it so I don't forget it later on. This is a good reminder that before the deadline of the project I will need to go over the website to check for mistakes.

Erin noticed this one image that I used as a reference for the backgrounds and that it didn't have a link, but I explained why it didn't. She explained how to reach for the image link, but I tried it out and I reached through the websites but none of them had the image used. I would try it again to find the link, however, I am unsure I would work.

She said my planning page is really good and that I could talk about if I changed anything of my plan, during the animation. This is a really good suggestion, and if I have time I would go over my production schedule and discuss what I changed on it because since my final storyboard I haven't changed anything of the planned animation, because with the final storyboard I was 100% sure that that was what I wanted to do.

Erin said my problem-solving page is really good, and that she doesn't see any problems with it, and that I just have a couple of problems that I have the screenshots of but I haven't explained them yet. I actually have, but forgot to publish the website after I did, so she wasn't able to see them, but I am glad that she reminded me anyway.

She also said my research is very good. She noted that I have put all the videos and references that I needed and advised me to add references that I haven't added yet to the page. I have to put quick research on dragon anatomy and wings if I think I will have time to, just to make sure that I have all I need on the page.

I am very proud of my practical skills page because I did my best to document all the process that I went through. I put immense work and time into that page to make sure it is the best it could be, I am happy that it has paid off!

Like before Erin said that my context Is perfect and that she couldn't think of anything for me to add to it. I feel relieved that I don't have to worry about this page but I am going to go over to see if I might need something extra.

Lastly, Erin said that I have done quite good overall. There are a couple of things I still need to add to my pages and I hope to finish them so I could focus on the final evaluation and the presentation.

Final Evaluation

My goal for the FMP was to animate the transformation to a dragon of one of my original characters. Before starting the project I wanted to do a small collection of concept art about the same story where the character I animated is from. But right before starting the project, I changed my plan. I wanted to focus on exploring and learning Adobe Animate software and also practise animating. This is because I felt that I needed to learn a lot more regarding the animation and the software, and I thought that the FMP and my idea would be the perfect opportunity to do so because what I saw in my head was going to be quite the challenge, but I wanted to get I close as I could to that, and overcoming that challenge, was going to help me progress way quicker.

I tried to be as stubborn as possible throughout the project because I knew that that was the only way I could get close to what I saw in my head, was to not compromise and just stick to my goals. Part of the reason why I used so many different angles thought the animation was because I wanted to push myself so take up challenges and to not be intimidated by them. I am positive that this worked in my favour because I was able to learn so many new techniques and skills. Towards the end of the project I started to loosen up the tight grip I had on myself because I was starting to get overwhelmed by all the work I have done, and still had to do, however, I managed to push through and did my best to keep the standard of my written and practical work, as high as I could. I am thankful that I had this mindset when approaching the FMP because it allowed be me to do so much I otherwise wouldn't be able to do.

My main inspiration for the idea was the video by the Youtube channel Jazza " How to Animate Transformation" and I have added to my research. Thie video had a lot of useful tips, most of them allowed me to be able to animate scene 4, and in general, the video was just exactly what I needed for the scene. In addition to that, I was also heavily inspired by Steven Universe gem transformations, and really liked how the characters were turning into light silhouettes when they were to transform, which I think really fit, which what I wanted to do with the transformation of my own character.

Strenghts and Weaknesses

One of my most prominent strengths for this project was my motivation and determination to be able to turn what I had in my head into something physical, and also to complete the animation. I was bitter since the last year's final project because I was unable to finish my animation, due to many reasons, and I started this academic year preparing for the FMP and putting myself into a right mindset. Because of that, I was able to complete the animation, colour it and shade it, and get is as close as possible as to what I envisioned. In addition, I managed to balance the practical work and the written word, which is something I was struggling with throughout my previous projects, by simply separating my work on chunks and writing after I have completed it. Also, I would take a lot of screenshots in order to help me remember what I did and make it so much easier to explain what I did.

On the other hand, a problem I had a big issue with was that I didn't have a production schedule until week 3 - 4 and even when I had it done, it wasn't detailed enough. I wanted to separate my storyboard and distribute the scenes through the weeks I have given myself to animate, but that didn't happen until week 7 ( that is way too far down the project to start having a detailed schedule), and because during the 6 weeks I had not separated the scenes, I had a lot of catching up to do during week 6( yes week six because this is where I started to get more organised) and week 7, but thankfully afterwards my organisation was on top and I managed to get back in track quickly. I think this was an issue of inexperience because I was unable to predict how long a scene would take to complete, however with the time, I would be able to do so as I continue to practice. In addition to this, I had this major issue that I started animating the character before I did the backgrounds. Again similarly to the previous, this was an issue of being inexperienced. If I had done the backgrounds first, then the animation (especially scene 1, because this is where the issue is best shown) would have needed to adjust to the background, because the other way around is so complicated, and wouldn't look nice at all. Thankfully these two are both weaknesses I can avoid after practice and work.

Context

This time when focusing on the context page I wanted to make sure that I have all that I need to kick start my project. The first thing was to add the proposal for the FMP. This covers two tasks from the brief, which are 1. Justify your specialism and 2. Evaluate your ideas and intended goals. I used the Proposal UAL form we were provided. In the Rationale, I explained what I planned to do, and what I wanted to achieve. I said that I wanted to become more confident using Adobe Animate, Photoshop and Adobe After Effects, by the end of the project, however, I during the project I didn't have the chance to use After Effects, and I only used Photoshop for a very short period of time. On the other hand, I worked almost exclusively on Adobe Animate and achieved my objective to be more confident using the software. Now I feel like I'm much more familiar with Animate, because of how much I learned about it. Now I know where the hotkeys for most tools are, which considerably speeds up the production.

In the Project concept, I said that I wanted to make a 30sec to 1 min long animation because I didn't want to go too much - I was determined to complete my project unlike the final project last year. The animation worked out to be 18 seconds long. I honestly don't mind how short the animation ended up to be, however, I am disappointed in my skills to predict approximately how long my animations will be. On the other hand, the more I practise the better I would be at predicting how long animation will be, so this was a good experience. I also said that I wanted to add audio to the animation, along with a background. Neither f these actually became a thing, due to the fact that even though I thought it would be good to have them, I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted from the. I had an idea fro the background, but for the audio, I didn't have anything in particular. I wanted to add sound effects, but I had the feeling that that would be too much, so halfway the project I dropped the idea. As for the background, I simply made the mistake to start with character animation first, since If I'm being honest was my main focus and goal. Now I know that if I plan to add a background I should focus on that firs, and I am positive that this experience will make sure I don't repeat the same mistake again.

With the evaluation of the idea, I made sure that I was prepared with any possible issues I could face. I said that I might not be able to finish because of not finishing animation and not finishing colouring on time, which was a very possible outcome if I haven't planned my production properly. I mentioned that these two processes were very time consuming, which they were indeed, however, I made sure to follow my personal deadlines closely which ensured I would finish both on time.

I added lots of sketches, realistic ones, ones that my own art style, and I also discussed my process of coming up with the design of my characters. My character designs are something I am very proud of and I wanted to show the process as it is something I am very passionate about. I showcased my drawing skills with those sketches and fan art of one of my favourite characters, which I enjoyed making. In addition, I added a test animation of a dragon taking off, on which I worked specifically to be presented in my pitch presentation. This animation, was of great help when I was animating the wings, as because of having had practice I didn't need to look up references and that sped up my production greatly.

Towards the end, I had the character profile and that background inspiration images. as well as the pitch presentation I didn't have the chance to present.

there I answered the question what I wanted to learn during the project, where except saying that I want to master Animate further, I said that I would like to become better at planning and organisation, and indeed I have become much better at organising my work. I greatly relate that to having started dining short checklists and making sure that I complete them all or at least most of the targets by the end of the week. In addition, I started getting much more clear and achievable weekly targets and that way avoiding to overwhelm myself.

All the research I intended to do I managed to do. These were extremely essential ones in order to help me progress with the project, especially getting the reference photos for scene 1. I am sure I would have not been able to animate scene 1 without reference.

I am quite happy with the context page, and unlike previous projects, I am really happy with it and how it worked out, however, I feel like it would have been useful to have the references I used for the test animation on the page in order to refer back to them, just in case.

Research

For Research I added all the inspirations, tutorials, photos and resources that I used to help me with my idea and to teach me certain techniques I needed to learn to achieve what I have envisioned for this project.

Thanks to the research I've done, I was able to learn about tools like the camera too, which made scene 2 possible, and others like shape tween for the colour change, masking and filters. After I have research and applied these, I have because much more confident using Animate, and have achieved my goal for the project, to master Animate further. Of course, this doesn't mean that I will be stopping here, quite the opposite, now I feel much more motivated to continue and enrich my knowledge about Adobe Animate.

All the references and inspirations were extremely useful in developing my idea, and helped me come up with a good transformation "style". The art styles I looked up and analysed helped me for a better understanding of my own art style for the project and supplied me with ideas, which is something I would be developing after the project, as it is something that constantly changes.

Researching on the 12 Principles of Animation was something I wanted to do for a long time in previous projects, but failed to fit it in since it was such a big theme to cover. I added the youtube video of each principle separately and then discussed them, and I did that for all the youtube tutorials I looked at. I learned a lot about animation, and also applied a couple of the principles to my animation for example principle 4. Straight Ahead and Poses to pose animation. I used both techniques depending on what I was working on since they are both are better fit for different types of animations. I also used a bit of anticipation and stretch and squash on the eye of the dragon when it was opening. I plan to apply more of the principle in my future works in the hopes of achieving more professionally looking animations.

I got quite a lot of photographs for the animation for scene 1 as it was going to be almost impossible for me to animate this scene without any kind of reference. The photos were of immense help. In addition, I took photos for the backgrounds again for scene 1, that I planned to draw over when I had to do the background. I did paint over it and finished the background, but I didn't use it in the final animation, because the background didn't fit the animation, even after I adjusted it.

I think I learned the most from the tutorial "How to animate Transformation", which had a lot of useful new things that I learned about, which was completely different from the other tutorials that I looked which only focus on 1-2 things. The video helped my a lot with scene 4, and also supplied me with a shading technique I otherwise should have looked up.

Overall I think that I got a lot of my Research page, but I also could have done more. I think it would have been great I could add research on dragons, even-thought I have looked at dragons on many occasions and am experienced in drawing and designing them, I still think it would have been useful to have it in order to refer back to it and maybe get new ideas and inspirations from the research.

Probelm Solving

For this project, I really wanted to make sure I document all problems that I came across. All my previous projects I had a very weak problem-solving page, with maximum 2-3 problems documented. This time I focused on being more attentive to minor issues. In addition, I would take screenshots right after I encounter a problem, and upload it to the website as soon as possible, so even if I am unable to write about it right then, I can come back later on and the screenshots would remind me about what the problem was and how I managed to solve them, which worked really well, because sometimes I would be unable to update the problem-solving page for 3-4 days, but because the screenshots were on the page I was immediately reminded of the problem.

This page helped me avoid similar issues for the future, and to explore alternatives for technical problems, like the case with the camera tool. I was able to learn about the camera tool, only because I encountered the problem and that way I was able to progress further. I think I could improve this page if I also start paying attention to very minor issues like - I was struggling to draw the character, and I had to sketch a couple of times before getting him right, or for example, I couldn't find the file I needed but then I realised that I put it in a different folder. I think if I noticed stuff like this that would even further improve this page.

Planning

On my planning page, I have my Production schedule, sketches of the character, and design change explanation, 2 storyboards, as well as 2 background sketches and the explanation as to why I was unable to add a background to my animation.

As I have mentioned in my Strenght and weaknesses section, at the beginning of the FMP I had a very weak production schedule for the first 5-6 weeks, as I was struggling to put it together. The schedule was still a useful guide when it came to research and when I was supposed to start the animation, however, it wasn't specific enough, as to when I wanted each scene done. Around weeks 6-7 I started to get a better idea of how long each scene could take me so I set up more strict personal deadlines, and since I have managed to complete most of them on time.

I added the character design change explanation, because the character I wanted to use for the animation, was very different from the one I had on my context page, however they were both the same character. I thought that it would be important to have that on planning, because of how different the designs are they could cause confusion.

I added the background sketches very late in the project and that is why there I also have the explanation why I wouldn't be adding backgrounds to my animation.

I think that compared to most of my previous project this time I had more detailed work on the page, detailed schedule, detailed explanation of the sketches and the storyboards, and had most of the content of the p[age there's before I started any practical work, which helped out greatly.

Practical Skills

I personally think that y practical skills page is probably the best page for this project. In previous projects, I always had a hard time with documenting my practical work because I was unable to balance practical work and written work. It was one of my main goals to have a detailed log of everything practical I did, all experiments and production. Surprisingly I quite enjoyed working on the practical skills page this project just because how actually it came to me. I would mention the tools I used and what I used them for, and I would do that on several occasions, wherever I felt it was appropriate to do so. As I have mentioned before I worked on parts this project, and took a lot of screenshots thought out, some of them specifically showing what tool I used, or if I added a tween, tr if I created a mask. That way I made sure that if I was to come back later to write, the screenshots will guide the and remind me exactly what I did, and that way I was able to explain in details what I did.

I would add videos of my progress and where I wasn't able to get a video/gif, I would take a couple of screenshots of the finished section, in order to show the motion in some shape or form. T think this really helped the viewer and even myself to become more aware of where I stand and how my progress is.

On the first subpage of practical skills (weeks 1 - 7), I have a lot more tests, compared to the other two subpages. This is because that was the beginning of the FMP and I wanted to test most things beforehand so if I needed to change something in my plans or search for alternative techniques, I would have the time to do so and keep any delays to the minimum. This really made me very confident when I was to apply those tests to the animation because I knew that they would work and that I shouldn't worry that I might need to change something.

I think I could have added some of my character and background sketches and discuss how I created them and what techniques I used because that was the only thing I missed to add to the page.

Evaluation

For the FMP I wanted to do my best to improve my evaluation page because it was always one of my weakness ones in previous projects.

I made sure I set up targets for each week. I would start with an update from the previous week occasionally, and sometime I would jump straight to the weekly targets if there was nothing to discuss from the previous week. Towards the end of the week, and sometimes, even throughout the new week, I would evaluate the targets, and say if I completed them or not. If I haven't I would explain why, and discuss what I'm going to do with that target. Sometimes I would continue working on it during the next week, or in the case of sound effects and such, I would drop it, because it was not essential.

I did two peer assessments with my friend and classmate Erin, where we looked at each other's websites and then gave feedback on the pages and the progress. I screenshotted our conversation, and added her comments to the website and discussed it. We communicated through Amino. The feedback that I got was very useful because she would always mention what I did well on each page and then suggest a way I could improve the page. I got a lot from the feedback that I received and I hope Erin did too.

I think that my evaluation page has immensely improved since the previous project, and I am quite proud of it. I still find it hard sometimes to evaluate, however, I am positive that I am on the right path. One thing I would improve however is something I saw my friend Erin do. She would evaluate each page of the website weekly. I think if I start doing that I can get a more organised evaluation and a more organised project.

Presentation

For the presentation, I have added 4 different videos. The videos are the uncoloured animation, the coloured animation, and finally the shaded animation. In addition, I have added the final animation but with a different colour, the background to see how it looks. I decided I would stick with the white background as my final piece because I wasn't sure about the background colour. I worked on the format 1920 x 1080 which was one of the requirements for the animations to be on the MGA showreel. I went back to the brief to make sure I was correct. In addition, I added my work to Behance, took a screenshot and added it to the page and talked about the pros of uploading my work to Behance.

The Final Piece

I am quite happy with my final animation. I followed my storyboard I had made for the project and I didn't compromise when I wanted to go for the easier options. I tried my best to achieve what I saw in my imagining the transformation looked like with the skills I had, and the ones I learned throughout the project. I am happy with the angles I chose to animate from, because they challenged me to learn new skills, tools and techniques, and the animation as a whole tested my patience and determination. In addition, the specific angles were aimed to complement the transformations as I have noticed in the dragon transformation from One Piece. I am very proud of the final outcome but I know it could have been better if I have had enough time to create backgrounds that would compliment the animation, and that was an opportunity to learn a lot about Photoshop, however, I am still satisfied with what I managed to achieve during the project.

I went for a more cartoonish style because my own one goes more towards realism and I knew that the more realistic a character design was the longer it would have taken to animate. I personally like the last two scenes because that is where I was at the top of my game. The animation for scene 4 doubles with the colour change made it looks really smooth and realistic. As for scene 5, I like that there is not much action happening but the animation is very smooth too.

I think that my least favourite scene has to be scene 1. This is where I still haven't learned much and the animation looked very uneven. Also, the fact that this scene only works well with a background, and was meant to be paired with a background just ruins the rest of the animation. I do not regret choosing the angle rotation and zoom in though, however, I wish I knew about the camera tool before animating scene 1 because that would have made my work so much easier and would have made the animation so much smoother.

Conclusion

Looking back at my last year's final project, I didn't even manage to get to the half of my animation because I wanted to do so much but if I am being honest, back then I had very little knowledge of the software I was using and wanted to use. After that project, I was determined to make sure I complete all the work I intended to, and even-thought I didn't do the backgrounds I made sure that I completed the character animation, which was, in fact, my main objective and goal for this project.

A similar situation was happening to my problem solving and evaluation pages. Usually, these two would be the weakest one, with the occasional addition of practical skills, where I was struggling to balance practical and written work. However, as a result, I became even more motivated to work hard on this project and make sure I work to the best of my ability and learn from my past failures. I would often go back to my old evaluations, and websites to compare them with this one, and to make sure I am not repeating the same mistakes.

Overall I am very proud of what I achieved throughout this project, and what I learned thanks to it. I have learned how to find what I need myself and I have learned how to teach myself what I need to learn, and I think this is a very important quality to have for any future job, or at university and for life in general, and thanks to that I feel more confident stepping towards my future.