In our creative community, everyone’s experience and journey throughout the course of their degree is unique.
Below you’ll find posts from a selection of students, highlighting some of their favourite moments and projects from their last three years.
During this unit, we were asked to demonstrate an application of specialist skills within animation through a portfolio of work.
We had to set our own independent projects for our selected specialism.
I intend to go into stop-motion animation. My focus for my project was on the movement of orangutans and how I could create and animate my own orangutan character from this.
It’s a great opportunity to further your skills and experience. Figuring it out on your own is a great way of picking up new techniques and learning from mistakes in preparation for third year.
We were lucky enough to have a Q&A session in our lecture on a Skype call with Lev Yilmaz!
Currently, Level 5 students are developing work towards pitching our own 2 minute stories; to help us we’ve been having weekly lectures on various techniques for storytelling.
During this lecture, we were introduced to the alternatives to commercial storytelling, and there was no better way of learning about it than to have a Q&A session with Lev Yilmaz!
Lev Yilmaz is best known for his “Tales of Mere Existence” animations – worth a watch!
The original caravan!
Richard Haynes, who is our Senior Lecturer, brought the original caravan cart used in the British stop motion animated film in 1983 into the studio for us!
Visual development for a cyberpunk setting.
At this point most of my entries on the student journey part of the AUB site will be concept art pieces. This is partly because I’ve chosen to specialise in this area of production.
It also illustrates an important point about the course, which is that it’s not all about animating; there’s storyboarding and background design and many other disciplines to tackle.
Some more concept art for the aforementioned project.
Here I continue working on the concept art phase of pre-production for my university project. I’ve moved away from the realistic silhouettes of the previous images and adopted a more caricature-like style. I’m also experimenting with colour at this point.
Some concept art for a university project.
Concept art is done during pre-production of a project; the objective is to establish the visual style for the project, whether it’s a videogame, live-action film or animation. Concept art usually goes through many iterations.
This is early stage concept art for a university project I’m working on.
Learning how to animate lip sync!
Whilst most of the first year animation has been traditional 2D, in our final animation we were given the chance to animate a lip sync in stop motion as well as in 2D!
To assist with our understanding of how to do lip sync, we were given CG lessons in the weeks building up to the task. This was a really enjoyable and helpful contribution where we were also able to experiment in Maya!
The very first Year 1 Animation Awards ceremony!
Year 1 tutor, Paul Hilton, invited us to a formal black tie event for first year students, to celebrate what was a fantastic first year at university!
We went to the REX cinema in Wareham, the location in which we began our AUB animation journey. The tutors gave out various awards, we all got free ice cream, watched several funny short films and saw He-Man original animation cell and layout designs.
A great way to end a great year!
The camels were my favourite.
We went on two trips to Marwell Zoo to study and observe animals and the way they moved. This helped to inform our knowledge of anatomy of our chosen animals which we then used to create two animations: a realistic animal walk and an animal walk with attitude. Obviously I chose the bactrian camel.
Some drawings of animals done at Marwell zoo.
Observing animals is great practice for life-drawing and animation. It forces you to draw quickly; capturing proportions and texture before the animal changes pose. It’s also a hell of a lot of fun!
Myself and Holly's very rigid looking attempts of Kung Fu!
Senior lecturer and first year course leader Paul Hilton (a.k.a Kung Fu Panda) gave four students the opportunity to help him with his PhD proposal. The focus of his research is around the relationship between Kung Fu martial arts practice and animation.
During these sessions we developed an understanding of anatomy and movement through the practice of Kung Fu. It was a fantastic learning opportunity and great fun!
Some concept art I did for Questfactor.
In second year animation students have the opportunity to specialise. I decided to focus primarily on developing my concept art and visual development skills.
This is an example of some of the work I did for a graduate film. ‘Questfactor’ is a high-fantasy comedy, so I was allowed to get pretty crazy with some of the designs.
Incidentally ‘Questfactor’ features the voice talent of Doug Cockle, famous for his work on ‘The Witcher’ series.
I went to Norway for my second year internship. Other students went to Kyoto, Japan; Nanjing, China; Aardman Studios; and so on.
This year I had the opportunity to work in Norway at a company called Mikrofilm. I worked there for three months, during that time I worked on numerous projects in a variety of roles.
I was treated to traditional Norwegian food, Glogg (Viking wine), and champagne in celebration of some of my colleagues getting nominated for an Oscar.
Here you can see an example of the work I did, in this case concept thumbnails for an environment.
Entertaining 2 week commercial project: create a 30 second advert to promote Skittles
This project was set as a mini break between units. We got into small groups to create several adverts to promote Skittles with children being our target audience. For our advert we went Wild West themed, using a GoPro to film the rivalry between ‘Sheriff Skittle’ and the ‘WANTED’ rubber ducky.
There's the great opportunity to attend additional evening life drawing classes arranged by third year students!
The evening sessions are a fantastic chance to do life drawing in your preferred way; any size and any media! In my case, I worked in fine liner in my sketchbook.
"Lost Sands" stop-motion production: The Camel concept design.
Pictured are a few concept designs I generated for the ‘camel’ character within our collaborative Lost Sands stop-motion film. Beginning the year with sketching out initial ideas enabled an organic transition between second year and third year. Initially, we felt that the camel’s design was too rigid and realistic whereas we intended on really pushing the caricature and geometric forms of the figure as shown in this visual journey.
Establishing my scribbly continuous line style within trips to the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The Animation course has the perfect balance of teaching the key principles and technicalities of animation and drawing in 1st and 2nd year, which equips you with a strong understanding for the foundations of imaginative artwork and storytelling. I was always more of a ‘fine artist’ so I swerve towards painting and illustration. It was trips to places like Pitt Rivers where I broke out and sketched loose but still used a ‘critical eye’.
Exploring the freedom of concept art within the Pre-Production unit
This year allowed me to experiment further with materials, particularly my love for fine liner and muted washes of colour using marker pens. Even though there is responsibility in working on the 3rd year films, there has been a lot of freedom to gear the projects towards what you want for your portfolio. Pictured is a desk design I produced for Lost Sands where I was able to input my love for detail into a cluttered Old England study scene.
Showcase of some of the practical work I produced whilst at Aardman Animations during a work placement in Summer 2013.
Aardman Animations work placement Summer 2013. The course is well-known for it’s placement opportunities along with the newly established Aardman positions. This enabled me to learn about studio dynamics, sculpting replacement mouths in plasticine and also choreographing a piece of character animation with a puppet from Pirates!
Experimenting with materials whilst sketching Siamang Gibbons at Marwell Zoo.
With the grand opportunity of visiting places like Marwell Zoo, the principles and line qualities of drawing for animation are positively challenged. Gestural drawing was an aspect I hadn’t had a lot of experience in yet I learnt that for me personally, I improved by focusing on one animal to understand it’s anatomy and characteristics. From this, I was able to obtain dynamic, energetic markmaking in and around the basis of a skeleton.
An example of the week by week updates I had responsibility of to ensure the Production schedule worked across the board.
When Production commenced, I set about constructing a Key Schedule board which had all 3 films on where I was able to monitor them at once, instantly keep track of animators and shots they are doing and calculate times for the motion control rig and green screen equipment to avoid clashes. Studio research methods are vital to this role to ensure that my professional practise mimicked what is the industry-standard.
A GoPro still whilst finishing set building and lighting composition for our 'Lost Sands' chamber set.
The 3rd year film opportunity takes you through every stage of the production pipeline and it taught me about many other principles that I hadn’t touched upon in the first 2 years, such as detailed set construction. This included collaborating with a BA Film Alumni to work with the lighting and camera composition on our film. The director Aaron Jay Babla was able to use GoPro to document the processes over timelapse footage.
An example of the Director and Producer collaboration within the Graduation films and animation versatility I gained throughout Production.
The reason I challenged myself to animate on 3 stop-motion films – during my final year – was to obtain a flexible, varied showreel, which depicts that I can adapt to many different styles and genres. Working with Matt Mawford, Bradley McNaughton and Aaron Babla on their films improved my ability to problem solve and learn about the timing in character performance across the genres of comedy, horror-comedy and epic adventure.
A key part of the 2nd year is assisting 3rd years with their graduation films
The 3rd years pitched their film ideas to all three years of Animation Production in the theatre on Bournemouth Pier, during the first week of October. After the films had been voted for, 2nd years are assigned depending on the medium of animation they want to work in (2D, CG or Stop-Motion). This gave me a really great experience in working on an actual production and also means that the studios becomes a close-knit group of all three years working collaboratively.
During your second year you get the chance to apply for work placements - mine was at Aardman
There are a number of placements organised that 2nd years can apply for at studios from around the world including; China, Bristol, London and Luxembourg.
My 3 week placement at Aardman was incredible. My time there was spent working with the assistant animators which meant making mouths and eyelids for characters on the Shaun the Sheep feature film. I was also given time to practice my animation with a puppet from the Pirates! film.
We are encouraged to draw as much as possible
As well as the scheduled life-drawing sessions, we are encouraged to attend evening sessions and complete observational drawings as much as possible to aid in improving our technical drawing skills.
The second half of the year is spent developing our own ideas for our third year film
This unit involved working on our own ideas for short films which we pitched to all three years of the course – about 12 of which will be voted through into production. This whole unit is about working through an idea and developing an understanding of storytelling to create a strong, entertaining short film.
Drawing trips to Marwell Zoo.
In April we take two trips to Marwell Zoo to draw animals, all three years are invited to go and it’s a great chance to draw from life.
The first project we are given in the second year is to animate a baseball game as a team.
As part of our Development of Production Skills unit we are asked to get into teams (depending on our chosen medium) and each plan and create four seconds of animation towards a final baseball scene. This unit showed us the whole production process – from storyboarding to editing the final film – and experience of working together.
Man, some people are good artists
A while ago a classmate drew this picture of me working. In a snapshot it makes you appreciate the casual talent that is present in our studio (and so good I made it my profile pic!)
The one thing you'll learn about traditional animation - you get through a hell of a lot of pencils!
So far we’ve had seven animation assignments to work on, all hand drawn. On dumping out my pencil case on the start of the eighth, I was amazed how many blue animation pencils I’d gotten through so far (and that’s not even all of them pictured!)
become characters before your very eyes!
Usually animation students are very hard working, but tangents take hold at times.
More fun with the animals!
This was a coati, just hanging out on top of a pole. The animators seemed enamoured with their relaxed nature.
Fun times drawing the animals
Obviously this was for drawing – but we got to hang out with some nifty guys. This tortoise was munching away on something interesting. And a photo was necessary.
Traditional animation = a lot of paper to draw on!
Year 1 in Animation Production means learning all the basics in traditional hand drawn 2D animation. This means you get through a lot of paper, particularly with some of the later exercises. This is all the paper i’ve used on my finished projects since the new year. If i’d included everything from last year, it may well be double this size!
A beautiful thing
Wooden light boxes, blue pencils and stacks of paper… with the lights off and the shutters closed… a wonderful thing indeed.
Some technical drawings
One of the most valuable things about the animation course is it’s focus on technical drawing. The learning curve can be intimidating, but incredibly rewarding.
A piece of homework given later in the 2nd year
One of the modules on the animation course is Design for Layout – which refers to the design of backgrounds for animations. We began the module by practicing our observational skills; drawing our bedrooms, street views and buildings in proper perspective. The next step was to paint our line-drawings. I chose to use Photoshop (one of the softwares that the university provides) to paint mine.
Character designs made in Photoshop, in about 10 hours
Something I really love about the animation course is that balance between scheduled study and free time. Dedicated teaching is available every day of the working week, but if you’re so inclined you can work by your own schedule (for the most part.) One of my interests is concept art for film and videogames; being on the animation course allows me to develop skills useful for a concept artist – like character design.
My final design for the layout module
Here you can see the finished result of a numerous studies and thumbnails. We were tasked with creating a layout design that utilised correct perspective, compelling composition, and lighting to create atmosphere. This is the kind of thing you might see as a background in an animation, or as a piece of concept art for a movie or game. Check out the video version.
Research for the final layout design
To give you a sense of the sort of research you have to do to produce a final layout design I’ve uploaded a small collection of examples.
Top left: thumbnails. A really useful way to get ideas on the page, quickly. My final design was based on the very top left thumbnail. You can see how close the final is to the original sketch.
Top right: studies of screens from Team Fortress 2.
Bottom: studies of various props and architecture.
Life drawing classes with a difference...
Life drawing on the animation course can get pretty technical. As an animator it’s very useful to be able to visualise objects in 3D, draw poses from imagination and have a good understanding of anatomy. But sometimes we get a little crazy – these drawings were produced under a strict time limit with feather and ink. The whole objective was to loosen up and become a little more care free with life-drawing!
Imaginative life-drawing exercises
These life-drawings might not be much to look at, but they help develop an immensely valuable tool: your imagination. The first and third life-drawings were done in 2 or 3 minutes from observation of a model. For the centre sketch however, the model was concealed behind a black curtain. We had to use our imaginations to animate her moving from one position to the other.
Drawings at Marwell Zoo and Bournemouth Oceanarium
Students on the animation course get to visit the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and Marwell Zoo. These sketches were done at Bournemouth Oceanarium and the Zoo. We’re encouraged to experiment with media and form, in order to expand our understanding of the subject. The trip to Marwell Zoo was good practice for animating quadrupeds – it was also a lot of fun!
The result of all the hard work.
The year round drawing practice, combined with a hefty number of animation exercises, enables my fellow students and I to create compelling animations. These are some screenshots from my own animations. Other students are producing quality CGI films, stop motions, Disney-esque 2D animations, Animes – the list goes on. If you’re curious to see some of the work of AUB animation students check out this link.
