Changed fmp production reflection

Weekly Reflection
Will Anderson

Week 1 – Initial Plans + ProposalHow do you feel about writing your proposal?
I feel comfortable and prepared to write my proposal, as my initial plans as well as my own previous work have allowed me to fully look through my potential ideas, as well as
any limitations and issues I may face along the way. Additionally, I am excited to be fully planning out a project of my own ideas, as I feel like I am finally bringing my work to
life.
How did your mood board and influences inform your proposal?
My mood boards provided a rough idea of what techniques and features I could include in my production. By looking these over, I could use my proposal to go into more
depth about how doable they would be. Additionally, I was able to create a schedule for my work, outlining what I would be doing each week whilst going into detail about
each task. By looking over my influences, I was able to create my own ideas inspired by the different works and creators. This will allow me to create an original product that
utilises different techniques that multiple real life products use to appeal to their target demographics.
On top of creating mood boards, I also created mind maps so that I could explore different potential features that I could include in my project. This included colours, themes,
movements and also what other work I could do to accompany my animation e.g. still art. I found these mind maps useful for coming up with a definite idea for my
production.
What could you do to improve this work?
To improve my initial plans, I would add more images to my Creators mood board to make it more visually appealing, although I would make sure not to add too much as to
not make the text appear unimportant. Furthermore, I would ensure that I created all my mind maps using Bubbl.us, as unlike other mind-map website, Bubble.us allows you
to export your work, allowing for clearer images. To improve my Proposal I would add more statistical information to back up my claims about my target audience. Whilst this
is present in my Research slide, by adding some extra detail to my Proposal I would be able to further ensure that what I am stating is correct. Additionally, I would add more
research about the audio behind different openings, as this would help with both creating the intended tone as well as syncing the music up with the visuals.
Do you think you have enough knowledge to proceed?
I believe I do, as I have plenty of my own previous work that I can use for reference and inspiration when creating my project on top of all the existent products and techniques
I have looked into through my Initial Plans. I believe that I have a good knowledge and plans regarding colour, backgrounds, character design, and –thanks to my previous work
with audio; sound mixing/editing.
What further research do you need to do?
Has your idea developed as you have worked on it? If so, how?
Throughout the creation of my own characters, their designs have gone through many changes in order to create appealing looks that complement the characters’
personalities. Additionally, the decision to add extra products such as posters and box-art has come up as I have researched existing products.

Week 2 & 3 - Research
• Focused on research, these weeks allowed me to obtain information on existing products, target audiences, the culture of my animation’s setting as well as what tools I would be using
and why. Most of my research was made up of primary research, which comprised of looking into existing products myself as well as real life inspirations. I also created a survey which I
sent out to multiple groups of people.
• What have I learned from my primary research?
• My primary researched taught me how colour is used in posters. One way it is used is to show the difference between characters. This can portray many things, for example in the Aladdin
poster the blue at the top of the page is used to show the magic of the genie in comparison to the yellows below. These yellows show the theme of wealth in the story. I also learned how
positioning is important to display different things. Again in the Aladdin poster, we see that the antagonist is positioned over the two main humans, showing his power over them.
• My research on animations taught me how important colour design is. The second opening Battle Tendency shows how bright colours can be used to set the tone for a show as well as to
immediately grab the viewer’s attention. Both of the opening animations show how interesting cuts can be used to keep the motion of an animation going, and the action scenes in both
of them showed me how music can be used to emphasise these more pumped-up moments. The trailer showed me how an emphasis on including small details about the story and
characters can help to flesh out a short animation and make the viewer more interested.
• My survey showed me how different people reacted to animation. I learned that animation is enjoyed roughly evenly by both males and females and that my target demographic would
be people in the 16-25 age range. I was able to gather information about how much time people spend with animation as well as their favourite type and in what context they like to see
it. This information backed up my reasoning for creating my animation is the style I wanted to.
• The information I gathered on the culture of Japan allowed me to gain an understanding of the country in which my story is set. Looking at the clothes trends there allowed me to
incorporate aspects of them into my character designs to make them more authentic, and smaller details such as the popular foods gives me more options as to what I can include in my
production. By learning about the architecture, I can make it obvious to the viewer as to where my story is set.
• What have I learned from my secondary research?
• My secondary research taught me about how existing animations have appealed to their target demographics as well as what aspects of these I can incorporate into my own work to
appeal to mine. The variety of shows that I looked at gave me lots of information of multiple target groups, and so I was able to learn that people in my target age range of 16-25 enjoy
action and more detailed artstyles, the style of show I want to create an opening for will appeal to both males and females and so I should have my opening reflect this, and people of
various social classes could enjoy my work.
• What other research could I have conducted to support my project?
• I could have created additionally surveys in order to increase the reliability of my research. Additionally, this would have allowed me to gather info from different groups and compare my
results between surveys. Extra questions could have been asked in these surveys to gather additional information.
• Has my research changed how I will approach my project?
• My research has helped to give me ideas of what I can change to better appeal to my target demographic. This includes what sequences I will include in my animation and when to have
them occur e.g. how many action scenes I will have and what music I will have accompanying them. My character designs have remained largely the same, although the general colours
used in my animation have been directly influenced by the animations that I researched.
• Which aspect of your research do you think is the most successful so far?
• The primary research I conducted on animations has influenced a lot of what I plan to do. The colours used in the Battle Tendency opening have influenced many of my background
designs that I plan to use, the way the visuals in the Again opening change depending on the music and how the audio reflects the visuals has influenced when I will have the action in my
animation. The Golden Wind trailer inspired me to display different aspects and abilities of my characters. Overall, I have found that everything in this section plays an important part in
influencing my work, whilst other sections, although still useful, don’t have quite as much impact. For example, my research on my target demographic has been useful for seeing what
general themes to include in my animation, but I already has a good idea of what I wanted to make, and a lot of these things happened to already appeal to this demographic, likely due
to me being in said demographic myself.

Week 4 & 5 – Pre-Production
• This largely entailed of creating character designs that I would potentially use in my animation. In order
to show my understanding of how different factors of a design are used, I created some slides to
demonstrate how shapes and colours are used in design. These slides go into depth about how colours
and shapes on their own portray different factors as well as how combining multiple shapes and colours
can create different meanings within just a single or even multiple characters.
• What has worked well in your planning?
I believe that I have successfully shown off the different character designs I have created whilst also explaining
why I have included certain feature in them and what their intended meaning is. On each page which displays
a design, I showed the important colours that were used in their designs alongside them and added text
explaining what this means in this design and why I used it. To make sure I could go further in depth into my
designs, I added extra slides after them which explain further what choices I made.
I was also able to create a continency plan and a health & safety assessment, both of which allowed me to be
more organised and prepared for when the time came to being my production. Furthermore, I outlined the
resources that I would be needing to create my project as well as why I needed them. This included both
software, such as Adobe Photoshop, and hardware, such as a graphics tablet. Below the table I labelled how I
was going to ensure that I have all these things as well as what skills and techniques I have learned in my time
working with them. This slide is useful for ensuring that I will be fully prepared for when I need to begin
animating.
I made sure to include planning regarding the side projects that I intended to work on alongside my main
animation. These visually show what I intend to create whilst the accompanying text weighs the pros and cons
of creating something in this style as well as why I chose these certain things.
The storyboard I created, although simple, helped to give me a rough idea of what I intent to include in my
animation. Whilst some changes may occur, the general idea will remain the same. This storyboard focuses on
the basic look the different segments in the animation as well as the movements I intend to use.

• What things have you still got to work on?
I still need to further refine my storyboard, as
although it shows what I intend to do
movement-wise, it doesn’t show any time
stamps or colour. A way to solve this problem
whilst also adding more to what I have already
created would be to create an animatic, which
would more accurately and clearly portray the
time stamps I intend to use.
Additionally, there were some character design
explanations that I feel I could add more detail
to. Furthermore, there may be some characters
that I end up including in my final piece that I
didn’t display here. To fix this, I can add their
designs and details about them into my pre-
production in the time provided to improve on
previous work.

• Have you got a production schedule? How useful do you think it will
be?
I created a production schedule which outlines what I intend to do in each week
of my production. This schedule divides the time I have into either producing or
editing. This will ensure that I have plenty of time to do both. Furthermore, I have
taken into consideration that I may finish with time left over. I have included that I
will use this time to create additional work e.g. posters to accompany my main
animation.
I made sure to add small details to my schedule to ensure that I add small details
that will make my product more professional e.g. smooth transitions. These small
details will make the final piece much better when added together.
This schedule, in conjunction with my contingency planning, ensures that I will be
able to complete my work even in the event of issues arising. This is done to
detailing what I will do to prevent and counteract these actions and well as
showing that I fully intend to spend time outside of college working on my project
so that I can have it done in time to the highest quality.

• How often, if at all, will you review
your planning production?
I fully intend to refer back to my initial
plans, proposal, experiments and pre-
production when conducting my
practical work. This will ensure that I
stick to what I intended to create in the
first place whilst also ensuring that my
work reflects what influenced it e.g.
clothes designs.
It will be especially important to refer
back to my character designs and
storyboard, as these will be the basic
building blocks of my production.
Consistency in designs and movements
is imperative to create an appealing
animation.

• Has anything gone wrong because of poor planning before? Is anything
likely to go wrong now?
I have previously had issues with meeting deadlines for smaller work within
the production e.g. finishing a certain piece of an animation. This is due to
creating weak and flexible schedules. I have counteracted this by created a
far more detailed schedule within my proposal and pre-production to
ensure that I finish each piece of the production within a deadline.
In my music video project, I wasn’t able to start getting footage until quite
late due to my poor planning. In order to avoid this issue, I made sure to
begin production as soon as possible. Due to having all the resources
required already prepared, I had no issue with beginning whenever I
wanted this time round. This is thanks to my Resources slide found in my
pre-production, which lists and explains what I will need.
As previously mentioned, the combination of my contingency planning,
schedule and health& safety risk assessment ensure that I am prepared for
any counterable issue that may arise. By ensuring that I can work from
home, I counteracted the threat of not being able to get into college. The
only issue that may arise is if I somehow got extremely ill, which I have no
signs of.

• What have you learned during the planning stages of this
work?
I have learned that due to my extended time with my own work,
I have a baseline of already having a good idea of what I intend
to create. Furthermore, I have learned how important it is to
have a strong and detailed schedule as well as contingency plan,
as these will allow me to finish my work in the allotted time by
simply following what I intend to do.

Week 5 – Production Experiments
• What did I create?
• I created 5 experiments each exploring different techniques
that I could incorporate into my own work. Each of these
have relevance to my project and how allowed to to greatly
expands the animations that I can utilise.
• How will these help?
• The first animation allowed me to experiment with showing
smaller movements e.g. movements in hands. This will
allow me to add more detail to my animation and give the
viewer a better understanding of how the movements work.
• My second experiment allowed me to try out using hatched
lines and blur to show motion. These can be used in a
variety of ways, ranging from spinning motions to punches
and more. I plan to include a lot of these types of
movements in my animation and so this practice will greatly
help.
• My third experiment allowed me to try incorporating colour
into my animations. I plan to have colour play an important
and always present role in my animation so it is vital that I
learned how to do this.
• My final two experiment allowed me to practice drawing
settings. This includes perspective drawing as well as adding
texture. It is important that I know how to do this as I want
to include setting shots and backgrounds in my animation
which will need to look good.
• How would I improve on my experiments?
• Creating more experiments is always useful, as it would
allow me to further refine my techniques as well as discover
new potential ways of doing thins. This would broaden the
horizon for my project and allow to create things that
further appeal to my target audience.

Daily Reflection – Week 1 Day 1
I began my production by deciding on a sequence that I would
focus my attention on. I decided that this beginning sequence
would be of characters performing some combative actions
with give an initial impression of their looks and abilities. The
reason for starting here was that the movements that I had
planned here were some of the more complex ones I indented
to include, so by beginning here I would be able to put all my
energy into ensuring they were as good as possible.
Additionally, this sequence takes place somewhere in the
middle of the animation, so by beginning here I have a middle
point already decided on, making it easier to structure what I
create next.
I started this sequence by drawing a rough outline of the frames in the first shot of this sequence. This sketch allowed me to create a more refined outline now that I
had an idea of the frame for the images. I made sure to run the animation through whenever I added a new frame to check for any inconsistencies or choppy
animation. Once I had finished the defined outlines for the frames in the shot and I was happy with the look of the animation, I added the basic colour to the images. By
referring back to my pre-production, I was able to ensure that the colour theory in these shots was consistent with what I had planned. Once I had finished the base
colour, I decided on the location of a hypothetical light source and added shading based on it. Adding shading not only makes the images look better, but also gives a
better idea of motion as the shadows move with the character, thus changing shape against the light. By working not only in college but also at home, I was able to
finish an entire shot with all the detail I intended to include. This included a background, which I added on once I had finished animating the character completely. As a
means of transitioning between the shot before this one to this, I added a part of the figure that I plan to use in the previous one to show a connection between the
two. Aditionally, this allows for a smooth transition that feels natural with what is occuring on screen.
The white here is used to show the
bullet’s momentum whilst also
acting as remnants of smoke left
from the gun’s barrel
The movement of the smoke and
lighting around the bullet over the
sequence show the suddenness and
power of the gun’s shotTo the right you can see a couple of the frames from the
shot of influence for my work here. I have made sure that
the designs of the characters are very different, featuring
different clothing, hair, skin colour and colour schemes.
The right image here shows the bullet being spun around
to be shot in another direction. I don’t include this part of
the shot at all, and instead have the shot bullet fly closer to
the screen to cover it. This end, as well as the starting
point with the camera flies around the character, make my
shot work in its own right and have its own unique features
instead of just copying the original shot.

Daily Reflection – Week 1 Days 2&3
• Today I began work on the second shot in
the sequence, which consisted of a
character punching towards the camera.
This animation worked very differently to
the previous one, as it required far more
layers to be involved in each frame. This
was due to the fists having to be drawn on
separate layers to the main body. My
reason for doing this was so I could add a
blur effect to these fist layers, which gave a
better sense of momentum than simply
drawing motion lines around the fists.
• For the basic drawing of the main body and
fists, I followed the same outline as in the
previous animation in day 1. To ensure that
it felt like the whole body was involved
with the punching movement, I made sure
to have the body move with each frame. I
not only made the general body move, but
also changed the positioning of the
features on it to give the impression of the
arms moving at different angles.
Whilst I found this shot particularly time consuming to create, I feel happy with the results. The frames runs smoothly and natur
into one another and the character’s design is recognisable in each frame. An issue that I ran into was that adding the blur effec
the fist layers look a while to render, leading to me being forced to stop working on the animation at regular intervals. However,
decided to take this time to rest my eyes and walk around in order to not cause any minor injuries.
The fists are each created on separate layers to
allow me to blur each of them to different
amounts. This prevents each fist from looking
too similar whilst showing the different speeds
and motions of each independent fist.
The strong shadows used in
the drawing help to make it
more aesthetically pleasing.
Additionally, they help to
make certain features of the
drawing, such as the face,
stand out more to the
viewer.
I used this existing shot as a starting point
for creating this piece. Whilst I am happy
with what I created in terms of the quality
of the animation, I feel that it is too similar
to the original shot. If I have enough time I
will alter this shot so that it is more unique.

Daily Reflection – Week 1 Day 4• The next animation that I planned to make
would involve two separate entities moving at
the same time. An issue that can arise in doing
this is that if the same layers are used to draw
both entities, they could appear to be moving
at the exact same rate, which in this scenario
would make the animation feel unpolished. To
avoid this, I used separate layers to animate the
different things. I first created all the
animations needed for the character, which
mainly consists of their clothes and hair moving
in the wind. I named these layers Frame 1,
Frame 2 etc. To animate the focus of this shot,
which is the plane flying around the person, I
created a separate group of layers that I would
name Plane 1, Plane 2 etc. This prevented any
confusion from arising if I ever needed to go
back and edit certain layers.
• Another challenge that I faced was making the
plane have a sense of powerful momentum.
Due to there not really being any background
to compare the object’s movement to, I had to
come p with another way to show its speed. To
do this, I added lighting and smoke behind its
engines which would alter in shape and size to
show how fast it was going in certain moments.
Furthermore, I included less frames once the
plane had flown past the person in order to
give it a sense of suddenly increasing in speed.
Here, the smoke and lighting changes appearance to show
the different stages of flight the plane is in. The way that
they disperse after the first frame show how this is a
sudden burst of speed.
Overall, I am happy with how this shot turned out. I feel that each
shot I have done so far has had its own unique feature which I
believe keeps the animation feeling fresh and interesting. The
background used is fitting to the character whilst not making it
difficult to make out the person’s design. An improvement that I
would make would be to add extra movement to the character’s
animation, as it appears a little too idle compared to the plane. A
way of doing this would be to add more movement to the hair.
By having the plane fly around the
character, it adds an extra dimension to the
animation, making it feel more realistic.

• I wanted my next shot to have an interesting
transition from the previous shot. This would
need to be well animated whilst making sense
in the context of the characters. I decided that
a good way of doing this would be to involve
metallic clackers and rotating spheres, things
with are representative of their respective
characters. I wanted the clackers to clash
together, covering most of the screen. This
would allow me to make a change in the
background which wouldn’t appear too
jarring. As the clackers bounce off each other,
then transform into rotating spheres. This,
alongside the changed background, give a
clear idea that the focus is changing to a
different character. Upon these spheres
appearing, pink lighting is shown. This lighting
moves independently to the rest of the
animation. I added this lighting in as a
representation of what these spheres do as
well as acting as a way of showing a clear
difference between the spheres and the
clackers. The character themselves moves
onto the screen from below before
disappearing off to the right. The lighting and
spheres still act in this time.
As the drawing of the character involved in this shot is a close-up
of their face, I decided to add extra detail to improve the quality
of the artwork. I am happy with how this entire shot turned out,
and I enjoy the transition between the previous shot and this
one. If I have enough time, I will add similar transitions to the
other shots in this sequence to ensure it is as fluid as possible.
Shading is used to make the hair appear to move with
the spinning motion of the spheres. This helps to give
an idea of how the spheres are moving as well as to
show the character’s connection to them.
The grittier darker pink around the spheres move with
each frame, showing the spinning motion of the balls. This
also helps to show a greater different between the balls
and the clackers previously seen.

Daily Reflection – Week 2 Day 2 & 3For this part of the sequence, I actually remade the animation
completely on the second day of working on it. This was because
although I was happy with the actual animation, I wanted to change
the character’s design in order to make it look better. This mainly
entailed ensuring that the character looked more similar from
different perspectives. Additionally, I made slight changes to their
design, so making these changes was necessary to keep the look
consistent with the design in my pre-production. Similar to the
punching animation I previously created, this shot utlisises a fist
travelling towards the screen. However, this time round the there
was a visual representation of the fist being attached to the body,
whilst the previous punching animation simply showed them as
separate entities. This meant that I had a direct method of showing
the motion of the fist instead of having to add a significant amount
of blur as I did before. I also utilised the technique used in the
shooting animation for showing a sudden burst of speed – the
smoke/shockwave ring. Although its presence is only brief, I found it
very useful in my shooting animation for representing the bullet’s
path of flight. In order to have it seem less powerful that a bullet
being fired, I shortened the duration that I would use the
shockwave when adding it to this animation. I am happy with how
the fist’s motion turned out, although I would have added more
blur to it If I were to improve it, as I think a slight amount would
have made it seem more authentic.
As a way of transitioning to the next shot, I added an opening zipper when the fist makes impact with the screen. This
opens to reveal the background that I plan to use in the next shot. I had trouble finding a good duration for this bit of
animation, as I wanted it to be quick enough for it not to take away from the fast motion of the sequence whilst not
occurring so fast that it’s barely noticeable. I believe that I found a duration that works well in this situation, although the
end of the unzipping animation seems a bit too quick compared to the first part of it. A solution to this would be to add
additional frames to the last part of the unzipping, as I could always speed up the animation in adobe premiere if need be.
Here is an example of the slight change in character design.
Although the changes aren’t too major, it is important to keep
the character designs consistent with what I created in the pre-
production.
The shockwave and blur used to show motion in the
animation. I added the blur behind the fist as a wy
to show where it had previously been. To improve
on this, I would slightly blur the fist itself to
represent air resistance acting on it.
One of the outlines used in my animation. The
heavy use of black in the air creates a strong
contrast between the blue hair and the
background.
One of the frames of the opening
zipper. The green background will act
as the background for the next shot,
and the unzipping transition acts as a
smooth way to cut between shots.

Daily Reflection – Week 2 Day 4• Starting with a close-up, I put a lot of emphasis on the artwork in the early
frames of this shot. I incorporated a falling motion by having the character
move away from the screen whilst turning slowly and showing the air
resistance on their clothes. Creating this blowing effect involved duplicating
the layers and making slight changes to the look of the clothes to indicate
movement.
• The design of the character is consistent with their concept art, and I was able
to draw them at different angles whilst still having it resemble the character’s
look.
• An issue I ran into with this shot was that it wasn’t long enough to fill in the
required time. As a placeholder, I added in some additional frames where not
much movement in going on. If I have enough time, I will go back to this shot
and add in proper frames to improve the quality of the animation.
• To improve on this work, I would definitely spend more time on the frames at
the end if I had enough time to. This would prevent a drop in quality from
occuring in the opening and would keep up the fast paced momentum.
The colours used are very vibrant
to make the look of the shot more
appealing
It is this frame that is only slightly
changed in the placeholder frames added
at the end. Whilst the artwork is good and
in previous frames where more change
were added the frames flowed well, the
quick extra frames added do not maintain
this quality.
This is the shot that I used as a
basis when creating my own. I
feel that my own shot is too
similar to this original one. As a
way to solve this issue as well
as the issue of having to extend
the end of this animation to fill
up time I can create an entirely
new shot to replace this one.

This week began the creation of a new sequence, one
that I had been eager to do since I had planned it out in
my storyboard. This sequence involved two people
facing off against each other, allowing me to create
some interesting movements. I followed the same
creation outline as I had for my previous sequence,
beginning with the general sketch of what I wanted to
create.
I divided this sequence into two main bits, the first of
which I made today. This involved the main antagonist
and his ability charging towards the ‘camera’. In order
to display the intense motion of this movement, I
added in some pink lighting once I had finished the
main drawing. This gave a sense of direction as well as
power in the movement. Furthermore, the use of pink
for this lighting provides strong contrast with the black
and yellow of the ability’s design, making it stand out
amongst the colours. I used a faded brush with a lower
opacity for the lighting so that it didn’t completely
block out the main aspect of the animation.
Additionally, this weaker opacity makes it seem more
like it is actually lighting instead of a physical object. I
plan to add powerful SFX to make this animation even
more bombastic.
Inspired by my previous cuts, I made sure to have the
screen get split in two in this shot to allow for a smooth
transition to the next part of the sequence.
This is the sequence that I used as a starting point for
this animation. I feel that I was able to change the look
of the animation by a decent amount, but I want to
make it look even more different by changing poses
and camera perspectives, which I intend to do should I
have enough time towards the end of my project.

Daily Reflection – Week 3 Day 2• Today I finished up the sequence I started yesterday. I continued from
after the cutting transition, drawing out the outlines for the rest of
the frames. These consisted of another person attacking back at the
previous person. I wanted to create a more graceful motion for this
character’s ability compared to the previous one’s more bombastic
summon. To do this, I created a smooth twisting animation. This
worked to show the more threatening demeanor of the previous
person. This animation concludes with a rush of punches towards the
left. To capture the motion of these punches, I used the same
technique that I had used in my previous punching frame in week 1,
drawing out the fists of separate layers to the body and blurring them
to different amounts. I made sure that the body moved slightly in
each frame to prevent the animation from feeling static.
• I’m very happy with how this sequence turned out, as the frames run
into each other very smoothly whilst capturing the powerful
movements and actions occurring. An improvement that I intend to
make towards the end of the project is to refine the outlines of these
drawings to make them more solid. This will raise the quality of the
artwork whilst making the piece feel more authentic.
The cutting motion works well
as a transition whilst still
keeping up the high paced
momentum of the sequence
The overlapping characters help
to give depth to the sequence.
The blue lighting looks
appealing and works well
to show the line of action
An issue I had with creating my own shot based on
this one as a starting point was that I felt the colours
of the design on screen was too similar to the one in
this original piece. I feel that this is an issue
throughout my whole animation, and so I intend to
go back over by work and alter this design’s look
throughout the animation to make it more unique.

• Today I started on the animations following the sequence I just created. This would
include both a ‘character’ performing an action as well as a setting shot. This first
shot showed a character clapping their hands together whilst a wave of water
comes out towards the screen. This acts as a way of displaying the character’s
ability to make things run in parallel, as rain has ben brought together.
• I wanted to have the clapping work in tune with the lyrics. In the time of this shot,
only two lyrics are said – ‘Don’t care’. In order to sync up the visuals and audio, I
had it so that on the ‘Don’t’, the character’s arms separate, and on the ‘care’ they
clap together.
• To make the transition between this shot and the next less jarring, I had the water
move outwards towards the screen. This worked as a transition as I plan for the
next shot to have rain, so the use of having water cover up the screen makes the
inclusion of more water feel less out of place.
• The next shot is a setting shot, showing the rain in a part of the city in which a
particular part of the story takes place. This shot was particularly time-consuming to
make given its short duration and lack of complex animations. This was due to me
ensuring that the setting looked good art-wise. This involved adding more in depth
shading to the buildings as well as ensuring the perspective remained consistent
throughout the piece. Additionally, I made sure to include more minute details such
as the hands on clocks to make the image feel as authentic as possible.
• I constantly referred back to my mood boards when creating this piece in order to
ensure the drawing had a Japanese look. I decided that it would be better to use my
city references mainly due to the setting being illustrated being a city. Therefore, I
used my images of places like Tokyo for reference, giving the image a more modern
look. However, I made sure to look at both my modern and traditional images to
ensure the image still had a Japanese feel, which I made by including popular
Japanese colours such as red.
• To make the rain animation, I simply drew a few frames of white lines moving down
the screen. Different lines moved different amounts and different speeds, which
made the rain feel more realistic. I then simply replayed these frames multiple
times, as this was the only animation occurring which prevented anything from
repeating when it shouldn't’t have.
• Whilst these two shots are very different in what they are, I feel that they run well
into one another and don’t feel out of place. I am happy with the visual quality of
each both in terms of art-work and animation. An improvement would be to add
more detail to the background of the first animation to fill up the screen more.
Additionally, this could have ben used to make the water stand out more.
The hatched lines in the
outline of the hands help
to give a sense of sudden
movement.
The water works well to
set the tone of the text
shot
A layer of low opacity dark blue is added over the
image to make the setting darker and fit better
with the blue of the water in the previous shot.
The starting point for the first piece on this
slide was very different in design and the
addition of the moving water at the end
made it more unique. However, I feel that the
incredibly short duration that my shot is on
screen for doesn’t warrant its existence given
its resemblance to the original shot. I may
decide to remove it all together.

Daily Reflection – Week 3 Day 4• I began the next shot of my animation, which involves chains rising up from a puddle. To create a smooth transition
between this shot and the previous, I added a zoom in animation to one of the puddles on the ground in the last shot.
Creating this animation involved using a similar technique to animating the rain in the previous shot. After creating the
initial animations showing the chains beginning to rise and move direction, I created 3 frames of them simply moving
upwards. I was then able to repeat these frames for a couple of seconds to give the impression of the chains quickly
moving. I then created separate layers which had two more sets of chains on them. These were coloured differently from
the previous chains to make them stand out more. Whilst also moving upwards, the chains here cross over. This made
them more difficult to animate than the previous chains, as I had to ensure that the overlapping worked properly.
• The move tool was extremely useful for this animation, as being able to move the chains slightly upwards after
duplicating the layer and then drawing in the rest of the chain below allowed me to save a lot of time on drawing.
Additionally, this ensured that the line of movement was as consistent as possible between frames.
• To improve on this animation I would add more movement to the water as compared to the chains they appear
extremely static. A way of having it move at different rates to the chains would be to create two completely separate
animations and then overlap them on Premiere.
• The next animation that I created involved a close-up of a character’s face which moved upwards as his ability comes out
and swipes at the screen, transitioning to the next shot. This animation was very different to create compared to the
other, as although the beginning uses the technique that I had been using for all the other frames, this animation has a
period of just showing lighting. This meant that there was no ink outline to this part of the drawing. To create this
lighting I used a similar technique to what I used on day 1 of this week, using a faded brush and a white-ish yellow to
create a layer of light colour over the image and darker background. By adding more yellows and oranges to the brush, I
was able to create stronger and weaker lighting in different parts of the animation. Additionally, to reflect the ability's
colour design, I made sure to add pink lighting towards the middle of this set of frames. These colours eventually begin
to form the look of the ability, until the image becomes more defined and an ink outline is added.
• I am happy with how this lighting effect turned out, as I believe that it works as a smooth way of not only showing the
summoning of the ability, but also as a way of transitioning to the next shot. To improve on this animation I would
improve the shading on the image when it becomes more detailed and gains an outline, as this would work as a means
making sure the viewer could tell that this is no longer just lighting and is now a physical entity.
The less detailed
outlines help to
show the speed
of the chains and
give them an
unsettling feel
I plan to have
these second
sets of chains
appear in sync
with the lyrics in
the song to give
a more
bombastic
effect
This shot was the starting point for my shot
involving chains. I feel that the use of chains in
my animation fits its theme, something that I
had planned since my mind-maps, but the
movements of said chains too closely resemble
the original shot. I want to alter the movements
to create a more original shot of my own.

Daily Reflection – Week 3 day 5• Today I created the chronologically last shot of my animation. This shot included a hand
reaching up and crushing a ball and then pulling down to the person, followed by the
camera moving upwards and outwards as the character’s ability is summoned. This is
one of the longer shots of my animation, and so I decided to split it up into four
different sections. The first section involved the hand reaching up to the ball. This
animation was mostly easy to create, as the upwards motion of the arm is simple to
make. Animating the hand opening and closing was slightly more complicated as I had to
take each finger’s movements into consideration and how the rest of the hand would
change shape with these movements. However, I didn’t find this too difficult to create
as the angle I used means only the back of the hand is visible. Meaning there was less of
the fingers to animate in some frames. Additionally, I found that by adding smaller lines
to the fingers and back of the hand I could give more realistic textures which helped to
portray how the hand is moving. This also helped to display smaller movements, such as
how the muscles and bones in the hand would move. To create the crushing movement,
I had the fingers quickly close in around the ball in an animation much faster than the
hand opening. I then had the ball split into smaller parts which I then continued to move
outwards via the move tool. By doing this and adding in extra broken parts of the ball, I
was able to create an effect of the ball exploding as of sorts. Additionally to make this
movement seem to be in slow motion, I created a large number of frames. This allowed
me to have the animation take up more time whilst still remaining smooth.
The pink lighting in
the first few
frames sets the
colour scheme for
the rest of the
sequence. The pink
becomes more
dominant on the
screen throughout
the animation
showing its
importance and
influence on the
character. Hatched
lines and blurred
colours are used to
show the motion
of the arm moving
downwards.
I feel that my shots too closely
resemble these starting points
that I used as reference. I want to
completely change these shots to
have the ball being crushed occur
completely differently whilst the
image of the face will be entirely
replaced by a different shot from a
different perspective.

• On this day I went back and created an animation that occurs earlier on in the project.
This animation portrays a different character clutching his head before shattering
glass. When initially creating this animation, I had a moving background where the
colours would change about the screen. However, I found this made the animation
look choppier, and so I decided to take it out and instead focus on the character. The
animation begins with a close-up to capture the confusion on the character’s face as
his hair blows in the wind. To create this blowing effect, I used a fan to see how
hairstyles of different lengths would move in conjunction with wind. I used longer hair
as a reference for this and tried incorporate the movements into this hairstlye. To
make the face as consistent as possible as the camera moves outwards, I duplicated
the layer via the duplication tool in Photoshop and made it smaller. I then filled in the
missing areas and repeated this step for multiple frames. This ensured that none of
these frames would appear out of place. Using this tool also helped to save time to I
could focus on other parts of the animation.
• The next part of the sequence focuses on the character’s gestures and the camera
movement. To make the animation feel as distorted and unnatural as possible, I had
the camera move in unpredictable ways, zooming in and out at regular intervals. To do
this effect, I simply drew the character to fill different proportions of the page for each
frame. The character then turns to the camera and slashes at it. To make the impact
noticeable, I included a frame of bright white/yellow. I then followed this with many
frames of glass shattering. To make the glass look like it is shattering towards the
viewer and away from the person, had the larger glass appear to get ‘thinner’ to show
it gradually turning to be facing the camera side-on and then back around to portray a
full 360 degree rotation. Additionally, I had the light reflect off the glass in different
ways to further show how the glass is spinning as well as to make the piece feel more
authentic. I made sure to include a huge number of frames in this sequence to make
the shattering as smooth as possible.
• Overall I am very happy with how this sequence turned out. The character movement
is smooth and portrays the confusion and unnaturalness that I wanted it to. The
shattering glass is extremely smooth and includes lots of detail to make it feel as
realistic as possible. Additionally, by having the glass shatter towards the screen the
viewer really feels the impact of the glass shattering. I found the duplicate tool very
useful for this animation as it helped to keep consistency in both the character’s
movements as well as the shattering glass. These duplicates mainly acted as a baseline
for me to create a new image.
• A way to improve this animation would be to have a slight glint on the screen
throughout the sequence to show that there is supposed to be glass there. This makes
the shattering make more sense.
A close-up showing the
character’s confusion. I made
sure to make the artwork here
more refined as any low quality
will be more noticeable here.
The lighting on the glass changes between shots,
showing which way the glass shards are facing at
different times.
The starting point that I used for this shot features a
character of completely different design, but very
similar movements. To fix this issue, I want to bring
my character design over to a new shot tat is
completely different from the starting point used as
reference.

Daily Reflection – Week 3 Day 7I created the shot following the previous one today, which consisted of a character
getting dragged into a doorway by back arms. The animation here is possibly the best in
my project, being smooth without diminishing the quality of the art too much.
Additionally, I feel that I was able to fully capture the emotion on the character’s face in
this shot. The black arms in the background share the same colour as the arms of the
black and yellow design found in the animation on week 3 day 1. This shared colour
shows how it is the character who has this ability that is causing this character so feel so
trapped. To ensure these colours were the exact same, I used the eyedropper tool. This
tool has been incredibly useful throughout the animating process for ensuring that
designs use the same colours in different frames.
To create the texture on the walls, I used a custom brush I downloaded called the Maple
Leaf brush. By switching up the opacity and size of my brush, I was able to create an
interesting pattern on the walls. These not only make them more visually appealing, but
the use of a brush that I haven’t used elsewhere makes these walls appear more out of
place and unnatural, which I wanted them to be. As the shot zooms outwards, the wall
gets smaller showing a cluster of colours around it. These colours were also made with a
custom brush called splatter. This also gave this area a unique and out of place feel like
the walls. The bright colours contrast with the darker background to create an
aesthetically pleasing view. Additionally, these colours are made up of the colour
schemes of the main cast, showing how they are all effected by the previously
mentioned character with the black arms.
I am extremely happy with how the first half of this animation turned out, as the
animation is some of the best I have created. The movements were interested and
complicated and thus I am even happier with how smooth it turned out. I had a lot of fun
animation this shot in particular and capturing the character’s panic on their face was an
interesting challenge for me. However, I believe I succeeded in doing so. An
improvement would be to add more frames to the second half of the animation, as the
lower smoothness really shows against the higher quality of the first half of the
animation.
I made sure this
close-up was had
higher quality art as
any low quality
would be more
noticeable here.
The panic on
the character’s
face sets the
tone for the
shot.
The walls
slamming shut
emphasise the
threatening
nature of the
scene.
To create the
zooming out
effect, I used the
duplicate tool and
shrinked the
drawing of the
walls for each
frame.
The shot on the far left is one from a sequence from an existing opening, which
I used as a starting point. My art-style is heavily inspired by Jojo’s Bizarre
Adventure, which I found out has a fan-made animation created based on the
full Fullmetal Alchemist opening with this starting point. I want to improve this
piece by ensuring the visuals have a more clear difference from this fan-made
animation as it was trying to emulate the Jojo’s artstyle, resulting in it looking
similar to my own art.

Daily Reflection – Week 4 Day 1• This next section consists of many still shots that quickly appear and disappear on
the screen. I decided to do this as this section of the opening would have quick
drum beats, and I wanted these shots to be timed with each beat. As these were
still shots, I was able to put more emphasis on the quality of the drawings, even if
they were only going to be noticeable to half a second or so. I used my own work
that I had done previous to this project as reference for drawing the characters in
these shots. These mainly consist of head shots, so poses weren’t too important of
a factor in drawing these.
• To create the shading for these images I used a faded brush in conjunction with
the quick select tool. This tool would select an entire area of one colour that I
would be able to edit, allowing me to shade without worry of going over the other
colours. Additionally, this allowed me to greatly increase the brush size and colour
on just the edges of the selected area. Due to the brush being faded, this would
create a very gradual shading effect around in the selected area. I added to this by
using cross-hatch shading, a method which involves using a very small brush to
created dashed line in shaded areas, with the lines crossing over each other more
depending on how dark the area was supposed to be. Combined with the gradual
colour shading, this allowed the images to look very detailed. I made sure to have
the source of light be consistent in these images.
• To add more movement to this sequence, I had silhouetted versions of the images
appear for an incredibly short amount of time before the more detailed images.
This prevented the sequence from appearing too static. To create this silhouettes, I
simply duplicated the layers for the characters and used the bucket tool to alter
the colours. For each character I chose a colour that reflected them and had this
colour be used for the outline of the images. I then replaced the colours with a jet
black for each design.
• Overall I am happy with how this sequence turned out, as I believe the quality of
the art is good and adding the silhouetted frames makes the sequence not appear
static. I have compared the sequence with the section of the song that I intent
them to occur at and they sync up perfectly with the drum beats.
• To improve on this sequence I would add more interesting and dynamic poses for
each character to act as a quick way of showing off their personalities. I believe
that this would only have been possible if I had had more time, so I still feel happy
with what I have currently. The bucket tool made creating this sequence far easier
than it would have been without it.
One example of a
silhouette changing to
become the coloured
design. This maintains a
sense of movement in
the animation.

• Continuing this day I started on creating the next sequence of my animation. I had been
particularly excited to make this part of the animation as the high octane action alongside the
more bombastic part of the music I plan to use make this sequence one of the most fun parts
of my animation to create. The beginning comprises of the main antagonist back away from
the camera to reveal his ability, which bombastically appears from the bottom of the screen
and charges towards the right, swiping across the screen with its arm. In order to fully display
the speed and intensity of this moment, I used a mix of speed lines and lighting. The speed
lines become more numerous and intense along the duration of the animation. Additionally,
the lighting follows the movement of the ability, travelling upwards and outwards towards the
right of the screen. One moment of the lighting forms a ring which the ability breaks through,
resembling a sonic boom and further emphasising the fast action of the shot. As I Have done
throughout the entire animation, I used a faded brush to create the lighting in this scene. This
lighting was created on a separate layer to everything else so I could compare the scene with
and without it to see how successful I was in emphasising the action.
• The ability cuts the screen into thirds, revealing the next shot of the protagonist revealing his
own ability. The previous transitions that I used inspired me to add a more interesting one in
here too instead of just having a simple jump cut. This transition is not only more interesting,
but the way the screen opens up to the next shot causes the viewer’s eyes to follow the action
from the left of the screen with the first shot to the right with the second one, which then
turns it back round to the middle. This causes the viewer to feel that the entire screen is being
involved in the action, and the fact that their eyes are travelling in simple lines makes the
action easy to follow whilst still using interesting movements. This is possibly the moment I am
most proud of in my animation, as the actual quality of the animation is high and the transition
allows for an interesting cut as well as making the visuals more fun and understandable to the
viewer.
• The actual animation in this second shot is of a high quality like in the previous one, with the
movements this time being far more graceful rather than bombastic. This will give the viewer
an immediate idea of the difference between the two abilities and characters.
• I am overall very happy with how this sequence turned out, with it being my favourite part of
my animation. It works well as a means of appealing to the action demographic of my opening
whilst also displaying good animation.
• An improvement for this sequence would be to add more detail to the background, as the
amount of detail in the characters makes the difference between the two more obvious.
The lighting works well to put an
emphasis on the motions of the
characters.
The blue lighting
again shows the
line of action
whilst having a
clear different
from the yellow
lighting shown
earlier.
This transition
maintains the
flow of the
action and
causes the
viewer’s eyes
to naturally
follow it.
Whilst the art in my piece is very different from the
shot I used as as starting point, some of my
movements too closely resemble the original piece.
I want to alter the camera perspective on these
shots to be more or less zoomed out to give my
piece more originality whilst also altering some
shots to create different movements of my own

Daily Reflection – Week 4 Day 2• Today I was able to create two shots filling up approximately 5 seconds of the opening. The
first shot had a character clapping their hands together with a wave of water emitting from
them. The shot begins with a close-up of one of the character’s eyes, which I used a high
saturation of green to make stand out. As the camera begins to pan out, the face surrounding
the eyes remains encased in shadows by the hands, exaggerating the bright colours of the
eyes. I was able to do this by using a much darker shade of pink in this area, with the brighter
pinks elsewhere emphasising the shadows in this section.
• To show the water quickly moving outwards from the hands, I decide to use a smaller number
of frames. This made the movement of the wave more sudden, and the factor of it moving out
towards the screen makes the viewer feel the impact of it more. This whole shot was quiet
quick to make, with the animations used being rather simple to a lot of the other movements
that I had created. This allowed me to begin another animation.
• The second animation of the day was a setting shot of a part of a city. The only animation
involved in this shot is the rain, which was rather simple to make. The main thing that I had to
focus on was creating the actual setting itself. The perspective used for this drawing is
extremely important, as if it is inconsistent at any point of the drawing it will make the setting
look to be drawn at the wrong angles and out of place. Ensuring that this perspective was
consistent made drawing the setting take quite a while to do. Additionally, I wanted the setting
to have a similar amount of detail as the characters did, which meant using both colour
shading as well as cross-hatch shading. Due to the drawing taking up so much space, this was a
lengthy process.
• My method for creating this shot was to create a layer which decided on a point that I would
use as the base for the perspective. I then drew lines out from this point which I could use as
guidelines. I lowered the opacity of the whole layer and then began to sketch out my setting
on a different layer. I was able to use these guidelines to angle the buildings properly to fit the
planned perspective. I then created another layer to create a smoother outline for the image
with a less sketchy look. This was a quick process as the perspective had already been drawn
out. I followed this up by adding the colours and shading to the image using a separate layer.
Although this whole process was very time consuming, I am happy with how the setting looks
as the perspective is consistent and the look of the setting fits with the artstyle of the
character designs.
• I then had to start on the actual animation of the shot. This was much easier to make than the
setting, as it only consisted of rain which I found was easy to create. The main thing I had to do
was use a small white brush to create angled dashed on the screen. Between frames, I moved
different drops of the rain at different amounts and drew more in to ensure the rain looked
realistic. I then added in ripples to the ground to show the rain making impact with it.
• I am happy with how these animations turned out as although they are simple, they work to
slow the action down after the highly action orientated previous sequence. Additionally, the
shots work well to transition the visuals into the more watery theme I want the following shots
to have. I added in a zoom in to a puddle in the second animation to act as a transition to the
next shot which I feel will work better than simply using a jump cut.
• An improvement would be to improve the look of the ripples on the ground, as I feel the
circles uses are a bit too thick. This especially goes for the ripples in the distance which appear
out of proportion to the rest of the image.
A crisp outline emphasises the bright colours
of the design
The dashed lines in the outline of the hands
help to emphasise the motion.

• The following shot focuses on the themes of chains and again utilise water. The
animation begins with chains rising up from water, which I create by drawing out
the first few layers manually. I made sure to leave to outlines of these chains
more sketch-like to show the speed of the chains in the complete animation of
this shot. I proceeded to create 3 layers showing the chains quickly moving
upwards after they have fully emerged from the puddle and then repeated these
layers to give the impression of the chains constantly moving. This is similar to
the technique I used for the rain in the previous shot. Later into the shot two
more sets of chains emerge from the bottom of the screen. These chains are
coloured differently from the others in order to make them easier to see. They
move diagonally instead of straight up, adding an extra dimension of movement
to the animation. By repeating frames, I was able to create this animation in a
much shorter time than if I had created each frame individually, allowing me to
spend my time on other frames and ensuring they still looked good.
• I then created the next shot which involved the protagonist bringing out his
ability. This shot begins with a close-up of the character’s face, so I made sure it
was properly detailed and shaded in order for it to look good. For the immediate
effect of the ability beginning to come out, I didn’t bother creating an outline and
instead used lighting. This made the animation more unique within the opening
and allowed me to put more focus on the colours. I used bright yellows and pinks
to reflect the ability’s design and had it slowly begin to resemble the shape of
said ability throughout the course of the animation. As the ability becomes more
clear, it begins to gain more of an outline until it fully becomes the ability’s
design. It then swipes across the screen, transitioning to the next shot.
• I am happy with how both of these animations turned out. The first one was
rather easy to make, allowing me to use a simple trick to shorten the amount of
time I had to spend on it. On the other hand, the second animation forced me to
fully detail each frame manually, as I had for the rest of my project. Whilst this
took more time to make than the first shot, I am very happy with how fluid it is
and how well the colours transition into the design. To improve on the first shot,
I would add more movement to the water to show how the chains are affecting
it. For the second shot, I would give the background a darker colour to make the
lighting stand out more.
The clear difference in colour makes all
the sets of chains distinguishable
As previously mentioned, I feel that my version of this shot too
closely resembles the one I used as a starting point. I want to
alter my shot to that the movements are more unique whilst
incorporating additional features e.g. a hand breaking the chains.

• This animation had the protagonist reaching upwards to crush an object, releasing pink
lighting that travels down his arm as it pulls down. I made sure to spend extra time
detailing the hand, as I wanted to make the smaller movements more noticeable to
ensure it always felt like there was movement. I decided to use a lot of black in the arm’s
design to make the lighting stand out more. The art in this shot was quiet simple to make
as I simply followed the same formula as I had for my other shots, but this time only had
to really focus on the arm instead of a whole body. This allowed me to spend more time
making frames for when the ball is crushed. Extra frames allowed me to have the shards
fly out in slow motion whilst not lowering the quality of the animation.
• To animate the arm pulling downwards, I simply duplicated the layer and moved each one
closer towards the bottom right each time I duplicated. This made animating this shot
much quicker do whilst ensuring the arm looked consistent between shots.
• The close-up shot that follows would be more noticeable if any lower quality was there.
This meant I had to spend extra time making the face look good. This included adding
smaller details to the eyes to show the muscles in the eye as well as light reflecting off
them. I used my traditional shading technique of colour and cross-hatch to ensure the
lights and darks were distinct. The line-work in this close-up has an emphasis on not being
sketchy as to make it look more refined. Starting with this shot, the following few have a
pink overlay to them. I did this to convey the feeling that the pink lighting from before is
affecting the character. Additionally, this keeps a consistent tone between these shots.
• The following shot involved using more or less the same technique as the previous one,
having a more detailed close-up which quickly pans out to a medium shot. I included
speed lines in this zoom out to convey a sense of power and to keep the action feeling
high. To create the zooming out effect, I simply duplicated the frames and shrank them
consecutively. Each time I had to add more length to the lines of action.
• Although these shots use a lot of duplicated frames that have been slightly edited, they
aren’t very noticeable due to the fast pace of the shots as well as the fact that these
duplications work well with the nature of the animation occurring to keep the look
consistent. To improve on this sequence I would add more detail to the backgrounds to
establish a setting to this action, or colours that bring out the lighting even more to make
it more noticeable.
There were many shots in this sequence,
including the one show here, that I feel
were too similar to the starting points I
used as reference. To fix this issue, I
would like to change the visuals and
camera perspectives in these shots to
make them more original.

• Today I finished creating the animation for my production. I created some final frames in
order to give the opening a gradual ending. This involved 4 quick shots displaying the title
over the course of them. To add the title to these shots, I grabbed the psd file I had saved of
it and dragged it into these frames. I then made duplicates of the layer and cut the text up
into third, which I then split across the first 3 shots. I did this so that there would be more of
a buildup to showing the title card whilst giving each shot a sense of motion. I was able to
split the text up using the lasso tool. I couldn’t just delete some of the text using the Text
option as the layer had been rasterized to allow for me to edit it whilst creating it.
• The backgrounds used in the first three shots reflecting three characters who act as driving
forces in the story. The first shot shares the colour scheme of the character present in the
mirror shattering sequence earlier. To create this background, I used the bucket tool to fill a
layer in green and then worked on a separate layer to create the purple ‘scales’. To save
time, I created a smaller section of this pattern and then duplicated said section to fill the
screen. I then filled in the gaps manually.
• The second shot was much simpler to make, having a much easier to draw golden diamond
pattern. Within these diamonds are colour-only versions of the antagonist’s abiltiy’s face. I
duplicated the first of these and added them into each diamond. I was able to keep the
background white as this colour scheme reflected the antagonist’s design.
• The third of these shots had a blue background covered in pink butterfly motifs. I used real
life butterflies as reference for these, and similar to the faces in the last shot didn’t bother
with a black outline. I again created on and then duplicated it over the screen. Using the
quick select tool I was able to add shading and textures to both the motifs and the
background. The colours used here reflect the protagonist’s colour scheme.
• Creating the final shot was very time consuming. There are a lot of small details involved such
as each part of the zipper around the butterfly which had me constantly zooming in to
different areas to make them as accurate as possible. Creating the flowers surrounding the
main motif took a long time as well, as I needed to make them work in the perspective of the
image whilst also looking different from one another. However, I feel very happy with the
results of this shot, as the colours work well to grab the viewer’s attention whilst having
additional meaning to them – namedly all the colours used for the flowers reflecting the
colour schemes of the main cast. The shading used in this shot adds extra texture to the
images and makes the screen feel less flat.
• I am overall very happy with this final sequence, as there are a lot of smaller details that the
viewer can notice and the artwork is of good quality. These shots also work to calm down the
high speed pace in the previous shots and gives the animation a fitting ending to stop it from
finishing too abruptly.
• An improvement to these shots would be to add more shading to the flowers and the vines,
as this would make them fit in more with everything else that is shaded in the shot.
The darker shading
added makes the title
stand out more
Each of the
characters are
represented in the
colour schemes and
symbols used.

• Today I started on editing in the audio for my project. For the backing track, I was able
to convert the audio from a song on Youtube where the owner had given permission for
use. I then used Adobe Premiere to edit all my clips together and put this song in over
them. Editing the clips together was an easy process, as I already had a god idea of
when I wanted specific cuts to happening in time with the audio. As I had created the
animation in individual sequences, it was easy for me to move different parts around
when needed. I editing the song down, cutting out certain bits that I didn’t wish to use.
I then ensured that the song’s duration was equal to the duration of the animations and
set out to begin on my SFX.
• I was able to create SFX for water and a rattling noise by using water in a sink and a
keychain respectively. I recorded these using my phone whilst ensuring that there was
no background noise to disrupt the audio. Many of my SFX required me to obtain them
online. I was able to download royalty free SFX off of some websites whilst cutting
down and mixing audio from elsewhere on my own.
• To ensure that the audio synced up properly with the music, I added the raw SFX into
the project is the area they would roughly be used. I then moved and cut the audio
down to fit exactly with the moment it was supposed to work with. This was a quick
process to do as I had obtained these audio clips with specific moments in mind for
each one. Once I had added all the clips in I began work on editing the audio levels. I
was able to edit each SFX individually, which was useful as each one had a different
base volume. I needed to ensure that my SFX were noticeable whilst not making the
music hard to hear. After multiple attempts I was able to reach this point with each SFX.
Additionally, for some of my SFX I wanted to convey the movement of the source of the
sound. I was able to do this through keyframing, a process which allowed me to choose
how much of the audio would be present in each headphone. This makes the viewer
feel much more a part of what is occuring.For the sequence in which the protagonist
and antagonist go at each other, I added in SFX tailored to each one to convey a more
bombastic nature and a more graceful one respectively. This helped to emphasise the
power of the antagonist whilst also showing the differences between the two
characters’ natures.
• I am overall happy with how my audio turned out, as the process for editing it in was
simply and painless. The biggest issue I had was editing the sound levels, which I feel I
successfully managed to do. To improve on this audio I would ensure that I could add in
more SFX of my own creation, as I was forced to use many online SFX.
The entire finished project. By
using different layers to the
backing track and the sfx I was
able to easily make edits.

Improvements Reflection
• There were some sequences and shots in my animation that I
wanted to change in order to have them be more unique and
original. Other changes include ones to make the animations look a
bit better and to fit with the changes made in other areas of the
animation.
• The first change involved completely revamping the first shot where
the character punches at the screen. I decided to make this shot
from scratch to ensure that it was completely original as I didn’t
know how I could alter the initial shot enough. I am happy with the
look of this new shot asnot only is it completely original, but I feel
that the animation of the plantlife growing is smooth and has good
colour design. By having different parts of the plants grow at
different times in the animation (e.g. I had the flowers bloom at
different points) there is always a sense of motion in the animation.
• The flower blooming out towards the camera works well as a
transition to the next shot as the yellow colour of the flower
matches the bright glow used for the start of the next shot.
Additionally, the use of a blooming flower fits the context of the
shot.
• An improvement for this animation would be to include a darker
background to make the bright colours of the plants come out
more.
The shading on the flowers helps to
bring out the lighter colours used.
Additionally,small details such as parts
of the plantlife growing around the
hand help to give the animation a
greater sense of depth and
dimensions.

The change for this shot was less than in the previous
shot as I felt that I could change the movements of the
character to show different angles and perspectives
instead of simply creating a new piece entirely. Instead
of having the character move in from the left in a
medium shot, I decided to have the camera come in
from above and pan around him. The character
proceeds to move off the screen to the bottom left and
appear from the bottom centre, bringing his gun up
and shooting towards the screen. I was able to create
this piece quickly as my time spent on the first version
allowed me to get a lot of practice in drawing the
character. This gave me time to add detailed shading
and a more refined outline to the drawings.
I am happy with how the shot of the character pointing
the gun to the screen turned out as I feel that I was
able to make the gun really pop out from the screen
and feel like it is actually being pointed right at the
viewer.
To improve on this shot I would add more detail to the
first couple of frames as the character doesn’t appear
as detailed as he does in the later parts of the shot.
The strong shadows
make the colours in the
image pop-out against
the green background.

This change was a small one that I
made so that the visuals would work
better with the transition. Having the
fists fly straight out towards the screen
gives it more sense for when they
cover the screen in the transition.
This was also a small change that I
made where I changed the hair and
expression slightly to better match
the character’s concept art. I feel
that this change wasn’t completely
necessary as the differences are
quite small but I thought I might as
well make them as I had the time
to.
A way to improve on these changes
would be to add more sideward
movements to the fists as they appear
to fly in an unnaturally straight line.

• For this shot I completely changed what
occurred. I did this not only to ensure the shot
was more original, but also to allow me to
include one of my characters in my concept art
who I realised I didn’t feature in this animation
aside from an incredibly short shot later. This
animation is quite simple but I feel works well in
terms of how smooth it is. The hair blowing in
the wind has a gradual flow to it whilst the
smoke building up in the background has a
strong resemblance to real life smoke in its
movements. The purple in the smoke shares
the colour scheme of the background whilst still
standing out against it. The brighter colours in
the character’s design instantly makes the
viewer’s eyes get drawn to him, making him the
immediate centre of attention. I am happy with
the shading and linework in the design.
• A way to improve this piece would be to have
the shading on the character move with the
hair, as this would not only give the piece more
movement but also make it look more authentic
and realistic.

• I completely changed the first part of this shot to feature a different character as well as a completely
different style of camerawork. Having the camera pan out of the window to then zoom in on a point
elsewhere gives the piece a constant sense of movement even though the characters mostly stay still.
When the shot is zoomed in on the inside of the buildings, a coffee cup his steaming. I did this to add
more movement to the visuals as I felt they were a bit static. As the camera zooms back in elsewhere,
the character who was featured in the shot that this replaced sits on top of the building. I like the look
of these frames as I was able to create realistic folds in clothes to give the viewer a sense of the
material they are made of. The shadows here make the design more appealing to the viewer. As the
camera zooms in, I was able to increase the quality of the linework in the design. It zooms in to the
face, which turns to the camera as the character slashes at the screen, followed by the shatter glass
animation I had used in the previous version of this shot which was completely original already. The
head turning, although a simple animation, looks good, with the design staying consistent throughout
the frames. The character standing up to slash at the screen doesn’t look jarring either, which I was
worried would occur as I was combining different shots from different sequences. However, by
creating additional in-between frames I was able to solve this issue.
• A way to improve this animation would be to add more shading to the earlier frames to make them
more appealing. I could also add more movement to the character or the background to give the
animation a greater sense of motion.
The dark blue sky in the
background helps to make the
transition between the more
red and brown frames to the
later blues and purples more
natural.

• For this shot I added a few frames to the start in order
to have it involve extra original animation, which
although I had already done for the end of it I felt would
be an improvement. Additionally, I altered the
character’s design to feature different hair in order to
have it be more unique. I altered some of the line work
to further make the design more original including the
hair and the eyes. The general movements in the middle
part of this sequence is still quite close to the work that I
was inspired by, but the different character design and
additionally shots at the beginning and end allow the
animation to have more original and unique features.
• An improvement for these changes would be to add
more detail to the different hair, as there is a lack of
shading and strong outline to the new hair.
The extra frames added
fit the context of the
rest of the sequence
whilst still allowing for
smoothly flowing
visuals.

A lot of the changes in this sequence involved changing the
perspective of the shots used. To do this, I moved the positioning of
the images that I had created in order to have them cover different
parts of the screen as well as different amounts. To the right are two
examples of how I had the characters be further away from the screen
whilst adding extra features to their poses to make the drawings more
original. Whilst the designs of the characters in these frames don’t
look at all like those in the shot I used as a starting point, the gold and
pink one used later in this sequence does look similar. To fix this, I
changed the design to remove the wings and change the colour
scheme to red and pink. I feel that this helps to make the character
look more unique whilst I also enjoy this new colour scheme as I find
that the colours complement each other quite well. I changed the
punching animation at the end to be a more zoomed out view of one
of the designs in the first frames of this sequence attacking the red
and pink one, which is now defending. This not only makes the shot
more original, but also makes the black and yellow design appear
more threatening.
An improvement to these changes would be to add more lines of
action to the punching animation at the end to give a greater sense of
power and speed. A more detailed background would have worked
well to make the sequence more visually appealing.

I completely removed the shot seen to the top
left as I felt it wasn’t needed in the animation
due to its extremely low duration on screen
alongside its close resemblance to what its
starting point. I instead extended the duration
of the following shot to fill in this time slot,
which I feel doesn’t weaken the overall
animation at all.
By simply removing this shot I was able to
spend more time focusing on altering and
improving the other visuals in my animation, so
I feel that this was the right decision to make.

This change maintained the theme of chains being used in
my animation whilst altering the movements of said chains
to make them more original compared to the starting point
I had. Additionally, I added in additional features such as
the hand that comes down to break through the chains and
splash in the water as well as an additional rusty chain
chain has its own movement unique to the other chains as
well as the shot I had used for inspiration initially.
By having the hand splash in the water, I also fix the issue I
previously had of the water appearing too static. The
animation for the splash is very quick but I feel is noticeable
enough for the viewer to understand that the blue is
indeed water.
To improve on this change I would add more chains in the
background moving in different directions to add more
dimensions of movement to the shot.

As I had changed the colour scheme of this design to red
and pink in a previous sequence, I needed to alter it here in
order to be consistent. This was an easy change as I simply
used the bucket tool to go over the different parts. The
earlier frames of the pink and red in this animation are
supposed to resemble a sort of fire effect, which I made
slight changes to in order to have the drawings more
accurate to the movements of fire. There were a couple of
later frames I had that were inspired by some general
movements in from thing such as Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
and Persona to work as a visual representation of an ability
gradually coming out. In order to ensure that these frames
were original and didn’t simply copy these movements, I
had them dominate parts of the screen that from what I
looked through hadn’t really been used in the mentioned
series. The new colour scheme helped to make this piece
more original as I hadn’t seen any designs that used this
sort of look. I changed the first few frames as well to
improve originality whilst also utilising a different
perspective, as the face-on look I initially had here would
be quite similar to one of the changes I made to a later
shot.
An improvement would
be to add a darker
background to make the
flames stand out more.

• The shot of the hand reaching up to grab the ball
has now been replaced by a shot of a ball on a
surface with a hand smashing down into it,
sending shards flying out of it. This change keeps
the general idea of the previous version of this
shot whilst utilising completely original visuals.
This new version allowed me to use shadows in a
more interesting way, as the shadow of the arm
gradually gets stronger as it gets nearer. The
scratchy shading in this shot gives it a more gritty
feel compared to the rest of the animation which
is a feeling I wanted to instill on the viewer. The
shading on the sphere itself is realistic as to how
shading on spheres actually works, with a small
bit of light appearing on the bottom of it due to
reflection. Additionally, this shading is consistent
with the other shadows in the shot.
• The shattering of the ball gives the piece a
constant feeling of motion and does so in a
bombastic and sudden way, keeping up the
tension and speed of the animation.
A way to improve this shot
would be to add more details
to the flying shards to have
them match the grittier
aesthetic of the rest of the
things in the shot.

• The later frames of this sequence were already original,
so I was able to focus on changing the earlier frames
which I felt too closely resembled the shots used in the
starting point product. I switched out the moving arm
for a shot of previous versions of the protagonist’s
ability appearing to transform into one-another until
transforming into the character himself, who now faces
the camera in a different pose to how he did in the
previous version of this shot. I had the pink overlay be
present in this entire sequence to allow these new
changes to still fit with the later frames.
• I am happy with these changes as they are not only
more original than the ones I had before, but also flow
well into one-another. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to
create the effect of the designs at the start seeming to
morph into each-other but I am happy with how it
turned out. The designs themselves are again original
and I feel that they are aesthetically pleasing whilst
having consistent features between them to show their
resemblance (e.g. the pink/red tufts)
•
To improve on this sequence further I would add more
detail to the background, as although the pink overlay
helps to hide this factor, the background is extremely
lacking in detail.

Changed fmp production reflection

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