The Animator

The completed background fight scene. As the fighting is taking place in the dawn, I have played with lighting on both sides to create torches and fires. I think it worked out incredibly well, especially when viewed from a distance. I’m also very happy with the illusion I helped create as the thick of the army fades into the distance. 

Once the charcoal had been finished, the lighting elements helped add a lot of depth to the mural. I especially liked how the lighting helped create force in the third picture in this set. 

I added a warm lighting effect to the fires in the background too, and found that this helped to add a lot more depth as well. I’ve learnt a lot on this project, especially about how light can easily influence your perception of distance.

I really like the way this went. With all of use working as a team on the shading, making tweaks here and there and keeping it consistent, it turned into something really fantastic, that I think we can all be proud of. 

I really like the mixed tones and the dynamic lighting that was beginning to form around the figures, especially my two soldiers in the foreground.

Progression shots from the Mural. After Inking, we covered the paper with a layer of charcoal, and using rubbers, began blending and erasing it to create a shadow over the figures and background. I really enjoyed doing this, as it lets me play around a lot with lighting effects and minimalism styles.

Not sure if I’ve posted this before, but these are a collection of my 10, 5 and 3 second motion drawings from Life Drawing. I really enjoyed doing these as I found they helped a lot with working out fluid motions and quick keyframing when animating. 

A few more completed shots of the inked characters. I really felt like I got a good chance to play and experiment with proportions here, which I’ve been concerned about for a while. However, I feel that its gotten a lot easier to accurately work out the height of characters without basing them off a model now. 

Some more development shots. the team was working pretty hard here. We added in some background terrain to keep the characters in perspective and to help bring some life into the image. So far, I am really happy with it. I feel that I have definitely improved with the Life Drawing sessions we have had and look forward to getting my teeth stuck into more of it later.

Another few updates from the Mural session. Work was continuing at a steady pace by this point. 

A section of a mural I drew for my life drawing class at uni. We had to make a giant battlefield and fill it with warriors to demonstrate our abilities of depth perception, teamwork and figure drawing. This is a battle taking place in the background, and I tried to use a minimal technique to create the illusion of a vast collection of Pikemen and other soldiers. 

The completed animation for the Royal Armories. It is designed to be an informative video about the Mustached Helmet, and created to be interesting for all ages, from young children through to adults.  I have gained a lot of experience in screenplay, producing and directing during this project, as I had to work as part of a team. There were ups and downs, but in the end I feel we’ve produced something that we can truly be proud of. 

Credits where they are due :

Directed and Produced by William Padgett:
www.youtube.com/user/Vallhemn

Animation by Anthony Price : 
www.clayos.co.uk

Backgrounds by Jack Gray : 
www.youtube.com/user/MrCurlypanda

Voiceover Work by Tom Kerin : 
www.youtube.com/user/thesingingmute

Musical Score by Sam Greenwood:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sambethyname