Rough Animation & Backgrounds

Journal Entry 1 - Oct. 31, 2023

By the end of this week, I am hoping to finish the majority of the backgrounds for the
animatic/animation. Also, I have been referring to my mentors occasionally to help in decisions
regarding composition and art directory, providing useful suggestions to improve my work. With
the few weeks that I have been contributing to this project, I predict that time and balancing my
other coursework will prove to be difficult. Moving forward, I will need to prioritize adequate time
management in order to complete my capstone project in an efficient and satisfactory manner.
As I progress further, I will organize and create scripts for the animation tutorials for the product
side of the project, being posted to youtube. Regarding the service portion, it may need to be
twisted slightly due to complications. Many animal shelters are currently not accepting
volunteers until the middle or end of november, hindering my original idea to collaborate with the
institution. Thankfully, I have a back-up substitute, as I will be working with the Animal Support
Club in raising awareness, creating artwork, and volunteering in school events. I will continue to
attempt to look for volunteer opportunities in this field, however, if I am unsuccessful then the
back-up is a good alternative. With reference to my capstone project, I have completed all of the
story boarding outlining the camera angles, desired movements, and colour shifts throughout
the entire ‘story’; albeit there will likely be some minor changes throughout. Additionally, I have
started on a rough animatic, and completed major portions of the main character’s design, as
well as a few backgrounds. While working on these pieces, I exhibited creative and critical
thinking skills, personal awareness, communication, decision-making, planning, and
organization.
With the program that I am utilizing, Procreate, I learned about additional features to
optimize my work ethic and comfortability. Likewise, one of my mentors provided insight on the
main habits and issues regarding mental health, expanding my view and knowledge regarding
this complicated topic. I wish to convey a good message with my understanding and plan to
continue seeking guidance from both mentors. Moreover, I have created a youtube channel and
instagram account to aid in the awareness surrounding the issue and topic of my capstone. A
challenge I ran into was figuring out the editing program. I did an animation test by utilizing the
program ‘Capcut’, a simple yet effective editing software that possesses many features to aid in
creating videos. However, when I exported the animation test through Capcut, there was a
noticeable drop in the quality of the video. I have watched a couple tutorials outlining solutions,
and I plan to work around this obstacle by employing multiple tests to achieve a solution. From
now and until the next blog update, I hope to have completed all of the background and the
majority of the animations. After that, the coloring and editing process will begin. This is a
project that I am very passionate about, and it is my wish to create something that I am proud
of, hopefully making a positive impact on the community along the way.
Here are a few samples of my progress - more images are posted on my website with better
quality: