Enjoying Life Drawing

 Showing are my favourite life drawings that I made in the past two weeks. I never used to feel comfortable doing life drawings or showing them to anyone, but after some encouragement I can now point out which parts I excel in. I do a lot better when I make a sketch in pencil and then shade with charcoal, at least if I want to make my drawings neat and detailed.

Be Prepared To Step Up

 Starting a new year at university, naturally the fresher's flu begins to spread from student to student and naturally I happen to catch it, even though I'm not a fresher. It hasn't been an easy first week back. I may have had worse colds than this to the point where I can't get out of bed, but doing work whilst feeling like s**t isn't a nice feeling.

 I'm talking about my cold because whilst I complained that I couldn't do work up to professional standard this week because I was ill, everyone else had the same cold as me and got on with it, still providing good work whilst being sick. I don't know whether colds affect me more or if I'm just lazy but either way, as I get closer going into the professional working world, I have to learn to keep working no matter what state I'm in.

 As I'm talking to people who have worked in the animation or illustration industry, I'm slowly realising that you need to learn to provide constant high-standard work for the company you work for or for your own business if you want to go far in these industries. Of course there are circumstances where you have no choice but to lay off work for a bit! But if it's just a cold, you still have to do something. Yes, many companies say that your work is not as important as your health, but let's face it, they'll be pretty impressed if you still give everything you got into your work when you feel like you're at death's door! At least that's what I've learned from other people working in 'the real world'.

 I had to draw parts of an animatic and do some storyboards this week and they did not look good at all. They were lazy and inconsistent compared to the rest of the animatic made by other students in my team. If other students can make high quality work when they're ill, then why shouldn't I? It's a really cruel thing to learn, but it's the price artists pay when they want to be the best at what they do.

Can Animation Be Naturalistic?

 After one lecture the course got from a visiting animator, he claimed that we should forget about intimidating real life in our animated films. There are so many creative possibilities you can do in animation that there's no point in using it if you're only going to be like live-action. He is both right and wrong.

 Why shouldn't you be more creative than usual if you're making an animated film? You are making everything from scratch and the possibilities are endless. Many films in the past have used animation to their advantage and created scenarios that would never work in live-action. Mind Game (2004) and Sita Sings the Blues (2008) are examples that showcased a weird mixture of animation techniques to tell their story. It gives the movie an identity that can be remembered by the audience for years to come.

 But I'd like to argue that some of the best animated films out there have quiet naturalistic moments or feel like a live-action movie in animated form. Examples of these movies are Anomalisa (2015), My Life as a Courgette (2016), Only Yesterday (1991) and many other moments from Disney, Pixar and Studio Ghibli movies. It was even Disney who started the trend of making hyper-realistic animation for their feature films, rising in popularity over the rivalling Fleischer Studios.

 Many people argue that there's no point in making an animated film if it can easily be done in live-action, but to me that's not the case at all! I believe that a film would be so much more memorable if it was animated, creating images that'll last in your mind longer than a live-action film. Because like with every other film, if the story's not good, then nothing else matters. You can have the best animation, best actors or best score, but if the story isn't good then nobody will care about the rest. Your animated film which is there purely to be visual creative would be a spectacle for the audience to appreciate, but never connect to. These naturalistic animated films are still fondly talked about because the creator's made an effort to give the audience a chance to empathise, instead of be distracted. Sita Sings the Blues is a visually creative film but also a hilarious re-telling of the Ramayana that parallels with the story of the director's break up. The visuals add to the story!

 That doesn't mean I don't agree with everything the visiting lecturer said! I do agree that you should make creative decisions for your animated film. If it's more realistic in story then tell it in a visually pleasing way. Give it a style that nobody else has done before. Make it slightly fantastical if you want to! But I don't agree that you should avoid making realistic animated films or putting quiet moments in animated films. If the story is worth telling, you can make it animated, and there's nobody stopping you!

The Ten Finger Pitch

 One job I've always been interested in trying out is screenwriting, and not just screenwriting for animation. I've been doing an online course for screenwriting in the past two weeks and I've just finished it. At first I didn't know how to turn my notes into a full screenplay, it seemed very intimidating to do so, until they taught me about the Ten Finger Pitch.

 Some of you may already know about the Ten Finger Pitch if you've done screenwriting lessons before or have spoken on screenwriting forums. The Ten finger Pitch is a tactic to help understand the story of your soon-to-be screenplay, by drawing a a diagram of two hands and writing what happens in the fingers and thumbs.


The left hand contains these elements:

Pinky: Genre - What genre is the project?

Ring: Protagonist - Who is the main character of your project?

Middle: Goal - What is your protagonist's goal of the story?

Index: Obstacle - What obstacle does the protagonist have to face to achieve their goal?

Thumb: What's Important - Why is this story so important to tell?


And the right contains these elements:

Thumb: First Act - What happens in the first act? Plot points tend to be less dramatic here.

Index: Midpoint - This isn't necessarily the middle of the film. When does the plot change? Does the protagonist decide something life-changing, or did something happen to them?

Middle: Crisis - What then goes wrong in the story?

Ring: Realisation - When does the protagonist realise they have to step up or fight back or make a choice?

Pinky: Climax - What happens in near the end of the film. How did the protagonist's realisation affect the ending?


 This tactic really helped me figure out what happens in my stories before I made a beat sheet or synopsis for them. It tends to work with three-act structured scripts, but I highly recommend trying it out anyway if you're ever stuck on structuring a screenplay.

Back at it again for Year 2!

My second year of studying Animation and VFX has finally begun and I am so ready to do more work! Which means I'll be posting on this blog regularly again! I'm sorry for not posting as much in the summer like I said I would. Good luck to everyone starting another school year! And if you're not in school, good luck anyway! I'm sure you need it for something.

Animaniacs Fandom Stories?

Are you or have you been part of the Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Tiny Toons, Freakazoid or Looney Tunes fandom (basically any Warner Bros. animation fandom)? 

Do you have any interesting memories, experiences or stories to tell about these fandoms, whether they be exciting, wonderful, spiteful or scary?

If you do, DM me immediately! Or whenever you can. As someone who loves researching into fandom culture, I intend to know more about these fandoms since I'm already part of them. No matter how old you are, whether your kids like these shows or how long you've been in these fandoms, I'd love to know what you have to say about them.

If you're reading this post years since it was posted, still contact me if you have any stories. Chances are I'll still be interested in them years to come.

Umm...Rocky Horror Bugs?

I realised I haven't posted much work on here in a while despite saying that I would…so here's Bugs Bunny in Rocky Horror drag. If musicals were remade as cartoons, he would make a good Dr Frank.

Animation Showreel Jan - April 2017

My latest showreel (which I also put on YouTube) showing the animation exercises I did for this semester:

- Title sequence animatic and effects

- 2D background shot

- Experimental short involving animation and live-action

- Stop motion exercises

- Life drawings

- Stop motion films involving lip synch

Toonish Art

 I love the classic cartoon style (hence why this blog got a re-design), which also means I love classic cartoon characters. I've been on a kick of watching some old shorts and it's no surprise why they're classics. These characters are just so likeable! 

 So here's some toonish fanart I did for Betty Boop, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Felix the Cat. Bendy and Cuphead are here too since I still love playing Bendy and the Ink Machine and can't wait for chapter three, and the release date for Cuphead has just been released on E3, which is SO exciting!

The Betty Boop fanart is an experiment, mixing my traditional sketch with digital colouring. The fanart with the boys was where I decided to play around with lighting, and I just thought the whole thing looked so adorable!

The digital artworks are also on my Deviantart: http://louisethesim.deviantart.com

 I don't usually show people my Deviantart since there's artwork on there from when I was a teenager and I hate most of them, but you can have a look if you're interested.

The Importance of the Editor

 A lot of people forget that editing is a crucial job in making a film, mainly because it's unnoticeable in the final product, and that's a good thing. If the editing is noticeable to the audience and doesn't flow as naturally as it should, it's probably not good editing. Editing is meant to be hidden, in order to immerse the audience into the film and forget they are watching a man-made product.

 Live-action editors are usually introduced in post-production, where the footage and audio is handed to them and they, along with the director's guidance, take control of how the film will be pieced together to create an immersive illusion. They have a lot of responsibility in making the film work.

 Animation editors do the same as live-action editors but are deemed   by others to have an easier job than live-action editors. All they have to do it put the finished pieces of animation together along with it's sound, right? 

 But the success of making an animated film resides on the decisions of the pre-production team and how they they plan the script and storyboards. The story is the most important part of any creative art. If the story or visuals aren't  perfect during production, live-action filmmakers can go back to pre-production to  take things out or put things in before they can reshoot the scenes. In animation however, 'reshooting' isn't an option. The pre-production teams have more pressure on them to make the script and storyboards right the first time before the animation process, as re-animting a scene can add more time and money to the budget. So in order to make sure the story and visuals are just right, the editor is brought on from the very beginning. The editor can add an extra opinion on the story as they already have an understanding of how film is put together. If something in the script doesn't add up in their head, they can talk about it to the directors, storyboard artists and even the writers. The editor's input saves time in remaking animated segments and makes it easier for the pieces to be put together in post-production. Animation editors don't necessarily have a harder job than live-action editors, but they feel pressure to make the film work from the very beginning.

 Animation can most definitely be edited, but we rather don't want to as we don't want hours of work from the animators going to waste. Editors overall do have a crucial job, but a very rewarding one when they see the final film becoming the illusion it was meant to be. Editing is a process that I myself am very interested in, especially editing in animation, as I can then have a say in the story, which in itself is exciting! I think I know what I really want to do in this industry now...