Today, our case sharing student, Huining, who has transferred from illustration to animation major to study abroad for master's degree, still won six offers, including a scholarship of 3500 pounds, from RCA, LCC, Kingston, Coventry, Bournemouth University, and Central Lancashire University. Today, Natural Light takes you to share her collection of professional animation works, to see how she integrates rich creative techniques with interlaced ideas, and further sublimates her understanding of animation by combining her original professional advantages.
From illustration to animation master's portfolio creation experience:
Chapter 1: From Guangmei Illustration to RCA and LCC Animation
For some students, it may be a risky decision to change from illustration to animation master, and to change to art study abroad at the master's stage, because most of the applicants we face at this time are likely to be competitors who have had solid professional ability for four years of undergraduate education, There are also many professional players who have studied abroad since their undergraduate courses.
We have met many students who have made up their minds after repeated entanglement and comparison before changing their majors; But at the same time, we also met some students who decided to change their majors due to "brain fever of consciousness". Huining belongs to the former - in the eyes of professional teachers, Huining is a student with a "deep heart".
Because of the background of Guangmei's illustration major, Huining had a very solid painting and hand painting ability before coming to the natural light. And she decided to change her major early in the morning, and started at the moment when she made up her mind Portfolio training Planning preparation.
Collected Works of Huining
This is a great advantage for Huining: on the one hand, she has more time for learning and space for independent improvement; On the other hand, the animation major, like illustration, is a great test of students' painting ability, and the non-stop painting creation during the art examination and undergraduate period also keeps Huining's hand painting skills at a high level all the time; Thirdly, some of the illustration creation during Huining's undergraduate period has begun to consciously bias towards the animation profession itself, so Huining himself has a preliminary understanding of the animation profession.
Collected Works of Huining
However, like all the students who applied for art study abroad, Huining also faces obvious "disadvantages". Although he has independently learned about animation, it is two different majors after all. Huining's animation foundation is still weak, so it must be supplemented.
On the other hand, when communicating with her, the teacher also found that her "story telling" ability, logic building ability, and creative divergence ability are also relatively simple. Animation emphasizes "storytelling", which is often the same as novels, and can even be said to be another form of visualization of novels or stories.
These all require the creator to have a strong logical ability, as well as the ability to create stories. Where is the transition required; How to grasp the rhythm of the story; How to highlight the emotion of the characters and the background of the story requires the strong control of the creator. For illustration majors, these may be relatively vague professional concepts, so from the beginning, the courses for Huining are synchronized with animation basics, speculative design, design thinking, audio-visual language, etc.
Collected Works of Huining
Chapter 2: The opposite of hard work is "getting"
During the learning of animation basics, Huining first completed the basic courses of MAYA, NUKE and other software with professional teachers, and mastered the "skill conditions" of animation creation. Later, the teacher decided to lead her from a more basic interface, and then gradually deepen to be able to model independently and create 3D models.
From the beginning of learning the production of basic models, to learning the UV and mapping of models, to learning lights, rendering and synthesis; Another example is the professional basic knowledge related to animation, such as animation movement rules, the fate of the camera and how to tell stories. These courses are all the foundation that Huining needs to supplement before the beginning of his portfolio courses.
Collected Works of Huining
This is a hard process, even very boring. On the one hand, it requires a lot of training to make perfect; On the other hand, it is also necessary to carry out thinking training that cannot be quantified for improvement. However, Huining and the teacher both know that there is no shortcut and skill to take this step, and we must lay a solid foundation before we can start the following work. Because just like the importance of hand painting in illustration, these basic operations are the prerequisite for animation.
In the process of these courses, Huining is still studying at school, which is very stressful. But as the teacher said, Huining is a "bottomless" student, so even if he often needs to stay up late to adjust the rhythm of school and portfolio courses, Huining They are also able to cooperate well with the teaching administration teachers and professional teachers, which is also the key to the smooth progress of the course.
Animation majors emphasize the ability to shape creativity and also need strong technical support. Only when you have a good psychological foundation can you complete the preliminary training courses in a planned, arranged and targeted way in a relatively short time and start the creation of works collection smoothly.
Collected Works of Huining
Chapter 3: Have ideas and have more ability to support ideas
At the beginning of the learning stage of the work collection, the teacher first led Huining to create from 2D animation to help her better understand animation and understand how her ideas can be expressed and presented in the form of animation.
Therefore, the first theme work, "The Light Chaser", combines many students' "attempts" and "understanding" of animation, and fully combines Huining's own feelings and imagination.
This animation is mainly created by computer frame by frame drawing, combined with the texture of hand printed copperplate. The texture shaping of copperplate painting is no stranger to Huining, whose original specialty was illustration, and the teacher just saw Huining's ability to control the original specialty firmly, so that she could help her combine the creative advantages of the original specialty, transition from illustration to animation, and make this fusion expression.
This interdisciplinary portfolio creation method can not only amplify Huining's own advantages, but also is the student ability that many art schools value when reviewing portfolios, especially the RCA applied by Huining Royal College of Art And LCC London School of Communication are both schools that attach great importance to students' innovative ability and dare to try new ideas.
Collected Works of Huining
Huining can achieve such excellence in the first project of the work collection. In fact, it is inseparable from the initial curriculum planning and training methods. During the preliminary training, Huining is a combination of "skill training" and "thinking training", and this work is just the practice and implementation of the "achievements" of the previous courses.
This work itself combines Huining's full emotion, rich understanding of animation, and creative expression, so that the whole work can become more layered and deep. At the same time, for the applicants, they can not only let the schools see their own ideas, but also let them see the applicants' ability to freely use/integrate different majors.
Huining hopes to describe a picture in this way: from the relationship between people and time and life goals as the starting point, to imply that everyone is a puppet led by time.
As "puppets", our life has an end, but the vast time relative to us is eternal. Although people are always lamenting the ruthlessness of time, most people do not realize that they are actually living a life of drifting with the tide and are gradually becoming the "puppet" of time; I always complain about the unfairness of time, but I ignore my cowardice.
Among them, the texture of copperplate painting is chosen as the creation language. Another main reason is that its production and the richness of media are stronger than other paintings. For example, the ups and downs of prints can be more clearly presented on the screen.
In addition, there is another point that this texture is difficult to imitate in all other pen painting methods. The purpose of considering this painting method is to open the gap with general painting in terms of visual novelty.
Therefore, Huining's first work combines the strengths of both traditional and non-traditional painting, and while preserving the texture of illustration, it can also make animation give viewers a new visual experience.
In the process of this project, especially in the choice of creative expression, Huining and his teacher made repeated attempts and experiments.
At the beginning, Huining was a little worried about making mistakes. As the teacher who guided her to create, she did not directly give her the answers she wanted or very clear guidance, but "allowed" Huining to "make mistakes".
Let her try to use different creative media and methods to paint, to feel the different experiences brought by the creative methods from her own perspective, and to compare and review with her at different times and process nodes. Finally, under the guidance of the teacher, Huining also found the most suitable expression for this work.
Huining's second animation video is a 3D animation project. The idea of the story is to express that most people have been confined in a mold since childhood. Such confinement will eventually lead us to become what the society wants us to become when we grow up, and everyone can't express their own characteristics and ideas freely.
Under such a given premise, only those wild horses who often "get out of control" can have the ambition and courage to gallop and want to get rid of the cage set for them by others, so as to become the real "self".
Collected Works of Huining
In the process of growth, we often have to pay various costs, some of which may require us to abandon our own principles. And what is particularly scary is that many times, when we put down our past principles, we will not resist, will not resist, and even sometimes, we are not aware of it.
In Huining's opinion, these cages that restrict personal development need to be broken. Everyone should have more personal space, more independent consciousness and ideas, so that they can show themselves on a better platform.
Compared with the first "traditional" and "honest" creation, this project is obviously more bold and experimental. It is not only a deep transition from 2D to 3D, but also deepens the display of Huining's creative expression.
During the process of this project, Huining and his teacher had repeated discussions and attempts, but it was different from the discussion on materials in the first project. Because this work was more creative and experimental, Huining and his teacher hoped to use a way that could highlight "inspiration" more.
Secondly, the difficulty of this work also lies in the control of the story. In this work, Huining proposed a larger concept, that is, "people should have ideas and break through the shackles in order to better be true to themselves". This concept appears in many students' works, so Huining needs to interpret it in his own way.
With the first project as the foundation, the teacher guided Huining to deepen the development of the project. At the same time, in order to show more of Huining's diverse creative ability and ideas, the work decided to show in 3D.
In Huining's application for a master's degree in animation from illustration, her "confidence" is the prerequisite for everything to go smoothly, while the teacher of natural light is the assistant to help her accumulate energy bit by bit. From the supplement of professional foundation, to software skills learning, to creative divergence, story creation thinking improvement, comprehensive curriculum planning for multiple abilities, Only when you know what you want can you get what you expect.
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