Rhia Crouch's Blog

Our collaboration project was designed to give us an understanding of what it is like to work with other people on an animation similar to working at a studio. We had to work together and relay on eachother to complete the tasks that we were each given so that we had a finished animation at the end of the project. I feel that the project has helped me see how much you have to work with other people in the animation business as well as how much pressure you are under to deliver on time. This project was a lot of fun to do but was also a challenge that has made me think about my strengths and weaknesses and how they might impact my future projects, along with making me think how far I've come and what else I need to do to show that I can create high quality work. I think that my main strength was that I was able to finished my jobs pretty quickly and was able to help out the others in my group when they needed someone to take off some of the load of their work, such as with the a...

When Not To Swim: Waste from Rhia Crouch on Vimeo . This is the skit that I worked on for my group's animation "When Not To Swim". The skit that I worked on was "When Not To Swim - Waste" in which our character swims out of the water but comes out covered in the goop that was in the water. I know that the animation is a little fast near the end and that I could have moved the camera to a different spot but I had a number of technical issues that ate in to my time, like Maya crashing to the water moving off screen for no reason.

Walk Cycle test from Rhia Crouch on Vimeo . Been trying to work on Moom's walk for a skit but I'm not sure what else to do before I put him in to the screen so I can work out him swimming and coming out of the water. He is meant to walk as if he is weigh down by the goo and also wobbels a little bit. I know the eyes are off and there seems to be a phantom animation going on with his right hand that I can't work out.

Wave Deformer Test from Rhia Crouch on Vimeo .  This is a set of tests I have done to try out the wave deformer in Maya. This was so that my group could figure out a way to show the water in our animation. I did a number of different ideas that we had had so that we could get an understanding of how they would look as well as showing the inner works of the deformer.

Water test from Rhia Crouch on Vimeo . This is a test for the water that will be used in my group's animation. The wave effect was created by moving the vertices up and down at different points. The water will sit at the front of the screen and act like an image plane, we got the idea from the water that is used in stage shows. The plan I had to make to work out how the vertices would move

Waste Storybroad Tsunami Storybroad  Waste - For the waste skit our vicorian gentleman is swimming along to shore but when he gets out he is covered in goop. He tries to walk off screen but it is clear that the goop is weighing him down abit. Tsunami - In the tsunami one the vicorian gentleman is getting ready to jump in to the water but suddenly a large wave comes in to shot and knock him backwares off screen. After the screen has been filled with water for a few seconds the vicorian gentlman comes back in to shot swimming along as normal.

This is the script for my group's animation. The main point of the script is to out line what is happening in each screen, such as what the characters are doing, along with saying what types of shots and transitions are going to be used. When Not to Swim 2 by Rhia Crouch on Scribd

Tide is Out Storybroad Crocodile Storybroad  Here are some more storybroads that I have done for my groups' "When Not To Swim" animation. One of them is a redesign of an idea that we had before but got changed after some feedback. For the "When Not To Swim - Tide Is Out" skit our Victorian Gentleman appears wearing an old diving suit. When he goes to jump in the water goes out revealing that it was shallow, his head hits the floor and his whole body falls back over, however, he still tries to swim as normal even if their is no water. We chose to redo the "When Not To Swim - Crocodile" scene when we got some feedback about how we could play it out differently. Our Victorian Gentleman would be swimming along as but a Crocodile would suddenly appear under him, lifting him out of the water as he still tries to swim along.

Crocodile Storybroad Piranha Storybroad Rubber Ring Storybroad 3 storybroads for some of my team's animation ideas. These are to visually show how the jokes with our character would play out and if need be need to be changed. The first shows our idea for "When Not To Swim - Crocodile". The Victorian Gentleman jumps off the edge of a pier but lands in a Crocodile's mouth, he stops in mid air and tries to 'swim' his way out before the Crocodile snaps it's mouth closed. The second is "When Not To Swim - Piranha". This one is a bit simpler to understand than the others. Our character is happly swiming along but as he gets out of the water a Piranha is shown to be bitting his butt. The last one is "When Not To Swim - Rubber Ring". The idea for the rubber ring is that the Victorian Gentleman walks to the breach and pulls the cord, but the rubber ring start to inflate too much and covers his body. Afterwards, he walks in ...

For our acting lesson we set about trying to understand how our character would hold themselves so that when it came to animating them we had a better idea of what needed to be done. In our group we gave each other a scene and we had to work out how our Victorian gentleman would act at that moment, some where easier than others and most of the time we noted that some of the poses could be repeated or adjusted. Fixing tie (Alex) Giving flowers (Me and Alex) Standing with sword (Alex) Sitting and watching a play (Me and Alex) Looking up at something (Jess) Shocked/ horroified (Alex)

Before our acting lesson I sketched out some of the ideas we had for our animation so that I could understand the body language we where planing to use for our character. This got us thinking about the smaller details about the character we are planning to use, a Victorian gentleman, and what ways we could add to his stiff upper lip attitude so that the audience can get an understanding of what type of person they are. This lead us to thinking about the way that they would walk, hold themselves or do the smallest of actions as they move from scene to scene. After looking at images of some Victorian gentleman we each tried to hold ourselves like they were doing so that we could take reference images of each other and use them at a later date when it came to thinking about how we would draw the character and animation them.

For our animation we had to think about what type of character would be fit in with the "When not to swim" scenarios we were coming up with as this would help design the world's art style. It would also help us when we are starting to animated the character as would have a ruff idea of how that type of character would move. My Character Ideas: Victorian Explorer - Everwhere he goes he thinks that he is still in Africa. Victorian Strong Man - Classic big upper body with fur pants. Idiot Teenager - The type that copies things off of Youtube or Jackass because it looked cool, even if the video said not to. Mr Bean like character - Stupidity just follows them around. Average Joe - Just an everyday man who is just the victim of the scenario.

For our collaboration project we had to split a number of roles between the four of us. This way we can spread the work load evenly and to also understand how it would be working in a studio and relaying on other people. My job roles are: Layout Artist Storyboard Artist Screenwriter Compositer Marketing Manager

For our collaboration project we have been put into groups and come up with a studio name. We have also created a blog to show off our work together. Our Studio name is..... Last Laugh Animations http://lastlaughanimations.blogspot.co.uk/

With the start of our second year in Computer Animation Arts we have been put in to groups so that we can work together on creating an animated short. This way we can get an understanding of working in a studio like environment as well as working with other people and sharing ideas. The people I will be working alongside are: Laura, Alexis and Jess For our animation we were given a prompt that we had to come up with ideas for following the theme of comedy. Our prompt is: “When not to......” We all decided that we would all go away and think up some of our own ideas for this and show them to each other the next day. The ones that I was able to think up were: ....Play a ball game ....Point out/ see a spider ....Get on a rollercoaster ....Get a hair cut ....Go on holiday ....Bring your Girlfriend/ Boyfriend home ....Juggle ....Pop the question ....Die ....Dine and dash ....Get a tattoo ....Go on a diet ....Google yourself ....Swim ....Sneezes ....Change ch...