Words about animation, photography, art, creativity, football + occasional ramblings from other life stuff • See my work here: floramartyr.com • Hyperlinks in RED
As I had quite a few blank horse templates left over from my animation workshop I hosted back in early September, I decided to have a bit of fun with them.
There was one frame I did as an example for the workshop (I made some as examples to help people get inspiration) which I really liked and wanted to know how it might look if I did it for all twelve frames of the sequence:
It's a pattern I use quite a lot whenever I need to do things which involve a pattern- I am aware it's fairly time consuming, but I think it makes a pretty cool effect. You can click the above to make the image bigger, but in essence, it's thick, straight lines making a random several sided shapes, each filled in with thinner straight lines which follow the direction of one of the sides of the shape. I don't know how much sense that description makes, but not sure how else to describe it!
Anyway, I created the piece across a number of days, as doing lots of these in a row was quite hard going! I do love the end result and can assure you it was worth the time and effort, or at least for me it was. I really like how the shapes move within the horse, giving the piece some depth and movement. It was the effect I was after.
This was kind of a 'filler' piece while I work on a couple of other more 'serious' things- well, some rotoscoped pieces and also a short (animated) film which I'm writing/ directing- though more on that soon...
My most recent piece of embroidery. This was using one of the free DMC patterns- they have loads of cool designs on their website you can download and print off.
I wanted to try something more complex and more detailed (and bigger) than I've ever done before and I feel I satisfied that in making this piece. It was the first time of using long and short stitch, too. At first, I didn't feel it was working very well and I nearly gave up (what was I even thinking), but I made myself persist and I was actually really happy with the result. And WILL be using that stitch again! I legit need to get over the 'oh, it's not looking perfect right now, so I should stop' frame of mind, especially when I'm only half way (or not even that sometimes) through a piece. I do this with my animation all the time, too! I'd say it's better to finish a piece and it not be quite as perfect as you've imagined (it's usually better than you expect anyway), than have loads of unfinished pieces incase they don't end up 'perfect'. Must remember this going forward...
I'd say it's probably my best piece yet, I really like how neat it turned out and I love the mix of colours (even though some of these were 'off-piste' from the original pattern as I didn't have all of the exact thread numbers it advised, so I kind of had to add lib).
I've already started my next piece, one of my own designs this time, so watch this space!
Yes, the title you are reading is indeed correct- I did!! And I still can't believe it. A week ago today, I finished a 7.5 month full time gig on a feature film- 'Apollo 10 1/2', Richard Linklater's latest rotoscoped project.
His films, especially 'Waking Life' have been really influential to me and showed me a side of animation I didn't know existed and basically got me started on this whole animation thing way back when. So to now have worked on one of his films feels pretty surreal and never did I imagine I'd have the opportunity to do so. Half of me still thinks that this has been some mad kind of lucid dream!
The experience was an amazing one- I learned so much and worked with loads of super talented and cool people. At times it was challenging, but with such a supportive team of animators around me, I overcame any of the shots I was struggling with and believe it or not, picked up some self belief/ confidence along the way.
I can't wait for you all to be able to see it when it's released (it's gonna look amazing)- it should be on Netflix early next year, though when there is a date and/ or trailer, I'll definitely be posting that here!
Here is me with a j20 (don't drink), pictured shortly after finishing my last shot on the film. Sad that it's ended, but happy that it happened. Here's to the future and hopefully to working on more similar projects x
Those eagle-eyed out there will notice that I have removed the word 'test' between the word 'EbSynth' and the number in the title here. This is because I feel that I'm not really testing the software anymore, I am now just using it. I have had so much practise with it in my job, I am now competent with it, so I guess anything like this would be more of an experiment, rather than a test. Because I am experimenting with different mediums for the keyframes etc, rather than 'testing' the software. I hope that makes sense!
So for this piece, I had the urge to make a keyframe (which will translate into the final look of the animation) using felt tip pens. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but because of work and football, I haven't had that much time to make new roto outlines for a new piece. Therefore meaning I haven't been able to experiment with different techniques. I then thought, well whatevs, I'll just use some old outlines for now as I really wanted to make this clip! I had no intention of posting it anywhere anyway (probably b/c I thought it might turn out rubbish- jesus wept my confidence in my ability is literally rubbish: note to self- this needs work!), so thought that using old outlines wouldn't matter. (Spoiler alert: the piece came out great so I did end up posting it places and you know what? No one cancelled me for using outlines I had already used on a different project)!
I printed out one of the frames from the outlines, attached a piece of tracing paper (this was so the keyframe wouldn't have any of the outlines on) and coloured it in:
I then scanned this in, imported it into my TVPaint outlines file, adjusted it so it fitted within the outlines. Then put it through EbSynth. Note: this post isn't a tutorial in using EbSynth- but I might do one of those eventually. So apologies if this doesn't quite follow.
There wasn't loads to touch up on this piece actually, which I thought there might have been. This is because how I have been using EbSynth for work has been using keyframes/ styleframes created digitally, which is why I was a little uncertain how this result using an analogue medium would look. I needn't have worried.
And, I absolutely love the result, so definitely more analogue EbSynth stuff on the way...
A week or so ago, you may remember I said I was hosting an animation workshop as part of the Collective Weekender happening in Preston. It was a four day mini arts/ creative festival which took place in various locations around the city celebrating the variety of talent and artists living in Preston. There were loads of workshops and performances open to the public and more importantly, all FREE. Free arts is something I am a big advocate of, because I feel arts should be accessible for all, regardless of your financial situation or background. There's so many barriers in the arts and I could go on, but that is probably for a whole other blog post!
Here's the result of what we created:
Unfortunately no one besides my boyfriend turned up for the event (which was still super fun as we had a brilliant afternoon drawing horses together!), but quite disappointing on the whole. I put a lot of planning and preparation into the workshop and in all honesty it was quite an anticlimax when I realised that I wasn't going to get any attendees. Perhaps it was because of timing- I mean a Thursday afternoon might not have been the best time for this kind of thing. Or maybe I didn't promote it enough (though there's only so much I can/ want to spam my IG/ Twitter accounts). Or perhaps lack of friends in Preston (maybe I should spend less time in my room animating and do more socialising). That thought scares me..!
Whatever the cause was, on sharing the final outcome from the workshop on social media after the event, I had a lot of positive feedback which makes me think that next time I do something like this, more people will show up. Plus over the course of the weekend I met a lot of other Preston creatives by attending several of the events, so I feel like I have since widened my network.
Me in my element. Look at that smile!
The other events I attended were the Cyanotype workshop with photographer Nicola Lewis-Dixon. This was really fun as I've never done one of these before (basically cameraless photography). I'd love to try this out more in my own time.
Cyanotype workshop
The writing workshop hosted by writer and filmmaker Su Moffat. I've not attended many writing workshops (or at least not as an adult- I remember a few when I was a kid) so I didn't quite know what to expect. Though Su was really good at encouraging ideas and offered some great tips/ prompts for improving creative writing and pulling out a story.
The other event I went to was the portrait painting workshop with artist Sally Dyer. I've not painted in a way which isn't abstract for quite a few years, so this was a fantastic workshop to get back into painting. Sally was great and offered as much or as little advice you needed or wanted. Unfortunately I didn't quite finish mine in the timeframe, but the workshop was really enjoyable and relaxing and has definitely inspired me to start painting again!
Still went for abstract colours though didn't I
If I had the time, I would have loved to have attended more of these events- they all sounded fantastic and from the photographs afterwards, they looked great, too! I really hope this momentum and community of creativity in Preston continues, because it actually feels really good and positive at the moment.
Talking of which, there is actually SO MUCH GOING ON IN PRESTON right now and it's all so cool!! If this ain't the place to be in the North West right now, I don't know where is.
We got a Wallace and Gromit bench installed:
Lancashire Encounter is happening right now. Head here for the line up. There's also a lot of top class poetry/ comedy/ performances coming up, hosted by Enjoy the Show events promotion. Preston has also just released it's 12 year cultural strategy- read more about that here.
Embroidery in August has been slightly slow (work, football and other stuff which happens in life have been obstacles), but I did get this one piece completed, which I'm really happy with. It's a gift for a friend who has recently given birth, so a colourful alphabet seemed an appropriate thing to sew for hanging in the baby's room. The design is pretty minimal, but I feel the simplicity of it combined with the bright colours (DMC threads are the best!) make it a really impactful piece.
Not only this, but I have also sorted out my sewing box, which was a HUGE MESS! Like threads tangled and cotton reels flying everywhere. Hopefully this will encourage me to embroider even more- it is something I love doing alongside animation and football as it's still creative/ productive, but also super relaxing and fun. Perhaps I should combine the above and make an embroidered football themed animation?! Maybe- I'm sure I'll write about it on here if I do...
I know I’ve been quite quiet on the animation front lately, BUT (and that’s a big one) I am hosting an animation workshop next Thursday (9th September) at The Larder.
The workshop is a drop in from 1-3pm, where you can be part of a BIG collaborative animation. Also, you don’t need any prior animation experience- just the enthusiasm to create! How cool is that?! All materials and assistance will be provided. Hot drinks and refreshments are available to be purchased at the venue- would recommend!
This is part of the #collectiveweekender, a 4 day creative festival across Preston, celebrating the diversity of the creativity that goes on in and around Preston.
The events range from photography to poetry, from dance to drawing and EVERYTHING (yep, everything) in between!
To see a full list of events and to book your FREE places, click here. To see all the creatives involved, click here.
On Sunday 4th July (yep, I know, I've been very busy so a late post here!), my partner Ben and I decided that because of limited football options that day, we would go and do something completely different: watch some car racing at Shelsley Walsh Hill Climb. Shelsley Walsh is situated in the middle of nowhere (you know, the type of place with no phone signal) around 11 miles west of Worcester. Worcester was where I grew up and we used to see some interesting cars going past our house whenever there was an event on at Shelsley, though we didn't have a car (you can't get to it on public transport) so was never able to go. So, being back in the area that weekend, I suggested it as an idea.
Luckily, there was an event on (vintage cars, even better) so we just went for it! It was reasonably priced too, at £16 per adult for a day ticket if bought before the event (it's more on the day). The gates open for spectators around 8am and I think the races finish around 5pm, so it's definitely good value for money. We didn't quite know what to expect, so only allowed time for 3-4 hours there, though if we were to go again to anything similar, I'd like to stay for longer. There was so much to photograph!
One of the benefits of it being 'in the middle of nowhere' was that the track was nestled within the countryside, making for extremely photogenic views. As I'm usually used to photographing football, this was quite a change in that respect and it took some time to get my eye in. After a while, I knew what type of shots would work (and what would not) and ended up with some pictures I was very pleased with.
It's definitely something I would love to go back to, whether that be at the same location (or elsewhere), though I don't think it will take over from the football..!
…And shortly after that, I started working on another. In between then and now, I got a full time gig animating on a super amazing project, I bought some shoes which don’t have holes in and I learnt how to use EbSynth. I also painted all of the 103 frames for this second hand-painted piece, along with having drawn all the outlines frame by frame in TVPaint.
The hand painted frames (some of)
So, the title of this post is called ‘EbSynth Test #2’ and you’re probably thinking, ‘right, so she’s pretty much done all the leg work for this, why is she even talking about her new obsession in this blog post’?
The outlines
Ok, so I basically didn’t want the outlines or the paint work to have gone to waste, but at the moment, realistically I would never have found the time to produce a piece in the same way I did the first painted one. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to practise colouring with EbSynth. Using it ‘just’ to colour a clip still saves a load of time (it literally took hours to scan and clean up all the individual painted frames in the previous one).
Side note: I am currently working on a piece to get smooth outlines using EbSynth- once I’ve managed that, then there’ll be a post here, so keep an eye out in the next few weeks!
Having the outlines down already put me in an advantage, because it meant I could give EbSynth something more workable to urm, well, work with. Also, another side note: I coloured in her facial features in TVPaint such as eyes, brows, lips etc as I was working quite small when painting this piece and knew painting all that detail would have added on a lot more hours. If I were to do the keyframes again, I would have painted everything as I would only be needing to paint it a couple of times, as opposed to 103.
As you can see above, I exported the PNG sequence of both the video file and some of the outlines for EbSynth. Having a solid outline for it to follow, I’m assuming made it easier for EbSynth to give a cleaner output. I also brightened the video slightly, along with adding a little contrast, to make it stand out more.
Once I knew what PNG sequence I’d be putting into EbSynth, I needed to create the keyframes. Like I said at the start of this post, I had already painted all the frames, so it was a case of picking out a couple and scanning those, rather than all of them. As this shot has a head movement and an arm movement, I wanted to make two keys which would give EbSynth enough information of each.
I made keys of the first frame and the last frame:
Frame 1 (with outlines)
Frame 103, no outlines (what I fed to EbSynth)
I scanned in the painted frames at 1200dpi and then exported the outlines from TVP of the relevant frames to Photoshop (this would act as a guide so I could resize the painted versions to match the outlines). Here, I cleaned up some blemishes on the paint work and also erased the white paper surrounds. EbSynth works well with an alpha channel and I didn’t want to sit there afterwards and remove the background of 103 frames or it totally would have defeated the object of using EbSynth. If I removed the background for the keyframes, EbSynth would use that information and keep those sections as an alpha channel too. Cowabunga, dude!
Once I had nice clean versions of the keys, I ran them through EbSynth and waited patiently for it to work it’s magic and 10 or 20 mins later (my computer is crazy slow) I had the frames ready to import back into TVP. Also, with the keys, I switched off the outline layers before inputting them to EbSynth. This was so there wouldn’t be an outline on those layers, as it wasn’t needed and would have made it look messy.
I had no idea how it would turn out, but wow I was happy with the result. It was a lot cleaner than I was expecting. Though it definitely still needed touching up in places:
Ignore the pink background- that’s just a placement background as a neutral colour to allow me to see the bits I needed to clean up better. Most of it was a case of just erasing the parts which came out of frame, though there were some bits (mainly on her hand) where EbSynth completely missed the mark. To fill these in, I used the cut brush and made a custom brush from it, allowing me to use the right colour and texture from the painted frames without the new bits standing out or looking weird. Think of it like the clone tool in Photoshop basically.
Where it missed on her hand
I also added the shading using EbSynth which I did on a separate layer. I used 3 keyframes for this and then blended them together. I don’t really add shading to my work mainly due to time constraints, though of course EbSynth allows me to add shading without much extra effort. And I must admit it looks a lot better than the stuff I’ve done previously without shading. So shading is going on everything from now on!
An improvement for this would be that perhaps I could have added the shading as I painted it or digitally added it in a more painterly way. Or even used a blend mode to make it feel more ingrained. Anyway...
So what does this mean for an independent animator like myself?
The big one: it saves so much time! I can get more done in a shorter amount of time, allowing me to spend more time focussing on style, look and story, as opposed to that energy going into drawing each frame. It literally is a game changer! To make an independent short or feature, it will really help speed the process up, meaning I could make something in a fraction of the time it would normally take. How cool is that?!
I also don’t think a program like this will be something which takes jobs away from animators. As I have just outlined here, a lot of human work is still needed to create an effective piece. Yes, it speeds up the work, but just think of how a program like this can help the independent feature and short film industry. Less time to produce work = less cost to make work = more independent work produced without having to rely on funding = more diverse, cool, interesting animations. Win.
Ps. I know this post was kind of long- I hope I was able to explain everything in a fairly concise or at least clear manner. If you’ve any questions after reading this on EbSynth or my process, then just drop them below and I’ll try and answer as best as I can.
As a person obsessed with power station cooling towers and non-league football, what could be better than watching a match with a cooling tower demolition taking place with a game in progress?
Answer: nothing.
And this was exactly what myself, my partner Ben and several other football ground enthusiasts had the pleasure of witnessing last weekend. What a spectacular and unique sight!
I had watched a game previously at Ravenhill Park early 2020, which you may or may not remember from this blog post and I already thought that was a fantastic experience, especially with a rainbow popping up over the towers towards the end of the match. Having done a little research into the towers since, I discovered that they were to be demolished. Sadly, this is happening to most cooling towers up and down the country once the power station is decommissioned, often to make way for houses. I say 'sadly' here, because personally I adore the architecture of the things and find them really iconic.
I kept a close watch on when this date might be by Googling it every month or so (totally normal behaviour) as I had been keen to watch a demolition for a while (more normal behaviour), as I was slightly frustrated that I missed the Iron Bridge cooling tower demolition a few years ago.
The date and time were finally confirmed as 11am on Sunday 6th June 2021. This also coincided with a home game for Sunday league side Brereton Lion. I honestly didn't think the game would go ahead at this location as it might have been in the exclusion zone, but as the date drew closer, it became apparent that the fixture would go ahead at said venue.
As a Brereton Lion home game was off the week before due to the away team not being able to raise a team (these things happen all the time in Sunday league), driving the 88 mile journey down felt a little risky. Neither of the teams have a social media presence, so the match being on was never confirmed, other than that what was stated on fixture website Full Time FA. We decided to persist, because either way we would get to see a demolition, the football match being a bonus.
We were delighted when arriving at the ground to see that the game was on. Then we just had to wait. And wait some more. And then wait again. It was slightly delayed, tension and nerves mounting (I did not want to mess up these photographs)!
And then:
Within around 10 seconds they were gone. The game momentarily paused as the towers crumbled, then carried on like nothing happened. The game finished 1-3 (Dormans being the away side).
I doubt I'll ever witness anything like this again and for so many things to align to get these photographs, it really was spectacular and something I will never forget.
