Relevence to the Industry and Technical Approaches


Disclaimer: Much of this was taken from the pre-production blog, found her, however, it has also been expanded upon with critical reflection. 

I felt that it was important to reflect on my work, as well as take a look back at the studios and work that inspired me to create my animation, and see the relevance of my work to the industry that I am building a body of work to present to potential employers post-university.
Studio Mir
Studio Mir is a South Korean Animation company based in Seoul. Among other works, the studio animated most of the American TV series The Legend of Korra, the fourth season of The Boondocks, the Netflix series Voltron: Legendary Defender and Lego Elves: Secrets of Elvendale.

They first came to my attention while watching the animated series The Legend of Korra. The visual style was incredibly appealing to me. the character had such an ability to leave an impression upon me. As such, I was captivated and wanted to research further.

This further research helped influence my own visual style, as well as give me an insight into the production process they use. I want to apply this knowledge of the industry in my own practice. to help me prepare for the industry.

Image result for voltron legendary defender
Image result for legend of korra

WIT studios

WIT studio is a Japanese animation company that began in 2012, under the guise of Production I.G. They rose to fame with the release of Attack on Titan in 2013. Since then they have released such series such as "Seraph of the end" and "kabeneri of the iron fortress".

Besides my interest in their series that they have produced. I researched further into this company as to see an alternate point of view, as I felt that the company may employ different ways of approaching pre-production.

WIT studios visual style often uses a large amount of colour theory to help set a scene. The character designs also use a large emphasis on semiotics in the design to help tell the character's story.

Image result for Ymir under the stars
Related image


Powerhour Animation Studios

Powerhouse Animation Studios, Inc. is an Austin, Texas-based animation studio founded in April 2001. They created the Netflix Series Castlevania, as well as working on other productions, including Marvel comics video game "Avengers: initiative".

This Studio focuses on a more western audience, although it isn't afraid to take creative risks, and reap the reward from them. Working for a company like this would be a good stepping stone to a potential global career. It would be good for me as their primary focus is character design and narrative, all of which my own practices are specialised in.

Related image
Image result for Avengers: Initiative game

Equipment Used



All Equipment researched and used is industry standard equipment and relevant to my practice.


ToonBoom Harmony: Toon boom is great for 2D animation, with its timeline function, onion skin, layers, and brushes. However, some of the illustrative functions are lacking in other programs. Allows for alterations in FPS. I did not really utilise this program very much during the course of my production, as i found that everything I needed to create, could be done for the most part in CSP. That being said in future I will try to utilise the programs more sophisticated camera functions.


Photoshop CS6: Photoshop is good for photo manipulation and 2D Illustration. It will be good for creating photo bashes for quick concept art. It also has more layer options and better brush tools than Toonboom, however, has little to no Animation Functions. I used Photoshop to create all the backgrounds for my animation. It has some very sophisticated filter functions that allowed me to blur backgrounds and add noise, as this they were being blurred by an actual camera.


 Premiere Pro: Premiere will the program used to edit my Animatic, add sound design, and export the final render of the Animation. Premier was the primary program that was used to cut together my final animation. It also let me edit them in the sound design. It was also the program that I used to export and render my final animation. 


CLIP STUDIO PAINT: CSP offers the best of ToonBoom with the best of Photoshop, it has a huge archive of illustrative tools, perhaps more so than photoshop, with nearly all the abilities that ToonBoom has to offer, including the timeline, onion skins, and FPS alterations. Whatsmore, all work on CSP can be saved as PSD's, Harmony files and even can encode its own animations and work for render, although that part of the programs is somewhat lacking. This means that any work is done in CSP, or any work done outside of the program can be opened and worked on in CSP. Clip studio is employed by many productions studios, such as AG, WIT studios amongst others.



Why NOT ToonBoom Harmony?
I have chosen to do most of my work in Clip Studio paint as opposed to its industry competitor toonboom. The reason for this is that the toon boom lacks in its illustration capabilities, and therefore would limit my ability to draw my character. Clip studio paint doesn't limit these abilities so it will be easier to create dynamic scenes and characters expressions that I would otherwise struggle to produce in toonboom. 

 Does the Industry use CLIP STUDIO??

Here is a list of Contemporary Animation studios that use this software: 

 https://artananimation.com

 https://k-areo.carbonmade.com

 https://mecha-ude.com

 www.productionig.com

 http://www.witstudio.co.jp/

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