Ever After High

 11/10/17

Ever After High is a webisode series that centres on the high school lives of teenage sons and daughters of fairy tale characters and creatures. The series focuses on the rivalry between Apple White; Daughter of Snow White who wishes to follow her destiny and become queen, and Raven Queen; Daughter of the Evil Queen who doesn't want to follow in her mother's evil footsteps and create her own destiny.

The series is created by Guru, a Canadian animation studio that's also responsible for "Paw Patrol", "The Backyadigans" and the 3D re-imagined "Babar". 

     

Guru uses "Harmony" animation software to create their cartoons but this is the first time they created a 2D animation with it. 50 characters were created, which included 1000 different builds and 90 layers per character for each strand of hair and each item of clothing.

What I like about this series is the colourful and creative characters and how each of their designs tie in to their fairy tale stories. The style of animation is quite unique combining frame by frame and advanced cut out animation with beautiful backgrounds to set the fairy tale scene.

The reason why I wanted to animate

To put it simply this scene:

Jodi Benson 'Part of your World' The Little Mermaid -1989

'The Little Mermaid' was the first 2D animated film I ever watched and has stuck with me all these years, but it was this scene that made me want to draw for a living and eventually become an animator. It's also where my obsession with mermaids came from! I love the way Ariel swims so gracefully and naturally, like this was how any mermaid would swim and the way her hair moves underwater is just beautiful. Because of this one scene Glen Keane became one of my all time heroes and one day a fellow animator I would love to meet.  

Study Task 1

Study Task 1

Why you did you choose to study on the program?

1. I wanted to be an animator since I was a child.

2. I want to create my own cartoon tv series for young adults like the ones that inspired me. to become an animator (i.e Teen Titans, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, etc).

3. To expand my knowledge and skills in 2D animation and perfect my own animating skills.

4. To one day to work on at least one Disney Feature Length Animated Film (on character design, story-boarding, character animation).

5. To inspire a new generation of artists and future animators. 


What do you want to learn during your time on the program?

1. Learn how to animate in traditional and digital 2D animation style.

2. Character Design, Story-Boarding, Character Animation, and Photoshop.

3. How to write, layout, animate and pitch a pilot episode for a cartoon series.

4. Develop my communication skills to talk to professionals, become more confident in myself and my work.

5. Improve my drawing skills and develop more of my own style.


What skills do you think are your strengths?

1. Proportion - I have done quite a lot of Life Drawing classes and have studied how the 
human body moves and where every body part should be.

2. Expressions - I find drawing expressions very enjoyable, especially any angry expression (it's the eyebrows!) so I have a good idea how to draw how a character is feeling.

3.Story-telling - I've been writing stories since I was a young girl and before that, I would make stories up with my dolls and teddies. Its something I have always enjoyed and something I want to continue doing but writing never seemed like enough, so animating was the next obvious step for me.

4. Creating Characters - I have characters that I created when I was 10 years old and I still draw them to this day, improve their stories, their traits, their good qualities and they're bad. I like to think of them as old friends that you are always learning new things about.

5. I have a good amount of knowledge on Colour Theory, I know what colours work best with each other and how colours affect the mood of a scene, drawing, etc.


What things do you want to improve?

1. My drawing style - I normally draw women because it's what I know best, so I want to improve my drawing skills in drawing male characters too.

2. Improve my knowledge of other animation companies besides Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and other big league animation companies.

3. Social Media Skills - I've had DeviantArt account for 6 years and a Tumblr account for 2 and have not used either of them to their full potential and they are both a good way to get recognised all over the world as that's how I found many animators and artists that have inspired me and I wish to do the same.

4. My confidence, I find it very hard to talk to a large group of people.

5. Myself as a professional practioner.