Tia Whitehead - BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts

Reflective Statement: After over a year of working on my graduate film I can now say that I have finished it and that I have also finished university. It is very strange to say as I have spent three years of my life working closely with friends and lecturers on animation and to now say that it has all come to an end is slightly daunting. Three years has flown by and although I have found some parts of university hard, I can say that I have enjoyed every minute of it. From learning new things, to meeting new and very talented people, this has all allowed for me to blossom as an artist and see who I am as an individual. A lot of hard work and time has gone into my graduate film, 'Little Monster' and although it is about something very personal to me, my type one diabetes, I am hoping that by creating this animation a lot more people will become educated around the disease and help anybody that they know that may be struggling with it. I am proud to be able to say that I have c...

I feel that from the beginning of my project, Minor has shown how I am able to transfer my creative skills into many different areas. I have created characters, scenes and assets, as well as scripts, an art of document and different animatics. I have also been able to experiment with the use of textures on my models using Photoshop files, bump maps and lighting techniques. These are a few skills that I hope to show more of during my Major project and final animation as I am looking at a future career as a CG texture artist. I do feel that I have created each part of my Minor project successfully but I do believe that there is always room for improvement. I originally started this project within my Premise project in 2019. I had a few different ideas before I chose the final one but I believed that choosing a project that was more personal to me made it easier for me to incorporate my emotions into the character and narrative. While coming up with different ideas for the animati...

When I started this project I had two different ideas from which I was thinking about creating an animation. One was about my Type One Diabetes and how I came to find that I have it, and the other was living with my sister who has ADHD. At first I was indecisive over which I would prefer to choose but I believed creating an animation about my diabetes and my experiences of having it was more suitable as it was more personal to me. When the project began I spent a lot of time coming up with the original concept for it, which was having me as a character and going through the different stages of my life with diabetes. I found it hard at first to not be too literal when creating a step by step plan of what to include, but with some help, I came up with my final idea which I believe is a much more successful and interesting version.  When it came to designing characters we had gone down from the original character number being 2 or 3, to being 1. This character is the pe...

Collaboration For this project we were give the brief to respond to the statement 'When not to....' We were told that for the final submission we would need to create a play blasted animation that had to be between 30 seconds and 2 minutes long and that we also had to use the 3D pre-made Moom rigs as our characters. After brainstorming many ideas, we came up with a 'When not to.... Interfere' idea which is what we based our final animation on.  I believe that one of the first problems that me and my group encountered was when we first started the project and that was the story line for the animation. We had come up with multiple ideas, which each of us were happy to create, but after speaking to Alan, we were told to look at the different ways that comedy could be portrayed. After a few more of our ideas being pitched to Alan and a variety of research, we were finally successful with an animation that we all believed was possible to create and was still comical. O...

First year Starting this course last September was a big step for me, transitioning from secondary school straight to university. I would have never have thought that a year into the course I would have studied life drawing, contexts, film, 2D and 3D animation, character design and Maya as well as looked into and worked with a variety of different computer programs to produce the work that I now have. Although it was a big step for me to take and at first and I was worried and stressed with the workload I had, I believe that it was the best option that I could have chose. I love every second of the time I spend on the course and enjoy learning from both the lectures and friends. Fantastic Voyage - Project For this project we were given a brief by our client Claire Saunders to select one of three scenarios that were related to secondary school science. We were then told to create a three minute animation on the subject that could be used as a revision resource in schools. O...

Sonic concept publication Sound designer profile Original sound recordings Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Reflective statement For this project we were given three images by Phil from which we were told to create sounds for. After being given the images I immediately started to bubble map ideas of what sounds or objects I believe relate to the images I was given. One of the first problems I encountered while doing this project was ensuring that the sounds special effects seemed to fit in with what I though the object in the image sounded like. In order to combat this I read through the notes we had been given from Kat's lessons and started to familiar myself even further with the software. I also struggled with recording sounds that I believed created a suitable sound for the image. For this, I researched further into different noises and what could be used to make them. I enjoyed being able to take my own spin on this project as w...

For this project we were given the brief to create an animatic and pre-viz from the three components that we were to be given at the start of the project. My three components were pirate (for the character), hospital (for the location) and battery (as the object). One of the first problems that I encountered at the beginning of the project was that I was thinking too originally with the story ideas that I was presenting to Phil. For example one of my ideas was to have a surgeon who was dressed in a pirate fancy dress costume operating on a patient in order to give the patient a new pacemaker battery. Phil then said in my first OGR that I needed to go into depth with what each component could mean, for example, looking at different objects that could be seen as a battery, which has now helped me look at things differently for future projects. Another issue that I had faced was time management. At the start of the project I believed that I had done a suitable amount of work a...

For this project we were told to build a city inspired by an artist's work in which we were able to choose. Dale Chihuly was the glass sculptor who I collaborated with for my project. Chihuly works with coloured glass to create beautiful sculptures which are influenced by Chilhuly's love for botanical gardens and organic form. He uses bright colour in his work, making each sculpture more attractive and eye catching.  One challenge that I encountered in the project was when creating the 3D models of my city's buildings in Maya. I found it difficult to understand what basic polygons I should have used in order to start the creation of some of the buildings such as the church. I spoke to both Simon and Jordan for help and then decided on which one of their methods would be best to create it with. I then found that once I had modeled some of the buildings I struggled with warping them to make them seem more organic.  I believe that some aspects such a...