Authentication, Evaluation And My Bibliography
This is the section where I'll be looking back on the project as a whole by talking about what went well, what could be improved upon for next time, although in this case, the next time I get to do anything like this I'll be in university (especially if Super Sheep in Holly-Weird Hijinks were to fall through), meaning I'll need to learn the more conventional (and in some cases more complicated) ways of doing animation using software such as Maya, Blender, ToonBoom, Flash Animate, Ext. Meaning I'll need to re-learn everything from scratch. I mean, I suppose I could try and break the grading system using Garry's Mod (a PC game on Steam that people can, and in deed do, use to do animations) but even then, if I wanted to do something original (I.E: A Super Sheep cartoon) I'd have to learn 3-D modelling, mapping and texturing and how to import stuff into Garry's Mod in the first place, so I don't think that'll be a viable option for me (although others who are more talented than me are welcome to try if they so choose)
Authentication Form
We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Our Potential Penultimate Project Management Update
Ok, so it seems as if I've managed to get quite far ahead of myself by releasing my project early, as I'm due to write up the big evaluation two weeks from now, and yet I'm here already on the week I was supposed to dedicate entirely to clean up and feedback implementation (which I've now taken care of)
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As such I can simply take my time with the evaluation without having to rush through everything.
We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program: The Evaluation Section
Well folks, here we are for the final time. My time working on this project has been quite wild to say the least, as for once I went ahead and explored some mostly uncharted territory by delving into the world of anime (since I don't really watch too much anime myself), and I believe that were it not for my friends coming in and pointing me in a good direction, my work wouldn't be anywhere near as good or as thorough as it ended up being since before they came in to help point me in the right direction, my only frame of reference on this was stuff like Sailor Moon, Pokémon, Dragon Ball, Sonic X and The Sonic The Hedgehog OVA and a few Hayao Myazaki flicks (and even then, I'd only really seen the Pokémon and Sonic stuff, I only knew the rest because of how popular they seem to be in popular culture)
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As such, I never truly knew what I would find out next or even where it would take me, which is not something I could say about the last two final major projects where I knew a lot of what I was talking about already due to years of exposure to western cartoons and me already looking up videos on the history of some of this stuff years beforehand. With all that in mind (and to quote Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse), let's do this one last time.
So How Was The Research Phase?
To be honest, I'm not really sure where to start on this one given the circumstances surrounding this particular phase (since a good majority of it was copied and pasted over from my Unit 12 work), so evaluating this may be a bit tricky, but I will say that copying and pasting everything that wasn't a project management update took me a whole lot longer than I initially thought since I chose to copy the text and pictures individually rather than do screenshots like my Tutor suggested because at that point, I could at the very least touch up the original research in order to improve upon the grammar and the quality of the images I used the first time around since the original was done on a blog post where as this is an entire website, so I didn't need to worry about memory limitations. (luckily, I also didn't have to re-note all the images and videos in the bibliography section, as I could just link back to the original website I stole my own research from and I recorded all my image and video sources the first time around anyway) With this in mind, this was still the most tedious part of the process since all I was doing was taking what I already did on unit 12 and put it somewhere else.
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Once that part was taken care of, I was actually able to do a bunch of actually new research in order to expand upon what I'd already done, which ultimately amounted to me looking into Hayao Miyazaki and doing a few experiments where I tried to capture the choppier animation style most anime tends to have (as well as some recent western films such as Into The Spider-Verse, The Peanuts Movie and even parts of the upcoming Puss In Boots: The Last Wish if the trailer is to be believed), which gave me quite a bit of insight into how puppets work in Dreams PS4/5, as I learnt that even when the procedural animations are switched off, certain sliders such as springiness still have an effect on the character animation.
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The only other new experiment I did this time around was seeing whether or not it would be worth giving Ruff Bup a colour pallet so that he better fits with the more colourful world he'd be in this time around (despite that not being a problem in the fashion project), and after asking all my friends about it via a teams message (because there was no way something like this would even be worth doing a survey for without adding a bunch of filler nonsense), I ended up with more or less a 50-50 split in terms of preferences, so I decided "why not both?" Needless to say, I felt that this was the correct call to make because it allowed me to not only have Ruff Bup be both black and white and in colour in the same project (which naturally lead to at least one joke about his reaction to being colourised), but it also allowed me to use the colourised Ruff Bup to give a bit of extra insight about how the development dimension works without needing to resort to a boring old exposition dump to get the job done.
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I originally wanted to do an extra experiment or two, but after asking my tutor what I could do while waiting to do the next Dreams experiment, he told me that I'd actually done enough to move on to the next phase, which I wasn't really expecting to happen because usually tutors would give out suggestions about that sort of thing, but here's the catch, I believe that without that golden ticket to move on to the production phase, the animation phase getting done on time would have been next to impossible to complete due to how long I spent on the first sequence alone, thus validating my need to get ahead of myself all the time.
So How Was Designing The Character Of Kyoto Kasuma Herself?
Given how I only really needed to design one singular character this time around (since I already made the rest ages ago), I'd say that this was definitely the shortest character design phase I ever took part in, not to mention it was the easiest to reflect on thanks to the fact I recorded all the evidence using OBS Studio instead of using my usual method where I draw parts of the character and then end up having to stop and take a screen-shot in order to annotate the process that goes into drawing said part of the character, so the work flow was much easier for me to deal with since I could just focus on the character herself and getting her to look the way I want her to without stopping every five seconds.
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I'd also say she's one of the most detailed characters I've ever created, as I gave her all sorts of scuff marks and bruises and even a set of blue eyes thus making her the first character I've ever created to not have the default black eyes since I knew that if I didn't give extra details or coloured eyes, she probably would come off as a western inspired character. (despite characters like Goku having black eyes themselves) Luckily when I showed my friends, they all said she was evidently an anime character through the style and colours used despite the fact that I mostly used the same tricks, techniques and bright colours I use when working on characters such as Super Sheep.
So How Was Writing The Script?
As for writing the script, I'd say that was quite fun to do since this time around, I was able to actually add dialogue, which I haven't really had the chance to do outside of personal projects such as Captain Cartridge In Operation Compact Disc (which is a re-do of Captain Cartridge and the Rubbish Skinubish using the original script I wrote before having to scrap everything) due to stay at home orders and my brother and father working from home (thus preventing me from doing any voice acting that wasn't just grunts), thus allowing me to give the characters that extra layer of characterisation via the words they say and the accents they say said words in, and that's on top of the visual language and secondary actions.
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When it comes to writing the script itself however, I originally wanted the whole thing to have a much slower pace than I ended up with but after realising I wouldn't be able to fit everything I wanted to within a seven minute window (since I still needed the project to be feasible within ten to twelve weeks of course), so I ended up deciding to add in a fight scene as a means to make up for the newer, slightly faster pace. Overall, while the whole thing still turned out ok, it ended up coming at the cost of me squandering a lot of the potential this concept has since now the characters only really visit three major locations and that's it. Originally I wanted to have them explore locations based upon storyboard paper, an animated scene that's still being animated and even the cutting room floor, but alas it wasn't meant to be. (if I'm being honest I think this Development Dimension setting could very easily fill an entire feature film at least)
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After I wrote the script, I decided to do something I don't usually do very much, and that's gather feedback on the script to make sure that people actually like it and thus allow me to keep going without doing a full re-write. Luckily for me, they all seemed to really like it, so I was able to keep going and move on to the storyboarding phase, where I would go on and make small changes anyway in an attempt to improve upon what I've done so far.
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With this in mind, I'd quite like to do this whole "getting feedback on the script" thing more often, as I think it'll allow others who read the script to point out any potential plot holes and problems for me to go ahead and fix up before I even get to the storyboarding phase because there's nothing worse than working on a project for ages and then noticing one or more plot holes that could ruin the whole thing at the last leg of the race where your two choices would be to either ignore the plot hole(s) entirely and keep going or you could start over in order to fix this.
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As for how I went about evidencing this, it was more or less back to the normal way of doing things, since at that point I was writing the script in college and at home, so I couldn't really use OBS Studio to record a video of myself writing the script since then there's be evidential inconsistency each day.
So How Was Doing The Storyboards?
The storyboards turned out to be quite an interesting case, as usually when it comes to this phase I find myself enjoying it at first but then as I go deeper and deeper into it I find myself wanting it to be over. This time however, the "storyboard fatigue" as I've decided to call it, didn't actually set in for me and I'm not entirely sure why that was. It could have been because this part only lasted a whole six days or because I decided to scrap the idea of doing one batch per day from the onset (since as much as I wanted to think it would be a viable strategy, I knew I couldn't take that chance since this was a college project, not a personal one) but I think one of the main reasons I didn't get tired of doing the storyboards this time around is because I was being stimulated throughout the whole process (be it listening to music while I work at home or even by talking and laughing with my friends at college), thus meaning I would be less likely to grow weary of the storyboarding phase entirely.
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Whatever the reason may be, I'm glad things turned out this way, as it meant I wouldn't be looking back at the whole thing with a sour out look.
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Much like with the script, evidencing this part involved a lot of stopping and going as I would have to stop, take a screen-shot using the snipping tool, talk about what it is I did in the screen-shot and then get back to storyboarding until around five or so minutes later where I'd have to do it again. Not to mention how after each batch was done, I also had to put the finished batch on this website before moving on to the next one because then you'd get to see the entire storyboard when it was all said and done.
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Luckily for me, thanks to the fact that the template I used allowed me to put in what kind of shot was going on in each panel, I was still able to cut the shot list out of the equation entirely (which is good because the less boring stuff I have to worry about before jumping into the good stuff, the better in my opinion), although I did still have to make the asset list afterwards.
So How Was Doing The Asset List?
Speaking of the asset list, I personally found that to be about as boring and easy as it's always been so there's nothing that's all that new to say there other than again, I can see why it's important for any given project.
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You know, it's funny. Whenever I come to talk about the asset list in these reflection sections I always end up talking about how boring and easy the whole thing is to the point where even reflecting on it (both after I already completed the asset list and when making these evaluations after all is said and done) has become repetitive and boring, and all I can say is that it'll be difficult finding unique ways to say the exact same thing once I'm doing this sort of stuff in university if I can't find a way to make creating an asset list more exciting.
So How Was Doing The Asset Production And Gathering?
Here, things ended up coming full circle for me, as not only did I make my own assets (I.E: the locations, the music, a few of the sound effects, the model for Kyoto Kasuma apart from the hands and most of the props and visual effects), but I also ended up using other peoples assets too, mainly the blocky letters by TheWaLrUs81 (actual spelling of the username) and sound effects imported other people and owned by other companies but the main difference is now I've also imported a few sound effects from other places too, I.E: I imported the Super Peel Out sound from Sonic CD.
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As ever, the variety of tasks I did was quite wide, as not only did I have to put together the character model for Kyoto herself (since I already made the model for Super Sheep for a personal game project and ended up using it in my first FMP and I made Ruff Bup's model specifically for my second FMP) and props, but I also had to paint the visual effects, compose the music and even record a few of my own sounds for once and let me tell you, modifying those keyboard sounds I made into both portal sounds and laser sounds was lots of fun (almost akin to modifying the Sonic 1 sounds for Captain Cartridge in Operation Compact Disc come to think of it)
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As for the difficulty of each task, it would usually depend on what I was doing, as painting a good majority of the visual effects and doing the model for Kyoto and the props proved to be quite easy for me while composing the music proved to be a bit of a challenge even with the re-used melodies and leitmotifs from some of my other work (mainly The Grand Lamppost Heist since I didn't start composing my own music until Captain Cartridge in Operation Compact Disc and the Super Sheep theme I did have was originally meant to go into the ill fated Super Sheep in Hex-o's Exos, but even then it wasn't the original version, as I swapped that one out for sounding too much like Kylie Minouge's Wow), as I still had to come up with the motif for Kyoto herself and I have to say, it wasn't too bad for someone who still doesn't know how to write sheet music.
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In terms of everything that didn't involve the music, it was quite easy for me to put together, and thanks to the power of Dreams PS4/5, I was quickly able to produce and modify my assets even after I'd already started animating as seen with the fact I did the split screen shot after I'd already been animating the second half of the fight scene where Ruff Bup throws a mirror for Kyoto to use against Super Sheep's ultra-omega laser beams and the fact I modified Kyoto's model to be more detailed partway through the first half of the fight scene. (because I highly doubt I'd be able to get away with something like that in more conventional software)
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One particularly easy asset to whip together was actually the hover truck, since I was able to take the exact same truck model I used in both The Grand Lamppost Heist and my Escape From The City music video and modified its colours while adding a vat of coloured ink (which is just a purple cylinder with the wavy effect and the sculptural detail turned way down)
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Overall, I enjoyed this phase of production quite a bit, much like with every project I do. (although due to containing sounds I don't own, I doubt I'll be getting offers for this years UAL Creative Origins Showcase anytime soon, and that's ok)
So How Was Animating The Project?
I won't lie, this part has had it's ups and downs (probably the most out of any project if I'm being honest with myself), as things started off quite slowly what with me animating the entire first sequence over the course of a week, which made be a bit concerned about whether or not I'd be able to even get the entire project done on time.
Luckily, once college started up after the Easter half term I was able to make more stable progress on the project, but top the worries I had about the project at the beginning with me needing to effectively cut the stream multiple times near the end due to my Dad needing the internet, even after I lowered the resolution and framerate I streamed at to 720P at thirty frames per second (the lowest my PlayStation will let me go) after it happened the first time, to do stuff and the fact that throughout a lot of this I ended up missing my friends a lot more than usual and you end up with what is undoubtedly one of the biggest emotional roller coasters I've ever been on, I just never mentioned any of this at the time because I didn't want my emotions to muddy things up too much when reflecting on each day that went by.
In fact, the worrying got so bad that at one point I even considered whether or not I should pull a Sonic 3: And Knuckles and split the whole project into two parts so that I could release the first half as the FMP and work on the second half of the project (The first half would have consisted of the intro sequence to when Ruff Bup goes off to rescue Kyoto on one of the big letters while the second part would have covered everything else) as the new personal project, effectively making it replace Super Sheep in Hollyweird Hijinks entirely. Don't get me wrong, I still quite enjoyed the whole process, but after having collaborated with my friends on the research part of this project, this part ended up feeling a lot more lonely than usual since nobody else in my house is really into the same stuff as I am.
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Luckily, I didn't need to resort to splitting the project in two like SEGA did with Sonic 3: And Knuckles back in 1994, as by some miracle I was able to get the first version finished in fifteen days. (which is just over double the amount of time it took to complete the animation process for last year's The Grand Lamppost Heist) Of course, after that was finished, I got to work gathering feedback about from others as soon as I came back into college, and the feedback I got was very interesting, as the others actually suggested more little improvements for me to make (I.E: improving the sound mixing so you can hear the voices better and even zooming in on Kyoto's name tag when she presents it so that you could see it easier) than I could come up with on my own, which is great because now I was getting actual criticisms that would help me improve my work rather me having to come up with almost all the improvements myself like usual.
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With this in mind, the clean up phase itself turned out to be quite interesting, as while I was able to implement a grand majority of the feedback into my project relatively smoothly, when it came to implementing proper English lip syncing for both Super Sheep and Ruff Bup, I wanted to put that in but then found that I wouldn't have enough time if I wanted to release the FMP at the beginning of this week. (yes, I could have moved the release date in order to fix this but if I didn't give myself some sort of concrete release date I'd still be doing the clean up phase to this day) While I regret not being able to do this, I feel it's for the best, as now I can potentially think about re-doing the lip sync after the FMP is finished so that I could have two versions of the project available (one with Japanese lip sync and the other with English lip sync) so that if I ever find myself in this position again at university, I'll have a direct point of comparison for the lip sync, plus it helped me learn a potentially easy way to handle lip syncing when it comes to Super Sheep in Hollyweird Hijinks. (too bad I may only have one shot to use this before university though)
So How Was Animating The Post Production Phase?
What post production phase? Oh, you mean the miniscule amount of editing I did on both versions of the project? Well that was easier than ever for me, since thanks to the PS5's Solid State Drive the loading times ended up being a non issue for me, as the game was able to switch from one scene to another quicker than I could probably type the first sentence of this particular section, meaning I don't even need to split it into multiple clips anymore.
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Part of the reason for this is because much of the sound design (I.E: sound effects, music and voiceovers) were all baked into the video itself, so I didn't need to worry about adding them in after the video was finished. All I needed to do was trim the beginning and end of the footage I recorded on my PlayStation, add a black screen fade out to the beginning and I was good to go. That's it.
In Conclusion For This Project
Overall, I quite enjoyed working on this project, as not only did it allow me to go ahead and create yet another new IP, but it also more or less allowed me to bring everything full circle because not only was I able to take small elements from each of the previous projects I did over the years in the form of adding the main characters from Super Sheep in Convention F-3 and The Grand Lamppost Heist and a few SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive and SEGA CD sound effects that were reminiscent of what I would have used in Captain Cartridge In Operation Compact Disc, while at the same time I also dabbled in something new with the animation style for Kyoto Kasuma herself and the anime inspiration throughout the whole project. (not to mention how I came in with Super Sheep and am now going out with Super Sheep, albeit not as the main character this time but he's still there)
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It's just a shame this might be the last time I get to use Dreams PS4/5 to go ahead and try to break the grading system as we know it, as I quite enjoyed using it to animate a lot of my work over the years and thus proving all the video game naysayers (which mostly boils down to a bunch of angry parents and the mainstream news media at this point) wrong about being unable to use video games to succeed in an academic setting, which I'll get into more detail about once I start reflecting on my time in college as a whole.
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Getting back on track, I'm actually quite proud of this particular project because of the trials and tribulations I had to go through in order to get to where I am, from looking into the world of anime to figuring out how to replicate the choppy animation style of the medium and even figuring out how to keep all of this under the thermometer limits in Dreams PS4/5, ext.
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Ordinarily, I'd end the evaluation right here and call the project finished, but since this is the final project I'll get to do for Southport College, I figured the grading people would probably want me to go ahead and look back on my entire time at college, so without further ado...
How Was My Time In College As A Whole?
Well, at the start, I would say I was mostly a normal student learning conventional software that many professionals use to make creative works (I.E: Premier Pro, Photoshop, ext), while I would say I did ok with this approach, I wasn't exactly creating the greatest works anyone had ever seen. (although to be fair, that hasn't changed very much, as the only thing that's different is that my work now is a lot longer than what I did at the start) Of course, at this time I was also looking forward to a little game that was in early access at the time called "Dreams" for the PlayStation 4, so I bought the early access at around October of 2019 mainly for recreational use, although I did end up using it here and there during my college work when it came to the backgrounds of both my Colypsia website and the abomination known as Captain Cartridge and The Rubbish Skinubish and I even used it to record the audio for my "Stair-Devil" radio drama. Needless to say, looking back, these works do leave a lot to be desired.
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Things were going relatively normal for me, as I was about to work on my first final major project until COVID 19 took the world by storm and all the politicians locked everything down with their stay at home orders back in 2020, thus causing the college to cancel the final major project unit entirely that year for all of us. Of course, I was already planning on trying to use Dreams PS4 in order to make my final major project before all this happened, as one of my tutors actually had a PS4 he was willing to let me use while I was in college, meaning I would have been able to animate both at college and at my house and I was already a good chunk of the way through production already, so I decided to just go ahead and ignore the cancellation entirely and make my final major project anyway, although in it's original form, it wold have been a 2-3 minute short where Super Sheep and friends would have been 2D characters occupying a 3D space like in Captain Cartridge and The Rubbish Skinubish, but after the COVID lockdowns came around, I decided to abandon that idea in favour of fully 3D characters instead. This ended up being the correct call, as what was originally supposed to be a 2-3 minute short where Super Sheep has to make it to a convention on time while fighting a tornato expanded into a five minute storyline where Super Sheep does the same thing. (which at the time I didn't even think was possible for me to even pull off given what happened with Captain Cartridge)
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Needless to say, overall Super Sheep In Convention F-3 (my final major project for 2020) ended up being a major success, as not only was I able to make an animation using Dreams PS4 (which by that point was on it's full release with the story mode included), but I was also able to bring Super Sheep out into the world for the first time ever. (not the form I thought his debut would have taken but I'm quite proud of it all the same)
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Of course, I would decide to just use Dreams PS4 (which I would eventually start calling Dreams PS4/5 once the PlayStation 5 hit the scene) to animate whatever projects I could since I felt it would be easier for me than using live action or 2D animation at that point, although I did have to treat every single project I did like it would be the last time I ever get to use Dreams PS4/5 because I didn't know whether I would be allowed to continue down this path once the lockdowns and stay at home orders ended.
One project of note (that specifically wasn't the final major project) ended up being the "lockdown 3.0" project we did in place of what was supposed to be a "missing" unit, as I actually decided to try and get a head start in preparation for the missing unit by creating a new character named "Detective Griswold" (the reason I made him was because one of my tutors at the time got sick and tired of seeing Super Sheep in everything I did before then), only for the entire unit to get changed once the UK hit it's third lockdown. (hence why the unit was now called "lockdown 3.0") Of course, this didn't mean I had to throw out Griswold entirely, as I was able to re-purpose him to fit in with this change of plans. I believe this is the first time that the photography and the creative media courses merged in a way that impacted things in a major way (at least for me), as I had to take a series of images and set them to audio rather than making an entire video about the situation, although I did get to add in a few bonus pictures where I would draw Detective Griswold into some of the photos I already took for the gallery in a style similar to the all time classic known as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
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After everything was said and done for level 3 year 1, it was time for my final major project for that year to start production, and for that I decided I wanted this one to stick out from everything I'd ever done at that point since if I didn't do something different, my FMP would have been in a "been there, done that, got the T-shirt" situation, so I ended up getting the idea to try and make that project in a style that was similar to that of old cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s but in 3D (meaning the cartoon was black and white, all the sound effects were made using instruments rather than pre-recorded sounds and it relied entirely on visual humour) which would eventually go on to become "The Grand Lamppost Heist." This one was particularly interesting to make, as I was effectively going back to the roots of western animation but with a few modern enhancements in order to make it fit with today's times, mostly stuff like the cartoon having a 16:9 aspect ratio instead of being square, it being in high definition (or HD for short) rather than standard definition (or SD for short) and all that technical jazz. What I found particularly interesting was looking into the history of this medium and finding out stuff I may not have known before (and also accidentally confusing a 90s cartoon for a 60s one), and because there were only two characters in the whole thing I was able to animate the cartoon within about a week. (which let me clean it up over the course of around five days) Overall, I'm quite proud of this particular cartoon because it showed that I could actually break the mould I made for myself and still make something that was at least decent.
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This of course brings us to Level 3 Year 2 (which I'm currently nearing the end of), where things would take turns I could never have expected, as I never thought in a million years that I would ever have to make a fashion video or even use Premier Pro at any point in time, but I must say that that particular video was better off for it, as this time I not only needed to give the characters different outfits, but I needed to blend the characters into the real world in ways that would have been impossible using Share-Factory or it's sequel, Share-Factory Studio, since I also needed to have the characters reflected in the college's sports hall floor and even add in shadows by cloning the green screened clip I already made in order to better blend them in, which I wouldn't be able to do in either Share-Factories for due to the limited amount of layers I had to work with there.
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After that (and skipping ahead a little bit to the current FMP), we come to today, where I once again decided to try and make something that sticks out from everything I'd done at that point, which meant I couldn't go ahead and do yet another black and white cartoon since I already did that last year. (because then I'd just be doing the exact same thing over again)
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As such, in unit 12, I decided that instead of just looking into western animation for the third or fourth time in my college years (since I figured at that point I'd just be repeating the same old points all over again), I decided to take a chance and look into the world of anime this time around, and doing so ended up being one of the most interesting decisions I'd ever made, as I was able to learn quite a lot about how anime even came to be and even uprooted my own preconceived notions about the entire medium in the process, as up until that point I thought that all anime consisted of either magical girls going on adventures, dudes with colour changing hair screaming at each other and even adventures where 10 year olds catch pocket monsters. Granted, I passively knew of things like Studio Ghibli and had a fair bit of knowledge of the Sonic The Hedgehog OVA beforehand (the reason I knew of Studio Ghibli is because they're quite famous internationally and in Japan and the reason I knew of the Sonic OVA is because it's Sonic The Hedgehog), but once my friends came in to help me out with the research phase, since they're actually experts on this stuff and I didn't know where else to turn to for help, I discovered that anime is a whole lot more than just the things I mentioned, as with their help I was able to discover things such as Dorohedoro with it's blend of 2D and 3D elements in a similar vain to Beauty and the Beast (1991) The Lion King (1994) and The Iron Giant (1999) and I was able to take a closer look at the history of people and studios such as Hayao Miyazaki and Mappa Studio (Mappa Studios being relatively new to me), which I found interesting because unlike Walt Disney where I knew a lot of the history behind him (I.E: the reason Mickey Mouse even exists is because Walt didn't have the rights to his earlier creation, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit), a lot of this stuff was totally new to me, so I never knew what twists and turns I'd come across next. For example, I didn't know Mr. Miyazaki used to work for TOEI animation before going on to direct a Lupin III movie and then forming Studio Ghibli (not to mention the pattern of certain studios coming about due to frustrations from the founders working at other studios), I also quite enjoyed looking a little bit into the demographics that enjoy anime too (even if it was briefly because usually I'm not one for looking at the demographic data when it comes to what I do), although that was most likely because of how novel it was to look into the data for another country than anything else.
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After all that, came the project itself. Since this was going to be the last time I do this for college, I knew I wanted to feature elements from my past work in here. (and not just as cameos either, thus making this my first full on crossover) I also knew that I wanted the main character to be someone new and different in order to better fit the new style of animation I'd be drawing inspiration from because I didn't think it would be right to force Super Sheep, Ruff Bup or any of the other characters I made to suddenly adopt an anime aesthetic, as when I tried it with Super Sheep during the experimentation phase I couldn't get it to work as well as I'd hoped, so after consulting my friends about it and seeing how Felix the Cat approached his anime adaptation, I just left Super Sheep and Ruff Bup's designs alone while making sure that the new character (who would go on to become Kyoto Kasuma) was made with her anime inspiration in mind, hence why she's the first character with colourful eyes and why she's got more extra detail than I would typically add to my characters.
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With this in mind, I honestly wished I'd turned to others for help on stuff I don't understand sooner, as their perspectives allowed me to discover things I likely would never have done on my own. (I.E: entire anime studios)
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Not to mention how the fact I had help from my friends in the research phase but not the animation phase made working on this project at my house a little bit more lonely than normal (and that's on top of me worrying about whether I'd even get it done on time) because now I was missing all the fun discussions we'd have about the elements of anime. (and also pop culture in general) Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed doing the animation (especially when it came to having Super Sheep and Kyoto clash with each other), but what ended up making everything worth it in the end were the positive reaction everyone had towards the project, as they really seemed to enjoy it a lot.
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So overall, while there were a lot of ups and downs during my time in college I.E: My final major projects being some of my most notable "ups" because of how big they ended up being, while stuff like "Captain Cartridge and the Rubbish Skinubish" would most definitely be one of my most notable "downs" because it just wasn't very good in my opinion and what it could have/should have been (and what I ended up making with "Captain Cartridge and Friends in Operation Compact Disc"), I'd say I had a great time at college, as not only did I manage to fulfil my dreams of becoming an animator, albeit by using Dreams PS4/5, which I would never have expected to do in a billion years back in September 2019, but I also ended up making lots of wonderful new friends along the way (too bad I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have wanted to due to a lot of my work being done at home due to both the COVID pandemic and the fact college just didn't ever get PlayStation consoles during my time (no matter how often I suggested it), but it was still fun to stick it to the man by using video games (all the meanwhile the man was forced to give me good grades as a result) as a means to do college work. (which again, is something most people wouldn't do)
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With this, I can officially close the book on this part of my life as I move on to Edge Hill University, where I'll continue to refine my animation skills and even start learning some of the more proper software (I.E: ToonBoom, Maya, Blender, Ext) this time around.
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The only thing I can say now is that while I might not fully know what the future will hold for me, I can say for certain that I'm looking forward to every step I end up taking.
My Big Bibliography
I'm putting this here so that you can download my Bibliography in case you're curious about all the sources I used when making this project (note that this only covers everything done for unit 13 and not unit 12 (although I did put the site I used to make unit 12 in the bibliography to cover all that stuff at once)