Getting in gear

The past month have been rather crazy. Organising time and work as well as my travel home for Christmas. My main project for pre-production;  Production bible is almost complete. Hopefully after receiving our feedback we can do further improvements in it.

In regards to my other work I have been working on concept designs for 3rd year animators.
- Toby Twirl (Concept art and background)

Mostly I am told to focus on the lighting and how the colour palettes  will effect the mood of the same background.

-Friends are like umbrellas (Story board/ Character designs/ Style artist
This project I devote most of my time in. My first job was to design the characters. I kept them simple and refereed back to the rough reference I was given as to what  Elizabeth Philippe  ( creator of friends are like umbrella) wanted

An example of a background from one of the section of the film known as the "dream sequence". It is mostly white because of the concept of having the background of being a blank canvas with water colour splashes.

- Lone wolf (Concept art and background)
I was recruited by Lone wolf due to the recommendation from Elliot Richardson(Toby Twirl ) to Yasmin Down (Lone wolf). My work began with colouring drafted background sketches and experimenting with colours for the backgrounds.

some tree designs I did. Focusing on tree root eroding/tiling. almost how the tree root of Angkor Wat grew over the temples.

-Pet Rock ( Minor background concepts)
Due to the about of work I'm working on. I was unable to do much production for pet rock. I was able to help out with minor backgrounds and hopefully will be able to help out with animation tests as well.

- Worlds away (Story boards) 
This was the first project I worked with. Sadly It did not make it through but the concept idea for the film was interesting. I was responsible for the story board. Which was a new experience since this was somewhat of a sci-fi theme.

Under the weather production bible project.

Like for my last previous card exercise. This one was the first set of cards Katie, Charlotte ,James and I got.

The cards were :

-Britains got talent for genre
- the phrase ' Under the weather"

So the story we came up with was a show where contestants were forced to perform under serious weather conditions. We refined the idea and created a more developed concept of life after death and the contestants are souls that must perform infront of judge panels ( which in this case were turned into gods )  to gained a chance of ascending to heaven or fall down to hell.

Katie and I chose to work together for this production bible. James chose to work on the same idea but will put his own spins and interpretations from the original draft.


So here are the character research and designs. I chose to do the designs on Buddah and Anubis. The style that we both went for was Tomi Ungerer, which I've used for my previous story : The Hare

Did some research on the talent show's setting which is the stage.

A mixture of the ancient Colosseum and a theater

  

Creative cards.

Here's a challenge. Creating a concept story from a random word on cards.
The cards I got were:
Character - Hare
Set - Beach hut
Show - Talent show
Artist style - Tomi Ungerer

 At first I was rather worried about my artist since he has done a wide range of style. I could probably pick up his rough lineart style.

The story I've come up with so far is about a hare that somewhat lives in a beach hut restuarant. His owner works in the restaurant in a way but that is not an important info. So the Hare dwells about in the restaurant and one day they host a talent show. The hare looks at a magician performing his trick with a rabbit and wanted to be that rabbit or at least be part of the show. When the Magician does another trick involving him climbing into the box(perhaps a dissapearing act). The Hare thought it would be a good idea to help out with his trick and hops on the stage and did the " cut the box n half trick".

Concept design on the hare with Tomi Ungerer style

Secondary character : The magician and perhaps the little rabbit

15 second of funny

The first group project of the year. Create a 15 second film that will make people laugh. Comedy is always a challenge.

In this group Emily came up with the plot of a little girl and her pet rabbit and taxidermy. Lovely little story.

I provided the group with a rough story board.

a rough animatic was put together by Emily Henshall and sound effects by Georgi Urumov

I've made some short animation test and some concept for the background. Mostly it will be the same through out the film with the exception of the ending scene with the rabbits and in the closet. The background idea so far was to be made in 3D but we are still decided of what to do with the final scene.

More work

Getting back to working on my task. Kinda exciting in a way, exploring more design method and gathering up new inspirations. I've been practicing and trying to improve my drawing and colouring skills, hopefully on my story telling as well.

Been doing more art. I'm practicing comic style panel in my free time

And another new colouring style I'm trying out is cel shading

Personal art work

Disappeared for a while during the summer. Family, travels and work.
Been practicing my digital paintings. Backgrounds are the most I have to practice with .

First year animation film - the sea tale

After weeks our film project is done. I am so happy to see all our work  been put together into this film. 

It was such an experience. I love my team mates. I love our meetings and brain storming sessions. I think that we work ready well together and was able to keep it together until the end.

We've put alot of thoughts into the sequence. Manipulated scenes and effects as well as our thoughts on the music to accompany the scenes. There were more ideas to the ending from the idea of having the character being a ghost from the beginning to the idea of having a grim reaper standing behind him but on our final decision we decided to go for  the simple crane smash. 

Sea project scene shots

Working on full speed for the sea project. I've been working on the 2D scenes for the flash back section of the film.

The most difficult part is doing them from different angle as well as making the movement as smooth as i can because its a slow sinking scene. foreshortening hand reaching  I had to redo so many times because I just can't seem to get it to look right.

Life drawing

Ident project.

The Ident project has to be one of the most challenging task I have to do considering that it only has to be about 6-10 seconds long.

After working and completing other project I felt a bit burned out when it came to working on the ident. I was looking forward to being as creative with this as much as I can and with the amount of the time I have for each project.
  Right before starting my draft on the ident ( which I still have little to no clue of what I was going to do) I took short trip to town with a friend from the course and started talking about squid ( yes squid ). That became a starting point for my ident idea. It seem a bit funny to begin with but it kept me going and thinking hard about putting these ideas together. My first idea was a squid painting with its own ink. Of course, after giving it a few thought I wasnt sure if there would be a problem with me animating with real squid ( it was going to be a frozen squid which I can buy at Asda).

SO.. I ended up making a puppet using a planet crafting kit I bought on that day in town. I did a few test on how the squid would move.

Its a pretty rough test but it turn out alright.

Suddenly my mind shift again. Perhaps it was because of the panic of not being able to get my Ident done on time. I brain storm another idea at once. A back up . I started to think back on the Ident and re-read the brief again. I began to wonder if I made this to complicated for myself. Sure, the idea seems good and the final product would be good as well but I would need more time to work into it and that is what I don't have.

I went back to the drawing board (literally) and began to do a few sketch of the Falmouth university font. Now at the time I was having trouble with my drawing as well. Soon after I did a few sketch , I thought " why dot I do an animation using the white board? It's easy and I can fix my mistakes better on it." And thats what I did. 

It was simple and I still can be creative with designing a unique patterned font for the Falmouth university. Thought there are always room for improvements. There is an issue of the camera moving so the Ident scene does shake a bit as well the continuity of the words fading into the white board. 

Overall I really enjoy the project even if it took me some time to get the idea out of my head and piece them all together. I could also say that this project also help me  with my own drawing a well. I got hooked on to the patterns and have been applying them onto my own personal art work.