More Set Design

Hello Everybody!

Been busy at the set design again, am now hitting am area where I'm happy with what I've got. Think what I've done here is pretty close to the final look. I like how it reminds me of old looney tune cartoons. All I need to do now is make a blueprint to give Jenn so she can build it for me, which I will hopefully do by the end of this week.

More Designs for Laura

Hey guys! It's update time once more, hooray!

Laura has changed her idea, and with it her characters, thus I have been asked to do some more character designs for her. I agreed of course, what with loving character designs, and set to work. The characters above are designs for her film which is going to be an animated C.V. I wont go into detail explaining each and every character, because there are so many of them. If you need to know more, visit Laura's blog.

As you can see, Laura is going for a slightly sixties style, with start contrasting colours and very bold and stylised.

Enjoy!

Jo's Nut Job Monkey

Jo asked me to do a colour turnaround of a monkey - the main character in her film 'Nut Job'. She provided me with the turnaround and a basic idea of what colours she wanted, and asked me to produce a few variations. I went off, digitally inked and painting the drawings and below are the results of my labour. 

Of the three, I personally prefer number three, although I think five is probably closest to what Jo had originally given me. Anyway, Jo seems happy with what I did, so all in all this was a success!

Another Animatic

I did a tighter version of my animatic yesterday, and decided to upload it. I changed a few scenes, added a few more drawings and put some camera moves 0n some of the shots, so hope you enjoy.

Set Design Again

Well I had a long think about my set design, and at first I decided that I wanted someone else to do my set design. However, after a longer think I decided to grit my teeth and carry on with it, mainly because I wanted to get past my own block when it came to this area.

So to start off, I decided to do a mood board using my own designs and research that I'd collected, to get an idea of what I wanted and how close I was to getting there. Also, I used this as a chance to compare the colour scheme I was using to the usual colour scheme associated with the type of set I was doing. I primarily looked at old Road Runner Cartoons, and the Lion King.

The main conclusions I drew from the mood board were:

• The colour scheme was off - I was using too much yellow and it made everything look somewhat sickly.


• The thorns I was designing didn't actually look like thorns, or looked too big and unrealistic.


• My cliff faces were too smooth and not rocky enough.


• The level of detail in my designs was minimal, and made the set look bland, flat and unrealistic.

Taking these things on board, I spent several hours playing around on Photoshop, painting up a new set design, still using the design Sarah did for me as a base, and the result was this.

I was pretty happy with this, the thorns look better, more like thorns and more importantly, more threatening. The design is a bit too Warner Bros-esque for my liking, but overall I was happy with the design. One thing that does still need to be changed, however, is the design of the tree. It's still too similar the tree that's being used in Matt Evans film, plus it doesn't quite look dead enough to me.

After this, I did another quick sketch to get an idea of the set from a different angle.

Despite the drawing being at what can be generously described as a weird angle, I do like this drawing. It has a nice style to it that I find quite cool. I'm also starting to get a better idea from this of what the floor plan of the film is going to be like.

Finally, I began to work out the top and side view, so that I could start thinking about asking Jenn to model the set for me. I'm aiming to be ready to do that by the end of the week.

So overall, Set Design is back on track and going better now. Still not overly happy about it, but am feeling a bit better about it now. Hopefully, it'll all be sorted by the end of the week, so I can focus on particle effects, sound and my final animatic.

Pigeon and Humming Birds

Hey there

Remember when I said I'd upload the character designs for the Pigeon, Humming Bird and other background characters? Remember when I complete forgot about it until now? No, well nevermind then.

First off we have the design process for the Pigeon. I wanted to make him like the logical opposite to the Kakapo in a lot of ways. His colour is dull and boring and his character is excitable and thrill-seeking. I got the idea after the growth on their beak reminded me of a little kid with a bandage across their nose. I used this as a launching point for the design, which I'm happy with, but if the Pigeon was a more featured character, would probably keep refining.
The Humming Bird required actually very little design, as it came as part of several other designs that I did for background characters. Again, if they featured more prominantly, I would have spent more time on these designs to really refine them.

And with that, that is all my character design process uploaded. There may be a few things here and there that need to be finalised, and if so I will update, but for now, that stage of production is done.

Torvill and Dean for Laura

Hello!

I have been doing more work for other students to go towards my Client Oriented Practice & Team Production unit. First off, Jo Raithby asked me to do some colour work on a turnaround that she provided me with. I shall upload the results of this, after I have shown them to Jo first.

Secondly, Tim Storrow asked me to do a final storyboard for his vignette, which I will start in the near future.

Lastly, following up on a previous post, Laura Tait had asked me to do a few more designs for her film. (which has now changed so that the characters may or may not be used anymore) She requested that I designed the two stars that were to ice skate in her original idea. I used the famous ice skaters Torvill and Dean as a basis for the designs.
Laura also suggested I could do some more alien designs as well. I enjoyed doing this, as it was very free in it's creativity and allowed me to have some very silly fun. Think one of them looks a bit Don Herztfelt-esque now I look at it.



Also, I have begun to ask people for help on my project as well. So far I have:

• Jenn Hanley building my set in Maya
• Tim Storrow has agreed to animate the book pages turning in Maya
• Susan Bell is building a clay model of the Kakapo for me. So I can better visualise the character.
• Sarah Krafft has already helped me on my set design.
• Jo Raithby and Laura Tait have both offered to help in some way, which I suspect will be as colourists. This is an area I expect I will have many more people helping me with as it is the biggest concern for me.
• David Foulston has offered to do some in-betweening for me, which I may take him up on.

Jobs I need filled are:

• I need someone to texture the model in Maya that Jenn will build for me.
• I may need someone to do particle effects for me.
• I may need someone to Matte paint for me.
• I will most likely need someone skilled at After Effects to teach/help me with the final composition .