Developing an Animation

So I have now started work on developing an animation which is aimed at children between the ages of 8-12 and could be played on a channel like Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network. I am working with Justin on this project. We have decided to do a fast paced children’s series which is kind of a mix between Sponge Bob Square Pants and Futurama. So far we have planned out our general story and some possible ideas for some series. We have five characters which appear in most series. I have started designs on Dyson, is one of the main character. He is an old Robot which has been replaced by newer version and ends up being thrown away. He then ends up on Junk planet which will be our characters main home. The character live in a universe made up of some strange and unusual planets. They are all rejects in some way and their aim is to find a new home as who wants to live in a pile of junk. So they travel to these other planets but never manage to fit in and end up back where they started I have also started designs on these planets which I characters visit on each episode. Justin will be designing the other four characters. So here are some of my designs.

Dyson: I wanted to make Dyson quite a clumsy but high spirited little robot, my first designs looked a bit like a mini Iron giant, but I finally got to something I quite like.

Here is a colur version which I created using Photoshop and a load of metal textures.

Planets: For the planets I took allot of influence from Samarost by Amanita Designs where he uses real photographs to create his planets. So here are my versions:

Junk Planet: Home to our characters and where the universe dumps its rubbish.

Business Planet:

Ape Planet:

Yodel Planet:

Water Planet:

Candy Comet:

I have also started to create Dyson in Maya, as I am trying to see if a can create a 3d model that looks like my original designs. I have taken my designs and scanned them in to use as a reference when modelling in Maya. And so far all seems good but still at an early stage.

The Second Year

So the second year begins, and I need to start getting into my blogs again. The first week has been really great; we have had loads of lessons and have been given a lot more work compared to last year, which is awesome. I enjoyed Mondays session and look forward to start work on developing and designing something to present to the BBC. My first idea is to create a series that is aimed towards older children and can be played on a channel like CBBC, but as I will be working in a group, I will have to see what we come up with as a team.

I also went to the stop motion session on Monday which is not really something I am interested in but thought I may as well see what it’s all about. The lesson to be honest was a bit slow but it was still quite interesting. Trying to animate inanimate objects (like a piece of card), with character was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Our group animation didn't turn out that great. It seems quite muddled and not clear on what the objects characters are. I can definitely understand the aim of the session and it would be quite interesting to do again in the future, to see how I’ve improved. So I will be going again, and really looking forward to creating some armatures of my own.



Next lesson we did was post production on Wednesday. It was interesting to see how many different types of sound are used in film, and the importance of each of them. I think the sound recording project is going to be quite an interesting challenge to do. I really want to push myself to take more interest in the importance of sound and not leave it till the last minute like I tended to do last year. It’s also quite amazing to see how useful sound can be when telling a story, and how it can be used to suggest something is there, rather than actually creating it in the animation. This is such a useful trick that can save so much work.

And then last, but definitely not least was the Maya session we did on Thursday, which I really enjoyed. I am looking forward to learning more advance Maya and maybe having a look at ZBrush. I have been reading a book written by Scott Spencer on using ZBrush and it looks like a really great package for creating intense detail as well as textures. Here is an example of his work, which I think has quite a nice skin texture on which he shows how it is done in the book.





A good tip which I got was to design my characters away from the computer which I don’t always tend to do. I end up adding things and leaving things out. So that’s what I aim to do from now on, as well as being a bit more creative, as I do tend to design things with Maya in mind which can make my designs quite boring.