Further Pre-Production

So recently watched Pixar's "Up" and it was amazing, the amount of detail they put into their films is really inspiring. I love the entire look of the film, the textures are so detailed and the animation is always believable. The characters are all so lovable and I love their sense of humour. It has really pushed me to into wanting to create some great textures for my own animation.



Well back to my work. Ive been working on some background paintings which have turned out quite nice. I never really paint on photoshop and I am kinda pleased with what I have produced. I will only be using one background which is the main hall one for the final animation as my story board has been edited so wont be needing the porch. The hall way is pretty much how I would like it I could do a bit more work tweaking the lighting and colours a bit more but I think it will be better make a move and start creating the actual models as I don't want to fall behind schedule. I have also just done a Ariel plan of the background to work from in Maya. I do want to do one more piece of art to show the other side of this room, even though there wont be much there I think it will help to make sure everything is planned out.





This week I have also created a schedule which doesn't look as daunting as I thought it would but that may change as hings progress, but I'm basically aiming to get all modeling texturing and rigging done for the end of Dec so I can move straight into animation in Jan. I would like to have as much time as possible to concentrate on animation as in previous productions I have always ran out of time here and have had to rush it just to get it finished. I have also taken some better photos of my model so will up load them here. Other than that I have continued to work on my storyboard, I got a chance to talk to Derek out new lecturer who did give me some great help so just tweaking it again. I have also cut out a few shots so I have saved on quite a bit of work there.

Character Colour Shots

Ok so since I've finished my Marquette's Ive been working on some colour shot of my characters. these were so much easier to get right once I had made the sculptures. It was also great having a chance to practice my photoshop skills. i have never done much painting with photoshop and really loved doing these. I think it was also great practice for when i get to painting textures for my characters. I am happy with how they have come out and they look pretty much the way i wanted except for a few little proportion problems, but nothing that noticeable and will be easy to correct once modelling in Maya.

Here you go.

Sculptures Completed

Just wanted to add this post so I could upload some images of the completed sculptures. Quite happy with how they turned out and they were so so useful for getting my characters to look the way I pictured them plus I'm sure it will help once I get to modeling them in Maya. The only real difficulty I had was getting the proportions right, mainly head to body. It came out ok though but there I some tweaks I would change but its just much easier to do that once I get onto Maya.

So here you go the photos are a bit crappy so will probably end up putting some more up later on.

Some Story Stuff

Been a while since my last blog, just gor carried away with summer and havent really done much work, well not as much as I planned. So just been continuing with working in my marquettes which are almost finished. I have also drawn up a rough storyboard, a very rough storyboard whcih probably going to completley change by the end of this but its a start and as help me get my head around the whole thing.

I have also come across some great trailors for short animation which I really love the look of. The first one is "The Passenger", I really like the textures and overall finish on this animation it really does look proffessional, it has its own blog where you can see the process the creator went through to make it although he does say it took like 7 or 8 years to make which is way too long.

The other short I found was "The Owl House" which a stop-motion short, the trailor doesnt show you much but I love the colours and look of this, the house seems old and miss-shapen which I really like.

More and more design work

Ok so since my last blog Ive just been continueing with design work. I have fallen a bit behind my schedule but my schedule was pretty demanding so I'm not too worried. I would rather take a bit more time and getthings looking the way I want then trying to rush through it. So ive done some facial expressions sheets for my characters just to help me think about what kind of emotion they will be going through and what I need to think about when I begin rigging.

I have also moved on to designing props and what props will be needed, so quite happy with what I have come up with and it isnt looking too bad in terms of modelling time. I am begginning to move onto background designs at this point and really want to push myself to get them sorted by next week.

I have also decided to create some marquettes of my characters I struugle to get them to look exactly how I want them on paper and i think this will pay off when i move onto modelling tthem in maya. So far I have finished both the main characters in clay and I am really happy with the results. I did have a bit of a problem getting them to support their heads but I decided to put a wire skeleton inside each model and this has really helped keep them together. It is quite strange, I thought I would of struggled a lot more with creating the marquettes as I have not dealt with clay much, but it felt quite natural and was so much easier getting them to look the way I intended in comparison to drawing them. So really happy I went ahead with it and just have the three child characters to go. I will put some pics up once they are done. I have also been thinking a bit more about my story and recently watched Pixars shor Partley Clouded which is just amazing. I really loved the relationship between the cloud and the stalk and was thinking that I would like my two main characters to build a strong connection between eachother but not too sure how yet. So aim for now is too finish off my marquettes, backgrounds and then move on to modelling my characters in Maya. I need to also push my self to do more training so I feel confident in doing this project when I get back after summer .

More Design Work

So continuing on from my last blog all I have really been doing is more and more design work. I decided to draw out a rough storyboard so I had a better idea on what I needed to design and what kind of background i will need. It is just a rough one so I am not happy with it and there lots I need to change and think about. I was quite surprised to see how long it turned out, took up 80 post-its, which is quite worrying I guess because I am meant to be aiming for 3min and not too sure if it may take longer. But again it’s very rough and there is lots of room for change. So anyway went onto doing more design work some water colour painting of my main characters as well as the three extra children I will be using. So far quite happy with the designs although I am thinking about changing Timmy’s eyes back to the way they use to be as they have gotten a bit too big I think, so will be playing around with that a bit. I have also decided on the ending on my story and so will be adding a pet for Timmy. This will be a pet spider which he carries around in a jar. I think this will also give me a great chance to animate something with more than 2 legs which could be good for my innovation project. Other than that just trying to keep the work flowing, I have been pulled away quite a bit and haven’t done as much as I have planned but Im still happy with what I got so far so hopefully it will continue.