Episode 7: I'm out of Star Wars puns!

So holy crap!
What a week! Got all 3 of my assignments in as well as went away to a film conference in Dunedin for the weekend, then on top of that edited a 20 min video of someones holiday in New Zealand for a job. Not to mention Script editing for the group project, pricing up an TVC, rewriting a short script for funding submission, a 6-10min Presentation on my Character, Preping for my first payed Photo Shoot for a fly fishing Mag! and somewhere in there trying to
be a Dad and a husband!

And it's only just warming up! Anywho here is my Final Concept art with the summary and Bio....

So this week we start modelling!!!

The Group Project is ticking along a working script has been approved so next week I'll be drawing up the storyboards. Also the pledge me video is up so check it out and donate!!

https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/928

So Link of the Week....

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/plastiphobia-1962

It's a classic NZ stop motion from 1962. We owe a lot of modern stop motion techniques to pioneers like these! real emotion from some basic figures, brilliant.

Episode 6: The Assignment Wars

So another week down!
Craziness all round from Broken baby arms to the final three ideas for the group project being chucked out and a completely new idea now at the 2nd draft stage!

Been pretty full on with 3 assignments due this Friday  Group script is due, not final but still, Character sketches and Bio for Drawing and Finished Digital character painting for 3D character animation.
So it's been a juggling act with that and my 16 month old's new cast to match his broken wrist. He decided to jump off our bed and did not land well. Anyways

Today I'll put up my lighting plan and blocked colours, as well as some research I did into the character design, including bone and muscle.

So here is my final pose with the lighting plan and final colour palette, now just need to add the Shading and detailing!

So for the research I looked into some cartoon sages/wizards, also some short characters. These be my results!

http://graphicleftovers.com/graphic/1547831-simple-cartoon-wizard-with-staff 

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/classic-disney/quiz/show/371012/friar-tuck-portrayed-badger-but-what-originally

http://www.asterix.com/encyclopedia/characters/getafix.html

http://sweatygirl.net/2012/11/16/11-questions/seven-dwarfs/

So hopefully pretty obvious what I 'borrowed' from what. definitely Grumpy has been a big influence.

So looking into the muscle and bone I figured the best reference would be little people so I googled and got a great bone reference.

http://www.bjwinslow.com/gallery/cabinetcuriosites/dwarf_skeleton_33?full=1

So the results of looking into how Albeits inside might look.

Tomorrow it's off to see if my wee boy needs an operation or not... best case scenario he comes home like wolverine. 

Finally I'll end with my pick for the week.

I've chosen this for it's relevance to the group project. enjoy

https://vimeo.com/23199805

Episode 5: The Work load Strikes Back

Here we go again about to launch into another week!
Last few days have been spent busy working on several assignments due in the next couple of
weeks.
The Major Group Project is ticking along with a couple of great sessions with Duncan and Rob Sarkies the Writer and Director of "Two Little Boys"( 2012) and "Scarfies" (1999). We are fortunate enough to have these two great men mentoring us on this group project!
The basic sum of our last meeting resulted in the group filtering the ideas down to three working titles.

"The Bunker"
A family must go into a cryogenic sleep in order to escape an impending epidemic, the family wake to find there son isn't in his chamber. The family travel into their house and discover their son has been living out his life through the epidemic. The boy know older has got to the ultimate point of loneliness and awakened his parents from their sleep early, exposing them to the harmful environment.

"Keys"
A women has a set of keys to a door in her shop. With the turn of each key resulting in a door opening upon a different destination. Her world is tipped upside down by the discovery of a new key, one to which she has no idea as to where the door will take her....

"Pirates"
A young boy escapes his physically abusive father by entering into his imaginary alternate reality, fulled with pirates.

So from here we are all to write a brief synopsis of two of the ideas we would personally like to explore.
These will be brought back to the group on Wed and a final idea for the group short will be decided for development!

So other than that I've been working on research for 3d Character animation.
After looking at some pics and the silhouettes, I've developed my wee sage a step further changing his design and belt.

Yea so happy with how he's coming along. 

Below I'll put my prop development and some stills from my research! whoop whoop! 

And the research behind all this! 

http://www.customwalkingsticks.com/ws_fp_page2.shtml

http://www.geocities.ws/lotr_osgiliath/gandalf.html

http://www.whatsyourobsession.com/sideshow-collectibles-gandalf-the-grey-premium-format-review/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/prescott_small/5318296779/

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/571034/wizard-s-staff

http://www.lrpstore.com/Northlands-Staff--60/p--32/

http://flame22.deviantart.com/art/Gray-Wizard-s-Staff-279089716

And the Belt... 

http://www.leonineroar.com/?p=999

http://finelineleather.tumblr.com/page/5

http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.co.nz/2009/11/more-bags-pouches.html

http://www.webring.org/hub/renaissance?w=1360;rh=http%3A%2F%2Fwebspace%2Ewebring%2Ecom%2Fpeople%2Flt%2Fthorvin%2Egeo%2Fbelt_pouch%2Ehtm;rd=1

http://glapsvidur.deviantart.com/art/Viking-belt-pouch-160497826

http://www.google.co.nz/imgres?start=110&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1088&bih=488&tbm=isch&tbnid=57Ke7cP1Km6RxM:&imgrefurl=http://www.nwanime.com/forum/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D59%26t%3D15691&docid=e0ht5M2m2hIAGM&imgurl=http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg153/MR_Williams0/Naruto%252520wire%252520album/da1cc013-e9c2-4436-8fce-8614758d802.jpg&w=600&h=502&ei=RZY3Ud_UBcmmkgWBuoGIBw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:22,s:100,i:70&iact=rc&dur=1979&page=8&tbnh=200&tbnw=240&ndsp=17&tx=158&ty=120

http://elfieguy10.deviantart.com/art/Leather-Potion-Bottles-with-Belt-Attachment-346259949

Yea so that was my prop development. next post I'll put up all the wizard/sage research I've been doing! 

So here be my clip of the week it's one of my personal favorite shorts I've ever seen. 

No animating involved but I find inspiration should come from all aspects of art. Personally this film blew me away, at first it took me a minute to see what was going on, stylish and visually stunning Weightless is truly a piece of art. A playful dance defining gravity. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLfFV-FM0vs

"Weightless" by Erika Janunger

Episode 4: Roles Reversed

A productive day yesterday...

Started off finalizing the roles for the group project, followed by rounding out an idea the animators are pitching to the Sarkies, followed by a character development session with Rob and Duncan Sarkies. Finally to end an already busy day finished with an eye painting tutorial in Photoshop.  quite the day.

So in chronological order......

The Roles

Roles Pre-production

• Film Liaison Officer (stays throughout the project) - Jasper
• Production Designer (stays throughout the project) – Jade
• Script Editing – James/Jasper
• Concept Artist - Brandon
• Character Designer - Brandon
• Environments Designer – Brandon
• Effects Designer - Jasper
• Storyboard Artist - James/Book
• Pre-Vis Artists - Dan
• Layout TD - Ying

Production

• Effects Supervisor – Jasper
• Effects TD – Jasper/James
• Modelling TD - Jade
• Shading TD - Brandon
• Rigging TD - James
• Character TD - Rachel
• Matte Painter - Brandon
• Rendering TD - Ying
• Lighting - Dan
• Tracking/Match Mover - Book
• Animation Director – Jade/Rachel
• Animators – Book/Dan

Post

• Compositor TD – James/Jade
• Roto Artist - Book
• Wire Remover - Book
• Colour Correct (animation) - Dan

and my eye......

This was from a tutorial hand out,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJs-Vlv4dw&list=SP2010F0BDC411BDC9&index=3

So I combined what we learnt in class with the tutorial above. Some interesting new techniques learnt. 

So meeting again today to work a bit more on the animation pitch! Also my sister is at the hospital right now so going well I'll be an Uncle again for the 8th times before lunch! 

Episode 3: Revenge of the Baby

So another week down! only like 40 more to go!

My 16 month old was sick and also teething this week, so been a bit of a struggle to find the balance between work and responsibility but I still managed to get a little work done, not to mention a day on a river.

A few things happened this week, the Film peeps decided on their roles and we had a really positive ideas

brainstorming season together. The production company being set up for the film is "Electric Shoelace". 

This week we'll decide who does what on the animation team. I've put my hand up to Script edit and Storyboard for Prepro. I haven't thought too much on the other roles for Production and Post yet. 

We also did a silhouette exercise for 226 3d character animation which was fun and a little challenging. 

Below are my finished silhouettes. The brief was to create 20 different characters using only 3 values, then choose 6 to develop and change.   

So this week I believe we will be finalizing or group ideas ready to pitch to Rob and Duncan Sarkies!

Oh and my new Wacom arrived! been wanting one of these for years! thank you course related costs!

The link of the week today is a fun wee 3D animation about a Big Bunny getting revenge on some evil Squirrel and his couple of lackies. 

https://vimeo.com/1084537

I really enjoyed the fully rounded characters playing off each other, as well as the post modern twist on the cute family Pixar genre. I also loved the lighting it looks like the lighting I've been thinking of for my character animation!