Episode 20: The Beginning Of The End, Or Is It The End Of The Beginning?!

Ok so here it is the final Blog for 2013!

What a year it's been!!!!

Made a couple of animations, worked on some films, took some photos, I turned 30 and my son turned 2. I even managed a few days on the water fishing! check out the website to prove it!
http://aperturejames.wix.com/aperture

I though for the last blog I'd talk a bit about the journey I've been on bringing Albeit to life.

 It was a wild ride of stress and despair followed by a euphoric feeling of what just happened and is it even anything?  So below I've got my original 2D concepts followed by their 3D outcomes.

So here we see Albeit in all is 3D glory! I was pretty happy with how he came out, there where some issues with his rig ect. But nothing you don't get used too or can't work around. 

Overall I was happy with how the animation came out. I didn't quite realise just how much time is needed to go into an animation. I'm so exhausted after getting it all done I just don't know what to do with my day any more! 

 Here is Archee in all his 3D fuzziness! I was really pleased with how Archee came out! he had a lot of character for a wee ball of black fuzz. I had several comments about what a cute character he was at the "Flicks" screening the other night. I was pretty happy with the feedback I think I succeeded in making a spider cuddly.

So yea done and dusted, below I've got my website and trailer for "A Quest For Knowledge" check them out!!

Part of our last assignment has been to create a website for either promoting our animation or ourselves
I decided to make "A Quest For Knowledge" website! check it out
http://albeitaqfk.wix.com/aquestforknowledge
Here is the link of the week!
It's the trailer for "A Quest For Knowledge"
https://vimeo.com/79365114


I'll leave you with a mock style frame I made quickly with toon shaders this morning. It's a frame from my next 3D animated short "Forgotten". A story about a creature with some un answered questions about his existence, what he discovers will change his world forever.......

And my next short Film "Click Clack Click" which will be shooting in April 2014......

Have a good Xmas and I'll be back next year as I blog my 1st year in the real world........

Episode 19: So Close To The End I Can Taste It......

Well I haven't posted in ages! So yea lets just say things have been pretty stressed with the dead line only 9 days away!!!
I've been busy with all the animation, rendering and composting. I'm hoping to have the final render finished by tomorrow to start the soundscape.

The Flicks Film Festival is also coming up which will be the cast and crew screening as well as an audience test screening before final tweaks and submitting to festivals.

So one of the stress causes has been the epic task of creating a complete graphic novel for a life drawing assignment, so today I thought I'd break down my process for the creation of "The Hermit" a graphic novel based on a screenplay of mine.

First I took the script and worked out how to change the medium for film into a illustrated form, this wasn't too difficult as I approached it the same way I would if I had of storyboarded the film.

The main trouble was with film you have sound which can be a powerful story telling tool, so it was a process of figuring out how these aspects would play out in picture form.

So I layed out the script into pages, working out where the beats in the story and it's pivot points needed to fall so as a suspenseful shot would end at the page turn etc. Then came the thumbnails process.

After I thumbnailed it I spent a weekend photographing Steve Woller as the Hermit

Jasper Hayward as Mickey and Adam Brown as Sam. 

It was a fun couple of days and I was really happy with the shoot.

From there I took the photos and layed them out in photoshop, this process took the longest 

of the whole thing.

After it was all layed out, I sketched over top the photos. I made a rule I wasn't allowed to ctrl+Z 

so this maintained a rough sketch look rather than a polished style.

Then I painted over top the photos and placed that layer in a masked group to give it 

a water colour effect. 

I was pretty happy with the final result. 

So next week I'll do a break down for some of the compositing on A Quest For Knowledge. 

Here is the link of the week! 

I just watched this and didn't quite know what just happened but I was happy about it. 

https://vimeo.com/78442636

Directed by: Koji Aramaki

Mesmerizing, I loved the digital style but the organic colour palette. 

Enjoy