Final Post of the year!

Well... it's the final post of my academic year, and my 50th blog post! The blog will live on (hopefully through the summer too...)

So... here's the completed Animal Firm. (I couldn't figure out how to upload a PDF file, I believe you need an account of somesort somewhere). Each picture will probably be huge, so click for a massive preview...

Animal Firm

I've just realised that I haven't actully done much Animal Firm updates since showing my resource images. It's pretty criminal (aharhar...) that I haven't mentioned it in a while, but rest assured, I'm going to provide a massive picture dump to prove my progress. For those who don't know, the Animal Firm brief was to create a set of gangster/mobster animals in their own world, hence my *hilarious* pun earlier. We have to create a production bible (in pdf format) for the concept tv show/film based in the world we have created. I still need to write up the back stories for most of the characters and give them proper names, but here are a few things I've got so far...
My main gangster, is a chihuhua (which I always have to look up before I attempt to spell...), the ironically named Mr. Big:



The character on the left is called "Toothy Joe", and the one on the right a (currently un-named) bouncer for "Club Tropicana", ran by the Peacock above.

I've created the environments by using the Sims 2 (like I did for the background project), so that I can save my sanity (my perspective goes crazy when I try to draw a building from scratch...). Each of the buildings are created on rough sketches I drew beforehand, without using the game they'd probably stay in the same condition... box rooms with horrendously misproportioned objects and characters in.

The Club is based upon the old Art Deco cinema in the town I come from, (and to some extent, especially the colourscheme, from Grand Theft Auto Vice City and hooray for the crap perspective, despite using a photograph for reference!).


The club's interior:


Some W.I.P's of the characters in the environment:

Aaaand, a finished one:

I think I'll leave it at that for now.

Sketchbooking

This week I've gotten on a lot better with Kathy's project (largely due to Nigel & Olly coming up with a good idea to base this weeks drawing around). I've worked on it all over the weekend (also been working on some Animal Firm) so that I can spend this week cracking on with the Animatic I've just started for the "Formation" project, which we now have a blog for.

Anyway, sketchbook project this week, we drew an object beginning with the first letters of the alphabet.

*insert witty post title here*

This is going to be a mammoth update. You have been warned.

First week back, and it's already as manic as the end of last term. We've already been set three major projects and have optional 3D sessions on a Friday, which for now I'm going to persevere with (I was really pleased, we briefly dipped our toes into the waters of rigging, and to my suprise, it actually made sense. It so far seems much more logicical in terms of thinking, which is perhaps why my brain can handle what we've done so far. However, this is only the beginning, and if I get in over my head I'll abandon ship - did you see what I did with that metaphor there? Yeah...)

The first project we've been set, we had a choice of two briefs: to create a title sequence for an internet program, ("Formation", which is essentially 28 Days Later, but with flies...), being made by the collaboration of students from different Cornish Colleges/Schools/Universities; or to create an animation of any length using the script "What, What, What, What, What".
I've chosen to be a part of the only group to do the title sequence, along with Jake and Rozi. In our brainstorming session, Rozi put forward the idea of the title sequence being styled in a similar cut-out style of the opening titles of the film "Catch Me If You Can". I think it's the idea of working to this style that made me decide to pursue this brief, I've wanted to try this style for quite a while, and now with this brief and feeling more confident about Flash I can finally get round to it. The videos below are of the "Catch Me If You Can" titles and the opening sequence for "Casino Royale" (which I've always loved) display the kind of style we're aiming/basing it on:




Our first storyboard (click for larger view):


Second:



All 3 of us are creating silhouettes of people to use, Rozi wants to create the lab and Jake is creating the bit with the apple (I think), I'm on fly duty and created a (very) basic animation test on Flash to get the wing movements, I realise the legs need to move aswell, but thought it wasn't too bad for a first attempt:



The second project is another Sketchbook project from Kathy, devising a "game" each week to base our sketches on. I'm not suer how that'll go. I really need to buy a another new sketchbook for, because I've already started to fill the one I bought with ideas for Derek's project.

The third project is the one I'm most excited about and have already started to create lots of characters and began to visualise the locations in my head. I'm going to use the Sims, like I did for the background project, to help get the buildings how I want them to look (I epically fail at trying to create a building from scratch) and draw them from the angles I want. I don't want to give too much away, but I drew up four characters yesterday, then, as I was starting to feel sleepy I had sudden inspiration (it doesn't happen alot, but when it does, it's normally pretty good) to write a really long description about one of the locations I drew a rough sketch for. We have to create a production bible for an underground Mafia style animation ("Animal Firm"), we can choose to make it for children or for a more adult audience, and create sketches of characters and locations they would associate in. Like I said, I don't want to give too much away, however, I will put up my pictures I'm using for reference and leave you to guess.
(Click for a mahoosive view).

Aaaand that's it. If you read this far, congratulations for having extreme patience, or have nothing better to do.