Research/Concept Art

[100th post!] Pre-Production Complete

Celebrating my 100th Blog post AND the completion of my Pre-Production project. It's been a mission, but it's got done :)

The Final Design Bible:
Theatre of The People Design Bible
My Production Report:
AliceNightingale_ProductionReport
My Visual Research File:
Visual Research File
All my Sketchbook work for the Project:
Alice Pre Pro Sketch Book

Pre-Production: Sketchbook

Apologies for the post spamming today, but I was waiting for this to upload before I started my other two posts, aaaaand it only just finished. Here's a .pdf of all my sketchbook work for this project, so far:

Alice PrePro Sketch Book

Life Drawing 27.01.11

Getting back into the swing of things, I really am much happier to sit and draw in my sketchbook than stand at an easel:


Aaand pratting about with paint (I like my negative space one best):


As an animation student we tend to practise drawing a sequence of actions:


My favourites:

Pre-Production Inspiration/Research

Somehow, when Kathy told us to research Character Design, I don't think she would've expected this to pop up in what the website it's from calls "100 inspiring character designs".

However I did find an awesome blog that interviews different character/pre-production designers and showcases their work: http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/
It has quite a variety of different artists/animators on there, and the videos/pictures are really interesting, especially when you come across something you know and love. I especially enjoyed stumbling on the interview with Carlos Grangel who talked about his methods and designs for characters in The Corpse Bride (YAY BURTON!):



I recommend people check it out, it's a really cool website.

Workwise for this project so far I have been doing lots of research, mainly gathering images of wartime Berlin, watercolour artists, German wartime artists, concept art, clothing studies aaaand lots of doodles/mindmapping/scribbles.


I'm still a little hesitant to put things up on my blog at the moment, because things really are still in the rough stage, perhaps when I have more solid ideas and style I'll be a little braver.

Back in the Saddle.

So, after what was, due to lots of personal reasons, a fantastically crap Christmas break, I'm back at Uni, not feeling very refreshed, but keen to get on with anything.

This term we have to help the 3rd Years with their projects, I'm working on Alex Jolliffe's project, Barista.

My job is to animate a pigeon flying through the opening shot of a city which Alex has already been working on (and I helped cut out a few of the buildings!):

Untitled from Joleaf on Vimeo.

Just a little bird-y test to get back into things:


Alex thought I'd be good at the pigeon after seeing my experimental video :) when I've finished the opening scene I'll then move on and help with the character animation. To do this I'll be using Animate (once I learn a bit more about how it all works of course...) I downloaded my own copy since it's a better version of Flash, which I've enjoyed using for previous projects, despite its limitations (and crash count...!). I love the 2D vector style it can produce.

Also for this term I've decided to do the Pre-Production Project, although I still really want to learn how to Composite (not compost...) so I'm still going to try and attend as many Post lectures as possible.

I feel like the Pre-Production project will be a lot more interesting for me personally thanks to the cards I picked (in our seminar, Derek got us to pick 4 cards, one for setting/character/type of show/style). Originally the four I ended up with completely clashed with each other:

Setting: World War II Berlin
Character: Astral Body
Style: Hokusai (which I had no idea what it was!)
Show: Pre-School Children's Show.

I mean really, teaching pre-schoolers about WW2 Berlin with crazy spirits in an ancient Japanese art story style? I can't see myself being able to achieve that. Hats off to anyone else who can.

I swapped Hokusai (which I would epically fail at attempting) and got Watercolour, and swapped Pre-School to Music show. Again a little bit incensitive WW2 Berlin/Astral Body to music, but far more managable.
I'm also alot more excited about this project because A. I've actually visited Berlin when I was on my foundation course, so it feels a bit more personal and I can relate to it more, and B. The Second World War interested me already, so I feel I know a bit about it already and won't mind putting in the time it's going to take to do the research and C. I get to splash paint around (that last one was a joke - I suck at watercolours but at least I feel I'll actually be able to achieve the style).

Despite this picture suggesting otherwise, Berlin is in fact a very interesting place:









(gosh my hair was short).

11 Second Club, Concept/Storyboard/Reference

Voice One: "You stole it! I..."
Voice Two: "I thought you put it there!"
Voice One: "Why would I put it there?!?"
Voice Two: "Kindness?"
Voice One: "Kindness?! You stole it! He stole it!!"

My initial idea was to have two squirrels arguing over a nut, pretty basic, but also pretty obvious so I'm glad I didn't use that idea (also I'd've had to try and animate squirrels, despite watching lots of Disney films throughout my youth, I doubt I'd probably fail epically). This idea arrived almost instantaneously after listening to the voice clip, (a transcript can be found above), which was a minor miracle as this was early Monday morning.


My second idea appeared not long after while we were in the 2D session breaking down the soundclip to begin the start of our dopesheets: An Angel and a Devil (like the two little guys who you always see in films acting as the characters conscience) arguing over a stolen "feeling", the ending, where the Devil would shout "He stole it!" would've panned out to reveal the character who was having a battle with their conscience, and the Angel and Devil had been sat/floating by their shoulders.



After speaking with Derek he raised some problems with my idea (he's good at doing that), in that it wasn't obvious what my characters were arguing over, whereas with the squirrel idea it was too obvious, this wan't obvious at all. He also suggested changing the Devil to the one who says "kindness?" to make it more ironic and add a bit of comedy to it. So, my revised idea is still having an Angel and a Devil arguing, but this time, the Angel is the angry one, because the Devil has stolen his Halo and got it stuck over his horns.




Now having finished the storyboard, I have recorded some reference material (with horrendous acting once again) in order to make a quick animatic this week. I still need to use After Effects to composite the two clips (since I couldn't act for the Angel & Devil at once), but I have the cut that I want to use to emphasise the "kindness" line. Also note my amazing props. Yeeeah.


Aaaand finally (this has been a mammoth update) this is a quick drawing I did in Photoshop to give a (very) rough idea of what the final thing will kind of look like:


(The background picture is from ForsakeWolf at Deviant Art who put this up as a Stock photo so that others can use it for free).

Experimental Ideas

I've been kind of neglecting blogging about this project, mainly because I had a lack of ideas for aaaages, and then when I had some, they weren't particularly good. But, this post is to show, that YES, I have actually been doing some work towards it. But more importantly, have now got an idea I want to start working with.

Some reject ideas:

My final idea:

Reminds me of this YouTube video I had a look at (though hopefully my cut-out parts will be animated better):


Camera set-ups for the final idea, the one on the left is how I thought I'd need to set things up, but after talking to Derek, the plan on the right was formed.


So now I need to buy a large piece of glass or plastic, tracing paper, potentially get a tripod and lots of black card/paper.
Work out the music on a dope sheet.
Film the hands.
Prepare the card.
And then animate it all.

I think I'm going to initially use animation paper & a lightbox to figure out my creatures metamorphis and movements.

Also, check out the new header/banner thing, made from lots of scanned in magazine-y bits, because I like collage and the old one was annoying me muchly.

[Experi]mental Sketchbook [4]

This week's sketchy fun (In another awesome MONTAGE of favourites). Set up a few objects in a circle spin a pencil, draw the object the pencil points to... This was suprisingly fun (and I cheated a bit, I drew what I wanted).



Formation is virtually finished, just have to piece it together tomorrow!

[Experi]mental Sketchbook [3]

Last week's sketchy fun... Creating a picture from squiggles. It was quite fun, but sometimes really hard to try and think of something to turn such an abstract line into something else. Here are my favourites (arranged into a pretty montage for yooou):

[Experi]mental Sketchbook [2]

An update from last week's sketchbook, I've done some more Animal Firm things this week but don't have the files with me at the moment, so you'll have to wait patiently for another blog update...

Lasat week's sketchy game (working with Jake) was to draw song titles... I really enjoyed it and filled a small sketchbook with just over 30 drawings... not bad, and it saved me from five hours of train travel boredom last weekend. Anyway, here are 8 of my favourites :)

clickee clickee for a massive preview...

Formation Animatic

The completed Animatic for the Formation project:


We're updating the formation blog pretty often, not everything is going to post everything here, so you might want to check it out.

It's a good thing the Animatic is completed, as in two hours time I'll be heading home to celebrate my (not-so) little brother's 18th birthday. (Don't worry, I'm taking my sketchbooks to hopefully abate my boredom on the trains...) Will be back ready on sunday to start the real animation on monday :)

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.