I really like what you've done james, tis nice to see. the simple style will work well and i think you might be right about the mouths aswell. As long as we can convey the emoutions and narrative theres no need for mouths. but would be good to hear what everyone else thinks.
~Dave
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Mouthwash..?! We don't need no stinkin' mouthwash!
Hey Team Fishin',
What you see below is by no means final. It is an initial head sculpt I created for the character of Felix but it is far from perfect. For one it has carpet hair all over it because I dropped it. Secondly, my sculpting ability is amateur at best, especially at such a teensy weensy scale as this, so any resemblance to the human head at this stage was more down to luck and random fist-bashing than my own skill. In my defense, this thing is tiny:
(Note the 10 penny piece for scale).
The size will not be exactly correct in relation to the armature bodies we plan to make I imagine, but the heads will not be much bigger than this, if bigger at all. As I say, this is not final. I just wanted to try my hand at something more physical than the animatic.
Sculpted out of Milliput. The eyes are plastic beads (I'll talk more about my idea for eyes later on). The eyebrows are scupted as part of the head for now, but will eventually be plastacine so they are fully animatable. And I think I've solved our mouth problem...
... we don't need mouths. (The following applies just for the six band members... I think Bill should definately have a mouth).
Feel free to debate this, but I had a play about with the head moving just the eyebrows and the eyes and, just like Gromit, the emotion comes through perfectly well without a mouth. This means we don't have the added complication of sculpting loads of different mouth shapes or having additional facial animation. Basically, it will save us a lot of time and simplify matters a great deal. Of course it also means we can't lip-sync, but we have talked about that already.
Thoughts? Comments?
-James
What you see below is by no means final. It is an initial head sculpt I created for the character of Felix but it is far from perfect. For one it has carpet hair all over it because I dropped it. Secondly, my sculpting ability is amateur at best, especially at such a teensy weensy scale as this, so any resemblance to the human head at this stage was more down to luck and random fist-bashing than my own skill. In my defense, this thing is tiny:
(Note the 10 penny piece for scale).
The size will not be exactly correct in relation to the armature bodies we plan to make I imagine, but the heads will not be much bigger than this, if bigger at all. As I say, this is not final. I just wanted to try my hand at something more physical than the animatic.
Sculpted out of Milliput. The eyes are plastic beads (I'll talk more about my idea for eyes later on). The eyebrows are scupted as part of the head for now, but will eventually be plastacine so they are fully animatable. And I think I've solved our mouth problem...
... we don't need mouths. (The following applies just for the six band members... I think Bill should definately have a mouth).
Feel free to debate this, but I had a play about with the head moving just the eyebrows and the eyes and, just like Gromit, the emotion comes through perfectly well without a mouth. This means we don't have the added complication of sculpting loads of different mouth shapes or having additional facial animation. Basically, it will save us a lot of time and simplify matters a great deal. Of course it also means we can't lip-sync, but we have talked about that already.
Thoughts? Comments?
-James
Saturday, 7 November 2009
some photos of working and test shots
First draft of storyboard...
Making test cabin...
some test shots...
(image above) first animatic rendered... it needs alot of work but its a start
awesome reference for shots...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUzW-fDNEJ0
~Dave
Making test cabin...
some test shots...
(image above) first animatic rendered... it needs alot of work but its a start
awesome reference for shots...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUzW-fDNEJ0
~Dave
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Here's Billy!
Here is the character design for Bill the Ogre.
Note: This was designed and drawn by David... I'm just putting it up here.
-James
Note: This was designed and drawn by David... I'm just putting it up here.
-James
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
And God Created Man...
Hi guys... sorry about being a bit late posting these.
Anyhoo, here are the character design sheets for the six members of the band. Bill the Ogre is pending.
(Click each image for a 1024 x 768 version):
I have included our type written notes about each band member so we all have a firm understanding of who's who, what instrument they play and what order they are always walking in.
Basically, any shot in the animatic where a band member is seen needs to be redrawn using the above designs so we can maintain a visual consistancy, and thus clarity throughout our story.
Follow these sheets and we cant go wrong!
-James
Anyhoo, here are the character design sheets for the six members of the band. Bill the Ogre is pending.
(Click each image for a 1024 x 768 version):
I have included our type written notes about each band member so we all have a firm understanding of who's who, what instrument they play and what order they are always walking in.
Basically, any shot in the animatic where a band member is seen needs to be redrawn using the above designs so we can maintain a visual consistancy, and thus clarity throughout our story.
Follow these sheets and we cant go wrong!
-James
Monday, 2 November 2009
Reference
Sepultura – Ratamahtta
I like the textures and materiality throughout the animation and the jungle scenes could be useful reference for the ‘Walking’ scene, ‘Felix Panic’ scene and maybe the ‘Cabin’ scene.
Alaska Stop – motion
Sorry Hayley it wasn’t me, not sure who posted this animation. To be honest I’m not too keen on the way its shot in real environments; it really highlights its faults. From this I think we need to make sure the dirt/soil/ground is mostly, if not all, stuck down. So as to prevent it moving unintentionally.
Moooooomins!
I really like the semi 2d aesthetic and it could work well to mix in propped up cut out pictures with the model trees and other backgrounds. This could help give the shots more depth and maybe even to force perspective at points.
Armatures
http://www.squidoo.com/armatures
As we will be making our armatures now, here’s one site I found on building armatures, although there not for animation, I thought we could pick up some pointers on the structure and adapt it to what we need.
Here's some reference I’ve been looking at for some of the scenes (I think we’ve talked about most of these):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY
The opening titles of Se7en, although a lot more creepy than we’re going for, uses a lot of interesting shots that could be adapted for our opening scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq4GxS8Rzg8
I love the use of light and shadow in Caroline Leaf’s ‘Two Sisters’ and the way in which there’s a green tint to the lines reminded me of the colour palette we were talking about. And again the shots used at the start and the way they are obscured, slowly revealing the environment reminded me of our opening scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9p5IVPr784&feature=related
James mentioned this one and also the opening of the first Jurassic park would be good reference for the kidnap scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz3KQgqJgPE
Reference for ‘Felix panic’ scene
http://www.vimeo.com/1309452
This video for the fleet foxes is awesome, if you haven’t seen it already, and it just so happens to be stop – mo and include water and many other woodland reference. Also the character design, I didn’t think plastercine would work for our characters but watching this again I’m not so sure, what does everyone think?
http://www.vimeo.com/5484969
Oh and there’s a making of video as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1AQsuO_zqE
I really liked the composition of the woods in this.
Well that’s about it for now, I will be uploading some photos of our work we’ve done in uni, at some point (sorry James) most likely tomorrow. Let me know what you think of some of the references, if we haven’t already talked about them already.
~Dave
I like the textures and materiality throughout the animation and the jungle scenes could be useful reference for the ‘Walking’ scene, ‘Felix Panic’ scene and maybe the ‘Cabin’ scene.
Alaska Stop – motion
Sorry Hayley it wasn’t me, not sure who posted this animation. To be honest I’m not too keen on the way its shot in real environments; it really highlights its faults. From this I think we need to make sure the dirt/soil/ground is mostly, if not all, stuck down. So as to prevent it moving unintentionally.
Moooooomins!
I really like the semi 2d aesthetic and it could work well to mix in propped up cut out pictures with the model trees and other backgrounds. This could help give the shots more depth and maybe even to force perspective at points.
Armatures
http://www.squidoo.com/armatures
As we will be making our armatures now, here’s one site I found on building armatures, although there not for animation, I thought we could pick up some pointers on the structure and adapt it to what we need.
Here's some reference I’ve been looking at for some of the scenes (I think we’ve talked about most of these):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY
The opening titles of Se7en, although a lot more creepy than we’re going for, uses a lot of interesting shots that could be adapted for our opening scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq4GxS8Rzg8
I love the use of light and shadow in Caroline Leaf’s ‘Two Sisters’ and the way in which there’s a green tint to the lines reminded me of the colour palette we were talking about. And again the shots used at the start and the way they are obscured, slowly revealing the environment reminded me of our opening scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9p5IVPr784&feature=related
James mentioned this one and also the opening of the first Jurassic park would be good reference for the kidnap scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz3KQgqJgPE
Reference for ‘Felix panic’ scene
http://www.vimeo.com/1309452
This video for the fleet foxes is awesome, if you haven’t seen it already, and it just so happens to be stop – mo and include water and many other woodland reference. Also the character design, I didn’t think plastercine would work for our characters but watching this again I’m not so sure, what does everyone think?
http://www.vimeo.com/5484969
Oh and there’s a making of video as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1AQsuO_zqE
I really liked the composition of the woods in this.
Well that’s about it for now, I will be uploading some photos of our work we’ve done in uni, at some point (sorry James) most likely tomorrow. Let me know what you think of some of the references, if we haven’t already talked about them already.
~Dave
Sunday, 1 November 2009
I've watched the vid's linked to on here. I presume David put up the polar bear one? I liked it, not so fond of the animation, but thought it was clever how they basically filmed it outside and everything was natural.
Grace the voodo video is cool, I liked the way the sets and the characters were built (on a side note I could only guess what was going on O_O) it fitted the music well.
~Hayley
Grace the voodo video is cool, I liked the way the sets and the characters were built (on a side note I could only guess what was going on O_O) it fitted the music well.
~Hayley
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