Celtic Welsh Mythology - Potential story?

   So, I'm really into idea generation at the moment and basically, Moana is my new favourite film, I love it so much and I literally play the soundtrack on repeat. I did some research on it and found out that Maui originates from a Polynesian myth and they developed the story from that. So i was inspired by this and read a load of mythology books and also researched and looked at some Celtic Welsh myths and there was one that i saw that had potential to be a short animation:

Gwion and the Witch tells of the birth of Taliesin, one of the earliest British poets whose name we know. The witch is Ceridwen. Gwion, her servant, must keep the fire burning for a year and a day under the cauldron where the magic brew simmers. Ceridwen has made the potion to bestow on her son, Morfran, the gift of poetry. But as the cauldron boils nearly dry, the last magic drop jumps onto Gwion’s finger. He sucks his scalded finger, and it is he, not Morfran, who will become the great poet. In an exciting chase, he escapes the witch and all her evil spells, and becomes Taliesin.

so yeah, I just did a quick drawing of a witch but it doesn't look that great because the colours looked different on the wacom tablet i was using. Hey ho!

DGA260 - Bug Whisperers backgrounds

   This is a background I did for the James Henry Bug Whisperers story. I was thinking along the lines of Winnie the Pooh - except, there is definitely a lot more depth in the Winnie the pooh backgrounds. I'm still quite happy with mine though. The shadows - maybe a bit wrong and could be a lot cleaner but it looks alright on the whole. I can imagine the mouse character living here maybe, I've always wanted to draw a little house inside a tree so this was pretty cool :) Below are two examples of the Winnie the Pooh backgrounds:

DGA240 - Crew Project/Our Daughter is a Necromancer

   This is a practice background I did to get me started and help me get used to the techniques and brushes. I think it actually turned out okay, I just followed Elitsa's tutorial but I think I might try and put my own spin on it for more practice. I'm feeling good about this :)

DGA240 - Live Brief: New Storyboard

This is snippets of the new storyboard I did for the Eco project, it's safe to say I'm glad that's over! It was so hard to get every detail from the script and translate it into the storyboard, I kept drawing frames and then seeing something further in the script that should be in the previous frames and ahhhh it was mind boggling. I just hope the guys animating can understand it!

Cafe Conversations

In Luis Cook's talk on Monday about idea generation, He told us that he sometimes gets ideas from other people. For example, he would go to a cafe and listen to other people's conversations and sometimes some mad stuff comes from it. So I decided to do it myself, I went down to Gylly beach cafe and there were two ladies there - mid sixties maybe? It looked and sounded like they just met for a catch up. Anyway, I only caught snippets of their conversation because unfortunately I was sat right next to the music speaker and I didn't want to move or it would be obvious that i was listening. Nothing really interesting came from it because it was mostly just small talk but I will definitely do it again. This is some of the stuff that I heard:

"I'm going away, I'm going by myself, I'm going to Florence for four weeks in June"

"Four weeks?"

"Yes four weeks."

"We all got together for breakfast the morning after the wedding and we met at this restaurant and it was just like a Korean except it was American, John's dad was saying "now the secret is to have your children really early." If it was her, she would say to us "Mum, Dad, shut up" but she just had to sit there and put up with it."

"I don't like Halloween"

"No but the children do"

(Sorry but WHO DOESN'T LIKE HALLOWEEN?)

So yeah, that was pretty much it, it was actually quite nice to listen to other people's conversations, I just found it pretty interesting. I didn't get any ideas from it but I'm glad I did it!

DGA260 - Bug Whisperers character Line up

  

   Wait, aren't moles supposed to be the biggest out of these four characters?? I'll have to edit these ha! I don't know how I feel about this, I think it looks okay, each character could be developed a bit more and could have been drawn a bit tidier, aside that, I'm actually pleased with myself because when we first had this brief I literally had no idea what I was going to do and questioned everything, but here I am! and here they are! I think if I have some more time I'm going to try and develop them a bit more but for now, yay!

DGA260 - More Bug Whisperers Characters

  

   In all honestly I don't really like these ideas but I might as well put them up on here and add them into my bible as research and experimentation, I just feel like they could be a lot more imaginative and developed, they seem quite boring, I just struggle so much because my lack of self confidence holds me back a lot, I'm trying though! I think I might do a 100mph thinking session - one of Luis Cook's methods of generating ideas. The brief said we could go wild with what powers the figments have and there are endless possibilities so I think i'll write whatever comes to my head, make a list and start drawing!

Luis Cook talk 20/02/17

So Luis Cook is here to talk to us all week about various things and today's session was all about generating ideas. It was so inspiring and I spent the rest of the day doing different idea generating things. These are some pictures to show the kind of stuff I was doing. I wrote a load of random words on paper and cut them out, then randomly picked two at a time and put them together to make these crazy ideas. I actually like some of them and might do a bit of sketching and thumbnailing maybe? Luis also said he often sits in cafes and public places and listens to peoples conversations then jots them down. So I went down to Gylly Beach Café and overheard two ladies speaking about their upcoming holidays and weddings and other small talky things. Luis also talked about inspiring images and explained the importance of having a notebook or sketchbook. It was an eye opener and I feel so much better about idea generation. I'm ready to explore!

Life Drawing 15/02/17

   Really wasn't feeling life drawing today. I think it just feels quite repetitive - same model, same poses, same medium. I might try using ink next time and mix it up a bit. I quite like this sketch which was the first pose we did. Every other pose I drew from today was just....meh. Hopefully next week will be better.

DGA260 - Bug Whisperers

Just some more....Character sheets? I guess you could call them character sheets. I feel like my designs could be a lot stronger but I am kind of weak in the character design area, maybe its just my confidence holding me back? I think they're all coming along quite nicely. I think I'll probably explore a little more though with the designs.

Live Brief - Eco Project

   So, we've slightly change our idea and we now have a fixed idea and sort of script so I quickly and very roughly started to storyboard so we can breakdown the script, I used the background of the street that Sam did and it looks pretty good. Of course, my storyboarding skills aren't really great but I'm hoping that doing this will help me improve. This storyboard definitely needs tweaking but it's a start! Plus at least we have another new thing to show in tomorrow's session! :)

Hobbs

   So this little guy is Hobbs, James described him as being a short sighted, sturdy mole warrior. Wears ancient armour and a mighty hammer. So, maybe the hammer that I have drawn could be a bit 'mightier' but I think he looks quite cute, maybe a better armour too, I might have a play around with different types and I still need to have a look at other colours for the mole too like brows in stead of greys and blues. I'm really enjoying this at the moment, will definitely do more on it.

DGA260 - James Henry Projects

So the new year has begun and for the first session of the module James Henry kindly went through a couple of film/show ideas with us. Our task was to do a bit of concept work and upload it to the forum and then comment on 3 people's work with feedback. I chose 'Bug Whisperers'.

As soon as I put pen to paper (or in my case, pen to Wacom tablet) I knew what kind of face I was going forl. But to be honest it took me ages to figure out the right body. Again, in all honesty, the body could be better but it doesn't actually look too bad. I feel like it could be a bit more clean and tidy, I should've maybe used a more smooth brush but I also weirdly kinda like it? I'm looking forward to doing more character designs and experimenting with this!