Storyboarding for landlubber

 

So the animatic showing is tomorrow so I was given a scene from the newest story to storyboard so Jess can put it in the animatic. These were done very roughly and simple but it's the first official animatic so I don't think a great deal of detail is expected (hopefully not anyway) 

Pirate Code Backgrounds

I haven't spoken to Jess yet to see if these are okay but she's going for watercolour style for backgrounds so I was playing around with some water colour brushes that I loaded onto photoshop and I think it looks pretty cool, I just need to figure out how to incorporate lighting and shadow/depth into it. I also quickly put some of the characters in to see what they look like against the background even though the story has changed a bit, I think with the softness in the background, the black outline of the characters helps them to stand out. At the moment I don't think it really looks very exciting or eye catching but i'll have a word with jess and see what she thinks. I quite like this style.

Here (below, I was just playing around with some of the brushes and changing the opacityto create different textures. Some of them look pretty good!

Papa Poule Layout testing

So Lucie has done the animatic, so I thought i'd start on doing some layouts based on what she has put in the animatic, it will probably change but I just wanted to get a feel of the layout of the room and practice more with the style and brushes. I'm still waiting on Lucie to have a final room layout design so there are windows in different places and things are changed around a bit but once that's been done we can start getting into the layouts and backgrounds which is exciting. I'm feeling better and more confident about this now, and definitely more motivated.

Papa Poule - playing around with textures

   After a meeting with Kathy, Lucie and Kathryn were advised to play around more with textures so I thought i'd have a go too by adding texture and changing the opacity and erasing, changing colours etc. I think something like this could really work with a few little tweaks here and there. We now have an animatic so I can start maybe drawing some layouts for the backgrounds and get a head start on backgrounds.

Storyboarding for Pirate Code

So I've been helping out with the storyboard, I originally drew it on bits of card but then re drew it digitally, they're only very quick sketches because its the first storyboard and the story is likely to change but we're hoping to get the animatic done this week. The story is really coming along, I have a lot of ideas but of course it's ultimately up to the director, JEss what's happening. I like being able to contribute to ideas and bounce of other people's ideas.

Walk Cycle

I've done a couple of walk cycles before but I haven't done one in so long and jeeeeez, it was so hard, I suppose it's a case of just getting back into it, but my poses are so messy and weak, I've never been too great at drawing people and I suppose it's not a complete disaster but it's definitely not great, I need to practice and then move on to more advanced cycles including emotion for example a cheerful or sad walk.

Showreel?!

   So I gathered up all of my animations since starting the course and well....not as great as I had hoped. There are a few in there that I'm quite proud of, but I think i'd be embarrassed to send this off to a potential employer because its definitely not industry standard - even though my speciality is probably backgrounds. I think i'll have to do more animating so I can improve my skills and therefore improve my showreel! I have to admit though, it's quite cool to see all of my animations from first, second and third year altogether, it's making me nostalgic!

colouring the big splash

So, I coloured in the splash, but there's something about this that just isn't right, the hole gets smaller at the end I think it has something to do with that, it just looks a bit weird, I might try doing another one from scratch to a) practice and b)get it right. it's progress though, right?

More animating

   So, we have to hand in 30 seconds of test animation soon and I really want to do more animating this year so I thought i'd have a go at a head turn. This is Vincent's design at the moment, it may change but for now, any animation I do i'm just going to do with this design until we have a new one. I really struggle to keep the volume the same even when I use the lightbox (or onion skin - whichever programme I'm using) and my lines just aren't smooth enough, but I did the best that I could, at one point I could see that the head was getting really small so I re did it as best as I could but you can still see that it gets a bit smaller, especially the ears. Also, the lines are very shaky, the animation is not smooth at all, I know sometimes you can get away with it if that's the style you're going for but in this case I think it needs to be more smooth. I mean, considering I came onto this course with no previous knowledge of producing animation, I'm pleased with what I've done even though at this stage, I probably should be better than what I am. But practice makes perfect so I'm optimistic :)

Rick and Morty!!!!

   Okay so my housemate and a few other people told me that I should watch 'Rick and Morty' and I was unsure at first because I don't really watch these kind of shows but I thought I'd give it a go anyway and see what it's like. A) I love it and B) the backgrounds are literally COMPLETELY my style, I look at them and could probably mistaken some of them for my own work it's crazy! I've researched the studio and they have so many jobs advertised and a general application and I might go for it, it looks amazing and I really think I could do well there! I've kind of been feeling like i'm not good enough lately and my confidence and motivation is quite low but then when I discovered this, I felt SO inspired! If I plan my time effectively I'm going to try and produce my own backgrounds in my own style to build up a portfolio, I think there's a reason that I discovered this show and I just have so many hopes for the future now, hooray for motivation! (ha! how long will that last?)

Papa Poule - Layouts?

So Lucie has just uploaded the first animatic of the film so I've taken it upon myself to neaten up some of the frames and draw some layouts, I think they look alright to be honest, I'm quite happy with them.

Papa Poule - Background Tests

Lucie has made some brushes to use for backgrounds, and as the 'lead background artist' I need to get used to the brushes and the colour palette and adapt also to the style that Lucie is going for, so these are a few examples of what I've been doing. The style is quite simple which is how I managed to produce these quite quickly. I'm currently in the process of making a background workshop pdf which will show the background artists step by step what they need to do to be able to produce backgrounds in this specific style. Hopefully Lucie approves, we'll see!

Pirate Ship Deck

This is a very early concept for the pirate ship deck, i'll need to play with colours and overall style, detail and set up but it was just an idea whilst things were just beginning. I really need to work on my lighting and stop using just block colours like I usually do, I need to actually paint.

Pirates Code - Character Design

While the script is still being written and the storyboard in progress, I haven't got much to do apart from layout and background tests and more research so Jess asked me to help out with the character design. So this started as a character design but apparently now it's an expression sheet. I spent so long trying to draw a body and it just wasn't happening. It's a start though! I might try and play with this more. I think Ourania has the character design sorted but i'll show her this and see what she thinks. My style is more black outliney kind of thing so i'm having to get used to adapting to other styles and techniques of having softer outlines. My drawings here aren't the best but I certainly did better than I thought I would, plus it's good to have a go at it and try and improve and build on my character design skills. I might see if I can work with Ourania and she can show me how she works her magic.

Bigger Splash - working progress!

I still need to colour this in and tweak it a little but I tried to make the splash fill the screen as I have seen on several cartoons before, I think it works? I'm pretty proud of myself anyway as I feel like i'm really challenging myself even though these are just simple animations. I'm excited now to do more!

More animating

This is another example I did using the same ball splash but with a background that I copied from Jess' pitch powerpoint, just to get an idea of the scene (even though there won't be a ball in the scene, I imagine there will be a lot of splashing around)

Back to Animating

So we've just found out which films have the greenlight which is really exciting! But I know that time is precious and I can waste a single minute of it! I immediately went to speak to a couple of directors to see if I can help out with their films and at the moment, I've secured a place in Jess' group for her film 'Pirate Code'. I saw her pitch so I know roughly what it's about so I started researching and looking at some of the artists she was influenced by. Although  my main focus is not to animate this year, I still want to practice, especially if they need help animating when production begins; and also I wanted to figure out how to animate water in the style of the artist chosen. Jess wants the water to be in the style of Suzy Lee shown below, which looks like it'll be quite hard to animate.

   Because I haven't animated in so long, I started by just quickly trying a normal splash and I will work my way up from there.

This is the splash I animated. I feel that the splash should be a lot bigger considering the size of the ball, apart from that i'm pretty pleased with it, I just need more practice.