Strength In Numbers

They're so organised......

I've finished working with Simon Acty's group for now. After some initial general design, I was tasked with designing the one of the protagonist characters for their project. It was interesting to just be given a job to do that was specific to me, but in aid of someone else. It certainly presents a lot less to preoccupy you, and it gives one the opportunity to focus and refine the design more.

Here are some of the broader more generalised designs that I started on.

Then I was tasked with designing the character who serves as apprentice to the Hunter, and is in some ways more the protagonist that the Hunter.

The idea was to create somebody who looks physically very pathetic, in terms of bodily strength and size i.e. somebody very frail and thin, or a small, overweight child. However, the weakness is something that would be made a joke of, in as much as he would be forced to carry a monstrous amount of gear regardless, like a malnourished donkey.

It was also decided that the apprentice should be male - to fit as an appropriate relationship between him and the hunter - and in his mid to late teens, still not a fully grown man, but perhaps old enough to be sent to work for money to send to his family.

Here are the designs/development.

I'm pretty happy with the design, there are a few issues with the mechanical arm, mainly to do with rigging and animating a working model, but it is an aspect that is removable. However, I feel as though it would be a shame to lose it, as I feel it adds a little more interest to the character, and helps him to fit into the steampunk aesthetic that the group have gone for.

I still need to draw up some of the bags and other props as turnarounds, but for now I can get on with my own project.

Appalling Colour Mockup

When The Faction's Fractioned

There were a lot of good ideas pitched yesterday, including a few that I would have an interest in working on. The problem is finding the crew members and convincing them to commit to yours. I am keen to build a portfolio of character design and animation this year [regardless of medium] and have already committed to assist Simon Acty's group as a part time crew member, helping with design, and possibly some animation further down the pipe-line, and would like to assist in a few others. However - and I find it unlikely that I do not share the sentiment with others - I would be disappointed were I not able to facilitate the workforce necessary to pursue my own directorial aspirations.

I am aware that yesterday I explained my idea in a very poor and perhaps confusing way, so I felt it made sense to upload the micro-proposal that we had to upload last night for general reading pleasure.

The project that I am proposing to make for the final year is a short film – 4-5 minutes in length – that is based on and accompanied by a poem that I am writing currently entitled In-between.

Basic Synopsis

The basic story behind the poem and animation revolves around a female protagonist and her encounter with a fictional, medieval town inhabited by traveling gypsies/carnival folk. A self righteous and pious individual, her judgement upon the inhabitants of the town (whom she views as monsters and degenerates) is severe. The gypsies enjoy the base pleasures in life – what renaissance writers might refer to as the grotesque – eating, drinking, sleeping and sex, and though these base pleasures are also the core survival instincts in a human being, our protagonist considers the town and it's inhabitants to be a pit of sin, no more than predatory, primitive beasts. In attempt to purge the town of it's “sickness”, she begins a violent and bloody crusade, policing the town by systematically murdering the sinners as she sees fit. In an attempt to cut the head from the beast, she slashes a path towards the gypsy king. Efforts to combat her take the shape of a resistance formed by vengeful members of the community intent on ceasing her crusade and baying for her blood. After her murder of the gypsy king, she is confronted by the mob, clearly outnumbered. This is a grey area in the story as the protagonist needs to have a crystallising moment in which she realises that she has made herself into more of a demon than the people she is massacring. This particular moment has not been figured out yet, but it needs to be an act that shows that humanity is so much more complex than right and wrong, dark and light, that humanity is all the shades in between. After her epiphany, she is left alone, racked with guilt, her belief system shaken to core.

Themes Involved

I would like to make it clear that this not meant to be an attack on religious beliefs or offend people who choose follow any particular faith as a harmless but important part of their life. It is more meant to highlight the danger of extremist methods within belief systems that harks back even as far as if not further than the Crusades. Methods such as war, genocide, indoctrination, and qualities like ignorance and closed mindedness. I think it's a particularly relevant subject in these times in which people are so desperately fearful of certain religions or cultures, purely based on the actions of relatively small extremist groups, or when others mislead potential believers to the point of endangering their lives, just to “save their souls”.

The point is that the extremist is not inherently evil, they do not believe their goal to be selfish, nor do they believe they are doing anything wrong, which is why initially we will empathise with the Crusader protagonist to begin with, and see the townsfolk as she does, but later we see a switch of perspective, and that wrong and right is simply not so clear cut. That the ability to make a choice has moral ambiguity in itself, and that morality is subject to the individual to interpret, which makes one human.

Method

The method used to create the animation will be 2D cel animation, traditional hand drawn, and computer assisted. The poem will narrate the action but the animation will compliment the narration rather than be a literal, demonstrative visual aid.

Your New Aesthetic

Back to school.

Here are some recent concepts/sketches that I have produced to develop My idea for the graduation film, which to explain briefly will be an animation accompanied by a narrative poem that I am writing.

After the Rush Hour

Buh. Brain death noted.

So it is done, 2 thirds of the way through our course. Although we technically have a little bit of a wind down period before our official end of year now... But it's nice not to feel guilty about sleeping.

Negotiated uploaded on Thursday at about 10:50 I believe, that was another looong night. Sod the timeline that I said I would upload, you can just have a goosey gander at a few of the finished stills from the hand in piece.

I know the model is not fantastic and I did sort of have to rush it a bit at the end, but I would find it difficult not to be pleased with the amount that I have achieved and learned. I was an ambitious novice, and I feel as though I managed to deliver on my brief. Albeit that that the quality is not as high in particular areas as I was hoping – certainly it is not as adept a job as some of my contemporaries may be capable of - and there are some rudimentary mistakes which are disappointing to me, but I had to pay a time sacrifice somewhere. To have learned as much as I have is satisfying enough.

Here are the poses/final concept for Heracles

The model is not complete - clearly - and the poses are not final, it was just to see if I could move the topology around successfully. I would love to texture this feller up in the style that I've painted him, so maybe that can be a little summer project...... As well all the other things I intend to set myself.....

The Approaching Curve.

Learning curve. For me the negotiated brief has been a monstrous learning curve. The last time that I tried to model anything at all was my own face for Georg's Masterclass. Before that it was the environment that we all had to do last year. Fun.

However, I have seriously enjoyed modelling so far, and I have learned an invaluable amount. My only qualm is that I wish that I had known how much I would throw myself into some of the other projects -- The pitch, as well as working right up to the bleeding edge on the third year projects, in the studio til 7am for Will's -- I think that I would have been less ambitious with the negotiated. For somebody with a very basic knowledge of 3D modelling, I drew up a complex modelling project that I really wish I had more time to work on.
It's pretty clear to me that I'm not going to hand in a finished representation of what I wanted to hand in, as Georg pointed out to me, a high quality result in this project would most likely be at the expense of another project. Sadly, the time sacrifice has been made on this project. I'd like more time, but rules is rules, I was meant to be out of my comfort zone, and to push myself to learn a new skill. I am going to finish the model, just after the hand-in, I want to take this to the end and develop my skills in area that I was previously weak in.

Anyway, the screens are various parts of the model as they are currently, and a quick pose test, the next post will be a visual time line of how this project panned out for me.

Suckers Intl. Has Gone Public

Quick Update, I've been a bad blogger.

Pitch - Went well, despite some story issues? I think it was well received, although the chaps we were pitching to had areas of expertise in areas outside of game production, they still have a vast knowledge of animation process and professional practice, so their feedback was valuable. I'm pleased with the outcome, I think that both Kat and I pitched well, and that we were clear and articulate. Without arrogance, I feel as though the visuals of our pitch were a particularly strong element of our pitch and really help sell the idea. It was a good experience to work with Kat, she is a brilliant artist and very easy to work with on ideas. I think that Kat's very strong artistic capabilities really pushed me to work that little bit harder and develop my own artistic and digital skills for this project, so I'm grateful for that, heh. Hand in bible is displayed below.

AT Essay - Holography, that is what I am doing it on. It's coming along ok, it's just a bit of a pig in terms of time, because I really need to be using this time to work on my negotiated brief.

Negotiated Brief - I'll update in depth on this later, but in principle, I am buggered.

jake_kat_pitchdesignbible

Crew Assignment

Its time for a VERY belated post on the Third Year Crew assignment. I realise that I haven't even mentioned my involvement in the crew assignment on the blog up until this point, but from here on in, expect regular updates abound.

Right, well my job for this project is to work on three different projects producing the sound for all three.
The projects that I am working on are:

Timmy's Gift - Cherie Hague
The Pied Piper - Will Bowsher
Mirror Man - Sean Ridenton

As of a few weeks ago, Michael Churchill will be doing the final mixdown on Timmy's Gift and Mirror Man, meaning that I will be responsible only for the foley. However, for the Pied Piper, I will be recording the foley as well as completing the final mix.

Below is a vague schedule that I am going to attempt to stick to.



I realise that the schedule might suggest that I have not started working until April, however I merely did not make a proper schedule until then, it seemed non-sensical to put on weeks that I had not scheduled for.
I am also aware of the fact that it is going to be difficult to keep up momentum when term starts again and we get lumbered with more projects, but you know, idle hands....

I'll keep updating the process as I go, since everybody else can use visual mediums to indicate their output in the form of videos, renders etc, I might try to photograph/screenshot the process, make the work process seem a bit more tangible.

Pre-Production Evaluation

Well, I finally handed in my project after my extension and it's a relief to have it all finished.



I enjoyed the project, I found the entire process very involving and educational. It was enlightening to see how each chapter of the process was important to the final outcome. I'm very pleased with the overall visual outcome of my project, and the quality of the work, however I'm disappointed with the quantity of work that I have produced. As always, this project was a lesson in time management, especially towards the end, and it left me feeling pretty frustrated with myself as I a simply underestimated the amount of time that it would take to paint the concept pieces and draw up and paint all of the poses. Ideally I would have a) finished the fourth character design and turnaround b) completed model and pose sheets for all characters and c) produced one more piece of concept art.


Research

I found that although we had a little too long to carry out the research part of the project, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a little bit of a history geek and it was great to be able to apply the knowledge that I had learned to a practical function. Before this project, it was an area that I would have probably overlooked when considering character and environment design, or at least not devoted the time to it that I should have. It is an integral part of the process and helps enormously when it comes to design elements, and it makes the difference between an accurate, plausible design and a poorly constructed, unlikely one.

Character Design

Character design was an area in which I have previously dabbled (be it for projects, or personal sketches) but not to the extent that this project asked of us. It was an area that, with hindsight, I could have spent more time on initially since I found that I rushed a couple of the designs towards the end, and perhaps did not express the characters that I was trying to. However, character design is something I was and continue to be interested in and thanks to this project I have a far deeper understanding of the process and involvement required when designing characters. I am pleased with the designs that I came up with. I was eager to make them different from previous interpretations of the characters, but to still make them recognisable as the characters they were written as. The development stages really helped get involved and thinking about the designs so that I could create something unique.

Concepts

When it came to the concepts there was a constant face off between my own artistic vision and my questionable painting expertise. The concepts were very time consuming and frustrating at times but I am very pleased with the finished pieces. I created them by using a mixture of painting - 2 digital, 1 acrylics/watercolour - and textures over the top to add some depth. I coloured the characters in a similar fashion. I think that this visual style is successful, and to me the flat base colouring of the characters is reminiscent of a more adult Tin-Tin.

Ultimately I really enjoyed the project, and whilst I may not have achieved the amount that I would have liked, I am happy with the visual triumphs of my bible. The whole process has given me a deeper insight into the visual side of pre-production and it's given me things to think about developing my skills on, for example; I have trouble with getting character into my faces which I think is one of the most important aspects of character design, and I really want to develop my digital painting skills, especially buildings.

Doctor, Doctor gimme the news....

Heres a few concepts for The Doctor Who production bible, although it's unlikely they'll end up in the finished bible.







The sketch/rough painting of shan shen alley is one that i have now painted up in acrylics on a large canvas, quite flatly, so that I can have it scanned in to work on in photoshop.

Drawing Life Again

And heres a few more.

Drawing Life

Just some life drawings from the past term.