Once Upon A Time In A Faraway Ireland...

Apologies for the late post this evening. I got on a roll with work and figured it foolish to break it considering the productive stagnation I seem to have adopted as of late. And thanks to a bum week, I've barely got further with Sushi work let alone anything new and fun for blog times.

So, bearing in mind that I've been working on backgrounds recently, I figured this post should continue in this vein. Here I've delved back to a project we started about this time last year, that unfortunately never quite made it to see the light of day... Set in Ireland and based on the Protestant/Catholic divide, the animation told the story of a Catholic schoolgirl who wandered into the Protestant area of town on her way home.

It was going to be magical. 

Despite the fact it never quite came together, I'm quite pleased with some of the work I produced during it. So here are 3 of my favourite backgrounds I produced for the film.

Considering this was my first time doing both backgrounds and digi painting, I don't feel I did too badly...

Les Retrouvailles

This year, I decided to continue my 3D work. It was given as an option, but I decided to persevere. Employability and all those shenanigans... This semester we were focusing on character work, so we modelled, rigged and animated a character. People were following a standard template, but after having had a bad experience with this certain model last year, I couldn't bring myself to face it. So I decided to challenge myself and make my own; Dave.

He started out as a doodle in my sketchbook as our tutor talked through something I probably should have been listening to...

Which then led onto a turnaround:

Which then led onto the final model:

And then rigged:

(And then later textured but I don't have that file with me...)

I'm aware that if you have been following my blog, you'll perhaps recognise this man with the wonderful nose. To be honest, I just chose to model him because of the nose. When it came round to animating him, I didn't really have any idea what to do as I didn't know what kind of person he was. So I just got stuck in and started playing about and his personality just sort of appeared through the tangled web of the graph editor. So I animated him and enjoyed it. 

I'll upload the 3 wee tests I did tomorrow - the converter on my laptop has given up tonight...

So, yes. That was all well and good. I handed in and headed home feeling content. But then I got the itch to work again. With no desire to touch my grad film for a while, I naturally came back to this (and drawing cartoons of myself of course) and felt I wasn't ready to let him go yet.

I've managed to land the chance to get a tour round the awesome MacKinnon and Saunders studio (think Tim Burton, Fantastic Mr Fox and Postman Pat) so felt like it would be beneficial to have some character sheets for Dave. Make it look like I actually did it officially instead of off the cuff. With a minor style development which seems to have snuck up on me from nowhere (not that I'm complaining) I sat in the sun and doodled some expressions for the first sheet of the Model Pack:

I'm really pleased with these, though I should probably go in and tidy them up. Like I've said before, I don't really feel character stuff is my forté, so when things turn out how I want them, it seems like a success. So. Plans:

1. Finish the model pack

2. Finish inbetweening the incomplete 3D scenes

Then Bonus:

1. Do some more 3D tests

2. Design a new character for him to interact with

3. Do some 2D tests.

I actually really want to do some 2D tests. Hoping to acquire Flash in the near future (alongside a new compooper, finally) so as I'm feeling comfortable drawing him, he could be a good place to start.

We'll see.

À la semaine prochaine! 

Meet Dave

I've been sitting tinkering away at some 3D stuff over the past wee while. Feeling pretty deflated with my films at the moment, so it's been a well received break whilst still being productive.

Using 3D to unwind... Who could have predicted?

I've spent the class modelling and rigging this chap with a fantastic nose and now he's finally able to animate. We started with a wee walk cycle and now we're onto tackling a past 11 second club sound-clip. I'm working with Birte for this and she's doing the other character, so you can only see mine at the moment. It's just in the rough key section at the moment, with a blank gap in the middle in order to play off Birte's animation but I think it's looking rather nice for a first attempt. Take a look:

I can already spot some things I need to change - subtle movements and more natural poses etc, but yes. Thoughts are always welcome. I just wish I'd rigged and skinned it better. Immature impatience.

I got bored one night so modelled a wee fruit stall for the animation:

I do rather enjoy modelling.

How my principles have changed...

Inevitable Distraction

All quiet on the blogging front... I'm back to school now, so there'll probably be larger voids appearing between my posts... But I'll try to not let it slide too much.

Been preparing for the pitch of my 4th year film tomorrow. So many potential ideas, so little time... So here's a wee teaser, if you will, for my story proposal.

I've also developed a Lion-Drawing epidemic.

A lion a day keeps the doctor... Well, I was at the doctor's today, so probably closer than usual...

Final(ly)

To be honest, I can't really believe I'm saying this... But I started animating...

This never happens.

So, on (probably) my final post of the year, I can show you some key frames. They're really rough, and I'll need to go in and add some more keys for clarity/fix some volume control, but to be honest I don't feel it's too bad for a first pass. I don't know... I'm too close to it to tell now:

Normally, I'd wait until it was further on than this, but unfortunately I've come to the end of my free trial of AfterEffects which was my only source of easy line-testing...

As a bonus here's a wee doodle I did then coloured. It's me in a van with an easily distracted driver...

Happy New Year y'all - see you on the other side...

I Survived Christmas

A bold statement, but a true one. I made it through, managing to avoid the threatening food coma. Just about. And to celebrate today, I decided I felt like getting back into a wee bit o' animation. Using a life drawing pose as inspiration:

I quickly thought up an action, jotted down some key poses and drew this character over the top. Nice and complicated to suit my over-ambitious nature.

Now it's just to start the animation. I'm hoping that by posting this up here, it will stop me from leaving it by the wayside. I'll post y'all the keys once I've got them jotted down. I'd maybe ask for feedback... If there were anyone watching...

*tumbleweed*

To Grinch Or Not To Grinch?

Well... The world didn't end... So I now have no excuse not to blog. My goal was to post something before Christmas, so here we are. My other goal was for it not to be coursework just yet, as the feels like a cop-out, so coursework, this is not.

In my feedback for this semester, I was told I'm not making enough use of my life drawing. Therefore, I'm using it to create small illustrations which is proving to be rather fun. Unfortunately, they're not quite finished yet, but I feel I need to blog them now, otherwise I'll never blog again. You see? I even put them as GIFS so you can see the progression/I'd never done one before.

So here you go. A slightly underwhelming present from a distant relative if you will.

I'm going to come back and get these backgrounds done, but I've got a turkey to demolish first.

End Of The World Resolution

Since it's approaching the end of the world, I feel it's now about time to get round to all those things I've said I would. So, I realise that I should now get about to being more professional, and getting my work out there. Otherwise my only job prospects will be drawing pictures for estranged family members.

Therefore, the blog is coming back into action. I've had a winter clean, and gutted it out so I can start afresh. So, expect to see some sketchbook/work in progress work as I intend to use this to document all those little things that don't really count as professionally finished outcomes, but I would like the world to see, as opposed to sitting in a dusty sketchbook/hard-drive. It should also inspire me to work more.

And work I shall...