Here's the final dooflip with all the individual animations put together. My part comes in at 0:33.
In my harsh criticism mode, I'm a little annoyed that my suggestions for a more zoomed in view fell on deaf ears. Apparently it was kept at a fixed angle to replicate the experience of sitting in the theatre, but I'm pretty sure all video/tv/dvd representations of theatre productions had different camera angles in order to keep the audience engaged. This just feels too zoomed out and, since additional crazy elements such as Rocket Rabbit couldn't be added due to time constrictions, it just makes the thing look that much emptier in my opinion. It's also a shame that my little dude's colours got a bit washed out in the After Effecting process. =(
Thursday 18 June 2009
Wednesday 17 June 2009
Some character art
A few pictures to round off my RVJ work. Apologies for the quality.
Here's one of Date for One, which should give a good explanation of the general plot.
Here's one of Date for One, which should give a good explanation of the general plot.
And here's some character sketches for Wonchop.
Portraits (aka OH THE HORROR)
One of my main weaknesses that my tutor pointed out is the way I always tend to draw massive eyes that are taller than they are wide. To remedy this, it was suggested that I try doing some portraits of people to get a better idea of what the eyes would look like. Since I have an issue with myself about not bothering people by randomly drawing them, I decided to use photos taken by my camera phone. Thus we have a mix of a few recent ones I took for reference, as well as various pics from meet ups I've been to. Warning, results are pretty scary.
Couldn't resist.
Saturday 13 June 2009
Idea 2 - Wonchop pilot
The second idea is slightly less geared at your general festival audience and is more a project I've been meaning to do for a while, an animated series for my Wonchop character. As opposed to my general goofy stuff, it would be more in line with your Saturday morning superhero cartoons (even though I'm pretty sure noone my age wants to wake up that early on a Saturday anymore). As far as target audience concerned, I kinda want a wide audience, but I want to keep in some mild violence as well as references to death, so it'd more on the Avatar kind of audience as opposed to your general 4kids dub.
The main story revolves around Alec Littleman, a goggle-clad guy who will always try to help people in trouble, even though it usually ends up with him getting pummeled. One day he chances upon a secret experiment and accidentally gets fused with the DNA of a rare type of monkey, giving him the power to transform into the more agile Wonchop. Realising these powers can finally allow him to help people properly, he decides to become a superhero. Of course, he soon gets involved other 'animutes', element-wielding girls and top secret agencies, the top agent of which turns out to be his childhood friend. Naturally, things get darker as they progress, as bonds get tighter, lives are endangered, and the consequences of Wonchop's transformation start to show themselves.
From left-right/top-bottom, Wonchop, Amora, Ruth, Alec, Elly, Wez and Alec again.
Other characters include Ruth, Alec's friend/secret agent, Wez, the first to know of Alec's secret, Elly, a shy girl with a secret, Amora, Ruth's figurative aunt and head of aforementioned agency, and Flint, a sword weilding animute with a mysterious link to Alec. Villains Wonchop would face include such foes as Muggerilla, Reggaemeleon, The Elly-Mentals, Lepricarnivore and Retrote Con Mole (puns ftw).
A bunch of art of the characters can be viewed here: http://wonchop.deviantart.com/gallery/#Project-Wonchop
There are a couple of routes I could take with this. One would be a simple pilot animation, showing a typical encounter Wonchop would have with the forces of doing bad stuff. This would involve Wonchop taking on a group of thugs who had taken some people hostage, before facing off against their leader, one of the animutes. After a prompt butt whupping, the victory will show up in a newspaper our hero's alter-ego will read the next morning, and complain about how they mispelt his superhero name.
The other, slightly riskier option, is an actual pilot episode, kicking off the story. This would introduce us to Alec and his friends and explain the origins of how Wonchop came to be, complete with curious exploration, temporary 'AHHH WHAT THE GOD IS HAPPENING AHH' moment, and his first encounter with the baddies where Wonchop learns an important lesson: gaining super powers =/= instant kung fu knowledge. This would be a bit longer than the former idea, which would obviously be a lot of work for me and my short attention span (I tend to make a lot of short movies barely breaching the 3 minute mark).
Of course, forgoing the above, I could just do a sort of pilot set to some music, in the vein of Sav the World's pilot animation for Oban Star Racers.
This would allow me to set the overall tone of the story and show a variety of scenarios with the different characters. (Not to mention it would save on lipsync ;D) So in the events that the top two become unlikely, this would be a good choice.
Other options include backstories to some of the character's pasts, such as Alec's friend Ruth, who had a pretty glum life before she met him and was able to smile again due to a pineapple related scenario.
Yup. Pineapples. You'll see if I ever do something with it.
As far as animations concerned, 2D is most likely the best option, since I can't really see it being pulled off any other way (except maybe 3D in a Storm Hawk's kinda way, but I'd have to improve my 3D skills a lot for that.) I'd probably use a variety of programs, such as Flash, Photoshop and After Effects, possibly a little 3D for things like motorbikes or cityscapes, though I will have to look a fair bit into how they are all used to bring stuff together. For voices and possibly soundtrack, I have a few contacts across the internet I can ask about, and I can always ask some people veeeeerry nicely for additional voices.
It's gonna be tough deciding between whether to go with these ideas, or Date for One.
The main story revolves around Alec Littleman, a goggle-clad guy who will always try to help people in trouble, even though it usually ends up with him getting pummeled. One day he chances upon a secret experiment and accidentally gets fused with the DNA of a rare type of monkey, giving him the power to transform into the more agile Wonchop. Realising these powers can finally allow him to help people properly, he decides to become a superhero. Of course, he soon gets involved other 'animutes', element-wielding girls and top secret agencies, the top agent of which turns out to be his childhood friend. Naturally, things get darker as they progress, as bonds get tighter, lives are endangered, and the consequences of Wonchop's transformation start to show themselves.
From left-right/top-bottom, Wonchop, Amora, Ruth, Alec, Elly, Wez and Alec again.Other characters include Ruth, Alec's friend/secret agent, Wez, the first to know of Alec's secret, Elly, a shy girl with a secret, Amora, Ruth's figurative aunt and head of aforementioned agency, and Flint, a sword weilding animute with a mysterious link to Alec. Villains Wonchop would face include such foes as Muggerilla, Reggaemeleon, The Elly-Mentals, Lepricarnivore and Retrote Con Mole (puns ftw).
A bunch of art of the characters can be viewed here: http://wonchop.deviantart.com/gallery/#Project-Wonchop
There are a couple of routes I could take with this. One would be a simple pilot animation, showing a typical encounter Wonchop would have with the forces of doing bad stuff. This would involve Wonchop taking on a group of thugs who had taken some people hostage, before facing off against their leader, one of the animutes. After a prompt butt whupping, the victory will show up in a newspaper our hero's alter-ego will read the next morning, and complain about how they mispelt his superhero name.
The other, slightly riskier option, is an actual pilot episode, kicking off the story. This would introduce us to Alec and his friends and explain the origins of how Wonchop came to be, complete with curious exploration, temporary 'AHHH WHAT THE GOD IS HAPPENING AHH' moment, and his first encounter with the baddies where Wonchop learns an important lesson: gaining super powers =/= instant kung fu knowledge. This would be a bit longer than the former idea, which would obviously be a lot of work for me and my short attention span (I tend to make a lot of short movies barely breaching the 3 minute mark).
Of course, forgoing the above, I could just do a sort of pilot set to some music, in the vein of Sav the World's pilot animation for Oban Star Racers.
This would allow me to set the overall tone of the story and show a variety of scenarios with the different characters. (Not to mention it would save on lipsync ;D) So in the events that the top two become unlikely, this would be a good choice.
Other options include backstories to some of the character's pasts, such as Alec's friend Ruth, who had a pretty glum life before she met him and was able to smile again due to a pineapple related scenario.
Yup. Pineapples. You'll see if I ever do something with it.
As far as animations concerned, 2D is most likely the best option, since I can't really see it being pulled off any other way (except maybe 3D in a Storm Hawk's kinda way, but I'd have to improve my 3D skills a lot for that.) I'd probably use a variety of programs, such as Flash, Photoshop and After Effects, possibly a little 3D for things like motorbikes or cityscapes, though I will have to look a fair bit into how they are all used to bring stuff together. For voices and possibly soundtrack, I have a few contacts across the internet I can ask about, and I can always ask some people veeeeerry nicely for additional voices.
It's gonna be tough deciding between whether to go with these ideas, or Date for One.
Friday 12 June 2009
Idea 1 - Date for One
Like I said, I am currently musing on a couple of ideas for my final project for next year of university. The following one seems more like the stuff of animation festivals and what not.This concept is called 'Date for One' (or possibly 'Valentine for One') which is basically a combination of your typical 'hopeless romantic' situations with the concept of imaginary friends.
The main character (big white guy, pictured in earlier post), who I have yet to name properly so we'll just call him Bob for now, who is going on a date... with himself. Unlike most single people who just walk around at night, sitting at a table for one and wallowing in his own self pity (ie. me), Bob goes about his 'date' like he is actually dating someone, despite the lack of physical presence. This includes activities such as buying two cinema tickets instead of one, pouring wine into a glass that isn't there and, erm, bedroom activities involving squeezing certain parts of the air. How would it end? That would be spoiling.
This is a little idea that I've had for a bit over a year now. I came up with it when it came to our first Stop Motion module, before everyone decided to be generic and do Dracula.
Like most popular student films of the norm, this would be without dialogue, except for voices coming from radios, TVs and a certain film Bob goes to see with his 'partner'.
(This is an injoke of this game btw)As for animating the little devil, there are several ways of approaching it, due to the character's simple design (though I've yet to determine if he should be clothed or just naked all the time, although I particularly wanna see him in a pair of boxers).
*2D/Flash - Which is my main forté, though this is, how my tutor would put it, sticking with my comfort zone, so I'd possibly need to break out of this zone, or at the least, do it in a novel way. Thinking about it, I've always wondered what programs all the regular cartoon people do when doing the classic type cartoons (ie. your typical rough -> line -> colour -> screen).
*Stop Motion - This would be an ideal way of presenting it, given the nature of the characters. The main issue I have with it however is that I'm, obvious to anyone's who's seen me in a stop-motion workshop, very bad when it comes to building stuff for stop-motion, particularly when it comes to things like wires (sensitive pinkies you see =( ), but that's probably one of things I'll have to suck up.
*CGI - In leau of Stop Motion, CGI is also possible, and would probably be a bit easier to model (give or take learning how to rig bones properly (example of fail here)). The main problem is, judging by the majority of student films I've seen using CG, unless I can texture it right and find a good method for animating in twos, it wouldn't give as epic a feel as the other formats.
So yeah, I'm mostly hovering on this idea at the moment.
Tuesday 9 June 2009
Sunday 7 June 2009
Teacher for a Day
Last Friday was a special day for us animation students (ie. the three people who actually attend and didn't go off to Turkey in the middle of the term). Students from Hereford Cathedral School, aged about 14/15 I think, came over to university to have a look at the animation course.
After the tutor gave the kids a tour around the place (during which I acquired a sandwich for needed energy purposes), we got into the meat of the day, the Stop Motion class, in which we were the teachers. It was great to get a go at stop motion, which I hadn't touched since my module in the first year. After getting a quick briefing on what buttons did what on the software, I got right into it, showing the kids how to do the animations. After a few little demos with my hand and a nearby pen, as well as a little demonstration on easing/cushioning, we got into the real fun aspect, modelling clay.
We started off by doing a little animation of your basic stick figure, with me suggesting elements such as easing in the waving motions, moving the little dude backwards when he's doing his kick and finally...erm... exploding.
By the time we got into the next animation, the kids really started to shine, animating a little robot that, after some random suggestions from yours truly, takes a rather disturbing path. They were really getting the hang of things at this point, even throwing in little touches such as the rabbit doing a little hop and twitching his ears. Needless to say, it's one of the more hilarious things I've seen/made this year, and the way the kids responded to the improv was swell.
After lunch came my time to shine; a flash masterclass with yours truly. I didn't have a massively huge timeslot to do it in, so after a quick explanation about the stuff I do, and a quick showing of my showreel, I got into the class, showing off the basic tools and how to tween objects. Teaching is definately a challenging thing to do, as a lot of the time I would point to the screen at some points, instead of demonstrating it with the mouse so it would be shown on the projector. Another aspect I had to consider is that these kids don't know what words like 'tweening' means, so slowing down my pace to fit theirs was challenging stuff. Still, when I hear a collective 'wow' from when I make something move across the screen, that sure is something. Particular given how tweening is generally whined about on the websites I usually go onto. It was a fun experience and, had I a bit more time, I'd certainly like to go into it a bit more.
At the end of the day, we decided to do some last minute stop motioning, and by this time the kids had really gotten into it and didn't even need my assistance in making their new animation involving a burglar escaping from jail, only to trigger and alarm and get squished by giant fist before his entrails are eaten by a frog (which I forgot to snag on my flash drive >_>). Said frog then exploded in a mass of beads, but that's a tale for another day.
All in all, definately an interesting experience.
After the tutor gave the kids a tour around the place (during which I acquired a sandwich for needed energy purposes), we got into the meat of the day, the Stop Motion class, in which we were the teachers. It was great to get a go at stop motion, which I hadn't touched since my module in the first year. After getting a quick briefing on what buttons did what on the software, I got right into it, showing the kids how to do the animations. After a few little demos with my hand and a nearby pen, as well as a little demonstration on easing/cushioning, we got into the real fun aspect, modelling clay.
We started off by doing a little animation of your basic stick figure, with me suggesting elements such as easing in the waving motions, moving the little dude backwards when he's doing his kick and finally...erm... exploding.
By the time we got into the next animation, the kids really started to shine, animating a little robot that, after some random suggestions from yours truly, takes a rather disturbing path. They were really getting the hang of things at this point, even throwing in little touches such as the rabbit doing a little hop and twitching his ears. Needless to say, it's one of the more hilarious things I've seen/made this year, and the way the kids responded to the improv was swell.
After lunch came my time to shine; a flash masterclass with yours truly. I didn't have a massively huge timeslot to do it in, so after a quick explanation about the stuff I do, and a quick showing of my showreel, I got into the class, showing off the basic tools and how to tween objects. Teaching is definately a challenging thing to do, as a lot of the time I would point to the screen at some points, instead of demonstrating it with the mouse so it would be shown on the projector. Another aspect I had to consider is that these kids don't know what words like 'tweening' means, so slowing down my pace to fit theirs was challenging stuff. Still, when I hear a collective 'wow' from when I make something move across the screen, that sure is something. Particular given how tweening is generally whined about on the websites I usually go onto. It was a fun experience and, had I a bit more time, I'd certainly like to go into it a bit more.
At the end of the day, we decided to do some last minute stop motioning, and by this time the kids had really gotten into it and didn't even need my assistance in making their new animation involving a burglar escaping from jail, only to trigger and alarm and get squished by giant fist before his entrails are eaten by a frog (which I forgot to snag on my flash drive >_>). Said frog then exploded in a mass of beads, but that's a tale for another day.
All in all, definately an interesting experience.
Audiences and Communication
One of the modules we currently have to do at uni is Audiences and Communication. The main task for this is a group animation, advertising the animation side of the university, but pitching it in a style that would be appealing to 7 year olds.
We first thought of mind charts about what being 7 is about. It is clear from this that my memory sucks various spherical objects.
For the animation, we thought about doing something that involves a variety of different animation styles (eg. flash, stop motion, cgi, etc.) and tried to design a plot based around that theme.
Whilst I came up with ideas of a kid travelling through various worlds, or pushing a button that changed the style, those were shot down due to their complexity.
We eventually decided on a theme of wizards. The basic plot being that the wizard is attempting a magic trick with a hat (ala Presto), but it all goes horribly wrong, and he keeps getting zapped by the hat and transforming. I came up with a few designs of how one of the designs would look, taking into account successful wizards like Harry Potter and Magical Trevor. I eventually came up with a simple kid, whose clothes changed from casual hoodie and shorts, to a slightly oversized robe. I liked the idea of having a starry pattern on the kids shirt. I also thought of various objects that could fly around during the chaos.
I have so far, animated my wizard segment, in which the wizard gets blasted by the hat and transformed into a kid, noticing the chaos around him, getting mad at the hat and then getting blasted by it again, going into the next animator's segment. It's a little tricky since I can't really tell what the start and end frames of the other segments are, but I like the animation.
I might animate some other elements to throw into the visuals. Bunnies riding rocket powered characters per instance?
We first thought of mind charts about what being 7 is about. It is clear from this that my memory sucks various spherical objects.
For the animation, we thought about doing something that involves a variety of different animation styles (eg. flash, stop motion, cgi, etc.) and tried to design a plot based around that theme.
Whilst I came up with ideas of a kid travelling through various worlds, or pushing a button that changed the style, those were shot down due to their complexity.
We eventually decided on a theme of wizards. The basic plot being that the wizard is attempting a magic trick with a hat (ala Presto), but it all goes horribly wrong, and he keeps getting zapped by the hat and transforming. I came up with a few designs of how one of the designs would look, taking into account successful wizards like Harry Potter and Magical Trevor. I eventually came up with a simple kid, whose clothes changed from casual hoodie and shorts, to a slightly oversized robe. I liked the idea of having a starry pattern on the kids shirt. I also thought of various objects that could fly around during the chaos.
I have so far, animated my wizard segment, in which the wizard gets blasted by the hat and transformed into a kid, noticing the chaos around him, getting mad at the hat and then getting blasted by it again, going into the next animator's segment. It's a little tricky since I can't really tell what the start and end frames of the other segments are, but I like the animation.
I might animate some other elements to throw into the visuals. Bunnies riding rocket powered characters per instance?
ps. I hate this blogging format so much. D=
Tuesday 2 June 2009
New Showreel
I've just made a new showreel of my animation up to now, featuring a culmination of my personal, uni and commissioned projects from the past few years.
Vote 5 on Newgrounds too: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/498000
Here's my previous reel from 2007:
Vote 5 on Newgrounds too: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/498000
Here's my previous reel from 2007:
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