The Third and the Seventh.

Such a wonderful piece of film.

Concept Art

If there is one thing I've always loved its concept art. Its fascinating. If I ever get a film with extras I will always check out the concept work. Its an art that tests the imagination which also makes it so enjoyable to do. My most recent drawing assignment was to produce three concept pieces. I was allowed to draw what ever I wanted as long as I followed the theme of scale the idea being that I could for example draw something disproportionately small like a tiny elephant fleeing from a mouse or disproportionately too large. This was too fun!
Have a gander.

I love anything with a steampunk theme so this was inevitable

The tribe's hunters launched into the clearing just before the tiny hairless primate could disappear from view

It was an epic battle of great proportions

Anyway that's my concept work. Its been a while since I've done much with a biro so I thought I'd give it a go. Right, its 3:010 in the morning and I haven't actually slept since posting my last blog....oh and this blog will probably say its a completely different time of day...and when I created this blog I did state that I was from the UK. I'll have to check those setting anyway.

...I should probably make an attempt at sleeping now...

Hectic times!

I think I managed to complete all my work, die, and live to tell the tail.

My experimental animation is finally over. I had actually been looking forward to this and I enjoyed it but the editing part was savage. It resulted in my partner and I practically finishing the thing, loosing the thing and having to resurrect the thing again. I still don't know how we managed to do it in time.

Ok the animation consisted of over one hundred and forty pieces of card, each hand cut. The  fist entire day from something like ten in the morning till eight in the evening was spent by me drawing each individual piece and together, the both of us, cutting each and every piece out.

I had fuel for my hefty task.



...and here is some of the card...

...and some more...

...and more...

...and yes, some more...

We were able to begin animating the very next day. I would position each bit of card and my partner would take the photos. Unfortunately we had issues with our camera which slowed us down greatly. Also we had found we were a little low on card. This meant one shot we filmed took several hours longer than it needed to as after each take we had to trim the cardboard used. Over all the animation process took two days.

Editing our work was complicated. We did it on After Effects and it took about a day to complete and once it had been completed it would not play the whole way through. We were unable to find sufficient help and when it did come along the individual came to the conclusion that we should rename each individual photo but by doing so the computer no longer recognised them and so our work was lost. I then had to spend an entire day re-editing it and a working day that I had planned to end at perhaps twelve ended at quarter to nine. Ack!

Anyway here's the finished thing.



And here is my finished flash project too.



Its kinda ok but I feel that it lacks a sence of life and character. The animation feels very static.

My Model is done!

Yay! I've finished it!

Ok modeling has never been my favourite subject but I've done it....and er (whispers) it has actually started to grow on me...anyway here is the original image.



And here is what I ended up with.

TADAAAH!

That little diary was evil. It had eleven little holes down the side and two metal rings in each but I was determined to make this as accurate as possible so I created each of those little holes and metal rings. I was also intent on making my plug sockets as close to the original as possible too like so.

And here are the plug sockets completed.

For some of my objects I had to create my own textures. My Bunny Suicides calendar for example.

I do love that calendar

I found in the process of creating my model that I actually knew more about modeling than I originally thought as well as the fact I began to enjoy it more as I went along.

Anyway I don't think its quite perfect. for example I think I the curvature of certain surfaces and objects could be improved. I think maybe the lighting could be a little better too as it looks a bit abnormal although I think this could partly be hindered by the fact that the lighting of the original image was unusual and as I have simulated this onto my model it automatically looks unnatural.

Over all I think my textures are ok but a couple could probably be ether made a little lighter or darker. Apart from that I think my levels of reflectivity are pretty close and I think I managed to excel in spacing, proportions and composition.

Anyway thats my blog for the day.





I'm actualy modeling

Yes I'm finally getting on with my 3D enviroment. My desk to be precise. I don't want to admit it but I'm enjoying it a little more that I expected.

Anyway this is it so far.

And there it be.

I've managed to complete the work I've lost!

At 14:34 I, Little H, have managed to redo and complete my lost flash work after yet another sleepless night. Hah. In your face faulty computers!. I have defeated you!

The only problem is that upon rendering my animation I discover that the sound has been corrupted again so I'm going to have to find some kindly boffin to help me amend that but apart form that it is completed. Take a look.

See? The wings blur this time!

Unfortunately to compensate for loss of time my lip sync is not as clean as it was before I lost the original. If I have time I will attempt to make my wee dude in the fore ground bob up and down a little.

Oh and I've done all my experimental animation work. Now I've only got to edit it togeather. I think I might evern be able to beathe soon!

Working, working, working...

So yeah. I've been working a lot.

The night after I lost all that flash work I didn't sleep very well. Then the next day I began my experimental project with my awesome partner. It involved a lot of cardboard. 102 pieces to be precise. We spent the entire day, morning to evening, drawing and cutting them out and I obtained a very painful blister in the process. I call it determination goaded by a hint of exasperation from the day before.
Anyway that night I didn't fall asleep until about four in the morning and when I eventually did drift off I then had a detailed dream about zombies. I promptly woke up after that...I didn't succeed in getting any of my sleep back.

Today I was in the studio at nine to attempt a catch up on my flash project. I regained as small portion of what I lost but I've still got a way to go. Some time around midday my partner and I continued with the experimental animation project. The number of cardboard pieces has multiplied to some where over 140 and we've got most of the animation done. I think.

It's coming up to one in the morning but now seemed like a good time to blog as I'm still struggling to sleep-I thought I'd make good use of the time. Also the guy in the flat above has taken to riding his skateboard up and down the room so I don't think I'll be getting sleep any time soon.
No matter. I have this nice little cardboard caravan cut out (advertising summerbreack.co.uk) that can be folded into a 3D model. Yep. That's definitely going to keep me entertained...

RUINED!

I love animating and I mean love it. If I'm ever given a project which involves animating I like to do a good job and if it means I will have to spend hours on the job to get it right then I will. I worked on my most recent project from ten in the morning to eight in the evening for two days straight without any breaks and I'm not exaggerating.
It was practically finished and it was perfect. (Wait the emphasis was not powerful enough.) "Ahem." It was frigging PERFECT!!! I proceeded to save it and I was very vigilant about how I did it as I had worked on this thing diligently. Then I closed it and decided that before I removed my USB I would open it up again for good measure and...it was GONE! GONE, GONE, GONE!!!!! All my lip sync, hand gestures, the expressive eyebrows, pupils and eyelid animation GOOOOOOONE!!!

At this point I find something inside me has sort of collapsed. I practically didn't eat for two days and now I find it was just about for nothing. Did I grieve? Yes I did.

Right now I'm not sure what I should do...I'll probably be told I have to do it again...but I don't have time to do a proper job...


Anyway here are a couple of animation tests for my fly. I was experimenting with flight motion before I found an even better technique which, of course, has also been lost.

I suspected that staring at this through out the entire animation would probably give the audience seizures so I decided to slow it down.

This was far too slow and just looked plain pathetic.

I latter worked out that there was a method for adding motion blur. So I stuck with the first wing animation applied the blur and was much better. Well that's all I can show now for all my hard days intensive labour.

Animatic

Ok recently I think my blog has become arrestively dull and I also have not been keeping up to date with it as well as I have been in the past. I think this may be another slightly boring blog. *sighs*

I recently just completed my animatic for my flash adornment (with the flys and the loo) so basically its just simple rough animation. I wasn't trying to achieve anything great here. Have a look.

For some reason the pitch of the voice lowered when I imported it to flash (and when it was made into a movie file the audio the developed a hiss) so I'm going to have to find a way of correcting that. In my actual animation I plan to make the wings of the fly in the foreground actually flutter and I'll give his arms better articulation.

Upon constructing my characters I told myself I wouldn't attempt to do something epic as this was only an animatic...but then I lost my self restraint again.

Here is my fly

Here he is again in several pieces

And this list may give you an idea of just how many individual little bits my winged dude was comprised of...and the large number of layers....ack!