Monday 30 January 2012

Final Project part 2: ideas 2: Seen Alan and Pet Blues

Today I have had a one to one with Alan about the projects I has thought up. He told me that they felt a bit too big to make, and try to think about something that is simple yet enjoyable like my last animation. Alan gave some ideas to go about this and referred me to a television series named 'Modern Toss' and a comedian name Eddy Izzard for inspiration.
I also had a meeting with Phil to help me to come up with some ideas for my project. I mentioned to him that I also wanted to do some music animation and the only ones I came across was blues songs. We then thought it would be a great idea to do an animation where we haves pets singing the blues.

So today I was doing some research on blues songs. I also have some good ideas that came to me when I was listening to them. I basically listen to the songs and get a rough idea of what they are about and try to use the songs narrative and change them to how a pet would sing them.

The first blues song I listened to was Kenny Neal's ''Baby Bee''

The image that I thought up when I listened to this song was that the lead singer is represented by a fish/hamster, while the harmonic player is represented by another pet. What I gathered from the song is about a man who is greatful to have a girlfriend, but she talks a lot of rubbish. So I thought I could have the singer singing about how noisy his owner is.
EDIT: I have found another version of ''Baby Bee'' and it sounds better then the one I have posted

The next blues song is by The Two Poor Boys ''Sorry Dear''
The idea I have thought up is about two pets who are going to the pound and are singing how sorry they are for the way they have treated their owner. The style that also came to me was a rubberhose animation style, where everything is in constant motion. The only thing that does not move from their place is the singers's heads.

the next song is by Joe Stone ''It's Hard Time''
The image that came to me was about animals going to the slaughter house, and while I was listening to this song, I believe its about a man going to work. So I thought for the animals their work is going to the slaughter house. This has to be one of the most grimist stories I have thought up so far.

The next song is by Ma Rainey ''Booze and Blues''
The idea that came to me was about a stray animal in the pound singing about how she got caught and all see want is a drink. Which is what I think the song is about, where it has the singer going to jail and what she wants is a drink of beer.

I have thought about having some animals playing the blues instrumental, but I do not know if they have the same impact. One blues instrument that caught my attention is by Fiddle Frank Nelson ''Buck Creek Gal''
I just imaging the common farm animals playing all the instruments in this music, again I do not know if this is a good idea.

Friday 27 January 2012

Final Project part 1: ideas

With the minor project finished, it is now time to come up with ideas for the final project. I had though of some ideas that I would like to make for my final project.
The first idea was about a hunter going in the woods hunting for a creature, however he is attacked by a bear. The hunter and the bear fought for a bit until the hunter found his gun and shot the bear. The main focus of the film was to make the hunter a victim of the bear's attack, while in reality it was the other way around. The entire conflict between the bear and the hunter is also being observed by a small bear cub. the small cub also plays as the narrator of the short film. This idea was not meant to show people as monsters but was meant to be a sad story that ends with a bear's death.
The second idea is set in the computer world. We have the main character, who is an anti-virus, fighting a group of viruses. He does this until he is up against the boss of all the viruses. Here it could end in cliffhanger or a 'to be continued' because I felt if I chose this idea it would be too long to finish that at most the fight between the anti virus and the group of viruses will take up most of the films timeline.
If I were to reference this to anything it would be the two Tron films and the tv series Reboot, because they both focuses on the world of computers. With a computer programme or virus causing trouble. The character designs would resemble that of cyber puck to give a futuristic techy look.
The final idea I had was to do another music transcription, because I want to give this another shot. Of course I need to look for non copyrighted/free to use music and it will be tricky to select a definite choice, so when I see Phil I hope he can give me some advice on this. I will also ask Matthew about this as well since in his last animation the music he used was free to use.

These are the ideas I have got so far and if non of them works then I will try and brainstorm some more.

Friday 20 January 2012

Self Initiated Project Finale: Finished animation



'The story is about a gamer who decides to act out the fantasies as video game characters from different genres, however his fantasy does not go to plan...'

This is the complete animation of my minor project in the third year for UCA, I am actually pleased of how it turned out, but I can see that there are still room for improvements. This animation was very hard to make, mainly on how to make my character's movements feel natural. I was actually worried that I would not be able to finish it before the deadline, well I have shown me that I can do it. Hopefully I can pull it off on the next project.

Friday 13 January 2012

Self Initiated Project part 15: Toon Shade Tests and Final Renders

During the Christmas holidays I was finishing up on a few things on my animation.
Fist I started with setting the type of material shade for my character and the objects. I used the sofa to be my test subject because it was one of the first models I have made. The following images are not the final choices but tests to get the right amount of shade I was going for.














Once I have decided on the the material I then applied the material to my character and the rest of the remaining objects.
I also created the final design of my character and the costumes he will be wearing in my animation. Only one I had to change which was the fighter costume, I first image shows off his first rubbish bag gi. Although the crinkles where good, they would not show up when using the toon out line render. I then had to remake the gi and make the crinkle textures.

Template


Fighter: Old Gi


Fighter: New Gi


Knight


Shooter


Mop


Box Sword


Box Dragon


Sofa