@ Phil: Final Project part 9: Bird and Worm Character Designs 2 and new Animatic

Here are my latests designs for my Bird and Worm characters. I have tried to apply what Alan told me to make my characters look more interesting by giving them more shape to their appearance. I have also add a few poses to them to give the characters some life, I might make more poses soon. I have also made some colour schemes for my bird. I only used the primary colours, blue, red and yellow because in my opinion they are very attractive to look at. Out of all the colours schemes, the ones I like is between the very top left colour schemes for having one complete colour for their bodies, and the very bottom right colour schemes for a of bit variety on the shade of colour.

Bird Design

Bird Colour Schemes

The Worm was actually hard to design because I actually did not have much to work with since he is simple. I think the only big change to his design is that I made his body have a flow smooth motion as well made it longer.

Worm Designs

Also today I have redone the animatic of my next project. I am going for the first ending where the worm becomes the second bird's problem, I also did a few changes on the animatic to make it more interesting. I even edited the music to make it sound less jumpy.

Final Project part 8: Bird and Worm Character Designs

Here are my latest character designs for the bird and worm. I first decided to make another influence map to give me some ideas for the type of build I want to give my bird. The birds I was looking at was a superb and a cape starling, a crow and a raven. I chose these sizes to mostly help flesh out my bird that I have made for my storyboard.

Influence Map: Starling, Crow and Raven

Storyboard: Bird closes in on Worm

I actually drew (what I felt at the time) was the final designs for my characters, I thought the overall design of my bird looked alright and I thought of giving my worm a type of hair style using the tip on a real worm (which is actually the mouth). However I have asked Alan for his impute on my characters latest designs. He told me that they look ok but they need some more shape to give them a smooth and simple look. Alan drew me up same examples of what he was talking about and he also gave me another person to look at, his name is Richard Scarry and I am quite familiar with his cartoons. Alan also told me that the worm looks much better without the tip representing the hair so I removed it, also looking at it now the worm does look better without it.

Bird and Worm Designs

Alan's Examples

I then tried to apply Alan's advice to my work and I can say that the characters look much more interesting. I still think the bird needs more work but he is getting there. The worm seems to be more complete than the bird, I will show my designs to Phil this Monday and see what he has to say.

I have also made an expression sheet for my bird, showing the type of expressions he will use for my animation. The worm does not get one because his face is going to stay sad throughout the animation.

Bird Expression Sheet

Final Project part 7: Bird and Worm Character Designs

For the past few days I was working on some influence maps to help me design my characters for my animation. I was researching Charley Haper's artworks on birds, while also looking at some real birds and animated birds to give me ideas on how I should make my bird. I was also looking at some real worms and animated worms to inspire my worm's design.

Charley Haper

Birds: Real and Animated

Worms: Real and Animated

Out the two characters the bird is giving me some trouble to design. I think I was going a simple look while giving the bird some detail. However I kept on making the same bird repeatedly much to my annoyance.







I asked some advice from Alan and he gave me some tips on how to go for a simpler route by referencing the pigeons from a television series named 'Pigeon Street'. He told me to look at how the pigeons are done by using less shapes, and focuses on it's simplicity.

Pigeon Street's Pigeon

I did try to give my bird a simplistic appearance but I still want to give some detail, so I was also looking at Charley Haper's artwork more carefully, to see how he makes his birds look bird like and how I would implement it to my bird.









While I am still working on the bird’s design, I believe I am almost finished on making my worm’s design. I just need to make the final design, create some silhouettes and his modelling map.

Final Project part 6: Bird Worm Blues/ Bird Food Blues

During this week I was finishing up some animatics for my project. Before I talk about my choice, I will first show my dropped animatic idea.
If you have been following my posts I was planning to make an animation about two bees preforming to the song ''Baby Bee'' by Kenny Neal. One bee is singing while the other other playing the harmonica. I had a meeting with Phil about this and he felt that the there was nothing that was going on, besides the bees singing. However when I shown him my second story board to my second animatic he liked it and wanted me to work on it, which I did.

Bumble Bee Blues Storyboards

Bubmle Bee Blues


My second animatic is about a bird who is having trouble trying to eat a worm. At the same time the worm is singing the blues. The song is still same just the idea is different. I made the pictures for this animatic in photoshop, which was a different experience than doing the storyboards in paper. I done them in photoshop because I thought it would be quicker, and it was because i did not have to scan the images and resize them. This animatic has two ending, which I will show Phil next week. The first ending has a second bird eating the worm, which then becomes the second birds problem to handle the worm. The second idea ends with the worm being eaten by a mole, leaving the bird depressed.
I actually shown my animatic to Alan and he like the first ending where there is a second bird that eats the worm. However he felt I should do a few fixes on my animatic like explain more clearly on how the worm escapes and maybe play with the ending a bit. Like I could have both birds fight over the worm while the worm is still singing the blues. I am also thinking about the name of the title, I might be going for Bird Food Blues, but it might change in the future

Bird Food Blues


Please leave feedback on the what improvements my animatic might need.

Geek2012

Yesterday I went to Geek2012 convention and it was fun, but before I talk about it I would like to bring up something that might catch some of your interests.
Apparently there is an amusement park named Dreamland that is in the verge of closing down. The park, apparently have a lot of cool old school stuff that some of you might like, like classic pinball, roller coaster rides etc. You can read more on the leaflets that I have scaned here.



The convention itself was very fun, looking at old video games and some new ones. I have also met a tutor from uni. I actually went to this convention to promote myself for future employment to other game companies that were going to talk about their industry, but I think when I got there I was too late. There was going to be another person who worked on the classic batman and robocop games, but it was held around 7 and the place I parked my car was going to close soon. The images shows off the pamphlet I picked up, the ticket I bought at the door, a wrist band that shows that I bought my ticket and I even added the leaflet I got from uni.



I have also taken some pictures form the inside of the convention, sorry the game screens are hard to make out. As mentioned before I found the convention very fun and enjoyable. I played some of the classic games to see how they play. The first game I played was Super Gouls and Ghosts, I believe this was an endurance game. Where regardless how upgraded your amour is your character can only take two hits. I then played Mario Karts 64, but I felt that the controls were too loose. I also played Super Puzzle Fighter, I found this game the most difficult out of the rests because I am colour blind and the game relies on the player to tell the difference of colours. The game also play's like tetris, but the more blocks that are stacked the bigger the bonus.
I have also played some recent games but mostly fighters like Super Street Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur 5. I also took witness of the grand finals of a tournament that was going on, it was not very exciting. I think because there were not many people watching. Which is funny because when I was playing Super Street Fighter 4 with someone else for fun, a lot of people was watching.
Yeah I had a lot of fun there.

The tournament I was watching.

Once it was time for me to go I decided to do a questionnaire to let the convention people know what I think about Geek2012 and what they should do for next year.


Finally I picked up a leaflet that shows another event that is coming soon this year, if anyone interested.


The only thing that I am disappointed of this convention was the I was not able to hand out any of my business card, but I am going to another convention this weekend. Hopefully I can hand out more of my cards.

Final Project part 5: California Raisins, James and the Giant Peach Worm and BB King's How blue can you get? video

Yesterday I had a tutorial with Phil on my work. We decided that I should use the ''Baby Bee'' song by Kenny Neal, but shorten it to at least a minute. However I was able to shrink it to 2 minutes and 10 seconds, Yet I think I will be okay with it since about a minute of the song has lyrics while the rest has a harmonica playing through. I also have to make an animatic by next week so we can see if what I thought up will work or does it need improvements.
So today I was researching on some character designs from the California Raisins and the Earthworm from James and the Giant Peach. The California Raisins for their overall designs of the characters, looking at what they wear to the shape of their body, and the Earthworm for how his glasses acts as his eyes. Also both characters carry with them a jazzy, blues appearance. Which is why I think the both of them will help me design my characters for my blues music.

California Raisins

Earthworm

I also watched a music video by BB King name ''How Blue Can You Get?''. I was watching it to get some reference on the movements of the singers and the instruments players. If anyone knows any blues music videos that could give me ideas on the types of movements the singers preform please let me know.