Self Initiated Project part 5: Influence Maps part 2

On Friday I had a meeting with Alan about my designs for my character he responded that he looked too generic and I need to give off some more hints that he is a gamer. We then looked at some images of game nerds and the type of clothes that they wear. He also mentioned I should look for some home made costumes. I thought I could look at some badly done ones because my character will wear a costume that look rubbish but relevant to the genre he is acting in.
I also took pictures of myself(with help) dressing up for the genres that my character will wear. I purposely dressed up like that so I can transfer that style to my character's design. I thought when I start making him in Maya I will create the main body then add in the extra features like a towel gi with a belt head band, a towel cape with a remote control dagger/sword and a lamp torch, and a broom gun and a pot helmet.

Fighter

Adventurer

Shooter

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Self Initiated Project part 4: Influence Maps

I have made some influence maps to help me on designing my character and the objects he will have in his room.
The reason why I have some game characters for the first image is so I can use their cartoony appearance to help design my character's physic because I feel having him looking cartoonish would suit my animation very much.

Self Initiated Project part 3: Animatic

Last I had a meeting with Phil about my ideas for my animation, he told me to get a better response I should make an animatic with some of my ideas that I like and post them on the blog. I was actually planning to show this to Alan but he wasn't very well on Friday. Hopefully Phil or Alan could see this and give me their opinion.

Self Initiated Project part 2: Idea Development

Yesterday I had a meeting with Alan about my project and I shown him some thumbnails sketches of my character acting out the game genres with the objects in the house. He gave me some advice on how to improve some of my thumbnails ideas. For the fighting game genre skit he liked the idea of my character fighting a broom, but he told me it would be better if he was fighting a mop because the brush end of the mop looks like hair and I agree it does, so I will change the broom to a mop.
Alan also gave me some more helpful advice on working with the RPG genre, he told me that I could make a joke about the dice rolling bit in board games RPGs. That the character could be walking in a dark room holding a torch and the number of steps he takes depends on the roll of the dice. I played around with that concept and I came up with a few ideas. The first idea is with the character rolling the dice for his movement but it ends with him losing the dice so he is stuck, the next idea is with him following the directions of a map, but the map was too complicated to follow so he throws it away and gives up. The last idea I thought up is when we see the character's movement from a birds eye view which I think has a bit more of a dungeon like feel.
Alan advise me to take a look at Charlie Brook's Gamewipe, where Mr Brook talks about games, their culture and scandals around them. I watched the documentary and I notice that with each segment there is a man acting out the game genre in a white room and the way the man acts out the genres is done in a budget style but you still get the idea what he is acting out.
I am still thinking on what my character will look like, although I feel he should look like a regular generic person.
Here are the thumbnails for my animation, they are numbered to help me to tell them apart.






That is all I have done so far still thinking up ideas for my animation I think I got a few strong ones. I will also start making my character as well, please leave feedback thank you.

Self Initiated Project part 1:Decided on an Idea, now Refining it.

After a long time on deciding on my idea for my first project of the 3rd year I believe I got something. Before I reveal my main idea, I will first show off so two ideas that I like but felt they would take a bit too long to make.


The first idea was an interview with furniture and other objects in the house, they all talked about a break in they had late at night. The first object to be interviewed was a table saying that the criminal broke into the house and ate all the snacks that was on it, the table even mentioned that the intruder came down the chimney which was traumatised by the experience. The table also said that the intruder left some unknown boxes under the tree, which we then talked to the Christmas angle. The Christmas angle talks about his feeling about the situation and how worried he is about the mysterious packages under his tree.
The whole idea of this story is meant to represent the type of interviews with people who are victims of a crime but with furniture. The big reveal of the person preforming the crime was meant to be a surprise to the audiance. I also thought of playing with the type of character the angle is, I was thinking instead of making him sound friendly he should sound tough.



The seconded dropped idea was about a small child entering a dark forest. Moments passed and the child ends up lost inside the forest. The child tried to fine his way out but could not fine any exit. He then started to get scared until he heard a voice asking him if he is lost. The child responded, he then saw an old hand coming from behind him pointing his way out. The child then turned around and saw a scary living tree. The child then ran right out of the forest in fear, however the tree looked in confusing because it only wanted to help the child. However the tree shrugged it off and went back to it's neutral position.
This idea is meant to be a parody of characters who ends up lost in the woods and come across some living trees trying to scare or hurt them. Instead of that I wanted my tree to helping the lost child to find his way home be there was a misunderstanding between him and the child.


The idea I chose for my project is the gaming idea with each short skits segment representing a game genre. I thought this idea will be ok because I like playing games so why not make an animation with my character re-enacting some gaming genres that I am familiar with. However the main character (which I will name the test subject) will re-enact the genres with the objects in his house/room, but with each segment he loses. For example for fighting genre his opponent could be a broom and it ends with the test subject losing to it. For turn based RPG we see the test subject facing a bookshelf and they both take turns hurting each other, but it ends with the bookshelf winning by throwing a book at the test subject.







To help get a better idea of making each of my short skits to have an enjoyable or cleaver ending I did some research into two books that carry the idea I was going for for my animation. The first book is call 'Dawn of the Bunny Suicides', This book is part of a series where a cute little bunny always tries to kill itself in funny or cleaver ways. I chose to look at this book for the many ways the bunny kill itself and the whole story centres around one theme which is the bunny is suicidal. By looking at this I could try and come up with multiple ideas around one theme and pick only the best one.
Here are some images to so off some of the bunny's deaths.












The second book I am looking at is called 'Simon's Cat Beyond the Fence'. This book is based of the web series Simon's Cat. The story is about a cat being a cat but done in a cartoony and comical fashion, for example when interacting with other animals it the cat acts like a person with them and vice-versa. With objects the cat acts like a cat. I thought by looking at this book I will find other ways for my character to interact with the objects in the house I also like how the single images are pretty powerful and gives you an idea of how the story goes.
Here are some images from the book to give you an impression on Simon's cat.










That is all for now, by looking at these two book I hope I will get some good ideas for my animation please leave some feedback. Also please leave any suggestions on other shows or books with small comical segments I could look at for inspiration for my animation thank you.

Self Initiated Project Brainstorming part 3

On Tuesday I had a meeting with Phil about ideas I had for my self initiated project. He told me that all the ideas still feel too big for my 15 week project. However I did mentioned an idea where I have one character doing many small skits which revolves around him interacting with one object but the outcomes are always ends badly for him. The animation is meant to resembling Bill Plympton animations 25 Ways to Quit Smoking and How to Kiss as well as Adny Riley The Book of Bunny Suicides. In that the main concept with all of my ideas is that the show begins with the main character/test subject interacting with an object without problems, until something goes wrong, ending in a comical fashion for the test subject.


This image shows off the idea development process for my next project, as well a list of shows and comics that could inspire my animation. I was also developing the type of person the test subject is, which is he is a very clumsy person who gets hurt at the end of each skit, think Disney Goofy. I also wrote a summery of the three ideas that I was working on, which are shown in the next three images.


The first idea is about the subject iterating with video game genres. For instance with fighting game genres, we see the test subject playing a fighting game but he then gets punch in the face by the television. I actually had a word with Alan about this idea and he told me it would be better if he was alone in his house with a lot of house hold objects and re-enacts all the game genres I have list with the objects, like a prop based comedy sketch. For example for platformers he moves across the selves with his fingures (or have the character very small for this skit) while avoiding obstacles to reach the finish line, but ends up failing. For the fighting genre he treats one of his objects, maybe a broom or table, as his opponent by fails at defeating it.
Alan told me to also look at a Steve Martin film called 'The Lonely Guy' for the concept of a lonely person. This concept does seem to have some promise for my animation but I am worried that this would be too big to handle, although I could find a way in working with this idea much easier.


The next story idea open with each segment with the test subject playing with a toy, like a paddle ball, but only ends up getting injured in the end. The idea is to show that even the friendliness looking toy can be very dangerous if used poorly.


The final idea focuses on the test subject interacting with words beginning with the letters of the alphabet. However the outcomes may very. For example if one of the words was a C he would use a cactus to scratch his back, but if the word was Ball which begins with a b, he then gets hit by a ball. I also had a word with Alan with this idea as well and he said that I could update the alphabet by using more recent objects or be political with it. If I was going for this idea, I think I would go for the updated alphabet story with no attachment to political things because I am not that interested to politics.

That is all the ideas I have thought up please leave some feedback to let me know what you think about them and which one I should focus more on.

Self Initiated Project Brainstorming part 2

Some more of me brainstorming ideas.

The first image show some ideas that revolves around living trees. I thought what would it be like if trees can talk, my first idea was to have a tree telling a dog off for trying to pee on it or something bad will happen to it. However the dog still pee on it and in retaliation the tree kicked the dog very hard while saying '' I told you not to do it.'' The story ends with the tree threatening a Lumber Jack next.
The next idea was to have a tree tell it's life story from being a sprout to a tree before before it was chopped down and became a stump. The story ends with the stump telling the audience not to worry because when he is removed there will be a new tree taking it's place and hopes it does not go through the same thing as the stump. the last idea that involved a tree character was to have a child lost in the woods and was terrified. Suddenly a scary tree came to life which scared the child, he then ran away. However the tree was actually trying to help the child to find his way out and looked in confusion. The tree then shrugged it of and went back to it's neutral position.


The next image shows off two ideas for my story. The first was to have a person who was very bored and he did everything to entertain himself but no luck. He then decided to go for a drive. During his drive he sped up faster and faster until he hit something and launched out of his window. The story ends with him looking at the camera saying '' and you know what...I'm still bored.'' This idea was meant to have a bit of a dark humour that through out the short he tried to find things that will entertain him, until he finally found something that would kill his boredness but it didn't, instead it killed/injured him leaving the main character still unsatisfied.
The final idea was actually a remake of a very old story I thought up which is about a Jack in a box, but instead of a glove it was a small wizard toy.
It begins the same way, with the wizard toy waking up from his crate and ventured the room he was in. Suddenly he found a box and investigated it, the wizard then found a handle and turned it. When the handle finished turning, Jack came out and scared the wizard toy. Out of anger the wizard toy cast a spell but that only made Jack more scary. Again the wizard cast a spell but that only made it worst, the wizard toy kept repeating it until there was only a box with a handle. The handle then started turning making the wizard toy panic in fear, the wizard toy then hide somewhere hoping to be safe. When the handle finished turning nothing happened, the wizard toy took notice and came closer to the box. closer and closer until the wizard toy was too close to the box. Suddenly the box opened and a monstrous Jack popped out and scared the wizard toy straight back to it's crate.
I did thought of an alternative that when the wizard toy was first scared by Jack, he hid in his crate, when he looked out of the crate he saw Jack laughing at him which made the wizard toy mad. Jack went back in his own box still laughing, the wizard toy went back in his crate think on how to punish Jack. He then saw some duck tape which gave him an idea. Next scene we then see the wizard toy turning the handle again, but when the handle stop moving Jack can't come out. The wizard toy duck taped Jack's box lid tight and the wizard happily went back in the crate and called it a day.
I actually liked the alternative ending better because it feels more realistic then having a toy with magic powers.
Let me know what you think by leaving me some feedback please thank you