Working animatic - prior to many many changes

Changing Times

Just a quick note to say I have moved on over to Wordpress for now with my project blogging as it's easier to keep organized :

http://craigrothwell.wordpress.com/

Check it out

Inspiration

After being given the go ahead on my project I stumbled across an animation by Arjen Klaverstijin called Manfred. Though the story doesn't seem compelling at all the stylization more than makes up for it. Very similar to what I am going for with my project, very simple 2D and 3D concept were he has made a simple yet aesthetically pleasing believable world. I didn't want to steal a style from animation but this more or less hits the nail on the head. So to add that as my main source of inspiration along with: Mary and Max, Lost and Found, The Lost thing, Skhizien, Harvie Krumpet, Don Shank, Lou Romano and American Beauty. Either way check this out, its an awesome graduate film and has been featured in Cartoon Brew and the like!

http://www.arjenklaverstijn.com/category/animations/

Pitch - The Story Of Jeffery Chide

Well that was another pitch out the way with. Same idea as my last one just more refined in my head since then. I made sure I had my video for it should my mind completely go blank or I just over talk it.

Anyway the panel that we had seemed to think the idea was quite strong. Out of the three the one that most interested me was James Henry a writer from Green Wing, Smack the pony and also Bob the builder. The idea that I have I have obviously become very involved with and tend to overthink it all the time.

James suggested it could be an idea that would work well in a series. I don't know whether that was because of his background in writing or he genuinely could see it working. Either way my writing skills are poor and though I have the basic story beats mapped out and how it will pan out, I would love to get him to go through the script and literally rip it apart and help me rebuild it in a more powerful way.

As I have constantly said, their is no way I am going to produce artwork or any animation for something that isn't strong enough to potentially go the whole mile. It has to also be a very strong idea as otherwise I would loose the drive along the way.

All this into consideration, I can now leave the idea to rest maybe forever or for a few days until we find out what the crack is for the projects and who's are going ahead. Out of all the pitches that I watched and some were extremely strong, Sarah Crombies stood out for me. When I heard her idea I loved it from the start, combined with the imagery she produced and the character, I can actually see this being the first successful film from Falmouth animation if she has a strong team of stop motion artists working on it and I hope it is.

If my idea does go ahead I would like to work alongside someone who knows a little bit about 3D or at least is willing to entertain the idea of using it this year. As well this someone possibly working alongside me on pre production would be extremely useful as I feel I have still not nailed the final look I hope to achieve where I can bridge that gap of an illustrated 3D film. If Jennys idea wasn't so strong she would be ideal to work with as she has this combination down.

Ideally a team of 3 would be perfect whilst having others drafted in and out where they wish to work on their specialist areas. If this doesn't happen, I'm keen to get involved in another 3D project or possibly do a similar thing to Jacob (from last year) in that of character design, modelling and learning the whole process from start to finish.. But for now we can only dream..... and maybe do some dissertation work?..

Anyway here was the pitch video....

3D Experiment

18th October - 3D Experimentation

So I haven't actually tried my characters in 3D properly yet. So I picked what is my favourite design of Jeffery, at least the one that really conveys his personality to me and proceeded to quickly assemble him in 3D. Modelling him was no problem as it was just a matter of tweaking a few vertices. I read a few things on projections and UV mapping which were actually a little more than I needed but for now I have an idea of what he would look like in 3D. I really need to learn how to render objects out in varying ways as I really have no idea. Anyway here is a few screen shots. Would really like to rig him as soon as I am fully satisfied with him, very retarded pose, my bad.

I now need to work out how I want my design to look, I'm feeling 2 and a half D, maybe 3D but just thought I would experiment with a few things, above was just a quick one to through him in a room that would bear some similarity to his when actually designed.

So Year 3

Alright so I'm still going with the basic same premise for my story of last year. Since then I have been playing with the story and how to put it across. I had a bit of a diversion when starting to try and put my character in 3D and found there was something I no longer liked about him. Anyway this post is just so I can get some feedback on my character designs. There all quite similar in facial design but please tell me which ones you like and which ones you don't and why. I have one in mind myself now.

I am designing Jeffery with the character traits bearing in mind, he is a nervous person that lacks self confidence. He will be working in an office and is just trying to fit in. But most importantly he is flat so nothing on him will be protruding except for maybe his tie or something.