Pitching.... really....

So we have the practice pitch tomorrow for the Development project..... so.. My progress thus far for this project has been me a bunch of ideas that I don't feel are worthy of taking forward, or have taken forward and then thought wow this sucks, I couldn't work for a year on this. As I wanted to combine the 3D and 2D elements to produce something that was a little bit different and allowed me to play with both areas I was thinking of a story that would allow this. Flat world was a big inspiration but I felt if I was going to stick with an idea the base idea had to already be there so I didn't just discard it. I remembered the story Flat Stanley from when I was younger. This is the overview:

"Flat Stanley Stanley Lambchop wakes up one morning to find a notice-board has dropped on him in the night, leaving him happy and healthy, but only half an inch thick. It's a little unusual, but he finds he can fly like a kite, be sent on holiday through the post and can use his special new skills to catch some art thieves. Still, he's glad when his brother Arthur thinks to use the bicycle pump to inflate him back to his normal shape."

Above - An early design for Stanley ( he will be renamed.... Stanley..... tshh I think not)

Since then I have played with ideas for it including,

• Superhero or Superslim,
• A sad tail about how he strives towards trying to return himself to his former self.
• A man that is slowly becoming "flatter" and "flatter" as he feels more down in life.
• A guy that is on the run and his adventures with being flat

Above Left - SuperSlim . Above Right - An idea of how he might have been flattened.

My main thought that I am holding on to quite a lot is that he is maybe not flattened by anything but that his physical shape is as a result of his emotions. Something around like he is crampt at work and is literally walked over in life. Maybe he is really good guy but gets treated in a bad way and is slowly becoming flatter and flatter. I have envisioned for a while a guy in work at an office and feels secluded, flat and lonely. The whole idea needs a lot of work but I really really want to come up with a story that is both moving and contains the comedy values that could be subtly put across with his humorous shape.


The idea is that he will be a flat character in a 3D world. However the 3D world will also appear relatively "flat" with a toonshading element overlaying the 3D models. The character design I have kept simple but given them as much appeal as possible. Basically everything will be based around a simple flowing shape

This is the kind of idea of how the character design would role. The head down to the body is one smooth whole object, the clothes would be wrapped around as a texture. The noses on the 3D characters would be the only bit that was actually protruding from the characters. The style needs more work on but I think I was to try out this gouache jazzz.

I have thought about so many ideas I really need to get into that Bluesky thinking. I hear thats were all the ideas come from :D ; out in the sun chilling, catching some rays, I think I have found my dream job. But anyway for now I think I want to go with this idea, it has come a little late, though my practice pitch will contain next to nothing I think I have a lot to work with for the next week for my actual pitch, it will probably still be a bit vague around the story but hopefully I can start to nail the style and make it coherent across the board, currently only the main character has it. I want the background to be simple shapes with a loose overlay just like the character. This is the current state of a test I am doing for the stylization, at the moment the whole things looking a little cheap. If the story is to be a dark one the colours are going to have to reflect that, they all look a bit to chirpy at the moment...

Development Project/ Not Developing

In regards to the Development project, I am epically behind schedule. My lack of creative thought combined with my ridiculous strive for an original yet compelling story is driving me slowly insane, I have had so many ideas , thought they were really good, only to change my mind and bore myself with them the next day. This showing how my ideas must have actually been crap. I really like the idea of coming together with 3D and 2D creating something in a similar style. I was pointed in the direction of Flat world which has a lot of the aspects of what I was envisaging. At the moment I like the idea of doing some kind of twist on the story Flat Stanley. Unfortunately I really cannot see this happening as I'm sure there must be some kind of copyright to stop this... It is just taking me ages to think of an idea that is very original and doesn't sound cliche that I would want to develop for the 3rd year.

Shakespeares Head

So here is the head as it stands currently ( I started again...again.....again) , its got more volume and curve to it than the previous model, for now I have ditched the image to work from as I'm looking to concentrate on furthering the appeal of Shakespeares character in a 3D space now that I have the base shape. I need to add details now in or at least further define shapes in the nose, mouth and eyes. Then or maybe next the body. I have been using Jacobs model from 3rd year as reference for the edge looping and the like, though I completely different model , he has an awesome turnaround on vimeo. What I like about this model is that it has both the artistic flair of Andys drawing backed up with Jacobs insane modelling skills to create an awesome model.

Hopefully this should be alot easier, I feel like I have the grasp now of working in the 3D space.

Negotiated Brief

So my negotiated brief..... For this I just really wanted to get a bit more knowledge of 3D modeling. Though I do find it tedious at times the drive to make the characters appear in a 3D world and bring them alive keeps me going.

As I had already created some characters in 0ne of the previous projects I sort out tubby Shakespeare as my character of choice.

I proceeded to try and model his head in clay, this was fun, it was hands on and you got instant feedback ( unlike maya and dragging vertex points). Turns out my side view drawings were a joke so had to redraw them. What works in 2D doesn't necessarily work in 3D.
After redrawing I got them ready to be modelled from. As most characters seemed to be poly models I went for that approach with the general aim to produce a smooth model as similar to my drawings as possible with added aesthetic changes if I felt needed. At current I am trying to recreate the head, I'm enjoying the process although I think I may have to start again with my edge looping seeming a little dodgy. I have the rings from the mouth going to far round the face which seems unlike other topology models I have looked at. Thee cheeks being so high up on him are a pain. Anyway I'll keep posting on progress with this...

Pre Production Talk Through

Alright so I'm going to try and update my blog a little more regularly now, for now though I want to go back and re minis on the pre production project so I don't forget all my ideas and inspirations and the like.

So to start with I want to talk through the Doctor & The Assistant:

The Doctor I wanted to be a shaggy kind of character, scruffy but still relatively good looking to accompany the assistant. The current Doctor Who however places so much emphasis on the Doctor and the assistant is just a boring sidekick. I wanted to make the Doctor and his assistant to be like a proper duo. The kind of team that are never separated and have some weird chemistry. So I set about designing characters faces mainly along side each other hoping something would stick.

The whole time during my designing I kept referring back to Peter De Seve who I aspired to throughout the early phases of the project for stylisation of my characters . I bought his amazing book " The Duchess of Whimsy", which he provided the illustrations for, as he collaborated with his wife who wrote the book. I would have loved to have also got my hands on "sketchbook", or " A Sketchy Past : The Art of Peter De Seve" but for now I'm just gathering some money to get hold of these gems.

Whilst I was designing the Assistant I constantly wanted a tubby little loud mouth, but I stuck for too long with the generically hot female character. However after studying some A list celebs and caricaturing them, I started to find some principles that worked across all, in my eyes, appealing female characters and started to try and put them into a fatter shape. I looked at character designer bloggs to get an idea for varying shapes and sizes and remembered how Curtis Jobbling ( BAF ) had said in his talk how great characters stemmed from the simplest forms and eventually stuck with a heart on top of a triangle for the assistant. The Doctor who I designed first, I was just pushing and pulling parts of his face to get a the rugged look I was going for whilst maintaining his smart and geeky yet somewhat "handsome" face. It was two different approaches but the assistant is by far my favourite. She has energy about her which I think I got across somewhat in the design sheets. Ultimately her inspiration I feel came from Edna from the incredibles, as she is a character both in look and personality that differs from that to the standard female character and this is why she is memorable. So much personality from such a small person!

The bodies of the characters were just clothes thrown around simple shapes (as Derek and Kathy rightly pointed out which I will definitely consider further in future character design) , the assistant sporting a modern designer coat that I found in a fashion magazine and the Doctor also dons a smart and sophisticated look that looks slightly dishevelled to show how he rarely looks after his appearance any more.


My sub characters were literally banged out, partly because I had already been through the process with the other two and also because I was decisive with their look as I had there personality's in mind from the start and didn't look to develop them to much. Shakespeare I thought would be a fun character to work on, all his paintings are so stern and he looks quite prude so I went for a more adventurous Shakespeare. Camp, has let himself go and has a few ghosts in the closet that no one knows about.




The other character I chose was the lute player, even though he had a small part to play I had an eloborate back story to him in my head, I had this fixation of Napoleon dynamite and used this as a base to go about creating a tudor stylized version with my own added features here and there. He needs a lot more work but the base is there. His body is also lacking a lot of structure.

All in all the characters as lines were my favourite part of the pre production , I loved bringing them alive and trying to capture the essence of their personality. My favourite characters were the Assistant and Shakespeare. From creating the characters I learnt how useful having style reference can be and any reference, it gives you a general aim and direction instead of fishing in the dark like you so often do. Having a solid back story and personality for the characters also makes it far easier to caricature them. Below is my final sheet I did for characters, I was trying to get across how the duet acted together. The Assistant is the larger personality, she also assistant gets bored easily, often ignorant to the Doctor.

Random bits of Pre Pro that didn't go near the bible

Here are some testers of watercolour and ink. I was trying to get them to be animatable but they would have boiled badly. Hence I took them down a level and applied more block shading for the final images.

Lou Romano - Gouache





Inspiring Images from

Lou Romano and Peter De Seve

Lou Romano is a voice talent and conceptual artist for Pixar. He is generally a little too talented for his own good judging by his work. It was only by accident that I came across him. I find his eye for rich colouring that works so well together amazing.

Peter De Seve has the most amazing line and has been a character designer for Ice Age, Finding Nemo and all that jazz, along the way he has produced some fantastic work for the covers of The New yorker. His work in indian ink and watercolour from the book "Dutchess of Whimsy" was the most inspiring.