Link for the water tutorial =D

Just in case anyone wants to know where I got this from

http://www.secondpicture.com/tutorials/digital_image_processing/photoshop_water_tutorial.html

Also in other news I accidentally pressed a key on my laptop and now there is an extra load of controls in Cinema 4D I can select the bar connecting two arrows and it means I can move it in two planes, eg. left/right AND backwards/forwards or whatever... I don't know if it'll be a gift or a curse yet but I will soon find out x3

Cheers

Messenger

As I said, the word 'messenger' is the topic for this week's illustration Friday. I decided to have a go even if I didn't enter. I got over-excited with the colouring in and instead of it just being a normal pencil/pen drawing it became a photoshop png. So this is it... don't laugh.

I used a tutorial to tell me how to create the water effect - with me being a Photoshop noob and it seems to have worked well in a quite flooky way.

There we go, my resolution to draw something for Illustration Friday has been fulfilled.

A Chicken conveniently disguised as a Turkey at Christmas...

Apologies for a severe lack in posts over Christmas, my grandmother decided to pack the internet away so the room was tidier for when hoards of visitors who don't mind mess could come round and be shocked at how far she had gone to build the facade of a tidy house. These houseproud people I don't know eh.

Anyway in order to get back on track, I will say this; My editing of the frames in my animation WILL be completed today or death with ensue. (or perhaps a very late night with no eating or human contact) The fun is over and I no longer have the excuse to go buy presents for people. I have my first scene completed and it seems to me that animating in Cinema 4D isn't as difficult as I had expected. I am glad to assume that it will not take me long to have everything animated once I have completed my frames. I was originally going to work through scene by scene but it'll be quicker if I just work through all of the frames then work up from there.

I have completed the background for every scene of my animation, this is the forest I had created, borrowing the expertise of Walt Disney regarding his multi-plane camera and how the animators created the illusion of 3 dimensions in the first scene of Bambi.

I can also show you a screen shot of my first scene from C4D, despite the fact the artwork isn't exactly up to scratch, I'm pleased that I was able to animate it all by myself. Thankfully I was only at the stage of scene 1 when I had to change the sizes of some of my elements so my computer would stop having a panic attack. Thanks to the wonderful Ingrid I knew how to do this.

I've also done a camera test for the angel flying up, I'm considering a variety of camera angles from one that remais at ground level and watches the angel fly up above it to a camera that follows him up keeping level with him all the way up.

Anyway, I don't believe there is anything more for me to say other than I hope anyone reading this had a brilliant Christmas and that they have a happy new year.

I will be attempting to post something later when I 've had a look at Illustration Friday, even if I don't submit anything to the website I can always draw something to give myself good practice. I think the word of the week is 'messenger' so I can always try something for it regardless.

So I will leave you with an attempt at uploading my first scene, in the hope it will show up and be all impressive and such...

Cheers.

The day after the day the teachers got taught

Yesterday was teacher training day and I forgot to update so today is making up for the lack of post yesterday. I am currently editing the frames of my animation and am halfway through scanning all of these frames into the most adorable micro-SD card that gets eaten by the mammy SD card adapter for my computer. Once I've got the frames coloured in and produced an alpha channel for each I'll be putting them all into Cinema 4D, which will mean I'm getting closer to finishing my animation. I'm also trying to work out what I'm going to use for the sound FX in my animation. I'll need a really girly scream, growls and such, and sounds I can use to symbolise spells.
Along side my project work for college I have also been looking into competitions for illustration and animation, this includes Illustration Friday. I resolved to try it this past week but it was just my luck to begin with a really difficult word, 'Brigade'. I couldn't think of anything let alone anything I could draw so I left it until the next week where I will do my utmost to try and fulfil the brief. Even so, should I forget again to look for the brief in time I will start drawing things anyway. I've been getting a bit lazy with my drawing at the moment, I have a feeling it's similar to my writer's block problem but I will strive to work through it by drawing something before I next post anything.
So my to do list for this coming week will be to complete at least one scene in Cinema 4D, create as many frames and alpha channels as I possibly can, draw stuff, try Illustration Friday and come up with good sound FX ideas that I can easily record during the Christmas holidays. All of this work can be extended throughout the holiday which means hopefully come January 03 I will be ready to edit the sounds in and give it a final render and such. So however many frames I have made into an animation ready to be finished and given in next month?
No pressure.

Time to update again

Not much has happened in this past week, by which I mean we learned how to move and manipulate a camera in Cinema 4D and how to render the outcomes and worked on our assets.  Personally, now that I have decided I dislike my animation (looking at the same angel I am drawing out again and again with subtle differences thinking "you stupid angel why can't you just draw yourself!?!") asset production are going slow and I have regrettably not completed them - YET!

These are the beautiful cubes I created an animation of in Cinema 4D. We learned how to insert distance blur and shadows and such which should be demonstrated in this image - I hope.

Angels, Time plans and stuff

My current animation was given the original concept 'XYZ' for which we were supposed to elaborate on and come up with a final idea. Just quickly so you know what I'm on about; X is a nordic rune called Geofu, it is supposed to relate to all things lovey dovey, there is also a rune called Eolh that resembles a Y symbolising protection and friendship and my Z was the guardian angel Zadkiel who is supposedly also well known for his protection-'ness'. In the animation a 'damsel in distress' is being attacked by a dragon, the angel Zadkiel appears to save her and sends the dragon away using magic. The damsel in distress is grateful and falls in love with her rescuer, she hugs him to have him reject her and fly away. A back story was going to be that Zadkiel too was falling in love with her but anyone who knows their angel stuff will tell you that angels are not allowed to fall for mere mortals. Doing so will apparently cause them to 'fall' from heaven. So anyway, Zadkiel's flying away and the damsel is all upset; she then casts the love rune Geofu as a spell causing Zadkiel to love her. The spell catches up with him and he 'falls' from heaven.
This is the time plan for the animation which gives a list of the assets for my cutout animation and the actions of the characters I need to animate.

Scene

Background

Middle ground

Characters

Animated

Render

SFX

Sky

Trees 1

Trees 2

Trees 3

Damsel

Angel

Dragon

Damsel

Angel

Dragon

Backgrounds

1

X

X

X

X

X

-

X

Reacts - terrified

-

Leers at Damsel

Gasps Growl

2

X

X

X

X

-

X

-

-

Appears/ head up/ flies

-

Wind howling

3

X

X

X

X

X

-

X

Cowers from Dragon

-

Dragon breathes in

Growly laughter & screaming

4

X

X

X

X

-

X

-

-

Casts Eolh (sword moves)

-

Sword swinging

5

X

X

X

X

-

-

X

-

-

Dragon breathes fire

Fire roaring

6

X

X

X

X

X

-

X

Cowering tensed realizes she’s not toast

-

Breathing fire (It’s stopped by a force field)

Shield humming Fire and whimpering

7

X

X

X

X

-

X

-

-

Pushed Backwards by exertion of spell

-

Grunt of exertion

8

X

X

X

X

-

-

X

-

-

Opens eyes Stops fire

“huh?”

9

X

X

X

X

-

X

-

-

Casts the second spell

-

Sword swinging

10

X

X

X

X

-

X

X

-

Charging the spell Glowing and such

Growling frowning rawr

Electricity sparks and growling

11

X

X

X

X

-

-

X

-

-

Hit by spell

Sonic boom

12

X

X

X

X

-

-

X

-

-

Flies away

Wings flapping

13

X

X

X

X

X

X

-

Spins to face Zadkiel

Lands behind Damsel gestures (are you okay?)

-

Wind and gasps

14

X

X

X

X

X

X

-

Runs and hugs Zadkiel

Confused and shocked he pushes her away

-

Shocked protest

15

X

X

X

X

-

X

-

-

Runs away and breaks into flight

-

Footsteps

16

X

X

X

X

X

X

-

Crying in foreground

Flying away in background

-

Crying

17

X

X

X

X

X

-

-

Casts Geofu

-

-

Tinkling spell noise

18

X

X

X

X

-

X

-

-

Flying away in two different shots

-

Spell catches up with Zadkiel

Wings flapping and spell SFX getting louder

19

X

X

X

X

-

X

-

-

Falls screaming feathers falling out like Icarus

Screaming