Animating a very beautiful volcano erupting...

So for our group 'operation' we need a volcano erupting - this is a really rough attempt of illustrating what is going to happen...

more later =)

Cheers

Practicing in Cinema 4D

Class this morning consists of working to give the effect of the scene being a 3D 'set'.  To begin with we have the task of making the object in the  scene look realistic...

I have also learned how to make lights out of shapes - something I had seen our lecturer do last year and had never known how to do properly. We used a plane in a cloner object as the light by giving the shape a luminant material.

I think I might try something of my own in this method even just to see if I can create something nice...

Next was an animation intended to follow the idea of an ident we were shown that I am led to believe is one of Paul's personal stash of work; using depth of field and a photograph to create a realistic looking scene to drop a shape into... I quite like it as I also learned how to work the explosion tag in this program.

Anyway - more later...

Cheers

After a nice weekend getting kicked all over Ireland

So this weekend I was at a Taekwon-do instructors course in Belfast and had lots of fun bruising my toe and gaining my second degree black belt - not to mention a load of achey muscles... After my adventures it's straight back to work.

Today we have been working on animating a channel 4 ident just to try out the method in Cinema 4D.
So this is the final cut out version; we used After Effects to mask the footage together.

This is the list of things each of the group are doing for OUR ident work for E4. We're working on building the backgrounds for the animations. Below is the storyboard for the second animation in which the character falls through the Earth, in the bottom left box you can see how we plan to build the background on a layer and composite an animated tunnel to follow the footage of the live action character which are both on layers of their own.

These are the layers we all decided to have for our underground part of the idents...

Today hopefully we're going to have some more work to upload regarding the animation - even if it's just an animatic it'll be good to have something to show for ourselves...

I've been shown an advert calling for an assistant animator in LONDON... I'm going to look more into the company and the requirements and post something about it later...

However for now this is me...

Cheers

Fox...

 

I had an idea when looking at the knots in the wood of my door, the knots have always resembled some kind of animal to me so I thought I would use that to draw something out of it. I decided on a fox with glowing eyes and I made an attempt at it... I wanted it to be purple but it looked horrible with pinky purple eyes and so on so I changed it to dark blue - it's an improvement but I still wish it were better... I'm getting back into that rutt of not being able to draw well again I think :(

 

I then drew him under a tree - the Illustration Friday topic gave me the idea but I won't enter it because it's too late and it's rubbish - so it's the Fox under the Halucinogenic Tree of Delirium...

 

It may be rubbish and I may wish it were better but at least it exists so I'm happy I managed to draw SOMETHING. =D

Cheers

 

New Module

This week has brought with it the beginning of a new module, Compositing. The project requires us to create an I-dent animation in our group. So far we have been working on developing our ideas and experimenting with the techniques. However, we need to look at other I-dent animation examples, which is the purpose of this post...

Our first idea was paint splashing against the logo of the TV channel in question. This Ident is quite relevant to this =) It's by IdentsandLogos.

This is one of channel 5's Idents for 2011; it is similar to the work we have been doing today as the example we've been working on is dropping cubes into an environment. Of course I have previous experience with that whole 'bundle of laughs' but now I'm having to re-learn the lot in the new edition of Cinema 4D R14 (!) 

E4 is the ident project my group and I are doing so this is very relevant. I like the 3D in this animation, it's very smooth and I think it might have been given a touch of after effects magic after looking at the electricity effect used. I like how much it plays down the fact it is 3D by making it look regular.

So now a quick update on what our plans are... We are thinking of animating a space man falling from space and crashing through the Earth and bursting out the other side... but the centre of hte Earth contains loads of different things that we have the opportunity of making as funny as we can. We're thinking of making it in a 3 part animation as we need to produce 3 animations as a group to hand in in December.

 

Our group found this music video amusing - our original idea - one we have tried out involved a robot costume made of cardboard boxes - the idea of having a mint background in cartoon and a poorly shot live action character composited in sounds very good and I think it'll be quite effective in the final piece.

This was the first idea we had - the one we have tried out in After Effects to use as development for our actual animation...

 

 

Any way I'll post more soon,

Cheers
 

My beautiful new Wacom bamboo ^_^

So very happy that my Wacom came on Friday - I spent the whole day learning how to use it like a kid with an awesome toy at Christmas. In the standard of risks Dave speaks of - this is the exact opposite on the scale ^_^

Needed to notify 'you' of this joyous occasion.

Cheers

Lots of words... My rough script, backstory and personality development for Ava

Friend

The little ghost, Ava walks solemnly and sighs mournfully. She's lonely and wants a friend. The sound of children’s laughter breaks through her self-pity and she looks up, her face breaking out into a smile.

A group of children are playing in the field with a battered Frisbee. Ava enthusiastically floats over and tries to join in. A child throws the Frisbee with all his might and Ava flies up to catch it. To her dismay the Frisbee merely passes through her body, unaffected by her mass; and smacks another boy in the face.

The children cackle cruelly at the boy but poor Ava sinks to the ground as though they were laughing at her. She turns her back on the children laughing at the boy and goes on her way.

She floats past a busy road, one with cars moving so fast it frightens her; as soon as she is accustomed to the noise and the speed, she begins to formulate a plan.

A little girl, no older than Ava herself, is waiting patiently to cross the road. Ava sneaks closer for a better look; a van is speeding its way towards them and Ava sees her chance. 'If this little girl dies, her ghost could keep me company.' she thinks to herself. And with that she puts her little hands at the small of the little girl's back and gives one al-mighty PUSH.

 Her hands pass straight though the little girl as if in slow motion and nothing happens.

 Crestfallen she moves on, letting the little girl cross safely.

 She moves on to an older haunt of hers, the old theatre, in which she hears a voice. A man bellows to no one in particular, his eyes drift aver her for a second or two and she smiles gleefully, 'Finally someone who can see me!' she spins bashfully in the air and her hair curls around her. She waves with a little smile at the man who ignores her.

 Realising he actually can't see her; Ava unwinds from her hair and floats directly in front of him.

 Frowning at him she reaches for her hair and in one fluid movement floats round and round, wrapping her hair around the man's neck.

 She pauses and pulls her hair tight, but her hair simply floats gently through him to the ground.

 She signs forlornly and sinks in the air, following her hair.

 Her last attempts increase in desperation, from attempting to drown a swimmer in the local pool, to pulling an oxygen mask off an old woman in a hospital. Each attempt is more futile than the last.

 Finally a man stands atop a bridge, nervously looking down; she half-heartedly pushes him with one hand whilst barely even looking. He falls forward and careens toward the river below.

 Completely shocked at her eventual success, Ava looks at her hand in excitement and awe, it is only when the man springs back up that she realises he was merely bungee jumping. Disappointment taints her frown and she half stomps, half floats off.

 She finds herself sitting alone on the steps of an old mental asylum. She sighs unhappily and rests her head in her hands.

 A polite cough makes her look up and before her stands a little boy with a shy smile. He's holding a red balloon, which he holds out to her, blushing crimson.

 Ava blinks; it dawns on her that he can see her and she springs up. She floats around him, studying him with excitement. 'He's living, but he can see me!' she thinks happily.

 He hands Ava the balloon and as soon as he lets go of the string it passes through her hand and floats off.

 The little boy smiles and she smiles back, finally she has a friend.

 

Backstory of Ava

Ava is a little girl of about eight who is one of the deceased of our world. She was murdered several decades ago and was left alone to die. As a result of this heinous and unsolved crime, Ava is lonely; trapped only half in this world as an unseen ghost because of her unfinished business. She’s still only young and has no understanding of how her actions (if they were impacting at all) could cause consequences for herself and those around her. Because of this she does not think twice about the lives of those she decides to kill to have as friends. However she is ineffective in this world so all of her attempts fail, which is upsetting to her. In the end she is a little girl on her own looking for someone to give her the attention and emotional support every human needs.

Personality development exercise

We were given the task of writing a short story about how our character would react to stepping on a worm. This was quite irrelevant for my ghost character as she floats and makes no impact on the living world around her; but I could see the point of the exercise so ignored the elements of my story that were conflicting with this plot and wrote it regardless. As a footnote - I enjoyed the task, and found it fairly easy to do, as I like writing creatively like this. However I’m not sure I quite demonstrate her lack of consideration of lives in this excerpt.

The little girl skips carefree down a dirt path in the forest. She hums happily and swings her arms with a huge grin on her face. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a squelch shudders through her little shoe and she stops. Ava looks down and lifts her foot, underneath lies a mangled worm still wriggling. Her fingers reach up to cover the small ‘o’ of her mouth.

“Oh!” she cries in terror, “Oh no! I’m sorry!”

The little worm lies silent and Ava’s lip trembles, “I didn’t mean to this time.”

After a moment of silence a small blue glow emerges from the worm and Ava drops the carcass. The worm’s spirit floats before her and she smiles shyly.

“What did you go and do that for?” the worm huffs moodily.

Ava opens her mouth to explain but before she can make a sound the worm harrumphs once more and vanishes into the great beyond.

“Take me with you?” she whispers to the now empty space before her, but no one is there to hear her. Solemnly she turns and continues her journey quietly, secretly glad she hadn't just made a friend of such a grumpy worm for eternity.

Hopefully the internet will let me post something at long last...

It's been a while...

The internet has been stopping me from posting things, there are various reasons and other excuses that are basically just really frustratingly stupid. In any case I have a lot to post to catch 'you' up...

First of all I finally designed my character, I've named her Ava - these are the character design boards I have completed ready to be put onto mount boards to hand in on Friday.

 

 

I can't talk about some of my hidden secret projects until after christmas because they are top secret and involve people who could end up stumbling upon my plans by reading this. Ahahaha - so basically it involves christmas presents...

I can however comment on a project my Aunt and Grandma have set me, they have a cushion pattern upon which you embroider your own characters in a front profile and a back, they are actually rather lovely in the example photo so they have set me the task of designing the front and back views of four random characters of my own choice. Once I hand my modules in I will be able to work on this.

I have also managed to animate a very basic line test style walk cycle for Ava...
Which I will be uploading when the internet finally starts letting me upload my work.

Until then,

Cheers

And now for something COMPLETELY different xD

Okay so an extra project here - built a 3D lightbulb =D quite happy with it and I hope it'll be useful for the animation I'm gonna use it in... ^_^
Cheers

Ghost girl design ideas

These are a few exerpts from my sketchbook regarding the design of my character for the up and coming project. I'm unsure of what to do regarding her dress sense, as it can be effective in many different ways. The opinions of my peers will be helpful in this situation.

I really want to make her wrap herself up in her hair, I'm going to look at Disney's 'Tangled' so I can get some hints as to how I can go about it. I have plans for her using her hair to strangle people unsuccessfully and in the end I have this idea that she makes friends with the little boy who can see her and they sit in a swing she's made from her hair between two trees.

 

Some more ideas here, she's in pants at the top right because I have an idea of furthering the story to a point where the little boy she meets shows her what it's like to be human and she ends up dressing differently and watching Ghostbusters for the irony.

 

Obviously the little boy she makes friends with is another character I'm going to have to design. Baby steps though, I'm happy with the top half of my ghosty girl, I just need to decide on how I'm going to draw the skirt of her dress.

This design might be a little too light and cartoony for the topic I'm on, this was picked up on for me by Laura. But I like it as something not necessarily related to the story.

And finally I wanted to draw her sad; it's going to be part of the story where she sits down, completely disheartned and lonely, before she meets the little boy. I felt it was an important part to illustrate even if the design isn't the one I go with.

 

 

Cheers

Bromance logo attempt

This was my first idea for a logo for an up and coming company, I obviously have no experience with layouts and such as I am not a design student but with some work I could improve enough to make something good xD

 

 

Cheers

My ideas for this terms project

So these are my ideas I was deciding between today in class, I like a few of them which was what was making it so difficult to work on them as I didn't know which one I was continuing with...

Phileas the Evil Cat -

The story of a cat that lacks the capacity for evil, despite being the pet of an evil genius.

an attempt at drawing Phileas

 

Big and Bad

The story of how the big bad wolf went from a normal wolf to the evil shadow we see echoed in so many storybooks these days…

There was also an idea to show the wolf as not such a bad guy where he went to help a little girl who got lost in the woods... This was a sketch to go with this idea...

 

Big Bad Wolf

Scotty the amazing travelling dog

A dog’s adventures around the world, learning about the culture of said place.

Scotty the Dog...

 

Bat Sh*t Crazy

Meet the Shot Family, who all live in the old tree together. The family of bats is charming but completely insane, in fact Bat Shot Crazy. They have to find a new home and when they do, they bring their crock of madness with them.

 

Uncle Boris Shot

Little Ghost Girl

The story of a ghost who spends her new eternity playing heinous pranks on the visitors of her haunt…

This is the idea I think I will be doing. After speaking to my classmates and Dave, I've decided I will at least do Phileas' story and possibly a couple of the stronger ones later on as possible side projects as I still like them. However I really like some of the ideas that have been suggested and developed on in the critique for this idea. The plot and the girl's back story need a little tweaking and I can imagine for the character design I will be taking influences from this animation, I really like the style in which it has been done and think it could work well with my character should I design her in a simalar style or look.

 

http://vimeo.com/12898669

 

 

More on this later - I am very tired presently...

 

Might finally be getting free of the "I can't draw" stint I've been stuck in - Illustration Friday - Lonely

Decided to look at Illustration Friday's topic this week and thought it would be worth a try... although what I have drawn is probably something loads of others have drawn I'm just pleased I'm getting back into the swing of things after so long in this frustrating situation of everything I draw being horrendously bad... baby steps... anyway... this is my entry for "Lonely"




Pencil Sketch - Lonely

Cheers

The reason I have nothing to show for my week...

Okay so at work on Thursday I was trying to replace the blade in a scalpel and I stabbed myself in the hand... the pliers I was using slipped because the blade was stuck and the blade went straight in there x3 there was lots of blood but thankfully I didn't need stitches which was my main concern *shudders* 'needles' xD

Of course this was such a genius idea as it was indeed my left hand - my dominant hand that I stabbed which has made tasks difficult x3 So no drawings until I can hold a pencil properly again x3 Sorry but that's the way the cheese is cut...

So here is a lovely image of my hand taken by one of my bosses, Kathy as we sat in A&E waiting to get it looked at...

Cheers

Summer Job

I have a job - it is my official excuse for having done not much since we broke up for Uni...

I started about a week and a half ago working for a printing company in Kingston Park, Newcastle... I really like it there - everyone is so helpful and friendly =D One of the girls I now work with said if we aren't busy she's going to help me make friends with Adobe Illustrator so I can line stuff up properly and maybe I'll get good at artwork that'd put me in good stead if I ever needed to do design work to send to a printers like where I work for some kind of banner or whatever...

At the minute I'm cutting everything out - it's so busy so there isn't time to do much other than get some much needed practice with a ruler and scalple... it might sound boring but it's great - if I get bored I can always move onto a different job as long as I don't forget about the first... oh and I learned how to cold laminate =D

So nothing regarding sketches or anything upon which I can report x3 maybe next time...

Cheers

Hadrian House Care Home wall mural

Yesterday afternoon, we were painting a wall mural in Blaydon, Gateshead. I am very happy personally with the results of our combined efforts and Leonie, Ingrid, Stephen, Andrew and myself all had great fun in the process.
The Hedgehog and left butterfly is by Ingrid, the trees by Andrew, the owl, drawn by Andrew and painted by Leonie, the toadstools by Leonie, the mole and right butterfly by myself and the sun by Steve.

We're returning hopefully to paint up the background later on in the Summer; can't wait...

Cheers

WOW so much to report!

Wow so hand in is today and I can now post everything that I have completed =D

I have finished my 3D character, and my show reels; I have finished all of my typeing up =D

Everything is virtually sorted...

This is the final walk cycle for Bear - my final character =D he could be done better but this will do... I wish he was better but my skills aren't advanced enough to problem solve in the few hours I've had before hand in... forward bound...

This is my short show reel, the task is to guess how many animations I can put in before the mouse can blow his balloon up.

This is my longer version in which I have had to include the animations I am not as proud of.

Cheers

So I got a tattoo request...

This is the design for a tattoo for my friend David, he wanted a Native American Indian style tattoo with a bear, its paw print and feathers from some kind of dream catcher =D
Quite happy with how it has turned out... Hope is he likes it...

Cheers

Must think of something with which to update...

Opens pictures, searches for something remotely interesting to report on...

I have a character sheet that must be completed for my 3D character as soon as humanly possible which I can upload the pencil drawings for - but be warned they're pretty rough...

My character is Bear... a tiny young boy who dreams of adventure in the gigantic world out there... His little head pokes out from under a dandelion fluff of hair... It is probably going to end up being blue...

but yeah

cheers

3D Character - the rig that failed

The legs stick out of the shorts, the arms likewise to the t-shirt, the feet aren't bound correctly to the rig and I am lacking a foot roll... Fixable things - hopefully... I'm tired - that is all...

Cheers

3D Character

Okay so I've never used the hair in cinema 4D before - we haven't been through it in class... Despite the fact it's not exactly amazing stuff here I'm just glad that I'm getting to grips with it =D

I'm going to enlist one of the lecturers' help tomorrow provided Dave is no longer ill and Paul isn't busy...

Evidently the character has changed again... this is because I was not only having problems building the face for the fairy character but I was getting sick of her... I drew this little guy in my book for something else - a tiny character that was hanging onto the seed of a dandelion while it took flight... I really like him and think I could do alot with the character in regards to little stories I could carry on... like Phileas... big success story is Phileas xD I'll get round to it I promise...

Cheers...

Return from Germany - Pictoplasma

So Pictoplasma was great, it gave me a boat load of confidence - especially seeing the artists behind some really amazing work as human rather than some super-animating being I could never work toward myself.

I enjoyed the screenings of animations each morning, which made me sometimes wish I had thought them up, and everyone there doing talks seemed really friendly, open and encouraging. The artists in this years pictoplasma were inspiring and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those talented people in my class appeared at another conference in the future - something I would look forward to hee hee.

By the way:

If anyone who attended pictoplasma, picked up one of the felt monsters from Joshua Ben Longo's workshop that wasn't yours, made off with it and are reading this now - we are all very disappointed in you. Some of the people spent 3 days straight building these little felt monsters and during the after party, many of them disappeared, including several from my colleagues and even my own. My colleagues and I spent at least 4 hours sewing these characters, and returned on Sunday to retreive them... Only they were gone...

I am more annoyed about other peoples'; mine wasn't particularly my favorite thing in the world but my classmates were devastated. I would also be furious if I heard that the heavily pregnant woman, who was making a felt monster for her unborn child, didn't get hers in the end. Some people can be right troglodites!!

Anyway, life goes on, college stops for no tired student...

Cheers

Illutration Friday - Vocal

-'A very vocal Strawberry'

Pictoplasma trip on Tuesday!!! ^_^

So I've been busy preparing for Pictoplasma - getting excited and such... But all the while I have been drawing, even on my bag... I may upload my pictures on here - it's like my own screen printing business only I'm not using silks or printing ink but a silver pen and a sharpie... ¬.¬


Anyway I've been looking at the Illustration Friday topic again and this weeks is 'Vocal'  - so my attempt is a very vocal strawberry... I've had a sneak peek at a couple of the other entries which are all awesome so I feel insignificant entering this but I think I will anyway =D

'A very vocal Strawberry'

Cheers

Ravens...

I'm really enjoying using the smudge tool in Photoshop =D

I was looking into drawing Ravens because of many things - connotations within Norse mythology, superstition and the fact they pair up for life being a few of them... As well as of course kinda liking them...

In Norse mythology, Odin had two ravens, one called Huginn (Thought) and the other Muninn (Mind/Memory), they used to steal peoples thoughts and memories and bring them to Odin as information... I'm not sure but they may have also been able to make thoughts and memories clearer? and they could talk!! =D

Anyhow,

Cheers

I like this picture =P

I started out wanting to try drawing a tattoo design - it turned out different but I like it x3

It was originally black on a white background when I first drew it in MyPaint but I inverted the colours in Photoshop for better effect =D

Happy mistake,
Cheers

I think I like the smudge tool a bit too much x3

Enjoying the benefits of the smudge tool =D I like the effects it can give =D

Cheers

Photoshop fun...

Okay, I was messing around in Photoshop, trying to create a smokey effect which I ended up making look a bit more like fire - I like it but it makes me think more of the Hunger Games and Witch and Wizard book covers.

I wanted to make the effect more like Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series covers but it doesn't really. So I think I'm going to lie and say I intended to make this image in honour of the upcoming Hunger Games film release; the face was just a happy accident but I'm going to say I intended to draw the face of the character, Catniss in the fire... yeah...

These are the relevant imagery to show you what I mean in this post of drivel, obviously they all have a quality and awesomeness my work could only dream of...

If not anything else I have at least given you a clue towards what kind of books I like to read...

 

Today's update - I'm beginning to see editable polygon points everywhere D:

The decision has been made - I'm changing my character for the 3D character model... I've been working on the fairy character, it was working but it is getting too complicated. I have learned how to model a character from this little project so now it is time to get the practice out of the way and build the proper model I will then rig... I intend this to happen within this next week so stay tuned...

Cheers

Trees make terrible baby sitters....

Okay so the task for our group in contextual studies was to create an animation in the style of Lotte Reiniger. The storyline was to be based loosely around a traditional Russian lullaby,

Baby, baby, rock-a-bye
On the edge you mustn't lie
Or the little grey wolf will come
And will nip you on the tum,
Tug you off into the wood
Underneath the willow-root.


This was what our group, consisting of Ingrid, Andrew, Leonie, Dan and myself, came up with =D

Pretty damn happy with how it went =D I'm stuck between Andrew's tree kidnaper and Ingrid's mushrooms as my favorite aspects... I'm proud of how well we work together as a team =D


Cheers

It rigged!!!! =D

Okay so here is the final rigged walk cycle of my Top Hat...

I'm quite happy with it =D
More later I can imagine...
cheers

On the first day of rigging-a-character-mas my true love gave to me...

... a shot gun with which I could kill myself...


This is too complicated to be trying to learn this early on a Monday morning Dx

But from what I have gathered the process of rigging is long and arduous but if you get it right - you'll reap the benefits when you finally get it all up and running...

This is the character I built in this session, we didn't have time to animate it today so sorry no moving pictures today x3

Anyway,

Cheers  =D

IT'S ST PATRICK'S DAY!!!!

Fill your boots man!

Onto completely unrelated stuff now -

After so much work on the 3D face we were given the task to create in Cinema 4D I thought I'd upload what I have so far on here...

Quite happy with how it's going - this whole modelling with points is simpler than I anticipated... Think I can perhaps work more on the shape of the jawline and such but for a first go I think it will suffice =D I believe we will be learning how to use symmetry and the weld tool in the next week which will mean this face can become whole rather than just half...

Anyway the real reason I wanted to post something today was so I could end the post in a different way...

so,

sláinte  

3D character work

We also had some work in cinema 4D that I didn't manage to upload yesterday, we were learning how to build characters using elevations as blueprints - this is how mine has been going - I have about half of my character done... I need to learn how to mirror the object to make the other half then I can say I'm almost there...

Something needs to be done about the face perhaps but as it has been said, this may even just be a practice run before we actually get onto building the character.

So here goes...

It's SORT OF starting to look like my character... It's work in progress though...

Cheers