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