Hunchback of Notre Dame - Environmental Storytelling

The main setting for The Hunchback of Notre Dame is at the top of a clock tower, which means it obviously has some great dramatic backgrounds and layouts. The image below is a layout drawing for the film, I really like how the dramatic lighting and that the setting is mostly low key enhances the impression of the film and the feeling of loneliness. In fact the clock tower setting itself really boosts the films feeling of loneliness and isolation, this may be because of all the shots like below where the shots are far away from the subject and panning over the abandoned spaces.

 

Even the external backgrounds seem to have the feeling of loneliness attached to them. This is because of the use of perspective to illustrate how far away and detached the protagonist is from the people living lower down in the city. The colours in the background below are very cool which gives us a sense of the atmosphere that makes the image more immersive and realistic.

 

The image below makes use of atmospheric perspective to give an emotional response; illustrating the point once again that Quasimodo is isolated in a clock tower whilst everyone is living different lives below. The focal point is shown by the top left of the image having darker tones and a much higher contrast than the rest of image.

How to Train Your Dragon character design

This is a character design sheet from how to train your dragon. Evidently it is not a final character sheet because before the character designs can be made into definitive characters, the characters need to be developed visually and story wise.This character sheet is playing around with facial expressions for the main character as well as developing the characters look.

The Transfiguration

This painting by Raphael is called "The Tranfiguration". This is one of my favourite Raphael painting. I really like the colours, they are very vibrant and work well together. I like the use of perspective and i think it really makes the painting feel more 3 dimentional. Also the composition is interesting, The focus is jesus at the top but i think the secondary focus is the illuminated figure at the bottom because the light is the strongest on her. 

These are studies for the transfiguration. I realy like the lighting on these studies, the lighting on the model was most likely much different and more diffused but raphael made use of his knowledge of light and how to apply it to form to make the best arrangement of light on form.

The Walking Dead Comics

The walking dead is a comic book series that tells the story of Rick Grimes in a zombie apocalypse world. The story is very dramatic and gripping and the reader really becomes involved with the characters and their stories. The character development in the walking dead is to be admired

 

The way the comic stips are laid out makes the action flow and the fact that the rendering is in black and white makes it have a simple quality about it that is charming and makes it easy to read.

E4 Ident Progress (Maya) - Modelling my character

Today i modeled the torso of my character i like how it turned out, it feels natural in terms of the weight distribution. I created the torso by starting with a cylinder and extruding it and scaling edges and vertices until i got the shape right. 

I also modeled the mouth my adding numerous edge loops and basically just moving vertices about whilst keeping an eye on the topology.

After i modeled the mouth i thought my characters head was about done so i used the combine tool to make both sides of the head the same mesh so i could patch it together. I then used the target weld tool to patch the vertices together along the center line. 

When i had patched my head together i began to fix my topology by eliminating any triangles at the top and bottom of the head and making sure the rest of my model was alright.

E4 Ident Progress (Maya) - Modeling character with maya

I have started modelling my character for my e4 ident animation. I started by drawing out the character design for the character and then put them into photoshop and saved them as the front view and side view. I then put them into maya by using the free image planes, this is useful because it gives me a good starting point to base my model on and for reference. I dont plan on sticking to it exactly but as i said it is a good starting point.

Next i started creating the model, i created a polygon sphere for the head and started moving faces and vertices around to create the shape of the face that i wanted. I then realised it would be alot easier to create a mirror of half the face so that i dont have to model each side of the face. Next time i create a head for a character i am going to try use a cube for the base mesh instead of a sphere because i think a cube will be alot easier to work with.

 Some of my edges and vertices were pretty messed up so i tried my best to fix them.

 For the main body shape i used a cylinder and then scaled the top faces down and made the cylinder abit wider, then i added two edge loops at the top and bottom of the cylinder so that when it smooths the cylinder it wont just become an egg shape.

Sketchbook lighting practice

this is a page from my sketchbook where i was figuring out more about the way light acts on surfaces, in this case the face. And also trying out some different compositions briefly. 

Making a Plasticine Model

In this workshop we learned how to create a Plasticine model of our characters with a wire armature. I found this workshop very useful and enjoyable because I've always wanted to create models of characters but i never had the resources. First we made a wire armature and then we used foam to create masses like the torso and the head and i then wrapped it in masking tape so that the Plasticine would stick to my model. I then started applying Plasticine to my model by sculpting the muscles and then blending them in to the model.

Model Turnaround

In the dragon frame induction we made turnaround animations of our plasticine models. First we captured images of our models turning 360 degrees in dragonframe. I then put the image sequence into after effects and the screenshots below show the process i used of removing the background and replacing it with an image i found on google of a landscape.

When capturing the frames in dragonframe i had to bear in mind the lighting by lighting the background and the foreground elements separately because these each require independent lighting.  

Pinnocio - Enviromental storytelling

In this background from Pinnochio the lighting is used to draw attention in from the sides and into the center as the center is lit well and has alot of contrast. This leads the eye towards it so the eye sits comfortably within the picture. The horizon is close to the top of the composition, this makes the image more interesting instead of having the horizon in the center as this would be boring.

 

This background from Pinnochio is showing a poster of stomboli's circus. To illistrate he is the villan the lighting is coming from below Stromboli to give him very sinister lighting

 

In the begenning of the film the colours in the backgrounds are warm as everything is alright and balanced in the story but as the film gets going and aspects of the story get unbalanced and Pinnochio gets lost and the story gets dark the backgrounds consist of much cooler colour schemes to suit the current mood.

 

Kirkstal Abbey

For one of my exterior locations of the enviromental storytelling brief i chose to visit kirkstal abbey as i thought it would be interesting to draw castle ruins. Whilst i was there i made some sketches whilst playing with composition and framing. I then added colour to them in photoshop when i got back into the studio and began to build some of them up.

 

testing out 3d with the E4 logo

I did some experimenting with 3d yesterday before the maya workshop just so i have an idea of what I’m doing so I am prepared. I began modelling the E4 logo in Blender, I did this by starting with a cube base mesh and subdividing it to get more faces to work with. Then I made the shape of the '4' by moving faces about and extruding faces. I then exported it as an .obj and opened it with Mudbox to sculpt the 'E' into the surface of the '4'. I did this my subdividing the mesh further and using the sculpt brush whilst holding down the ctrl key to invert the brush so it would carve into the surface rather than adding to the surface.

Craig Mullens watercolours

I am planning to use watercolour in my animation and I have researched an illustrator called Craig Mullens who uses all types of mediums including watercolour and I really admire his use of watercolour and colours in general. Mullens has used knowledge of colour theory to make his paintings more appealing. For example he puts purple and yellow next to each other in the painting below as they are complementary colours. I also like his definitive rendering of form with colour and value.

In the second watercolour painting I like the colour choices as he also uses complementary colours of vermillion and teal, this makes the painting very harmonious. I also like the loose definition of form and the almost abstract rendering of form.



 

A Tale In The Sting Brief

For the 'A Tale In The Sting' brief I am thinking about producing a campaign animation for Samaritans with the use of hand drawn animation and watercolour. I have thought about the other options for this brief and have researched all of them and I have decided that Samaritans would suit the medium of animation I wish to explore the most.

When searching for watercolour animations on YouTube I found a short animation done with watercolour that I thought related to this brief. I like the way the drips of watercolour are visible and the roughness of it however I wish to use watercolour in a more refined and professional way as this animation feels too rough and like it doesn’t have enough form. Also most of the actual animation is panning and tweens in Photoshop, which I want to avoid. Mostly the tweens because I think it makes the animation look robotic and unrealistic.