StoryBoard

I've done up this storyboard quite awhile now, and just found time today to upload it. More or less the same as the first one you saw, but this time i got rid of some unwanted scenes that maybe seemed unesscessary or just abit long winded, anything in which i can shorthen the whole animation, i did so in this.

2nd Layout:-

Start Animating....

So today was the day i began animating, my way in approaching this was to draw out all the key frames, splitting them through a set of scenes 1-09, just to avoid confusion and overall more clearer.
i started obviously at scene one, my opening CU shot of the pagoda and emerging to a establish shot of the fish tank. I just roughly drew out and mapped the main key frames to each scene whislt numbering them, to keep them in order.
So what you do see is a video clip of all the key scenes played together as an animatic. Running from scenes 1-09.

SCENES 1-09-TEST 01.

Character Model Sheet.Part 3

Gilbert the Fish with facial & body language expressions: Final Fish Design In Colour

So here we have Gilbert the fish, it took quite awhile designing and perfecting this fella but was worth it in the end.
I'm particular impress of how the colour has added more appeal and personality to the character, also bringing out his features which was textured with lighter shade of colours. I also added facial expressions, with body gestures to emphasize the posture. It varies from angry, happy, in love, amazed, embrassed/confuse etc.

Also below is a tiny model sheet showing front, side and back of the fish. which will become helpful when attempting to animate the character.
I added some bamboo frame for boarding just to enhance the layout, as well as keeping the presentation theme consistent.
That's all i have to say on this part, overall very please in how Gilbert has turned out.

Microsoft MS Project...Production Schedule

I took a print screen of the schedule i produce just a couple of days after being shown how to use the program.
I already did a rough version of a schedule which was posted awhile ago on an post. But nothing compared to the one i typed up, just shown above. It's alot more clearer, layout in a more professional manner, dates and durations for each task, to keep my project to date, avoiding myself from falling behind and just to show teachers, producers etc. how we go about in tackling projects and testing out on our planning and good organisation skills.

Character Model Sheets.Part 2

This is the final outcome to the bonsai and tank look, firstly for the bonsai tree i wanted to layout the sketches around the final design showing my initial ideas in stages of how i came in achieving the final look.
The bamboo was taken from the dvd menu i designed earlyer and will be used to keep my style of the project consistent. It was used to section out each drawing as well as creating a neat finish to the presentation.
I included the tradtional colours of red and gold for my fishtank framing and just kept the glassware simple shades of sky blue, to give off a glass effect. For the font, it's a chinese interpretation of writing the english alphabet, which always stays black as the font colour.

Bonsai Tree & Fish Tank Sketches: Final Fish Tank In Colour



The frame boarder was layed out the same as seen above but only pagoda drawings shown this time. I chose a few favourites from the sketches i did and mapped them around the colour piece, with bamboos sectioning each one out. Chinese font writing included again, but this time alittle larger on the page.

Pagoda sketches: Final pagoda Design In Colour

DVD Interactive Menu Layout Design.

Initial Layout Designs:-

1) Chinese Bamboo Framing with palm yellow background.


2) Chinese Black Arches with silver Grey Background.


3) Under The Sea with Coral Features and Bubbles at as buttons.

This area of work relates to d.dalli project but also interweaves with this project as well. Here i have three potential design layouts for my dvd interactive menu.

1) All in theme related to my goldfish project.I like to keep my designs very clear with plain, simple frame boarders. The first one is a favourite of mine, i got the idea of using bamboo for my boarders from the oriental theme i have been trying to work towards and just use it to mark out the top right corner of the page finished off with a palm yellow, the colour in which you find in them thread papers?.

2) The idea for the second boarder was taken from chinese frame decking you find feature in gardens or just under pagoda, as a source of design decoration. Kept simple with a grey background to highlight the white frame boarders.

3) Idea three was obviously taken from under the sea. The theme to the fish tank, i included extra features such as coral reef, seaweed and pebbles to enchance the boarder appeal. I the bubbles you see scattered around are act as interactive buttons to click on when use in a dvd menu.

Character Model Sheet

China-Doll: In Colour-

ive managed to finally finalise the desired colours to the china-doll character. I knew that i had to include red, just to compliment the scene to the sountrack- "Lady In Red" by. Chris de'burgh. I suppose for the colour yellow, i was being a little to cliche, as yellow is very common to the chinese culture, relating to luck and good fortune.

Unfortunately, i havent found the time to produce a profile and back view of the model, but if i have the time i will stand back to it. But for the meantime, heres the full textured model standing full in front view,enjoy!!!!

Update..

So far the pre-production is going ok, took abit of time trying to figure out how i would like the characters to look like. But overrall i got there in the end with a couple positive designs.

The planning went quite smoothly with only afew minor changes in the schedule, however both primary & sec. research has panned out really well so far, i was able to obtain the vital parts of my research to help give me a clearer understanding to the project.

Still need to complete:-

• rough animatic
• a completed colour model sheet on the china-doll statue

More Style & Influences

-The Art of East asia: by Gabriele Fahr-Becker (Author, Editor)
-The Art Of Finding Nemo: By Mark cotta Vaz

Websites:-Online helpful tutorials on Flash
http://www.tv.adobe.com/
http://www.creativecow.com/
http://www.lynda.com/ (not free)

http://www.livingsasquatch.com/
http://www.opensourceadobe.com/
http://www.nabble.com/
http://www.newgrounds.com/


http://www.animationmentor.com/

Character Concept.Part 2

More concept yet again but this time concentrating on the look of the tank, bonsai tree and china doll statue.
Still keeping with the oriental theme, i kept the bonsai and fishtank designs to a one page minimum seeing as they will go together in the scene. i didn't worry to much about changing the look of the tree, because i felt that messing around with the original shape ruined the look to the tree, causing it to become unreconisable.
However for the fish tank, i was torn to either have it sphere or rectangular shaped? but after some deep thinking and planning out, i realise i could of animated more in a rectangular shaped because of the increased amount of surface area. I finished it off with a chinese arch framing in front just to add more appeal.

Concept: Bonsai-Tree/Fish Tank

For the pagoda design, i got most of my inspriation through the reference pictures i took at the museum. From that point i was able to manipulate the shapes and size and just overall play around with the design.

For the final design i always wanted to have two sorts of roofs in my design, so i continued to work from that. Not taking away the curved edges keeping it continous for both roofs. I gave the main body of the pagoda a concave look for more of a cute cartoony look.

Concept: Pagoda

I found designing the statue particularly tricky, because i got really indecisive of how i would like the woman to look like. Yet again i didnt want to over complicate the design but kept to a simple basic structure.

I played around with different looks to the kimono and head dresses. Trying to keep her looking as feminine as possible, one of her main accessory was a straw umbrella which i want to include in her look.

Concept: China-Doll

StoryBoard

1st, Rough:-

I feel the first initial layout to a storyboard is always helpful. I am able to map out where i could take this character and interpret a story of my own. Figuring where i could potentially have the shots is always abit tricky, but at this point it isn't to important but helpful to have an idea for the later stages of the process.

The idea of the story i had in mind was the goldfish was joined by a new companion ( china doll statue) and trys every way possible to impress her, not knowing that she isn't real. So from that moment scenes drawn in the middle is where he get's into all sorts of mischief.

I decided at the very end to kill the fish off after being flatten by the statue itself, closing the last shot with his monk hat floating up to the surface. This is a potential maybe to the closing scene, i'm still at the thinking process of deciding.

I realise that i only have just 30 seconds to work with, by looking at the story board i will be definately cutting out some unesscessary scenes, anything to shorten the animation piece.

THURSDAY 23RD APR.09

Character Concept.Part 1
-Gilbert the Fish

Since i was positive to go ahead with the idea of a goldfish to take lead as my main character, i began as always designing and adding some personality to this fella.

Through concept, i experimented with all shapes and size as well as referring back to resources of fishes i picked up online. I wanted the character to look really miserable with big swollen eye lids complimented with a drupey lower lip. In order for the audience to realise that this was a fish character of some sort, i tried not to neglect the obviously features such as his geels, fins & folk tail. So for all my design i stuck with these features consistently.

The theme was having a oriental look to it, so for the noticable features i wanted to include one of the round shaolin monk hats and a long moustache leading down to his chin.

V&A Museum Visit..

Today i devoted this day to visit the Victoria & Albert museum, down south kensington. I arrived roughly about 1:oopm giving myself plenty of time to focus on some research. My main intention visting the place was just to purposely see the Asia exhibition gallery.
It ranged from all various different cultures, but China was what i was particular interested in seeing as the theme to my project is based around it.
The arrangment they did was very nice, and walking in asia section was even more impressive. I was able to snap a variety of colours combined with distinctive patterns and images. I needed more ideas and insipirations for my project so i took more pictures of the head dress and their traditional clothing of anything i could use and interpret a version of my own.
The use of colour in asia was very noticable, alot of gold, yellow, and blood red was thrown around very frequently which is something i am considering in my project.

I am not sure to the meaning behind these use of colours but they have become obviously reconisable for people around the world.

Below are a variety of picutres took today, ranging from shape, form and colour. Anything for research ideas.

Schedule

I typed up a very rough schedule of how i am going to tackle this last project. I found out that my time management, wasn't as good as i hoped it will be, so i am learning as well as trying to prevent mistakes in the past from happening again. So far i am following everyday that is written on the schedule and is working pretty effectively, but it does needs some more structuring. However Jared has introduced us to a more professional way in planning and organising our schedule, using microsoft project MS. This way we can keep track of our duration, important dates, and members of the group etc.

Style & Influences

I made afew notes of any artist work etc. i found interesting or could inspire me to interpret something in my own range of style.
Also separated afew books i found quite useful, whilst scanning through them very briefly.

Artist/Illustrators
-Hokusai
-Japanese:Manga Colours
-Meni tzima http://www.yupyland.com/
-Stupid Love http://www.stupid-love.com/
-Ljubisa djukic

PICTOPLASMA: THE CHARACTER ENCYCLOPEDIA

DONOVAN GREGORY/RAFFINERIE/TIM JESTER/SHOKI.SHOKI/IDEA FACTORY.TV TOKYO NORIQ/VIRUS HEAD

Books -Pictoplasma Illustrated by: Peter Thaler (Author), Robert Klanten (Editor), Hendrick Hellige (Editor), M. Mischler (Editor) -Pictoplasma: The Character Encyclopaedia by Peter Thaler and Lars Denicke.

Brain Storming...

As through every start of the project, brainstorming was always a good starter point exploring ideas, and just a way of keeping my thinking cap on.
I jottled down anything i could possibly come up with as a suitable story to fit a 30 second animation sequence. What most of the ideas seem to have are either one or two leading characters. I didn't want to get so over complicated with the story seeing as i only have 30 seconds or less to work with, and keep it simple but with really heavy personalities to the characters.
The "goldfish and fishtank" was highlighted amongst the others purposly because it's a favourite i had in mind, and will probably expand more on the concept.

Story Ideas:-

• Rabbit Vs Hunter/Farmer -
• Shooting Range/Archery Contest
• GoldFish & Fishtank
• A chinese tragedy love story
• Man impresses women - man singing outside window, trying to impress girl only to find out it was the father's room, get's embrassed, bucket of water over head (maybe)
• Chinese waiter/servant is in love with princess, princess already married, waiter gets jealous, attemps to drug tea- kill him, but backfires instead princess drinks 'poison' tea.
• The Marathon run.
• Western Shoot-out

Project Brief

MONDAY 20TH APRIL. 2009
For this brief you will be required to work upon 30 second animation pieces to be either broadcast on Rave On Air (ROA), or used in the associated animation exhibition at the end of term.
You have the choice of working towards one of the following outputs:-


1. An advert or promotion of the brands that level 2 Product Design students have been working on.
2. A character based animation piece to take advantage of the musion setup that will be in place for Rave On Air.
3. An animation piece to your own design.
4. Produce animated content for CCB students if their programmes require it, this will depend upon demand, and will be subject to neg. with you tutor.

You will be free to work in whatever way you choose, so long as it meets the following stipulations:

• A 30 second running time.


• (If you are working towards option 2) it promotes the values of the brand chosen by the PS.


• It meets the formatting requirements for ROA

KEY DATES:-

• FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT THURSDAY 14TH MAY 2009


• SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT FRIDAY 19TH JUNE 2009- 3PM

DVD INTERACTIVE MENU.- D.DALI PROJECT.

• FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TUESDAY 19TH MAY 2009


• SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT TUESDAY 16TH JUNE 2009
  

I will be going ahead with brief 3. as i felt that the other choices didn't really interest me, nor was something i could work with.

THE IDEA: A rough sketch of how the idea came in mind.

The idea i did have in mind is based around a really, bored and miserable goldfish, swimming on his own in a very stylistic fish tank. But is suddenly embarked on new company from a "new" statue of a lady doll place inside by it's owner. So he soon starts to fall madly in love with it, attempted every way to impress her, not aware that she isn't real.