*M* Finished storyboards for Raven Project Pitch

Finished! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

Yeh I'm happy with this. Took longer then I thought, probably because I need to incorporate a lot of layers. I wanted to try and put as much detail in as poss, so that these frames would blend well with the rest of the animatic.

The Raven has his mouth open, to show that he is the one talking.

*D* HUM DEE FRICKIN DUMMM

Lol sorry bout the title, my caps were on for some reason. :V

Maybe there's a little too much detail, but I'm happy with the progress.
Seems to be taking me a while to get it done though :/

Oh well I must press on!

EDIT - Finished a storyboard!

3 to go!

*D* Raven storyboards. With a nice platter

Okay, I have been briefed on a couple of storyboards I can do for the Raven Project animatic. Here's a rough sketch-out of the panels.

1. POV Beefeater. Close-up of platter. Reflection of Beefeater holding platter
2. POV Beefeater. Camera slightly zooms out. We see a hand on handle, about to reveal food inside.
3. POV Beefeater. Platter cover has been lifted up and out of sight. We see contents of platter (Meat with garnish), and the inside of the Raven box. Bran is see lip-syncing to Bran voice over

This is a very key moment in the film. Basically, throughout the introduction, the audience is led to believe that the Beefeater is speaking about the Tower of London and the Ravens that reside there. But the twist is it is actually Bran, one of the Ravens, that is introducing the documentary. Clever, eh?

So its pretty important that I get this set of panels done. Otherwise there is a large gap in the story, and that will look a little silly in the pitch that we will be doing on Monday.

EDIT:

Here are the sketches I have done in photoshop of the 3 storyboard frames. They are a lot neater and clearer, as you can tell. I think I may need to add another frame in, showing the cover being removed, because at the moment it looks like it magically disappears.

*M* Finished Penguin ref sheet?

Again, like I've said before, this design is subject to change, but I'm happy with the result! :D

EDIT:
Andy - thanks emma looking much better now and i really appreciate the work that your putting into the group


:') I'm so happy! I'm glad he likes this design!

:D

*D* *M* Penguins, penguins, penguins

Yarrrrrp we have even more drawings for the penguin character. I'm actually amazed at how many doodles I have done for this. I must have accumulated over 30 individual pictures, I think! I'll have to count them

Anyway, Yeh I spoke to Andy, and he liked the direction I was going in. However, he wanted the character to have no legs (just flipper feet). He also emphasized that he wanted the penguin to be more triangular-shaped. Rather like a fatter, cuter version of the evil penguin in the Wallace and Gromit episode, "The Wrong Trousers".

So without further ado, I got stuck in again. You can tell that I haven't immediately gone for drastically triangular shaped penguin designs. This is still rather experimental. I also keep thinking of what I have learnt in the past. Triangles tend to be dangerous shapes. Squares tend to be safe shapes. Circles tend to be fun shapes. Characters are often designed based on this theory.

Below I have tried to design more triangular-shaped bodies. I have compromised a bit though, by making his body like a cone. Pictured here is the camera that he discovers in the film idea. It is not designed to be like the one that will be in the animation. I just sketched it out really quickly.

It is important that I drew him with the camera, because I want to make sure his flippers are long enough to reach out and hold things. If the model is designed in a way that it cannot operate in this way, it will significantly slow down the process of getting his design perfected.

 

EDIT: I've done a quick re-concept too. Here's the after and before:

^^^ New Design ^^^

 VVV Old Design VVV

 I think I'm still rather fond of the original, personally, but I think the new design is a lot more simple. It will be easier to model, rig and animate (To the best of my knowledge).

However, I think I will need to keep going with this design. I still need to formulate a Reference Sheet like the old one. I want to wait for Andy to give me the thumbs up though. :D

*D* "Thought Of You" by Ryan Woodward

I discovered this randomly on someone's DeviantArt page. I absolutely love it! Has really inspired me for the Smitten Project!



Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

Here's the Behind The Scenes


Thought of You - Behind the Scenes Preview - ROUGH CUT from Cambell Christensen on Vimeo.

I really would like to see some live dancing for reference, now :D

*D* Progress with Animation Tests of Waltzing Don

Version 01

Version 02

FEEDBACK - Trying to use reference too much. Should use reference for aid, but not try and rotoscope it. Bit forced

*D* The Waltz Blues

Figuring out how to animate a character waltzing is near doing my head in. Oh man. I'm trying to place the timing of the music into the timeline, but its weird having it 3 time instead of 4.

I'm trying to work out how he eases into the poses and how his body moves. So much is moving at once, his feet, his body weight, the arch of his arms, and he's making headway at such a pace. The track we are using for our animation is very quick, so I guess I can get away with doing some mistakes at first, but still.

GAHHHH

Basically, just wanted to let you know my brain is taking a while to process everything. I'm listening to the music non stop and I'm watching those Waltz videos for reference. I may look for some more vids like that for help. I'm gonna need it >__<

 EDIT:

Okay I've attempted to establish the arm shapes first at the appropriate moments of the music. This is purely using the waltz vid called "Basic Waltz Demo (Music) by Mirko & Alessia" (see previous post). I think this is the easiest way for me to get the keys of the movement. Once I have the arms sorted, I'm going to put the other lines of action in and then build up from there.