A Film, about Books

I was just shown a stunning Animated Short, called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmorem, a wonderful film, with a beautiful narrative. Their use of colour in the film is done really well, and in certain parts reminds me a lot of Pixar's Up. Without further adue, the link :

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/02/the-fantastic-flying-books-of-mr-morris-lessmore/252703/ 

It was created by Moonbot Studios, who's website you can visit Here.

A Showreel and Some Pretty Lights.

So, this week I managed to build my show-reel of animations so far to hand in to Georg, though that was earlier this week, just took a while to post it, due to that horrible pain: The Essay. Still, I think its going alright, though the library books I'm using for research are annoyingly hard to decipher, why do they have to write in such a complex cryptic way? Still, it looks like I shall manage it. I'm looking at Stereotyping and Representation (Making reference to critical texts, their authors and theories, and using examples - discuss the issues relating to representation and stereotypes. Consider the aspects of representation and
stereotypes that are specific to animation and explore this concept in relation to a recent
animated film or body of films.) in Disney films. I'd be lying if i said it was fun, but it is a little interesting and rather necessary.

So, show-reel:

The other thing I thought I would throw out there is this lovely piece on lighting, courtesy of course-mate Yasmin (Her blog: http://gashumonsata.tumblr.com And her old blog [thought I'd put it up just in case] http://ydanimation.blogspot.com) Its some basic but useful lighting tips from a guy who heard a talk by a guy from Dreamworks, and I thought it was good.
Have a look if you wish. http://blackpassion777.deviantart.com/journal/Interested-in-Dreamworks-Lighting-Resource-283032819

Finally, after the realisation that I'm really bad at the whole draw an hour a day thing, I made a new album on facebook on Wednesday, determined to upload a drawing a day, and although its a little late, it appears that the accountability is working, and I have all 4 days so far uploaded. Its easy enough to find, but in case you cant, here is a link http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.340748079280048.80661.100000345772328&type=3 . If you don't know me I'm afraid you may not be able to see it, and I apologise, but maybe at the end of the year I'll post it all on here.

Eleven Rig

Just downloaded the Eleven Rig, and thought I would try it out. Some parts of it move differently to the Mophy rig, as it uses IFK a lot more, but I like it a bit better I think. Just threw in a couple of lights and some polygons to see what it looked like.

Yay, Normal Skin

So this is the almost finished animation for the 11 second club clip for January. I had some difficulty lip syncing to it because the clip is from a Bollywood film, and I would be lying if i claimed lip syncing in another language is easy. The basic principles are the same but without knowing a word i find it difficult to make the right mouth shapes. The rig also didn't have as much you could do with the face in comparison with the face rig Georg gave us last week, so I am thinking of going back and maybe accentuating some of the mouth shapes. I also still want to mess with the lighting and make one of the characters eyebrows move some more. but other than that I think it went well. Looking forward to the day where I learn to model some better backgrounds, though I may go fetch a tutorial now to see if I cant improve. Anyway, the animation:

11 Seconds Of Broken Skin

So I finished my 11 second club animation. I would render it and upload it, but I'm afraid there seems to be something drastically wrong with the characters skin. I will ask Georg about it in tomorrows digital animation lecture, but until then, here is the problem with the animation at the moment:

A Whole 35 Minutes!

 Here are Wednesdays life-drawings. my first time drawing a man which was different. Took me so long to upload because once again I had to acquire somebodies camera. I really need to buy myself one and stop buying instruments instead.

I used charcoal for most of the session, apart from a couple of poses in pencil. We started with 2 minute poses which weren't too bad, I think I'm getting quicker at all those short poses that I hate. Then we had 30 second poses which we had to do using only 3 lines. I overlapped the drawings for this to save paper, so they don't look like much. Then we were given a whole 35 minute pose which was the longest yet I think. I used charcoal and chalk to get a nice tonal drawing which I really enjoyed. Even found some fixative so the drawing survived the trip home! Enjoy:

EEFO!

So yesterday we had to pitch our ideas for animations to EEFO (http://www.eefo.net/) Each group of three had a few minutes worth of presentation to convey their ideas and convince EEFO to choose their Idea. Three are going to be picked to then go on and make full animations, and the winner will be picked from them and used by the company.

They already had 2 characters which we had to use, and the animation has to be suitable for school ages. It also needs to be able to convey its message with and without sound.

Our group decided to have the male character running through a hedge maze being chased by various monsters which represent problems that teenagers sometimes have. The guy gets cornered and the female character bursts through a hedge wall to save him just in time and leads him to the EEFO signpost which directs them out of the maze. Rachel (rachelstarkey.wordpress.com) came up with original idea and we loved it and ran along with it. She also drew up lots of awesome storyboards which I will post up if I ever find them. Elizabeth (http://elisabeth-haukaas.blogspot.com/, http://fuegokid.blogspot.com/), helped iron out some of the problems with the storyline and came up with the idea to have a dull colour scheme and then brighten the colours as the characters leave the maze, also a brilliant idea, couldn't have asked for a better group. We each drew some monsters to represent problems teenagers may have, some being Junk Foo, Smoking and Drugs. and Rachel drew the male character from varying angles.

Blob Monster, representing Junk Food

Drug Spider, representing Drug Use

Smoking Skeleton, representing Smoking Habis, and a test of the male character

More character tests