So here is the rendered version, just turnarounds, set design and synopsis to finalise then I can get on to my series project!

Oh and here are some facial expressions I sketched out for the other mime character.

I like how you can tell how strong his emotions are without him having to speak

My Attempt At THE New Style

So I got some inspiration from the animations I found late last night, and if I'm honest some of Mat's work. Using a similar method I produced this.

And I am very happy with the results :D It is just how I pictured it in my head. 

I should have saved it in stages to show my workings but I forgot...so here's how I did it...

- I started with the outline and then cleaned it up quite a bit (omitting the hands). 

- Then greyed the whole character in and worked on the tonal range on 2 different layer, one for highlights and the other for shadows.

- After this it was relatively easy to just add the colour on a new layer and I was nearly done. 

- And with some tweaks to the shading I was done...makes it sound easy but it took the most part of 2 hours to complete!

Oh and I added a photo texture over the top set to Difference and reduced the opacity to around 50%. this gives it a nice tactile look.

Now I know what I'm doing I feel more confident to be able to produce more work like this as I now have a proper working timeline.

Oh and the mime idea is back in the mix...if you didn't guess already ^_^

Byyyyyee

A Collection of Heads

...I realise the title sounds a little disturbing :p


I took the poses and tried to give them some different and unusual/exciting hair.

I like the top left and have used it to decide hair and skin colours

I also finalised her face to suit the style. I think I like either the top right or bottom left ones, can't decide right now. Still need to develop some proper clothing and structure to the character so I guess thats more important at the moment.

Life Drawing

It's been a while since I last posted, I have been pretty busy with work and fun days out recently! :) But now back to the hard work, only 5 weeks to go and I thought I'd do some life drawing to help with my character designs.  
I plan to us the poses as a base line for one of my Space story characters, stylising it to fit with the style of the story and my other main character.

These sketches were very...sketchy, so I cleaned them up a bit with the eraser tool and I think they came out quite well. Maybe some proportion issues on one or two but overall I am pleased with them. (still can't really draw realistic hands and feet though)

Now to start designing a new character as fast as I can!

Spacemen and Their Development

A little earlier than promised but here are my initial sketches of spacemen:

I'm liking the top 3 non-defined sketches, the ones that aren't too realistic, as I find that you can better characterise them when animating with all sorts of squash and stretch techniques that wouldn't necessarily look right with an anatomically correct body.

Need to work on some suitable head gear, even though I like the top right helmet, I'll see if I can develop something better based around that idea. It depends on how my story goes, which is one of 2 directions...yet to decide and finalise it.  If I go for a more serious story I think I'll go for something more in the style of the bottom right design, this is because it would be more suitable to the storyline.

Set Design

Here are a few set designs I have done for my Mayfly idea, I most like the 3rd one with the willow hanging over the stream.  This is because it looks most natural and fitting to a Mayfly.


I'll use these set designs to show examples of the style I'm thinking of and help you to understand more how I want the animation to look like.

Mayfly Development

Here are some developmental sketches of my Mayflies, I like the top centre design as it has the main features of a Mayfly whilst being simplified. I'll sketch up some more poses using this design and post them soon.

The Mayfly

After watching Ryan Woodward's 'Thought of You' it sparked inspiration for an idea, in short, the life of a mayfly. This idea is solely in 2D and hand drawn so I think this might be more down Mat's street :p and it's something that I have always wanted to do but never felt confident enough doing.  However because my idea is quite simple I feel we could definitely achieve this to a high standard! I'll email Mat with the full rough storyline and some sketches.

Using either photoshop or just pencil, I want the whole thing to be hand drawn with the backgrounds and characters being on different layers to give the animation depth.

I did a little research and found they begin life in a larval form known as a nymph.  Whilst in their nymph form they like to live under stones in fast flowing water or among plants in slow streams.  They usually stay in this state for around 1 year before all hatching out together and only living for between a few minutes and a day, this is because their mouths seal up as soon as they hatch from their nymph shells...weird! During this time they over run some towns and become a huge pest for people for a very short amount of time. I thought it would be interesting to see if I could show their life from a Mayfly's point of view, instead of seeing them as pests. They have to hatch, find a mate and lay thousands of eggs in just hours.

I have a more detailed storyline but don't want to blog it now...just in case.



I'll post some initial drawings I have made later on...

Ryan Woodward

This is a really powerful and moving animation, the moves are so fluid and natural. It's incredible work like this that inspires me to try something new, and hopefully will inspire a new storyline and new approach to animation for me.