Bridges of Mime

Like Mat I've been pretty busy these last few days with various activities so I haven't had much chance to do much work. Here are some rough designs of how the setting might look for my mime idea. I like the top right and can see all of the action happening on the bridge, like a busy paris bridge.

(testing out some random signature placements...admittedly they're all pretty naff!)

It's quite wide as it has a road running through it, not just a foot bridge, over a river that runs through the city/town. Might be stone railings or iron railings, I like the railing idea on the bottom right sketch and may incorporate the 2 together...


Here's a quick sketch of the top right with a little more detail, with an idea of stone pillars that I researched.

If you're lucky I'll add even more detail, being strapped for time and all it may have to just stay as a rough concept sketch. Hope I could explain it enough for you to understand though.

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

Clean Development

Forgot to post these yesterday. 


As I said in the comments of my last post, I would clean up some of the characters and choose one I liked to develop and produce in the realism style that I'm going for. 

Here are the 'cleaner' versions and I have to say I still like the third one along, I think he would fit well with the story I have as opposed to the other designs.


I'll hopefully sketch up a final render and turn arounds today, ready for some set designs tomorrow...fingers crossed!

Mime Development

After the style development post yesterday I thought I should probably post the development of the mime characters. I like the old guy with the cane, hence stylising him, I also like the tall guy in the centre. You might be seeing him in a realistic light as I am still not sure how the story is going to go ...we'll see...

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 New 3 Minute Idea...Again

A little late I know but 'm not really happy with the mime idea I have and I had a sudden spark of inspiration from one of my mime sketches. 


And I found this BBC animation; about a dad who has to look after his kids for less than a minute while their mum goes and gets ice creams. Everything is perfectly timed and I can see happening in real life. It made me laugh hysterically! Love it!

It also sparked my memory of Bill Plympton's '25 Ways To Quit Smoking' and 'How To Kiss' (can't find the full versions on youtube but I've linked the titles to another site). And this give me an idea in a similar set up to these, with a voice over and one character who can hear the narrator and can interact with him.  Hopefully I can flesh this idea out tomorrow with some funny bits, but for now its time for bed.

Some more Inspiration

Not much writing this time but here are a few more animations that I have found some more inspiration from. I love the style in all of them, as they are all similar to each other and they're all quite abstract to a degree. Enjoy :)

Ships

Here's a few ship designs I did a couple of days ago, forgot to put them up!

Along with a rough idea of what setting the ship will be in in the story

Final Design

Ok so I'm happy with the final design and I'm gonna draw up the design sheets tonight, I went with a lighter skin tone as Mat suggested but I feel that the paler skin is better suited for this design.

Then I'm on to my final idea and ready to make a move on my futures assignment that has been so far greatly neglected!

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.

Stylising

I took my life drawings and used them as a base for stylising my female character, I knew what I wanted in my head and I need to match the style of my other main character so I drew up these designs.  I know they all look the same but it's a style I think blends with the story and with my other main character.

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.

Done and Dusted but Time is Running Out

So that's one idea down...only 5 to go! I have finished my character profile sheet and feel I have a strong synopsis for my Mayfly Idea.

I feel like I'm running out of time rapidly, I still have 2 ideas to finish off for this project and I haven't even started my 3 ideas for the Futures project yet!  Looks like there are some late nights ahead.

I have however done some research into spacemen/astronauts for my character development for my spaceman idea.

When doing some research into real astronauts/spacemen, I realised that the equipment that they had to carry was much too cumbersome and as a result I wouldn't be able to characterise the main character to suit the story.  So I stripped down the main features and used only the essentials, and since the character won't really be in space as such, I can get away with giving him less gear.  Here are the original reference images I found.

After this I looked at fictional spacemen and also found that a lot didn't wear anywhere near as much equipment.

Here's a link sowing some great retro fictional space suits, many seem to try and accurately copy the nasa space suits, and other just go all out and throw a curve ball...as William Shatner demonstrates.

I'll post some development sketches up tomorrow, for now however I must go to work!

The Style in My Head

Here are some examples of the style I have been describing, I used a few different layers to achieve the results. For all I used a layer for the line work, a layer for the shading, a layer for the coloured shading and a layer with just the mayfly.


For the first one I set the outline blending layer to vivid light, I really like the tonal range created and a slight over exposure, it's very close to what I had in my head.

For this one I set the outline blending layer to colour burn, I think it makes it look a bit messy and the grey tones aren't really needed. Obviously the final one would be sharper than this and tidier.

I think this attempt works better, using the shades to create the full image, using the same colour burn technique. I also think it has a good depth to it, which is what I wanted.

I like this setting, it feels most natural and fitting for the story, I also think that the style has improved from the ones above. This is down to the more defined lines around the stream, I think they help to hold the image together.  The tones also look a lot more natural.