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 :)

More Inspiration

Here are a handful of animations that have influenced and inspired me as I have been plumbing the depths for inspiration.  I hope you can see where I have taken my inspiration and applied it to my own ideas, through storylines, styles and character designs

I like the mix of style and the storyline with this animation show reel from Cristian Cardenas. the style is similar to what I had in mind for my Mayfly idea, with some over exposure and an overlay of sepia tones.

This is also an animation I studied when thinking of my Mayfly idea, I like the roughness and focus on the one main character.

I like this animation because it is a really original idea, if a little strange. I also think it has been very well animated and characterised, giving the guy a desperate and almost pathetic feel to him. With the style adding to the effect.

And this animation is just plain freaky! It is so unpredictable and you are constantly unaware of what is going on, I still feel at the end that you have to decide your own storyline for it.

'The Girl is Mime'

Here is a great inspirational piece, the standard of realism is definitely something I would like to achieve.  The full animation has not yet been produced (at least I don't think so) so this is just a teaser trailer.

Just a Quick one...or two

Just quickly wanted to blog this animation, its a great piece and gave me the inspiration for the mime idea.  I love the style and how it's almost interactive and how fast paced it becomes. Also how it mixes so many media and makes you think its an old fashioned film, like when the film reel runs and at the beginning where the disks spins with the title. The whole feel of the animation is just great, really inspirational!

And I love the style and character designs of this animation, the texturing makes it look so tactile and inviting with the slightly blue hue over the greyscale.

Another Idea!!

So I've been struggling hugely picking an idea I want to develop for my 3 minute animation, I surprisingly have quite a few ideas; from sasquatches to spacemen and fish to cavemen...but I don't feel that they're really up to par, but in a moment of inspiration I just had a great one! 

Mimes!

It looks great in my head but now to convert that to paper.

I've done a bit of research yet again and haven't found anything with a similar storyline, I have however found a few mime animations that I feel I can do better than. After furiously scribbling down notes and possible story directions I'm getting pretty into it. Expect some sketches in the coming days.

It is about 2 mimes fighting over a spot to work...maybe just beneath the Eiffel Tower but maybe that's too cliché. Lets just say in short, that they argue and fight with mime objects...that can only be funny right?


I'll leave out most of the details for now, but Mat, you will be receiving an email shortly!

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...

Inspiration

Here's a hand full of inspirational animations that I have found over he last few weeks, they're either funny or I think that they have been well produced.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

A subtitled link is here

Realism

After being put off cel shading I have done some research on realism and have found it to be very interesting and have found some inspiring work


Round 6 

This being a particular favourite of mine. The suspense created and information held from the viewer makes it a great teaser.

Sintel

Bang Bang You Are Bread

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.

Inspirations

It's also about time I started putting up some inspirational animations that I have found, so here goes...

This is a great little animation that makes me laugh every time! I love the simple style.

This has a great narration t start that leaves you in the dark as to what it's about, but i like the realism of the rendering and the storyline.

This is another that makes me laugh every time I watch it. The style and colours are great and the story is so simple. The animation is also great as they really understand the weighting and balance of the character.


There are many more so I'll add them in the coming posts