Cautiously Optimistic...

To make up for the fact that I haven't been keeping on track with a lot of my blog updates, bar the obligatory monday morning update, I'm going to now bore you all with my progress so far.

Well, I'm feeling very optimistic. Red and the Wolf have officially met and Red isn't especially happy to see the biscuit snatching brute. Whatever will she do? To be animated...

I've added the wolf into the opening frames stealing Red's basket. At first I was worried, as the wolf's movements seemed very stiff in comparison to Red and that would be more frames that I would have to put in, which I didn't want to do, considering our impending doom... er, deadline. However, I solved the problem by thinking like this- I used less frames for the wolf because I wanted his actions to be faster. What also sometimes adds to the illusion of speed is blurring the character. I blurred any parts of the wolf that would be moving and played the frames in Animation Shop to look at my progress. The wolf's movements look more fluid yet fast as they are supposed to be.

I have also added in the quick reaction take of Red- she looks back upset before getting angry. A cute little pout which is also intimidating.This was easy to draw out but when I played the frames in AS, it looked like Red was shrinking as she got angrier. I wasn't able to keep her size consistent. However, this was easily solved. All I did was open the photoshop files of the first few frames of the sequence, merge the lineart and colouring of the character together, and resize her, using a future scene as reference. It looks much better now.

Now that that is out of the way, its time to get onto drawing the Wolf's comeuppance. This should be jolly fun. Poor scribbled sucker doesn't know what he's in for...

Final Week for Ident Work

As stated, this is the last week that we can work on the idents. I'm only slightly concerned as I didn't get the chance to work on many frames at the weekend, mainly due to a trojan virus which somehow got onto my computer (surprising as my security system is equal to solid brick walls and moats with crocodiles). All is well though, with all traces of the virus gone and my work and frames thankfully still intact. Not that I hadn't saved them in other places but its a relief all the same.

Also still battling some stomach virusy like thing. Excuses excuses I know but when both you and your computer are ill, it does tend to hinder the time you can spend on your work. But I have dragged my sorry backside out of bed with the intention of finishing all my work, including the remaining stuff from AD102.

With all that said, lets have a looksee at my time plan for the week.

Monday
Get a'chuggin' on with those ident frames! I've already added in the wolf to most of the opening frames and the remaining work will be quick to complete. I estimate I will have it completely done in the next two days. Wednesday is my aim. Also when get home, work on obtaining sound effects.

Tuesday
Continue work on the frames. Thats all. Just frames. FRAMES. AND MORE FRAMES. GET THEM DONE. DEFEAT THEM AAALL MWAHAHAHAHA *cough* *choke* ... ahem, yes. Basically get them complete in time for tomorrow. Most of them if not all.

Wednesday
Focus on writeup of ident and AD102 work. Try and remember information about the life drawing week and print out version of finished pic (possibly in A3). Gather all work together ready for hand in. Save things to appropriate discs.

Thursday
Today will gather work ready for sign off, complete before 3pm if not complete already. If sign in work, will be unnecessary to come in tomorrow.

Friday
If work not signed off on thursday, sign it off today. Otherwise, sleep in til teatime. Its needed, believe me.

I hope to finish the ident work by wednesday so I can upload it to YouTube and share it with the blog. I also have to upload my morph around then as well before hand in.

Now that I have a solid time plan, its time to get cracking!

This Weeks Plans

As I was off the previous week, no doubt I have a few things to catch up with, especially the character design module which we will be going further into today. As well as this I plan to continue the work on my frames. I'm also finding it useful to update my blog as often as possible as it will assist me a lot in the write up part of the work.

Looking back at my previous time plan, I realise I was a bit ambitious to assume that all my frames would be completed by now (although I never intended to fall ill but thats beside the point). I'm definitely more hopeful that I will have most of not all of my frames completed by the end of this week and ready for animating.

I also need to keep on top with other tasks, such as tasks for the AD102 module which has the same deadline as my ident work so obviously this is a priority as well.

My Time Plan for this week (again in non table form due to tricky computer)

Monday
After looking into character design module, I will continue work on my frames, using the same colour and lineart skills I have demonstrated before.

Tuesday
Continue work on frames. Also write up experiences of life art week and upload to blog when I get home.

Wednesday
Continue work on frames. Also catch up on character sheet that I fell behind on when I was sick.

Thursday
Continue frames until Cinema 4D task. When I get home, work on frames further (if not too tired!)

Friday/Weekend
Work on metamorphosis task for AD102 over weekend. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who hasn't buckled down and worked on it by now! Once thats done, continue work on ident frames.

E4 Marketing Poster

I figured this poster that I did all in fun would be good practice for marketing. I liked using the simplistic background; I felt only the colour purple was really needed as it is the colour associated with the channel. Again I used my wolf and Red characters fighting over the basket. In the poster, I explain more about the theme- everyone wanting a piece of the channel, fightin tooth and nail- as these two characters will be known to do.

I was originally going to have the small cookie be the logo but just that alone would be too small. I did include a bigger version of the logo but with bite marks next to the subtitle- "What everyone wants a piece of." It seemed to hit the point home effectively.

The font I used was called American Typewriter, which I had to download. It is known as the official font of E4, which was the main reason why I wanted to use it for the poster- to make it seem more authentic and close to the channel.

Lineart and Colour

Just in case one is interested in my whereabouts, I have been ill. Mucho interestingo. While away, I have been working a little further on my frames. I wasn't able to get as much done as I'd have liked but I have enough so that I can show you my latest progress.

Now that I know where I wanted Red to skip, I could now get started on lineart and colour. Lineart first obviously. I used illustrator for this task, adding another layer and creating the lineart using the pen tool and pencil tool and using a calligraphic type of line fr the inside while a slightly straight and bolder outline around the character.

After this, I added the lineart to the background, over the original sketch and deleted the layer. All that was left was to colour.

Underneath I have a colour palette of Red's colours, the Wolf's and the basket, in that order. The E4 biscuits are going to be the E4 logo.

Colouring Red was simple. The basket was harder, mainly to put in the E4 biscuits. I just copied and pasted a few, grouped them together and then put them in the basket. It was hard to resize them without them looking a bit pixelated but for the most part they look smooth.

This is the finished result of the frame. I'm very pleased with it. The character stands out perfectly from the background with the use of the lineart and the basket also catches the viewers attention due to the unusual colour. It comes across as a new and polished version of an old cartoon (while hopefully still keeping good old fashioned cartoon violence humour intact!)

I hope to continue with this level of quality and also to begin some marketing ideas. I have an idea for a poster featuring the characters that I could use and upload to various places online.

Update: Little Red Line Testing- Skipping

Unfortuately due to queasy gut related shenanigans, I wasn't able to make it into college today. But don't think that stopped me from getting on with work! No sir!

I officially started piecing and creating my frames today, starting with Little Red skipping into the scene. At this stage she is only an outline to make sure the skipping is as perfect as possible- details will be added in later. I still need to add the wolf into the scene as well as add colour and form to Red.

I put the frames on top of my background in Photoshop and layered them to try and see where the best places were for each frame in the sequence. This took a lot of rearranging the pictures as at first, they seemed to come out as a sort of sprinting cycle.

After saving the individual frames with the background, I played the pictures in animation shop to see if they would work together and they seem to work perfectly. It will look much better once in colour I'm hoping.

Later today I will start to colour in Red and work on more sequences tomorrow. For now though, I need to go and lie down.

Development

Well blimey, didn't think I'd update my blog this many times in one day!

As stated before, I am working on my frames mainly this week. To show you all an idea of what I hope to achieve in my finished piece, here is my chosen idea:

Sorry for the poor quality and the big split there but I only have an A4 scanner and the storyboard is A3.

The main idea of this storyboard is that everyone wants a piece of E4, shown by the wolf stealing the basket and the girl kicking out at him to get it back. Bigging up the channel in this way is rather cheesy yet at the same time a successful marketing ploy. The channel wants to be what everyone wants to see.

Now, onto creating my background. I have done this completely in Photoshop and as you can imagine, it is slightly more detailed than the one portrayed in the storyboard. It serves its purpose as a background and I would like to think it isn't too distracting as I want the viewer's main focus to be on the characters.

Now, it's no secret that my strengths are definitely in character design as opposed to creation of settings but I always put just as much effort into my backgrounds. If anyone has any advice, critique, tips or whatever regarding said backgrounds, I would find them very useful.

Now that my setting seems to be ready, its time for line testing and to breathe some life into Red and the Wolf.

Sometimes Less is More

Or something cheesy relating to simplicity.

In relation to AD102, creating a character to turn 3D, we are looking into artists and illustrators who have used a rather simplistic route to create their characters. In using Illustrator previously, we have discovered that the program creates very bold yet smooth lineart that a lot of character designers go for, mainly to create the main shape of the character.

It should be noted however that these character designers use very simplistic shapes to create their characters. I'm not in particular a fan of such simplistic character styles, but what interests me is how they are used in an image.

Friends With You
What interested me about this particular style is mainly the cartoon 'pie eyes' (as I tend to call them) being used in the characters. All of the characters used appear to be friendly and cute. I like the lack of lineart used in the images, it makes the characters appear softer slightly, despite their bold colours and unusual designs. I think it would be interesting seeing these characters tell a story and explain through the picture what goes on in their world. To me, that is a big part of what makes a simplistic design effective.

A few weeks ago, when we had to do a piece of our life model in a style of one of the illustrators we had looked at, I used Friends With You as it seemed to be an interesting challenge to work with such a detailed piece of work while making the model look as simpistic as possible.

Tado
This style is slightly more detailed and bolder as the characters are outlined with black lineart and the characters are actually shaded in certain areas. The colours used again are bold and unusual for any human or anthropomorphic figure. What I like about these characters is that they tell a story in the image, whether its a surreal situation or an everyday one, such as in this image shown. Everything is bold and outlined but your attention goes to the characters as they stand out. The setting catches your eye afterwards.

Intensive Frameage

By the end of the previous week, I had presented my three ideas for the ident and to my joy I was able to go with my second idea which was my favourite out of the three (Little Red Riding Hood kicking the wolf in the groin after he steals her E4 biscuits).

Now we enter week 3 of our E-Sting related shenanigans and I intend to spend the majority of my time working on frames. Whether I will have started colouring them by the end of this week or next is uncertain as of yet. I plan to have a considerable amount of progress completed by the end of this week though!

I'll admit I'm not looking forward to making my character 3D. Its something I've been shying away from for some time and I know I'll need every bit of help I can get with it. Little Miss Traditional is set in her ways! I managed to create a 3D wine glass (or goblet rather) without too much bother so if I can do that, there's a little more hope that I can do this!

Anyhow, what I'm focusing on mainly this week is the frames for my E4 sting. My time plan for the week is as follows (had to type in paragraphs as Mac is being difficult and wouldn't copy the table):

Monday
After doing work on character design for separate module in class, scan in Storyboard to upload to blog and continue work on frames when I get home. Finalize background. Colour a few choice frames to upload to blog to show progress.

Tuesday
Continue to work on frames. Keep up progress in written part of module, adding in research, ideas for idents and presentation.

Wednesday
Continue to work on frames and keep up progress of written work.

Thursday
Continue 3D character design work in class after 3pm. At home if all frames are complete, begin colouring today in Photoshop. If not, continue work on them.

Friday/Weekend
Hopefully all frames will definitely be finished by today and ready for colour.

Definitely going to be a busy week for little old me but I like to think it's nothing I can't handle! ... well... thats what I LIKE to think...

More Idents!

Again, we have been given the task to look at more indents (which doesn't lessen my stress with the piling workload I need to get done for tomorrow at all I'll admit but eh, I'll have to keep on truckin' or whatever the kids are saying nowadays). I've already looked at E4 idents l so I think it would be helpful to look at those from other channels, again seeing how they represent the theme of it, what animation is used and so on.



This one I found interesting because although I haven't seen it on television before, due to it being broadcast in another country, it's done in an art style that I enjoy, albeit made using CGI rather than traditional, and also because it is advertising Epic Mickey, which is to be short a really enjoyable game (not that I'm able to play it all that much nowadays mind you!). Mickey is famous for being the mascot for the Disney Channel in any country and is known worldwide, so his image is always associated with Disney. E4 doesn't have an obvious mascot that I am aware of, preferring to use the E4 logo a lot of the time. However, I want to use characters in my animation so while the mascot idea isn't particularly helpful, this sequence does give me some movement ideas and actions that the characters could take.



Boomerang is better known for the use of classic cartoons (at least it used to be... I remember when the channel first came on the air... I watched the countdown and everything. Yes, there was a countdown) and often uses the characters in their TV programmes in the idents in some fashion. This one uses Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, star characters in the Looney Tunes. Another reason I found this ident interesting was because it was aired around a certain time of year, namely easter. Most channels take the opportunity to celebrate such holidays and air episodes relating to them for the viewer to feel in the holiday mood so to speak.



Now this one I've included in for the nostalgia value alone. Every time I hear the music and see the number 2, it takes me right back to childhood instantly. Funny how something so small can actually impact you in such a way. Now, the more recent 2 idents don't seem nearly quite as impressive in comparison yet are still pleasant to watch.

Ident Shenanigans Week 2

As the title suggests, we are now into our second week of this project and so far things have been rather slow for me. Not so much in terms of ideas- I've had a few come to me, complete with character designs. I already have a short animation more or less planned out in my head that I hope will be used. However, I'm rather behind in storyboards, proposal and presentation and am hoping to have all three done by the end of the day, as well as my Sound module to resubmit (God help me).

As well as this, we need to design a lean, thin character. As long as it falls into that rather vague description in some fashion, we can do more or less anything. I have a few ideas for this but the presentation and resubmission work is taking priority as of right now.

After a short heart attack due to realising there are only four weeks after this one to complete this project, I'm determined to keep on top of everything. I don't find time plans easy to follow as I always end up deviating or getting things finished either before or after the stated date and it throws things out of kilter for me. However I will try much harder to stay focused on it.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday/weekend
Finish my presentation and storyboard ideas to present tomorrow.	Present previous ideas and when I am given the go-ahead for a specific idea, I will begin drawing up the concept artwork and key scenes. Also keep on top of writing aspect of work.	Start designing backgrounds for characters and work on a coloured storyboard of my ideas. As well as this, start on five designs for thin character for separate project.	If frames are done on paper, scan them in for colouring. If drawn directly from tablet, continue colouring and drawing.	Take screenshots of work and type up progress. Possibly mention art styles that have inspired me and reflect on how it is influencing my work so far.

I'm worrying about how I will get all of the work I need done today along with my resubmission. I'm really hoping I'll be able to get everything done!