Minor: Environment update

After speaking with Alan and feedback from Phil I have decided to change my location of my digital set to San Francisco as it's got the feel that I want with the European architecture but with an American feel to it as I want my character to belong within the world that she is in, this also has a more normal feel to it like Phil suggested. 

Minor Project: Idea time!

Well now it is the time, the final year and hopefully and exciting one too! I want to really focus this year on improving overall as an artist and designer in both 3d and 2d. I want to achieve by the end of all of it; an overall animation and a well thought out character (possibly more than one) for the end result.

My main idea that I'm liking so far was working with this notion of schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder and apply it to a singular character who goes through different states of personality. 

1 - By studying schizophrenia I can see how it can affect a person. This would be interesting for character animation and character design especially. With this key concept I wanted to incorporate the environment as a big part of the animation too. I had an idea that the environment would change with the different personality changes on the character and this allows me to create abstract environments that reinforce what they are feeling. With this in mind it could also be linked to music and other sounds that change with the characters personality to help the audience truly feel what its like for one person to have multiple sides to them.

2 - I can relate this to my 'From script to screen' project with the guy in the mental asylum and different personalities and possibly being a performer on stage which reveals that he is in fact in his own little world. This is my second idea for the minor project. 

3 - Another idea was it could be more of an anthropomorphic character like a chameleon or other non human creatures. When the character touches something it changes the colour of the them and this effects the state of emotion or personality that the character is in, therefore incorporating colour into the design of schizophrenia/multiple personality disorder. 

schizophrenia is one of the most unknown illnesses on the planet and only 1% of Americans suffer from it so by creating and animation about it and showing it in animation format might bring some more light upon how serious it can be. 

Although after writing it down I do not want it to be all doom and gloom for the third year so I'd have to find a way to lighten the subject so it appears light and more fun perhaps with a dark humour to it?  maybe focusing on hallucinations and what that could be for a character, this could be interesting for environment designs and hallucinations.

Going onto more of a style approach the project I need to really find a style that suits me and what I need it to do. I've always liked the traditional look of animation such as Disney/Dream Works and I like painterly abstract environments, so hopefully I can find a good medium this year. Here are some style choices I want to approach for third year and how I want my work to look in the final stage.

Narrative: Influence Maps and Style

As a group we are starting to finalise what characters and animals we want to use for our animation. So far we have shrunk it down to three to four potential characters, those being - a Hyaena, a Rhino and/or a Porcupine. 

We have two main narrative ideas behind these characters. The Hyaena is going to be the trickster the joker and funny character that always gets himself in trouble, therefore we thought of using a child hyaena to represent his silly nature. 

Another character is the Porcupine who I think should be this oblivious animal that does not really know what is going on around him during the animation and is reaching for this end goal whilst being stalked by the hyaena without even realising that the hyaena was 

ever there!

And finally the other potential character that we can work on with another narrative is the Rhino, we are thinking of once again an oblivious fattened Rhino to contrast in the silly nature of the Hyaena, who ends up sitting on him for whatever reason that the hyaena was trying to play around with him. 

As for style of the animation  I very much like the deer and the hunter style of art and wish to pursue down that road with this animation in mind. I also like BirdBox productions and the style of animations they produce. But we can also incorporate what creature comforts do, they go out and ask people questions completely irrelevant to the animation but they get the answers they want, this could work for our animation too. Whilst the character design from Aaron Blaise is inspirational. 

Fantastic Voyage: Fern - Influence Maps

Here I was looking at the cycle and the possible silhouette shapes that I could use for my concept art and animation.  

Fantastic Voyage: Style & Visual concpet ideas

 

I know for this project I want to incorporate the use of silhouettes within my work but to use them as 3d figures rather than the classic shadow puppet 2d animations you get. I also really enjoyed ''The silence beneath the bark'' with it's painterlly approach and wide use of colours, it also incorporates silhouettes but differently to the other scenes shown. 

I think I am going towards an older target audience with my work as the use of silhouettes will give the animation a Gothic feel to it and would not appeal to the younger audience.  I had an idea to use the slime mold/ zygote as a light source to light the scene, so you can only see what is close to the slime mold and when it meets up with the other zygotes it can be shown as a glowing mountain landscape where the cycle begins all over again; therefore the narrative is all about the zygote's journey to rediscover other zygotes where it finds its new home and to start over again. From these influence's I will make some thumbnails to find out how I can merge the different styles of animation and visual effects.

Fantastic Voyage: Influence Map and Style

I've always been interested in the art style of the three brothers, I love the way that it is a silhouette animation but but with a three dimension to it. Also the fact that it is not black and white gives you a chance to experiment with different colours in the background in comparison to the silhouettes.

In comparison I like the art direction in Journey with its saturated colours, therefore I may find a good mix between both of these for my animation about the slime molds Journey. 

Fantastic Voyage: Influence Maps

 

Influence maps for the slime mold, I'm unsure about the target audience as of yet and the art direction that I plan to go in. But I was thinking maybe aiming it towards the older audience and going with a silhouette style of animation similar to Tom Beg's mushroom animation.

The Story I was thinking following an Amoebid cell and turning into a Zygote who has to travel through different landscapes to find its other Zygotes in a Feeding Plasmodium which will then transform into a young sporangium which will then continue over as a cycle. My main focus I want to focus on is the environments the Zygote travels through to find the Plasmodium as the being the 'end goal' or achievement.

Script to Screen: Influence Maps

Influence maps for my scenes and characters in 'The Lonely Performer'.
The different characters to represent his split personality will include:

• Magician - as the main character
• Musician
• Mime
• Animal Trainer

I had an idea of venetian masks maybe representing the different characters so each individual character will have a mask to represent them by, apart from the magician to show that he is the main character throughout the animation. As suggested I am going to look into another scene introducing the padded room at the end of the animation to show he is not in a show at all but rather lost within his split personalities.

Secret Lairs: Influence Maps

After speaking with Jordon today I realised I need to start thinking more logically about my work when designing my lair, thinking about its function and why everything is the way it is. Therefore I have started to look at cathedral architecture, church architecture, holy places of worship, religious rituals and symbolism of it being a holy place whilst still thinking about it being set in the neolithic times and still being able to see that it belongs to a queen.

Therefore this requires me to change my hero prop completely, getting rid of the statue and replacing it with a holy font, where she goes to wash her sins away. I want this place to have a calmness to it, with a sense of paradise and solitude, where she can go by herself and be with the gods. 

When thinking about the design of the font and the surrounding area, I have researched into peacocks being a symbol of immortality and is often associated with royalty and queens. I am still setting this inside of the mountain where her father died, therefore mixing these elements with a mountain environment should lead to some interesting outcomes. I will further experiment with composition as suggested by Jordon so I can frame the shot where the hero prop is in a higher position as though you are looking up at it to give a sense of power, once again reinforcing the power of the queen. Although I feel like I've had to re think everything and start again, I feel this is the right way forward.

Seceret Lairs: Thumbnails (19-24)

After speaking with Jordon I had decided to experiment with the idea of the room being the kings burial site where the queen would be buried as well, being one of the most sacred grounds within the mountain. I looked in the tombs in Lord of the Rings, and temple/cathedral architecture to incorporate within my design of the interior of the mountain. I've decided to stay away from the rock idea as the mountains will be full of rocks also. Therefore I can start to explore the designs of the catacombs within the mountain where the royals are buried.

Secret Lairs: Influence Maps 2

Following from the OGR I realised that I have been designing the interior of the whole cave in the mountain rather than the lair room itself. So I have decided to do more research in ready for our photoshop lesson today. I am still thinking along the lines of a holy stone/stone structure (Neolithic) used to contact the gods and to have a light encription on it when the ritual takes place. To make the place seem more holy, I was thinking along the lines of using stone pillars like you would see in a temple. When researching I also had colours in mind, I was thinking using a main blue light as the key light to give the place a magical element to it.

I still think the environment is lacking the royality element. To tackle this I think I will use the hero prop being a crown design that is used for contacting the gods. Although I feel it would still need more royality representations. I think to do this by designing some hanging lights that have rich designs in them to help with this problem, this will also give us our light source.

 

Secret Liar: Influence Maps

Here are my three influence maps for my secret liar of the Neolithic Queen. I had an idea for the liar to be a sacred burial site where the people of the Chachapoya's would bury their royals. At first I was thinking of a  throne room, but I wanted to stay away from the obvious and make more of a worshiping place. I have decided to make my queen from the Chachapoya's in peru as they are a very interesting, they lived in the mountains and carved their own tunnels and rooms into the mountains.

I had done some thumbnails in Jordon's class yesterday but I can't seem to get the file to work, hopefully I'll be able to get them working later :(. Some thumbnails will be up later on though :)

Influence Maps 1-6

Here are my first 6 influence maps for 'The Pit and The Pendulum' book that I have been given. At first I was looking at the interior of dungeons back in the 1800's and 1900's this was to help find out what the inside design could initially look like as there is very little description on what was around him.I also looked at torture rooms and London Dungeons etc. Due to the little description I feel as if I am going to have to add little bits like skulls and demon inscription/ art work on the wall etc.

Then I went onto what sort of pendulum it was going to be, I could imagine this being a medieval type of pendulum swinging from the ceiling. Furthermore went onto how I was going to light the shot and looked at film nior lighting and dramatic lighting effects, there seemed to be a lot of silhouette uses which could be interesting. These will help propel me onto my thumbnails and get going with this project :).