design/concept art.

These are the sheets of work that i was talking about in my post before hand.
concept art of hourglass designs and concept art of the tree design.

Everything is still in pencil and needs to be coloured. I have also done two of my layouts which are both still in pencil. In total i have done 3 out of 4 concept arts and 2 out of 4 layouts.
After this i need to get a rough track for my animatic and then do my front page and content sheet. Buy a new folio with A LOT of plastic sheets in it and organise it all.

Tree Design.

On the weekend I worked on my Tree Design sheet and it is coming along really well. It took me some time to work on it as I found that trying to create things to look steampunk is really hard.
I did heaps of research on how to make it look steampunk and also trying to figure out a few things about engineering.

Matt gave me this really old book on engineering that helped me out a bit. On Friday Sea-Anne Mindy helped me by finding some pictures of steampunk items which also helped me create some unique looking cogs. I also got some help from Bounnong with the tree, showing me that there are other ways to design the tree.

I will upload a picture soon of the tree design and i will also need to give a copy to Jack.  

i'm sleepy.

On Monday and Tuesday night as i'm pretty sure most of you all know i had Stocktake at work and I am so damn tired! Because of this i have missed two days of doing work!
But the good news is, i actually don't have much to do now!
On Tuesday i said to myself "I am going to finish off all my moodboard work today" and you know what i did? i finished it all off! I have changed a little in the way i work, when i say to myself "I am going to finish ...... today" I actually get it done! i dont know what happened...

So three sheets of moodboard pictures are done and one sheet of the moodboard colours are done.

Looking at my check list the last things i have to complete are.

- front cover
- content page
- comparison sheet
- layouts x4
- concept art x4
- animatic sound

(also note that some of my layouts and concept art i have been working on, mostly pencil work i just need to colour them in.) I am happy where i am with my work and with only a week and a bit left i know i will get it all done in time to hand in. 

moodboards&check list.

On the weekend i worked on my moodboards they are not yet finished but are coming a lot really well. I have put them all together in Photoshop and have three pages in total. I will be making another page which will be a Colour Sampler. I will be grabbing colours that i like from the pictures in my moodboards and place them on my Colour Sample page. I have also already done a Colour Palette using mediums i have at home, but i would like to have two because colours on the computer can be altered very quickly and I can find a new colour that I like. This took me some time as i had a lot of pictures i will continue to finish it off and then work on my Colour Sample page.

Another thing I did was make a check list of all the work i have left to do. It is really good having this as i know exactly what i have left to do and I also know what i have to get done straight away and what isn't really a rush to finish.

That is all i did on the weekend. I would have gotten a lot more done on Sunday but i had work and i was really tired and just couldn't concentrate and fell asleep really early. So I am a little upset about that as i could of had my moodboards and colour sample finished.

I have a really big problem that is happening on Monday and Tuesday night, which is Stocktake at work. I am losing a lot of time because of this!! because i have work straight after Uni and only finish around 1am. So i want to say sorry now if I'm all spaz  and tired on Tuesday. I'm glad i have Wednesday off so i can rest but i still have work to do and I'm going to try really hard to get it done.

That is all for now.

animatic&video block.

Last Wednesday I forgot to blog... sorry, I did a lot of work!
I finished cutting up my storyboards (the ones that have movement) in Photoshop and put my animatic together in After Effects. It took some time as I animated a few of my shots and I wanted to get the timing right. That was the one thing that i had a problem with last year. After i finished off my animatic i had a look for some music. I went on a free music site called 'Incomptech' and found a few songs but I'm not really sold on them yet. For last years animation i knew straight away I wanted a solo violin piece, and I went out and found someone to do it. This animation I'm not too sure if I want someone to do music for me or if I want to find something for free on the web. I'm still working on it.
So the only thing i have to do for my animatic is add the music and the render.

Next I worked on my video block, I had two lots of footage because my shots had changed so I needed to go through both of them with my storyboards and make sure they matched perfectly. There are a few shots that I didn't film because I didn't need much reference for them. I worked and concentrated more on the shots that I knew i would have some problems with. We did multiple takes and i choose the footage that i thought where the best and that captured the emotion i was after.
The only thing i need to do is render my video block and add it to a disc.

After this I then worked on my Comparison sheet. I have put the seed, Edgar and the Tree together so you know when looking how high each are. I have also added a CM (centre meter) side bar. The only thing i have to do for the comparison sheet it to finish off the Tree. I have a basic shape of how i want it to look. The problem is that i haven't really designed the Tree, I know you might think "shouldn't this be the first thing you should design" and i say yeah it is but I have been trying to design it since the start and I'm just having a bit of a problem doing it. I'm still trying I haven't left it and i haven't said "I'll figure it out later" because i know i need to do it now! I think about it every time.

Since i got frustrated with the Tree i went on and finished off my timing in my shot list, i had left the timing till i did my animatic so i could try and keep it together. I then made sure everything in my shot list was right so i could print it.

All of this work took the whole of Wednesday to do, and I am very proud of myself for getting it all done. I am slightly getting better on my time management.      

WEEK 12 – Pre-Production Process Review.

aim: 500 word review of the pre-production process.

My pre-production work for horologium arborium (time of trees) started back before semester one started. I got the idea when I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep and I imagined from beginning to end how a man created a seed and made a tree.  So I wrote it all down and pitched it in class. Since then I worked on my script and got help from Jarrod who made sure my spelling was correct, this is because I have a problem where I put full stops and commas in the wrong place when I’m writing. My idea has changed a bit for the best, mostly cutting down some shots and making things simpler.

For my Thumbnails I had started working from scene 2 onwards. I was having a problem where I wasn’t too sure how to view my starting. My original idea was to have newspapers on the wall and it pans down to the floor to show a bin with scrap paper everywhere. This has changed to each newspaper on its own with dissolve too between each shot, and then at the end of the newspapers I decided to have piles of paper that showed my characters previous work.

For my character design I was having a really big problem trying to see my characters face. I could picture his clothes and hands but I never saw his face and drew my thumbnails without ever seeing his face. During classes I would search up actors, scientist and other characters that I thought would help me for designing my character. I was getting help from my boyfriend Matthew who gave me many names of scientist that he thought would help me design my character. Another thing that helped me out was that I have been waiting for a new movie to come out called ‘The Raven’ which is based on Edgar Allen Poe’s poems. John Cusack plays Poe in the movie, the costume design and the facial features of John Cusack in the film is exactly the way I wanted my character to look. When I was finding pictures I got a lot of help from Darren who asked me a lot of questions on how I wanted the clothes to look? How old is my character? And does he have facial hair? The questions helped me out a lot and I showed him the pictures of John Cusack, Darren helped me by drawing up some concept art that I could reference for my character. I’m really grateful for it and it helped me out a lot for when it was time for me to draw my character.

I am also getting a lot of help from Jack as he is making the seed and tree for me in 3D. He offered to help me because he said that he also likes the steampunk genre. We have had many discussions about what the seed is going to look like, how it opens, what comes out of it, what the final tree looks like, what are my storyboards like for showing the seed growing. I am very confident with Jack working on the seed/tree as he has been showing me his progress of work he has done. Each time we find something new or something that we both think will work better. I have showed him concept art for the seed/tree and I have also been taking his word into consideration to help things work.

The look of the outside world is based on the game ‘Machinarium’ which Jack also showed me. I have used it as a guide for my design for the outside world. For my characters study room I have also put together many photos of libraries and study rooms that Sean has also helped me with. I have also gone through magazines and cut out pictures that will help me design and the way I want items to look in my animation.

For the Model sheet of my character I was having some problems drawing him on the side and the back views. I know this was because my character wears a long jacket which goes down a bit pass his knees and I was finding it hard to draw him in different angles. Darren helped me by saying that I should block out and just draw my character without his jacket first and the add it in after. So I did that and it worked out perfectly.  My Action sheet was fine for me to do as I really enjoy doing simple structure action movements for my character. My Expression sheet at the start I was a little worried about because I found it hard finding picture references of facial expressions I wanted to use. I had no idea how to make an ‘intrigued’ facial expression. So Jack spoke to us about facial expressions and gave us a sheet which had a blank face in the middle with branching out of different facial expressions that can be done. This helped me as I could reference the picture and understand the slight differences that can show different emotions.

My Video Block and Animatic are coming a long all I need to do is find music that I like for my rough scratch track for the Animatic. I have been searching around but I’m still not sure what I’m looking for.  I have also made a Colour Palette of colours that I want in my animation and it’s a big help for me because I now know what each colour looks like and what will work for the textures. I still like the Tea Bag look and I am thinking of having the tea bag look for the background and having solid colours for the character.

I have been backing up my files every few days and writing down and checking off work that I want to complete. I get help from my fellow class mates when I ask for it and I always help back as much as I can. I really enjoy helping others. I am fine working with my class mates but to be honest I do get a little bit distracted, I have started to concentrate more as I push myself to do more work and have the mind set of “if I finish it early I have time to do other things”.

During pre-production I did feel that I was behind, I started to slowly catching up until I got sad news that some one hit my cat and he passed away. I was really upset because he wasn’t just a pet we had him for almost 8 years. Because of this I was finding it hard to concentrate and didn’t feel in the mood to work. I tried my best and I had support from Bounnong and my other fellow class mates. After a few days I felt stronger and started to work more and now I have a lot more work done.

In week 13 I have Stocktake with work on Monday and Tuesday night. This is a set back for me as I’m losing two days of work. I’m glad that Wednesday is a day off because I will try and get more work done but I will also be really tired on Tuesday for classes. I’m going to work hard and try and get work done as much as I can.

word to your mother…                  

thumbnails scene one&draft two updated.

I have updated scene one of my animation in the 'thumbnails' page. so now you can have a look at it.
I have also put in the 2nd draft of my thumbnails.

This is what it looks like. Okay cool. look at 2nd draft in page thingy. 

I forgot to write before that I'm working on my Comparison Sheet for the seed, tree and Edgar. I will hopefully get that done soon.