Pixie's Silhouette Test and Colour Pallete Indication

This is the  tidying up of the concept stage: indication of 'The Baltic Pixie' colour palette and the shape reading sheets. It is simply a more formal presentation images I haven't included before.

The palette of 'The Baltic Pixie' is essentially based on complimentary colour system: the character is predominantly green and the background is a complimetary to it,  violet/purple. All other colours of the wheel are also used, but in lesser proportions to make make the workings of complimentary colours more sophisticated ( otherwise the relationship would not have the  'gusto' to it).

I've said that expression sheets are next to come, but after some though I've decided to film the reference material beforhand creating the sheets. In this way I'll avoid generic results.

Storyboard Script, Adjusted Animatic and 'Laumikas' Concept

Tidying all the loose knots: storyboard script for my own convenience when further going to animating. Also it shows the planning of screen time, concerning the variety of shot structure.

I have revisited the animatic and added more panels for better flow and clarity. Shouldn't have changed that much in its essence

Lastly, in the animatic we see three other objects: the moon, the rainbow and the

'Laumikas, a sack of straws out of which a dwarf child grows!'

Blueprints for Vaiva's Character

The turnarounds of Vaiva show  her construction on couple of levels: her body and dressing. Particularly challenging was the side view of the body, side of head and skirt for it is the profile view which uncovers the ambiguity of shapes in her design: the welcoming round shapes triangulating eventually to suggest her more feisty nature.( front view looks much more piecefull , but the side one sharp and wildly dynamic for example)

Her head drawings is a particularly subtle part, which’s characteristics can be hardly captured on blueprints and work instead as brute guidelines.

Another little upload I wanted to draw attention to was the title design for The Baltic Pixie, which I’ve created from scratch. It is supposed to mimic the feeling of a relatively primitive style of Baltic art.

Next in line , I'd say , are her expression and pose  sheets

Developing Project Branding

For the purposes of documenting the project  professionally there’s a need to have a clear branding. 

Logo,

Latest thought led to creating a logo of  original typography and using some reference for direction of Baltic ornament feel

 This was the initial idea, which eventually worn off, for its lack of original or relevant feel.

Lastly, the layout of documenting projects progress, which will be assembled for The Making of book.This particular exampleis also a character description sheet

With this layout, I'm aiming for clean simplicity and honest presentation of information.

Vaiva's Design Detailing : Face, Hands, Legs,

The decision was to move forward with the developed design without working out 'more excitting' ones, because, actually I the already created one is actually one which was needed. Not to go into too much detail, here is Vaivas close up of the Head:

Essentially, her portrait follows a composition of a spiral , starting from the head it goes all the way to the highlight of the pupils. Her facial features are combining both, typical baltic female's features ( bright blue eyes, very defined cheek-bones, pale skin, blond hair) with those of a chicken ( pointy nose/beak, very large pupils and so on). In general I was aiming for a 30 year old women, both inviting and chilling at the same time.

Her hands are more like tools,  for the purpose of coming the flax, therefore, they are bare to the stone-like bones.

Finally, after receiving some spot-on feedback from Phil and Charlotte, I went back to fix the rooster-like feet. Now they're  following the design language of hands.

Over all, I think these improvements and further developments seem precise to the vision and fulfil the needs of Baltic Pixie (Laume) character. Still in development are the turnarounds.

Vaiva's Concept Design

Baltic Pixies general portrayal is for the creatures to be quite sexy and inviting, yet brutal and dangerously animal-like. Their long hair is tangled,  rock-nails sharp, they have massive lips and breasts,  and chicken skin underneath straw-clothing. Some of them are  beautiful, with golden or white dresses, big eyes but nonetheless have the chicken skin and legs. But the queen of their kind, Vaiva, caries  some sophistication to her, mainly in the attire,  worthy of a queen. 

Other motifs include dragonflies and amber. 

Together with the background, which is a complimentary to the dominant character design colour, green, I tried to use full spectrum of color wheel. 

In my personal opinion, the design here is not the mind-cracking one, because this project seems to ask one not: quite familiar female character, with modest moderations to suggest chicken-woman and some fancy decorative costume design. 

I’m  in the between the idea that this is PRECISELY what I needed and can move to some detailed designs of hands, head and so on, or that maybe  should loosen up and give another attempt to get some potentially more interesting designs. 

Vaiva's Costume Design Ideas

 The underlaying references for Vaiva's costum design are chicken and Dragonflies as the animals associated with Baltic Pixies. The aim is to emphasize her curvy shapes, however, she is a dangerous and in a sense villanous creature, so her roundish shapes are complimented with plenty of triangular shapes too.

 The Design should help create a feeling that this chgaracter is sophisticated, as she is a queen. Also, inviting feminity, lush sexiness and swiftness should be evident too.

Idea 1

Idea 2

Idea 3

Idea 4

Draft animatic for The Baltic Pixie

I kept the soundtrack and the visual expressiveness to the minimum to capture bare effect of storytelling. This is animatic I consider a draft one , mapping out the basics of The Baltic Pixie character animation. I've chosen Jenny Dunbar's voiceover:

choice for shots is driven by the thought , that it is a character presentation type of animated short. Therefore there is only limited amounts of other objects (such as the moon, rowan leaf, "Laumikas" ) 

There is also a shot, toward the end, where Laume speaks of her kind bringing both, the kind will and villainy, where we don't see the character at all. I though this to be a chance for the soundtrack be manipulated to its max: anchoring from left side to the right side of the speakers. However, I'm looking for a visual idea to represent the line....

I'm sure to revisit and add extra panels to break down the the action even more so soon enough it will serve as a guide for reference-shooting, that is I'd try myself to "act out"  reference material for animating.

Initial Voiceover and Design Ideas

Jenny Dunbar is a voiceover artist I am collaborating with for this project. She kindly did 7 different variations of the Baltic Pixie (laume) monologue, of which I chose three so far. However, she encouraged me to get back to her should I see some changes are needed.

And the shortened version of monologue 1 with a background music, taken from Lithuanian composer's A. Sasnauskas album 'Pixie  tales - Forest' ("Laumes Pasakos - Miskas)

Also, I have brainstormed some ideas for the character design:

These are the ones from before, for comparison:

 

So I'm starting to see least one direction her desing can be going for, I'm starting one of Vaiva's Concepts:

On a side note, here is the background sheet I'll use for documenting the Production of The Baltic Pixie:

Anatomy and Animal References

Burne Hogarth's books Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Hands are some best systematisation's of human anatomy. Sculptural drawings leave no gap for imagining the shapes in 3D. My thoughts were to study and use his interpretations of human anatomy instead of photo-realistic ones, as Hogarth's drawings follow anatomy and have this exaggeration/stylisation and well, dynamicism, which is inspiring .

A collection of some references on body parts and female body :

The other artist  is Andrew Loomis. I'm following couple of his books Figure drawing and Drawing the Head and Hands  for tips how to 'build' convincing poses, shapes . I'm already using his advice and I found it is much easier to visualize human body.

Animal references include mainly chickens , but also Dragonflies, cats as these animnals were all linked to Baltic pixie (Laume) in one way or the other. For chickens I've explored a variety of Belgium chicken breeds.

I'll give a day or to for studying references/redrawing them , as an approach for character design suggested by Iain Mccaig.