Thumbnail Storyboards for WW Project

After discussions with Phil and Aland and brainstorming with Leo, I've gathered some intitial shot ideas.
So far I have a feeling the poses and angles ought to be even more so dramatic and well thought out, as the story will be suggested via these still poses and not an animated action.

For next few days the task is still to visualize the story aiming to gather a coherent sequence. This would inform our character designing as well as, even more importantly, what such type of story is asking from us to do ( for example, what other effects to include, or what elements to get rid of)

Panels are not put together in a linear sequence, instead they simply capture ideas for shots









Sketchbook: Wolves

Sketching and speed painting

Some sketches of to-be-developed ideas, some speed painting, studies of people character

 

 

From Waking up to Going up

Here are the storyboards for Ivan the Bird. Hopefully there isn't a big need to write what is happening as storyboards speak clearly for themselves.

But just to keep it brief: In the opening scene we see a Model of a bird. Soon a little Match character jumps in and wakes him up. Still disy the bird is curious of the surrounding. Few seconds later he jumps out of the window as he's most attracted by the "other" environments out there. But there was something to even bigger surprise to Ivan: he discovers the magical Island and attempts by any means to reach it: he attempts to float. To his biggest disappointment instead of swimming he sinks :/

Crushed , he goes back to the shore when.. Match! Is struck by an idea. or rather he remembers what he could do for Ivan. Match jumps on his chest, opens birds belly and strikes fire inside him as Ivan is a lantern. Moments later Ivan lifts in the air and to both biggest joy reaches the Island

The style of storyboards varie as it indicates the change of worlds and feelings of environment.
I'm glad to finaly have the story drawn out as it was playing in my head almost every day  till now  :D
Hope anyone who takes a moment to analysi it leaves some feedback, as I hope to make the story clear for the audience as well .
But at the moment its time to travel a bit :D

World of Ivan: Thumbnails of 3 Environments

So over the time I had in trains, airplanes, while waiting here and there, I drew out the ideas of environment for my transcription project.

First, here are the sketches I did in summer:

A sketch of flow,  shapes, colours and textures I felt for this project:

A background mountain ( Mountain-monster)

Composition solutions and ideas for substance of the Dream Island:

So in continuation I did some more sketching:

I started on solving more acurately  the flow and composition of the island. Each element represents seperate layers .

I wanted to solve the very abstract idea of the Island, to build a  dream-like but  still realistic enough landscape.

Another Idea came, to sugest the reason Ivan is so attracted to that Island. For it has a built tree-house, which fits perfectly as new home to Ivan. It is A center also a focal center of the Island  (Black is see-through holes/windows in the house which allow the light to go through).

 

So after giving some thought here is the sketch which I'm thinking to now push forward and resolve it to one of the concepts.

The flat and illustrative-looking perspetive is chosen because the idea is it will be the only perspective  shown to the audience.

 

As for he environment in which everything starts, the garage workshop, it was pretty much straight forward from the very start, especially after some research.

When Ivan leaves the garage and still is not aware of the dream island he is in the backyard. A.. rough sketch for that.

Drawing Therapy

Today at uni I saw all the wonderful graphite pencils Godwin has, the ones which have no wooden container, full graphite only. And  literally just tried draw nothing, purposefully nothing. Later on Godwin employed all the colour meanings and Freudian  theories   we were taught last year to interpet it :D .

Anyway, it felt good to draw just for no reason. Refreshing. But now its time to get back to the character design  :)

Additional Expression and Pose Sheets for Aliens and Monsters

The project comming to its end I add the rest of expression sheets and poses for each character. As asked I drew only those expressions these characters would do.

 

Last touch ups for the Villain’s design, his props. Originally I was also planning to include the veil, but having spent time on it drawing, I came up with conclusion it just doesn't go along with the shapes I created already. Completely distracts from his  triangular and more communicative original  silhouette. Also he then looks a lot  older then I intended.

But here is the symbolic scepter.

 

Character Desing Lecture 9: Triumphant Sewer

This lesson we were given again, a random set of words, one which specifies environment another what mood it has to evoke.

I’ve got triumphant sewer.
To first familiarize with the environment I looked for some reference.

Secondly started thinking of which environments in our lives evoke a triumphant feel. To me its church with massive musical organs.

Further are the concepts I came up with during the class:

Character design lectures 5 and 6

Week 5 was all about getting the lines which construct and dominate in the pose. Depending what pose , what attitude it expresses , the lines vary. The main tip was, to look for balance: if there's a curve to the left ( say in the spine of character) then it means there has to be a curve to the right ( legs would support the figure and try to keep it stable) . So we acted out some scenarios between each other ( like "the doctor tells bad news to the patient and his wife" or  "the house is on fire and he is madly satisfied while she is horrified" and more simplistic poses like shy , confused and heroic)

In week 6 we were introduced with additional information usefull to include to character designs, like the use of hair, hairlines, costumes and uniforms.

Also techniques of how to test if the design is working , one of which include shape test

Baby Dinosaur

For our Studio experience project we needed a concept of toy. The baby-dinosaur is supposedly a first fully mechanized toy in 1950's cute and adorable.

This one soon turns into a threatening 50ft Alien after a meteorite crashes. 

More on Void Canvas .

Character Design Development (continued)

Both Colin White and Justin Wyat gave similar advice regarding character improvements. Apparently hero's and villain's heads had "problems", one looked like clayed onto design and another failed to convey the personality correctly. So having put some thought I came up with some ideas.

I had to make hero more human-like, so the audience could empathize with the character more and recognize him as "the good guy"

And for the villain, quite simply ( and I don't know why I didn't do that from the beginning) I just had to keep the same design logic with the head as with his body - more edgy, sharp triangular shapes.

I'm not quite sure if these are working perfectly, I wouldn't hesitate to change anything if it be more communicative. So I guess I’ll wait for some feedback or a good idea to come.

Other than that, this week’s assignment was to write a dossier for each character, sketching out whatever detail might be important.

And I quite used it. Before drawing test expressions I’d read it so to respond to it when creating expressions. So further follow few examples of that for each character. I didn’t want to rush myself with this, since really, I’m only beginning to get to know my characters, their construction. It does take a while to get your head around their shapes and how they’d change in a particular reaction… I felt my brains swollen…:D

Character Design Development

These are more developed character designs for Aliens and Monsters topic. We're meeting Colin White tomorrow and He'll give us some feedback about our designs, so I tried to bring all the ideas I had till now(whether its about texturing, props or color, not only just shapes)in these drawings, so he could perhaps suggest what's working what's not. For example only one character is textured, because fur is his distinctive attribute.