Sketchbook: Wolves

AMerican Indian Art and Symbology

 This originally is a post for The Wolves Within project. It is taking shape and this is more substantial referencing.

American indians possessed rich and varied culture: from fisherman to agriculturist, susbsistence and buffalo hunters. Within diverse environments thei evolved a spiritual relationship to forses of nature, deep concern for animals, understanding of human responsibilities . The origin of the art motifs result from this relationship and observation of nature.

Traditional pattern work, images of animals, objects cary specific meaning

Totem poles  recount  legends, notable events, celebrate cultural beliefs and are  artistic presentations.

Introduction to Self Initiated Project's Idea; Native Americans' legend: Wolves Within

With the start of 3rd year in CG Arts and Animation, starts one of the two most ambitious creative projects. I’ll be working together with Leo Tsang on it. Blog of our project (yet under construction), Wolves Within, can be found here.

Wolves Within

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed..."

It is a legend told by a Cherokee tribe.Having the basic plot and idea where all is heading (namely, opportunity to develop two wolf characters, environments representing inner space and possibly, if intended, set it all up for future to turn it into an animated short), we also get clues for sources of reference.

As said before, it is a legend told by Cherokee. They refer to themselves as Tsalagi which means "Principal People." It is one of the Better known Indian tribes and also one of the” 5 civilized tribes” because they had assimilated numerous cultural and technological practices of European Americans. However, sources have indicated that Indian tribes don’t have a distinctive examples of art from each other (at least it is fairly impossible to make such distinctions because of data loss ect.) , so it is considered that what is relevant to Cherokee art is also relevant to all Native American art. Therefore we too reference Native American art in general to further inspire our style.

The project is only yet taking shape and many decisions are waiting to be maid, therefore our focus at the moment is simply familiarize with wolves shapes, anatomy and already created representations.

Initial anatomy and structure studies:

So to get acquainted with "what's out there" I also gathered a sheet of wolves design. Quite honestly, none of the images seem to be similar to what we are aiming for our designs.

Finally, project would build on clear classification of virtues and vice

The Making of Animated Short IVAN THE BIRD

Another book (revisited, expanded and updated) in my modest collection of Making ofs. No surprise, its on the Making of animated short Ivan the Bird :] With this post I believe to be putting dot to this project, at least for  next year as I will be working on other exciting projects like transcription of Cherokee legend about two wolfs within for minor and (hopefully) on Aistien culture inspired character designs for my major project.

The Making of Animated Short IVAN the BIRD

Ivan the Bird selection of Production Stills

Character Designs

To see  work I did in past few year on Character Designing please go here  and here

Presenting Ivan the Bird by J.J. *Jolanta Jasiulionyte*

It's finished. And I don't have words in my pocket to describe the joy for having done it or the gratitude for all the help...

Moving forward.

 I think now I  know quite few ways how to trick stubborn computer into rendering. Easy solutions for silly problems. So it seems  I've reached act 3. Lighting design and render set up for those scenes and what left will be compositing. Itchy! :]

Rendering in (slow) Progress

 

Mid point of the  week I was over with animating and synching up the environments and thought,  now it's JUST to render... 3 days and it  barely gave me anything. Nothing would render. I can't describe how frustrating it feels to be a step away of finishing and then, for some out of air reasons , not be able to. But , really, I believe  Alan helped with solving problems and after these few avaricious days it will  only be better... Also and what I found uplifting were to see the  render stills. They kind of motivate to keep on going and soon, taking the time needed, I'll be happy to have done it. Gladly for a radical change straight off computer screen I went and was a part of acrobats, permormers and musicians team in FUSE festival and just let it all go :] Fingers crossed, next week it will be a whole another story on the making of Ivan the Bird.

Combined Setting and Base set up for Lighting

The sets now are all brought together and are sinking up. I've painted few more texture/transparency maps to make sure all is sticking ( example the far away water edge flows nicely into the sky or the tops of the mountains merge with atmosphere ect.)

Also Alan helped a lot with understanding the lighting set up, how to think about it. To my joy, it looks like its gonna be pretty much hands on when I will actually play with light types and it won't all disappear under heavy tables of maya generated lighting.

Closing Shots in the Island

SO that's it :] I'm done with animating Ivan for this animation. It already feels like I'm finished, because it was such a... loong loong thing this animating.Now lighting , rendering and composing the entire thing .





I had to rebuild Ivan's joyous flight , because it is supposed to be one of the most beautiful sequences. I hope now it is working better. There are also very short sequences ( for example CU of feets running through the air) which are not included in this video, but would be helping for better editting and jump cuts




ant this is pretty much all what would be happening in the Island. 5 more seconds left and thats done! :]

Dream Island's Lighting

Lighting tests. Firstly we see island in daylight but from far away, while the Ivan is exploring surroundings and himself.

 

By the time he flys and reaches the island it is a dark night and the island would be  lit only by lantern light. So far it seems that when the island is in a close up of a camera, it is better to have a setting covered gently by  darkness as then it keeps the mistery and softness of the place. However, when it will be about  a particular shot, I'll put in few more and dim lights to bring some of the detail back.

The Big Flight, Lifting in the Air and the Flick

Ivan for the first time lifts in the air and realizes where all of it is heading : he is about to reach his dream island. However, one last chalange awaits. He, not yet knowing how to use his new ability, is easily torn by the wind. Turns in story and cutting in the video is, again, a match for changes in the soundtrack ( which premiere refused to render in for 4 times :/ )




I swear, this easy and happy looking animated 10 seconds were the hardest I've ever done... still requires cleaning and tweaking... but I believe now at least it is hitting the notes and going the right direction.




the Flick

Dream Island Execution

Rainy Sunday asked for some serious painting. So I've coloured in the island. The image shows how a combination of matte paining and 3d set work together. Also, and this is the approach I've taken from work placement, this is a single test lambert shader (with transparency and normal maps)to see how colour pass does its work before going any further.

I've referenced festivals and carnivals,  as places for where you experience total joy and excitement,  for this environment. Together with deep rich purple and violet colour pallete I'm wishing to create a rich, dreamy and fluid, most painterly environment out of the three  , where all the elements seem to flow into each other. The challenge is not to make it a pile of stuff . But there is something in the toolkit still waiting , which should be handy for that.  That is  varied shaders, lighting set up, motion (ncloth simulations and animation cycles for props). 

And a CU test:

Animating Ivan

Soon after realizing he is not a ship and could never swim to the island, he discovers what he actually is - a bird-lantern. instead of swimming, he starts lifting up. Cutting pace is , again, suggested by music.





I'll use this single post to upload all the animations for my latest animated short - Ivan the Bird.
I'm moving into the third act and this is the point in the story where  Ivan  sinks instead of floating to the Island. After understanding that he grows into sadness. The very last shots move to the point of discovery , that he is in fact a sky-lantern: