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

Thumbnail Storybords

As it has became a usual method, first I sketch out the basics of the script. Capturing the essence of story line first, then again, restorybording in a more definite manner focusing on nuances, bringing balance to what is seen throughout the time of film ( perhaps some angles were overused etc.)

 

Narative Unit's Maya Tutorial Collection

For comfortable viewing here are all the finished tutorials:

Narative Unit's Maya Tutorial Collection

Cartoon Character's Turnaround

Resolved Mustang Model

 

Car modeling tutorials  were such a set of confidence builders in modeling. Enjoyable and useful. I am quite happy to have finily finsihed this.

Script for Ivan the Bird

The idea for animation now is resolved in detail , baring in mind camera moves, character acting, nuances etc.
In short time I'll post thumbnail storybord.

Script for Ivan the Bird

The Attack of 50 ft Alien from Toyland

Narrative Project: The Last Week

Last week of studio experience just past away and here is the last update on activitys done throughout the time.

The week was busy with getting the last animations ( the ones which involved toymaker's character) done.
There were quite a few of them :
toymaker in production line scenes

The scene of Toymaker meeting  his creation :

When Animation was completed , I've concentrated on postproduction, that is compositting and editting.
Main changes done in after effects were to achieve a certain look and feel , whether it meant to add noise, increase exposure, animate glow. All the scenes had their colours tweaked, most of the time ading 4 colour gradient to add some variety in other wise quit simple looking scenes ( such as marching army shadow on field etc.)

Heavy editting is what our project relied uppon from the very beginning, and that is where I found myself for .. 3 days. Weird enough, towards the end of editting each time  I'd have a headache, what isn't usual to me at all , so perhaps  these subliminal shots and  speedy sequences really do effect somehow :D

Here is a taster of the final product, a teaser trailer :




Appart from that it was time to wrap the project up, so here are the designs of DVD cover and DVD disc:

Ant the actual painting suggests the story of film itself. The toy which was created to bring happynes and joy and  was an inactive shell, got invaded by alien content and became  lost and  threatening monster.

There will be one last post, an overview of the project and the trailer itself :)

Studio Project Progress

 The latest achievement is to have scientist textured and ready to be copied for different scenes.

I did bare in mind which parts needed most of attention as they are seen the most of time or in a close up in our trailer. For example, majority of time we see scientist's chest and neck.

So the first scene with toymaker performing was 'there is a plan' scene. Where he is in a military base and analyses  ways to shut down alien toy.

Just a note, textures were created by Bob, cup by Earl. I've gathered those elemnts and created lighting, other details to create an atmospheric setting.

Aside to that I've finished the quit demanding scene of meteor's impact on dumpster and its content. I chose to animate each and every element in the waist disposal. The result is here as follows:




Since we are pretty much in postproduction stage I 've started preparing for ideas our group had in mind .
I took another, more in-depth look in our  referencing trailer of Super 8 . It was unbelievable to see what makers have "hidden" in them..


For example, the research showed the 1min 30 sec long trailer had 6 sequences of subliminal cuts. That is usually between 4 to 6 different and very abstract images per frame. This as I found adds to confusion also stresses out  and creates impact.
Similarly I thought to try and use this cinematic technique in our trailer in its post production. So these are  the following  images I've created  for subliminal cuts, one of which is alien's eye itself.

Soon more to come. Watch this space.

Dream Island...

For this artwork to be born I had to merge myself with a very dreamy mood. I was thinking about what ever  beautiful the whole time of painting ( about 1 and a half days) and found that this was a way to go into a very festive mood as well , (New Years tomorow!)  :)

This time I went for a new method, and so it started from designin separate props.  I've design Ivan's house, sails, wind-mills, lanterns, "trees"  before going into the whole concept of the Island.

When I was designing his house I tried to bring concepts of nesting-box, Chinese Lantern and incorporate elements from Ivan's design itself, so that the audience gets the feeling of the house  actually is bird's home. Also all the ideas had to flow into a  hand-crafted construct. I imagined, a kid had built it ( you should notice hand prints on the house).

Sails are another element in the island. Here is the variation I used.

These are "trees" a surreal element which adds to the flavour of Dream island, since it's not as logical element ( like sails, wind-mills  or nesting-box).  The design is almost entirely taken from my previous graphics work Pixie.

There were some "touches" to fynalise the composition or direct attention in my  sketch. And today I found the obvious solution wind-mills. It suits the mood, shape and theme perfectly. Also in later stages of animation it will serve as that aditional little element which brings  Island to life.

So as posted previously everything started from composition resolution

 

With this chosen composition a more detailed sketch was resolved.

By starting from background I  roughed in  main shapes.

Then brought all the elements I had worked out before and placed it according to sketch.

Then textures...

Lighting, shadows, layering,  tweaking, ect.

In the second half of the whole painting process my  main concern was to direct attention corectly. Because theres so much happening here, it's so easy to be overwhelmed by fancy style. House should stand out. Also I don't know if I succseded, but didn't want the Island to feel completely flat, rather as i there is a cosy space just in the center.
I'm still not sure if all this is working, because, quite obviously it doesn't follow the rule, less is more :D And who knows, maybe it should...
Island is a symbol of dreams come true so  I tried to make it rich...

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.

Studio Project Progress

For some time now I haven't blogged about progress recently. All focus now is on Void canvas Studio Project.
So first o some Playblasts of  scenes I worked on:




We have Scale of Monstrocity Shot for only couple of frames, but  to add some elements in it I've animated a cable being "electrified" ( it will be glowing) and cut to fall by  a supposed monster lurking in the desolate city.







Test Renders of what was shown in the brief sequence:

For the past time I'm working with scenes seperately by making reajustmens on texturing, lighting, geometry or anything lese.

So from Factory's  establishing shot  this is what is left for the previously seen Abandoned toy scene:

Anyways, here is the set readjusted:

Only main box is missing... :)

Also I went to preparing the toymaker fully by adding facial blend shapes and texturing the character.
Currently I'm experiencing some problems which I've described in our studio project. But it seems its not much of a deal, so I'm solving them as I go.

Transparent face was/is one of the problems.. :D

 

More decent renders should come soon.