More Props

I've been really enjoying creating props for potential backgrounds. I've been trying to manage the projects and get on with my dissertation so I definitely haven't been able to spend as much time on the design side of things as I'd have liked to. But having said that, I am trying to put aside a little time each week to keep up the practice and stay involved in the visual progress.

Time to think about art style

Amy and I were struggling to find the perfect style inspiration. Until the day of Halloween where Google displayed a little animation on their search bar home page, called 'Jinx's Night Out'. This particular short, was the perfect style in terms of texture, tone and line work. As if like magic, this little animation answered so many questions and really helped us get back on track with the visual side to the film.

As well as 'Jinx's Night Out', whilst I was home visiting my younger brother, I noticed him watching a the new 2D 'Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs' on Cartoon Network. I noticed the backgrounds were textured in a similar way to what we'd been discussing which I thought would be useful to reference when texturing our own backgrounds.

My first attempt at some more stylised props took me so long to produce. I have never really worked without outlines so I had to really play around with using difference tones of the same colour to produce the contours needed to create the props. Whilst I didn't find it easy, I found it extremely rewarding when I finally finished a small sheet of props and hope to develop this further in creating more prop designs and eventually adding them to background tests!

Background Test

Not my strongest work, and still very much in progress. However this is where I'm pushing myself to try new things. I've always steered away from difficult perspectives and hard lighting pieces, but this year I'm determined to give it a go. 

First Image is just the layout with the base colour and the second is where I've started to add light to areas and different shades of purple to the cogs. 

Lines of action

Looking back at my old Pose sheets, I wanted work on more exaggerated poses using lines of action to guide each pose. The more exaggerated the line of action, the more the personality comes through in the character. 

Below is some character poses I've roughed for a third year film called 'Withdrawn' (Directed by James Folland). I tried to portray a timid, anxious, stressed character, with a few softer poses where the character feels more at ease. 

Here I've roughed and then cleaned up 3 poses of 'Wick', the main character from Ticked Off. Again trying to show his personality through exaggerated poses. Next I aim to create a larger pose sheet with a more refined idea of the style we're going for in the film. 

3rd Year Commences

So here we go again, one final year. Hopefully this year I'll show improvement and a better understanding of how the industry works. Whilst I'm going to be mainly focusing on Producing, I will continue to push my creative ability and work across the board as much as I can.
Until coming to university I was very much a fine artist and had only ever used traditional mediums for my art. I used a digital tablet for the first time when I started in September 2015 and I've come a long way since!
Below are some character poses, hand poses and prop designs that I have done for the third year film 'Ticked Off' (Written and Directed by Amy Lucas, Produced by myself).
This year I endeavour to challenge myself in order to enhance my design skills and hopefully there is a visual representation over the year of my improvement. Watch this space!

Clockwise Background Designs

The concept drawing below came from the idea that 'Wick', the main character, has a set of ancestors/relative that have previously lived in the clock and kept it going for generations. I used images of old stamps and drew over them as if that was their paper for the portraits. I like the whole idea of using human objects for various reasons in a smaller world, sort of like in the film 'The Borrowers'.

Whilst this particular image below didn't work in relation to the proportions of a grandfather clock and needs a lot more work in terms of mechanisms and overall layout in terms of space etc. However just to reference a sense of warmth in the colour and the use of light from the clock face to light the room, I think this works fairly well. But in terms of future concept art, this is just a small stepping stone to where I'd like things to end up. 

Potential Pitch Idea

During the week that Lewis Cook came to Falmouth. We were set tasks to pair words which could prompt ideas for a potential third year film. Two words that I had paired together sparked Lewis' attention: Wrong Employee. He suggested it could be a really funny concept to have different animals in scenarios they just wouldn't work in. My example below is a Lion babysitting a human child. I believe this is a really fun idea and if pulled off correctly could be really funny. 

Simple Pegasus Design for Live Brief

Whilst my test shot animation isn't very stylised. I wanted to do a quick design for a more psychedelic looking pegasus. This could look really cool animated too! 

Counting Cleanup and Colour for Live Brief

Spider Designs for Clockwise

Clockwise Character Designs

Crew Project Backgrounds and Layouts

Blue Meanies Character designs for Live Brief

Horse Test Shot for Live Brief

James Henry Tree House designs

Quick Horse Test Shot

Really quick Test shot of Mouse running

This particular design is for my Pre Production Module, and although we're not required to develop a test shot I decided to have a go at making a mouse run. Its really poor animation, but it's a start and really helps to understand the key frames of how a Mouse moves. 

Live Brief Background experiments