Animatic Draft 01

Ta-da! The first draft of the animatic is finally up for show :] Now we can properly look at what and where things need to be changed, slowed down, speeded up etc.

I know we've already gone through a few things like a slower entrance for the scarecrow during the running scene and such. But feel free to comment on anything else you immediately see.

An unknown error occured, for some reason the screen scaled down for some of the sequences but I'll try to sort that out as soon as I can.

Crow sketches/design considerations

Just some more crow sketches to familiarise myself with the physiology of the crow — looking at the head from various angles and such :] 

Image source

I saw this really lovely photo of a crow and the eyes are very striking — I wanted to play around with the way I drew the eyes to try and make them a little more 'crow like.' What do you guys think of the blue? 

That weird little cartoon character on the side there is 'Drinky Crow,' a character from a rather obscure cartoon from 2007 about a crow who... drank. A lot. That was about it. Anyway, I quite liked how his eyes looked so thought I might try and emulate is, but I'm not too sure how it would work on our crow. Might play around with it a bit more.

More general sort of body sketches to try and figure out the placement of wings and such. I looked at the way a couple of other artists drew crows to get an idea as to how the body could be simplified.

Scarecrow in Colour - Draft No.1

Sorry guys that it took a bit long to get the design uploaded~ :)

Well it's just a first draft of the scarecrow in colour so still all the details can be discussed and changed, or be simplified and perfected... !

PS. I personally love the style that's with no outlines, so I didn't do outlines for the character either :D reference to :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKMxtfMSPTM&feature=related

and: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXWc3aFrxCo&feature=related btw love the background design in "the silence beneath the dark"

Scarecrow Colour Palettes

Hey guys, here are a few different scarecrow colour palettes for the scarecrow design! Obviously things can be mixed and matched as these were experimental.

I know there isn't as any as Alex's Crows but common I have got a lot more things to colour and shade! :P I really like the idea of having a checkered shirt as Jazzy said to me today when I was designing idea 2 so I decided to do a couple of others to see how well it works. Personally I think the checkered shirt idea looks great and that we should at least consider using this design prospect for the finial designed character! My favourite ones out of the lot are idea's 2 and 4 but hey I need input from you all so any requirements or changes let me know! :)

Crow colour palettes

Hello chaps! Just done a few colour schemes for our little friend and thought I'd put them up so you can have a look and tell me what you think :]

Was working mainly with the thought of blue/purple colour scheme, something quite  subdued in contrast to the relatively colourful scarecrow. I originally started by making the beak darker than the body, but it makes the mouth quite difficult to see. Overall I just think that it's too dark.

Personally I'm not keen on the orange beak — looks more like a duck! Jazzy then suggested making the beak lighter than the body which I think actually works really nicely. You can see her mouth and it keeps her looking a little more cheerful I think.

The last 3 (not counting disco crow) are probably my favourites so far. I was poking around on Google and a saw a few drawings where the crow's beak was more blue-ish in hue, so I tried it out and came up with 9 and 10 — 11, again, was inspired from another drawing where the crow was a brighter sort of purple with a brown beak and it looked really nice. So I stole BORROWED the idea. ;D

Personally, I think my favourites so far are 4, 8 and 10. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? :]

Edit: Agh! These look so much diffierent on my laptop screen. They're way brighter than I thought they would be - they looked super dark on the monitor in G01. Gotta try and fix that to keep them consistent across all monitors!

Meeting 4 - 22/2/2012

Today, Alex talked to me about drawing the scarecrow character design in a character model sheet where it shows the character doing either some actions or just turning on the spot so we can understand what the character would like from different angles and so I can practice the characters proportions and dimensions as to ensure I can draw them all correctly for when I animate him in the future. Here is a Skeleton and Detailed Model Sheets for the scarecrow.

HMK

• Complete the coloured designs for the scarecrow and post them onto the blog
• Draw some different positions of the scarecrow e.g. bending over, running etc

Production schedule (Update 22/02/2012)

Hi guys, just an updated production schedule for you all to ogle! It is, as always, subject to change depending on how we're getting on in any particular week, but it should serve to give you a bit of a breakdown as to how we should be looking to proceed.

I'm really sorry for the awful design — it made sense whilst I was making it but when I finally got it finished, I realised how difficult it is to read. I'll try and go back and re-do it so it's a bit easier to understand! 

Basically, the lighter coloured squares/strips are supposed to show the weeks we should be working on a task, and the dark squares are to represent the date we should have that task completed by. I've not given us fixed days to work on things — I think it's best if we leave that on a week-by-week basis and simply arrange according to personal schedules — however I am going to stress the importance of meeting to work as a group on this project at least 3 days a week. Bearing in mind the other projects we also have to do, you're going to need to manage your time accordingly to ensure that you can all make it to these group sessions as they really are absolutely essential. We all have access to Photoshop at home and the library is open weekends (for After Effects) so weekends are definitely open as a potential group work day. This will leave you Thursday morning, Friday morning/afternoon and potentially Wednesday to complete any outstanding work for Digital Skills and theory sessions.

Here's the text version (with current homework):

MOVEMENT STORY & STRUCTURE

GROUP 7 – Jazzy, Sam, Jae, Alex

Production Schedule

Updated 22/02/2012

Date

Week 1 (6^th Feb - 10^th Feb)

Create group blog. Discuss production roles. Begin initial sketches. Individual idea development.

Week 2 (13^th Feb - 17^th Feb)

·       Character design discussion & development.

·       Finalise script by Friday (17^th)

Homework:

Jae & Sam – For Tuesday 21st: Finalise character designs. Hold independent meeting to discuss ideas and develop scarecrow design.

Alex & Jazzy – Camera blocking (Jazzy) & storyboarding (Alex) for Tuesday.

All – Annotate script so far, consider ending possibilities.

Week 3 (20^th Feb - 24^th Feb)

·       Storyboard completed by Wednesday.

·       Create first animatic from storyboard images and stock sound effects.

·       Use storyboard animatic to identify key poses and backgrounds.

·       Start moving animatic.

·       Wednesday 22^nd: review completed character designs and begin character model sheets/colour charts. Identify key poses from rough animatic and start making a list of puppets to be created.

·       Use storyboard animatic to make early sound decisions — gather stock effects over the weekend and apply them to rough animatic.

Decide on final character designs and use storyboard animatic to identify key poses/backdrops and potential sound effects. Research for background design.

Homework:

Jae & Sam – For Wednesday 22^nd: Come up with some colour schemes for the scarecrow and practice drawing characters in different positions. Use the storyboard as reference and re-create some of those key poses.

Alex – For Wednesday 22^nd: Rough storyboard animatic to check flow of scenes. Amend production schedule and finish the timetable.

Jazzy – Start moving animatic using storyboard images (aim for completion by Monday 27th).

Sam & Alex — For Friday 24th: more colour schemes, using the model sheets drawn today. Familiarise yourself further with drawing the characters, try sketching some of the poses and scenes shown in the storyboard/animatic.
Jae — for Monday 24th: start gathering sound effects from the internet and put them onto the animatic that Alex will email to you. It's really important that we have the first draft of the sound ready by next week, so please let us know if you have any problems. Try and have some colours for the scarecrow ready for Friday as well!
Alex — Start looking at how best to divide up the scenes for production. Complete crow model sheet with potential colour schemes for Friday.

Week 4 (27^th Feb - 2^nd Mar)

        

Tues 28th Feb             Acting for Animation Workshops (B124)

·       Monday 27^th: Review animatic, discuss movement, timing and sound. Use week to amend as necessary.

·       First draft of sound by Monday [rough animatic]. Refine choices and gather more resources over the course of the week.

·       Begin filming/sourcing animation references for both characters.

·       Start background creation.

·       Rough puppet creation, animation tests to identify limitations/problems.

Jae and Sam to work together to ensure consistency on scarecrow puppets. Build some basic puppets and test to identify potential problems early on. Important to work closely together to make sure puppets fit with background perspective etc.

Start sourcing references and building puppets over the week.

Week 5 (5^th Mar - 9^th Mar)           

Mon 5th Mar                Acting for Animation Workshop. (B124)

·       Animatic approved & finalised by Monday at the latest.

·       Discuss scene allocation — calculate number of puppets/backdrops needed.

·       Puppet preparation — rough sketches & refinement/colouring.

·       Continue to test in After Effects.

Week 6 (12^th Mar - 16^th Mar)       

Mon 12th Mar               Sound Technical Workshops (G23)

·       Have list of sounds and sources ready for workshops.

·       All puppet sketches ideally completed — finish refining/cleaning/colouring stage.

·       Be ready to start animating by the end of the week.

Work in pairs to help aid puppet creation/After Effects/problem solving.

Week 7 (19^th Mar - 23^rd Mar) 

·       Emergency overflow period for any extra puppet fixing/completion needed

·       Group After Effects practice/tutorials

·       Begin animation (if not already started)!

Week 8 (26^th Mar - 30^th Mar) 

·       Animation production

·       Weekly feedback/group critique of animation so far

EASTER BREAK – 31st March – 15th April 

·       Animation production

·       Weekly feedback/critique — to be carried out through blog

Make sure you’re uploading your work periodically to the blog! This is the only way we can continue to give feedback!

Week 9 (16^th Apr - 20^th Apr) 

·       Animation production

·       Group feedback, critiques and refinement

Week 10 (23^rd Apr - 27^th Apr) 

·       Finalise main animation — final tweaks, further group feedback.

·       Begin preparing/refining/editing sound samples for post-production. Final decisions to be made regarding sound.

Week 11 (30^th Apr - 4^th May) 

·       Final refinements to post-production.

·       Meet to discuss portfolio preparation, hand-in requirements, DVD responsibilities and treatment.

·       Portfolio preparation

·       Last minute changes

·       DVD design

·       Discuss evaluation

·       Treatment/presentation production

Week 12 (7^th May - 11^th May) 

·       Portfolio preparation.

·       Last-minute contingency period

·       DVD authoring and design

·       Evaluation

·       Label printing

·       Portfolio assembly

Mon 14th May          ASSESSMENT. HAND IN B124 10.30am

Any problems, let me know!

Alex