The Major Project - Tiny Adjustments

Based on some feedback at the last tutorial I had, I have tweaked the face of the monk from the side view to better show the form of the face.



The eyes are slightly further back and the brow is now more pronounced, the cheeks are now present and the mouth is shaded better, with the chin curving into the mouth area. Definitely an improvement on the original if I say so myself!

I want to make sure I've got enough details of my character sorted before modelling. One of the things I want to get right are the hands. I've actually photographed my own hands and then roughly painted these.



It is my intension to then make the hands chunky, since he is a pretty chunky character.

So far I've created a silhouette of the hand from above.


I will then be properly painting the details from top and bottom, and maybe even the sides, but in all honesty the thinner hands above are probably going to be good enough reference.

And now we come to the kittens. I can safely say that kittens are more difficult to draw than hands!

I've been trying desperately to draw the kitten from the front and side. Because this is a CG kitten, I don't really want it to be too styalised in terms of proportion, which is why I've looked at a lot of images of cats and kittens, both real and cartoon; Studying diagrams of the bone structure, only to keep finding ways of how to not draw kittens.

Its all to do with the shape. Here are the first wave of drawings.



I never should have put the ears forward. They look more like puppies!
The legs slowly improved as I compared the shapes of kittens to the diagrams of the skeleton, although at this stage there is still something not quite right with them. I did do a front view, but I have a feeling that by the time I've got the side view right, the front view wont line up.



So here is the second wave of kittens. I pretty much started from scratch, and you can see that the pose of the kitten has changed a bit.



After I painted the kitten that is blue I thought that was the nearest shape I had ever got to a kitten, so as you will see, I cleaned up the lines to get a better silhouette. Two problems. The head is posed looking up and isn't really a good default pose. The second is that when I tried to draw the details of the face, it just looked wrong. I slowly shifted the head to looking forward, but I'm still not happy with the final shape as it stands.
In case anyone is wondering, the first kitten in the second row down is what I think has the best shape.

Hopefully it will all come together If I look at this again another day.

A Flock of Pixels.

The Major Project - The Monk

The monk character is almost fully resolved now. Literally all that is left to do is draw the sandals, the detailed hands, possibly a separate head, and any other 3D view drawings to aid in modelling.
You can see the process backwards!

Fully painted.


Blocked out the shading.


Pencil sketch based on line drawings.


Line drawings as a guide.


I'm pleased that I have even painted him and am happy with the result.
Next to do is the kitten.

A Flock of Pixels.

The Major Project - Progress on Character

I've been getting the final monk character designs ready for production.

Here were my first two attempts in front and side views.





While I quite liked the second one, I couldn't quite work out where the shoulders were and whether the arms were too long.

I also practiced at drawing cloth.




While you don't see much of his body, I did realise that I needed to know what his body shape was to correctly understand his proportions with the clothes on over the top.

I started with some rough front and side view drawings of his body, gradually retracing and refining until I got something I was happy with. I then traced the clothes on too.

Here was my progress on that.



The final body.


The final clothes.


The final Monk.



But then after looking at the final picture, I didn't like him at all. Partly because of the way i'd drawn his face, but mainly because his overall body shape looked wrong. I decided that the overhanging belly was too much, and the bit which looks like a skirt was too short and skirt like. The sleeves had lost their size somehow, and his head looked sunk into his body.

Even after changing the head and a few other things, he still didn't look right.


Well after all that careful drawing I decided to start again.

I did a quick test where I outlined where I thought the body shape of the monk was over the top of this painting with his clothes on. I much preferred that, even though it was a rough painting with a rough sketch.




Anyway from there I quickly re drew another body shape, less fat, and with longer legs, with looser clothes. I stuck the painting of the head I did on top too, just to get a better idea of his character, and I have to say that I am liking him more than I have in any of my other drawings.



So from there, I started to refine this, by retracing a bit neater. What I've done is separated the body from the different elements of the clothes into different layers with different colours, and this is where I'm at now.



I want to get the side view at this stage, followed by a proper pencil sketch and a coloured painting. I then want to do separate orthographic views for the head hands and possibly the sandals, as they lack detail in the main body drawings.

And then I have to do the same for the kitten!
In the meantime I have experimented with the brushes in Photoshop, and had a go at painting a kitten. My final kitten could look something like this. Although not necessarily grey.


More to come.

A Flock of Pixels.

The Major Project - The Introduction

I've had another idea about the introduction to the animation. I don't have anything new to show yet, but I am in the process of doing some slight re editing. However I'm always concerned of not only the animation itself getting too long, but probably more importantly, act 1 being proportionally longer than the main part of the film, which would, to me, seem odd. On the other hand I do agree that maybe it is important that the audience better understands the premiss before the main film. It is a problem.

However, I think considering the nature of the concept, and how I can see it as a series, the opportunity has opened to have a short intro title sequence.
Like many cartoon series, particularly older ones, they use the intro sequence as a way of setting up the concept, introducing characters by name and what they do etc.

I'm thinking that it could be done with either rendered still or paintings, cut out in layers to add depth, in a sort of 2.5D style. So I could setup the premiss with a selection of stills and a bit of text. eg - the title, created by, then 'starring Saint Anthony the Patron Saint of Lost Things'. That way I can introduce the audience to the basic premiss through coloured storyboards, without detracting from the main story of this episode, the day the monk finds a kitten, and still be able to focus on getting quality animation in the main part of the episode.

The intro sequence would still need as much care and attention as the main animation, but with Maya out of its pipeline it means that I can spend more time storyboarding it and getting it right, while along side that, getting the technical maya stuff done for the main animation. if I was to do something like this I think it could work really well and sell the project.

What are peoples thoughts on this?

A Flock of Pixels.

The Major Project - Animatic 0.1

This is the very first edit of the animatic, but I haven't yet committed to any sound, or rather the sound effects. The music has me stumped at the moment, but I will endeavour to find something that will fit. In the meantime you can view the animatic without sound. Hopefully the next item in the post more than makes up for that!

Yes, I've done some digital painting. Most of my own projects have lacked a colourful preproduction stage, however after learning a few simple painting techniques I've had a go at colouring my monk character.

I did the large face first, then the other. Somehow or other the second one came out really tanned! These were both done straight in Photoshop.

I then took the very first sketch of the monk I did and had a go at colouring him properly. The background is kind of how I imagine the world to look like. Its not simply a white space as it has some colour and atmosphere.

Well there you go. Expect to see a few more drawings and paintings soon as I finish refining my characters.

A Flock of Pixels.

The Major Project - The Story So Far

I haven't posted much on the story yet, but already many ideas have been considered. After I've shown the first completed draft storyboards, I just want to go over the rational behind the current story. Feedback most welcome too.

___________________________

_______ Act 1

Exactly how it starts is still in a state of flux but for now, the title is made out of letter fridge magnets and they fall down amongst other lost objects, swirling around into a bright white light. Likely to change though as I want to add in some floating lanterns at this point.




The camera pans down onto the monk, just releasing one last lantern.
The camera cuts close up to the basket as it drifts up, focusing on the label. The label twists around as labels generally do. First showing lost keys belonging to someone, with an address on the other side. (the actual name and address are irrelevant other than that they are a name and address!)




The monk takes a look at his sundial watch! He decides it is time to tidy up.
He picks up (in this case) a broom. (but actually what he picks up first depends on what shot I cut to next)




He is busy raking up pen lids. Shovelling coins in a crate. Hoisting heavy crates up. Then lastly, but most importantly, he is sweeping up the socks.




_______ Act 2 Part 1

While sweeping he is surprised by a noise. A kitten pops out of the sock pile.




He picks up the kitten and strokes it. He picks up the attached string, but there is a missing label. At this point the kitten hops in his sleeve.




The kitten travels down the monks clothes and pops out the other end and runs away. This scene may be cut short due to the practicalities of a kitten being able to run around inside his clothes.




_______ Act 2 Part 2

The kitten runs past a large ink bottle, running over a puddle of ink. The monk sees the messy trail left by the kitten. A sound of piled up baskets toppling over is heard.




He follows the trail to the fallen baskets. He has a mop! When he sees that the trail leads to one particular basket he drops his mop and lifts the basket.
Nothing is under there. Meanwhile another basket moves in the background and goes off screen.



(Room for any extra or alternate scenes)


_______ Act 2 Part 3

After hearing the kitten meow, the monk comes back to the area with the crates and socks to find that the kitten is stuck at the top of a pile of crates. The monk starts to climb up. The creates are piled precariously and are wobbling.




He tries to reach for the kitten. He goes onto tip toes. He's practically reached the kitten when his foot slips.




As he falls the kitten jumps into his arms, pushing the crates over, and they both fall into the pile of socks. A sock flies in front of the camera.




When we come back to the scene, he is sitting up with the kitten in his arms and another hand on the ground. He sees that his hand is on something. It is a label. The missing label of the kitten. He realises that the kitten must now be returned. He's sad.




_______ Act 3

He opens his address book. Scans down the page for the right address. The camera cuts to a shot revealing the ridiculous size of the book.




He puts the kitten in a basket then lights a candle. The basket slowly lifts. The monk is sad and happy at the same time.




The camera pans up to the sky as the basket floats away. As the monk turns around to walk off screen, the kitten pops up in his hood!

___________________________

One of the earliest decisions was how to distinguish between the lost items, and the props of his world. Being a monk character I made the decision to keep his stuff old fashioned. He sends lost items back with floating lanterns, has a sundial watch, and an address book with so many addresses it would have to be huge. All the unlabelled lost items get stored in large crates which he has to manoeuvre himself with lots of rope and tackles. Generally, the things that are lost are small and the things in his world tend to be larger.

Of course thats an awful lot to introduce in one short animation. When starting to figure out how the story was going to work, I thought it was probably going to be necessary to show the cycle of one random lost object being lost and going through the system until it is floated away.
One option to save myself from having to waste valuable running time on explanations and not on the actual story, was to not properly introduce the kitten until the end. So rather than the monk chasing this kitten, he is just doing his usual job, while finding this trail of destruction that the kitten has left.
Here are some of the boards that I drew to test the idea. (mixed with storyboards from the main edit)







It might have worked, but it seemed a bit bland and the ending wouldn't have worked well.

The problem was that whenever I tried to find the quickest and most efficient way to introduce the whole world it seemed to feel disjointed, slow or rushed.
In the end I came to the conclusion that it was only necessary to introduce some things, but not everything straight away. I could get to the main story (the kitten) much quicker and still show the complete process at the end, with hints in the middle.
In other words, the whole mechanics of the world didn't need to be spelt out before the main story.

I have considered the practicalities of animating a kitten in 5-ish weeks along with the monk. I'm not a cat expert and don't have any pets so while reference videos from youtube will help, I've got to be economical about how much the kitten is 'alive' on screen for.

This is why I've tried to maintain the focus of the story with the monk, and limit the kittens presence on screen. So one good run cycle is needed and there are a couple of scenes where the kitten and monk interact, but the majority of animation is still with the monk.

I suppose the only things left to decide is whether it is necessary to show the kitten flying down with the other props, or something that might look like a kitten but fall down too quickly to properly notice, and whether it is necessary to introduce the kitten as being lost in the real world. This is one of the things that to me might make it feel disjointed, when the rest of the animation is in his world.

Here are a few other segments of story boards that I've cut from the main edit. That's not to say some can't be put back in.









I have had plenty of feedback from home already, but I am interested to know what other people think.

For now though, I'm going to take a short break from the story, and go back to the design side of things.

A Flock of Pixels.

The Major Project - Who's the Real Saint ?

I've continued to develop the shape of my character, understanding what he looks like from all angles… or at least the face anyway.



Out of the two fully clothed drawings I prefer the face on the left and the clothes on the right.

What I want to do is figure out the right body shape under the clothes so that he looks correct, and the clothes over the top look correct and maintain a good silhouette throughout, so here are my first sketches on that.



The main thing I wanted to decide upon was whether his legs should be chunky or thin with knobbly knees! I'm thinking the latter suits the rest of his shape better.
I'm also liking how his body shape is similar to his head, and then with the clothes on how the cone shape created makes his bald head prominent.

The search still continues as I keep refining the design.

Meanwhile I have actually spent more time this week figuring out how the story is going to work, but more on that in the next post once I've finished storyboarding the latest idea.

A Flock of Pixels