A wellyboot of animated happenings

A friend of mine is soon to release an EP (exciting!) and has asked me to come up with an album cover! I'm at the beginning of the process, so I'm just about coming to grips with the massive amount of responsibility that's been given to me.  As a massive music fan, over the years certain album covers have come to define the music itself. (T.Rex Live in Concert 1993; David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust; every Led Zep album; Pearl Jam, Ten; Funkadelic, Maggot Brain; Guns and Roses, Appetite for Destruction; Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon; Foos, Santana, Blur, Stone Roses jOY DIVISION STEVIE NICKS AC/D- okay the list is quite endless.  The (allegedly) cold, hard truth is that the album cover has to reflect the songs perfectly. So after a good week of listening to nothing but the wonderful Will Dunn's unfinished EP, I felt brave enough to begin coming up with ideas.  When in doubt - run to collage. That's my motto. So I did. Results

The Destination of Leavers Survey is a national survey that is sent out to all the people that left university. The aim is to find out what they've been up to since leaving and how the university helped set them up in their desired field. I'm making a short video for the FXU at Falmouth university to promote this survey! From a professional design perspective, this has to be informative and relay the strong importance of people completing it. I've opted for a simple paper background, nought' too fancy. Simple graphics in cool teal/green will aid the visuals for each point that's made. I also mashed up various parts of the Falmouth and Penryn campus to create a single building representative and recognisable as the whole of Falmouth University. It's set to be 20 seconds long (although I reckon the information they want told will stretch it out to at least double that time.)  It's been great to work with the FXU to make this video! I hope to wor

So I'm working on storyboards for Dino Diner! It's a third year animated short about a failing chef who owns a diner. "But Amy, WHERE COULD THIS STORY POSSIBLY GO?" Don't worry, I hear your cries. Sadly you'll just have to wait and see. Here I've given a harmless sneaky peak at some of the storyboards. Dino Diner is to be made in 3D. I'm an unnatural 3D'er and the mere thought of Maya sadly sends my brain into turmoil. Still, visualising these shots doesn't seem to be too different to 2D. There's a whole 3D space to consider, but that is as it should be in a 2D storyboarding anyway.  Excited to see where this goes!

To begin tying in roman baths with 1950's textile design, I've taken some my recreated designs of Lucienne Day's work and taken them into photoshop to play around with how they might sit in a background design. In my opinion, the mix of roman/greek style baths and these deigns work well together as they seem to compliment each other. There's a sense of growth and delicacy about the designs that seem natural on top of the buildings in these mock ups.   Below, I used colour schemes with less distractions such as colour. By using simple tones of the same colour, it brings out the beauty of the building and the pattern. They stand out as effective concept pieces, as well as pretty lil pieces of art.

   The wonderful woman you see above you is prominent 1950's textile designer Lucienne Day. I've been researching 1950's textile design to use as a style influence for Falmouth University's Animation and VFX second year Pre-production module.  When I was first assigned textile design, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it. A classic example of just how wrong I tend to be. Upon finding Lucienne Day, I fell in LOVE. Her patterns are abstract and fresh, with perfect colour combinations and inspiration taken from growth and nature. In order to better understand her style, I gave it a go myself! I focussed on colour and form. Whilst drawing, I recognised a lot of similar traits in her work to mine. Some of her pieces had an odd slant to them, a kook or kink in the line-work that settles her pieces firmly into the abstract genre. There's also a strong sense of balance and composition that she's clearly taken into consideration.  As I am to match thi

Tablet drawing... So it's been a while since I've drawn digitally, as over summer I spent a lot of time drawing with paper and pen. However TODAY I had the chance to kick start the digital drawing again.  Drawing characters of various calibers, face shapes and features is a lot of fun and I enjoy following characters line of movement. I used to draw characters straight on, alas now I'm incorporating actions and situations into the sketches. This way it's far more dynamic, and they immediately become better 3D characters. Brush experimentation lies in my future...

 ~ 11 Second Club ~ To develop my initial ideas I've been sketching potential character designs for character 2. She slinks into the conversation and my interpretation of her appearance based on the voice file is as follows;  A smooth, slightly cheek weighted character who's well adjusted to life in espionage. Experienced, headstrong and composed. She lets out a rare and secret confidence in character 1. "Well, I think you're brilliant", she remarks.  The clothes she wears echo her loose personality, with a sculpted body and sleeves that drape across the bar. Fashion, for her, is natural. She carries herself with ease.  She's basically just really cool.  Top left is the design I'm taking forward.   

Layouts: Above is a sneak peak of my double pan layout! (I decided to do that apposed to 2 separate pieces) It's come from a storyboard from the Penryn 800 project, in a sequence where Peter Mundy walks through Russia and wanders into a camp of Samoyed people. I used mountains in the background to add a sense of scale and drama to the scene. The style for the actual animation is fairly flat and 2D, so I tinkered around with the perspective a lil'. Below is the panel from the storyboard showing what was worked from to create the layout above. 

Backgrounds: I decided to base one of my final painted backgrounds on a storyboard I jotted down a few weeks ago set in a remote fantasy land. My photoshop skills have definitely improved since the beginning! I got the hang of creating shadow and a sense of mass, ultimately I went a bit mad on the smudge tool but I'm sure I'll get bored of it soon.  When it came to colouring I wasn't sure which angle to take - the tones in the top picture are what you'd expect a fantasy land of this nature to look like, but that bugged me. I didn't want to fall into the trap of the obvious! Below shows the changes I made, the scene seems a lot grittier and the mushroom house roof has become a lot more prominent. 

Photoshop adventures: As part of this project, we are asked to copy compositions of existing animation backgrounds. I saw a lot of my course-mates AMAZING photoshop skills and decided to give it a try! My approach has always been more hands-on when it comes to creating backgrounds, I'd draw and create textures then bring them on to photoshop to tie it all together. I've never done it entirely on photoshop so I thought this was a good time to attempt it. (attempt being the main word) I took a dramatic still from Beauty and the Beast, and below is a small section of the whole picture that I'm working on. As it's a screen-shot of a section, it's a lot easier to focus on the finer details, like the stars in the night sky etc. Overall my style has always been sketchy and loose, and the backgrounds for mainstream films rarely do that so I'm trying to be as precise as I can. Adding my own twist to these classic backgrounds is something I can'

(^Peter Mundy's drawing of a Samoyed he saw) Samoyed character redesign: On the right hand side you'll see my first attempt at a Samoyed character. I'm not too sure what I was thinking at the time, but sleep deprivation is probably to blame. The general feedback was that he didn't look like he was covered in fur or was warm at all, and I completely agree. Compared to my other two minor characters he just didn't fill the role enough. Using his basic figure as a frame to redesign, I made his beard subtler, his clothes fluffier, and most importantly, his colour scheme warmer . Samoyed people dress colourfully, can't be sure how I managed to overlook that at the beginning! He's probably feeling a lot more confident with his new appearance, I know I am. For the record, here are the final secondary characters:

2nd character design: Okay, I wasn't sure who to pair up with my showgirl. At first I thought, two! Two showgirls is the way forward. Then I thought that might seem like a cop-out because they'd basically have the same body. Also it's exciting but it's not AS exciting as I'd like. I then thought a young girl would be a good idea as the showgirl would beckon her on stage and they would dance together, the young girl would be doing the same moves as the showgirl but much clumsier, sleeves over her hands, teddybear in her arms etc etc. So I start doodling cute freckled little ladies, and realise that the idea of two girls dancing STILL might not be as exciting as I want.  After an intense google-image session I found an image of a young boy dressed in vintage clothes standing next to a dog.  Immediately I realised this was my chance to introduce an unsuspecting character.  Storyboards to come.

Showgirl character design: Okay, after a lot of deliberation I've decided to go for a showgirl theme for the dance sequence. Sooo much fun can be had with this, also I get to match it with electro-swing music which is modern and impossible not to move to. Safe to say I'm excited about this.  The character herself is very long-limbed and flexible. She's glamorous and classy, I promise. I've started using tracing paper to work on, layering up drawings is easy and the sketches have a real texture to them. I've never liked drawing straight onto computer programs, I guess it's because I feel it limits my style, and lets be honest, the life you can get out of a pencil can't be matched. With that in mind I'm keen to do this animation on paper, as it's a process I admire. That said I'll probably just do it on toon boom. It's a lot easier to control and I need the program practice anyway. 

Dance! I'm going to be honest- moving around gracefully is not my strong point. However, my initial fear of this task has faded and now I'm fascinated! After meeting up with a wonderful dancer, I've started to think about the choreography between my two animated characters.  A lot of the work I've done so far has been rushed and not anywhere near the standard I know I can do. (thanks time management, thanks a bunch) Alas as this will be the final piece of work on my showreel I reckon it's about time I did this task the amount of justice it deserves.  I'm drawing inspiration from Glen Keane, not sure if you've heard of him.  The way he accentuates limbs and defines muscles not only looks gorgeous, but also adds to the realism in the animation as you see all these parts of the body rotating and being put to use. Some of my favourite examples are below:

Penryn Folk After refining my original sketches (which, for the record, were way off style to begin with) I adapted my approach and made sure the eyes were not as round and far more in proportion. I actually really enjoyed coming up with these 6 Penryn characters! The colour scheme is gritty and representative of the age as well as being colourful.  I love the bearded character second in the line. His jacket's all torn and patchy, plus he looks pretty trust-worthy. The blonde-haired girl in the green dress standing next to him is also one of my favourites. She has a bizarre mix of hesitancy and adventure in her eyes that I find refreshing (I hope other people see this too) I think the way her arms are hung by her side gives her an proactive personality. I'm told the woman on the far right looks like she could bake a really good loaf of bread. Little tweaks have to be made here and there, but overall I'm proud of this line up. Watch out for that cheeky lil k

PENRYN DESIGNS  As art director, I'm putting together a rabble of Penryn folk to interact with Peter Mundy in our upcoming animation celebrating 800 years of Penryn! Designing these characters is proving interesting as it seems 17th century clothing is moderately undocumented. There's been a little bit of dreaded guess-work on my part.  In these initial stages I've tried to encompass my own interpretation of the feel of cornish port-dwellers. Also I want to stop drawing women in dresses all the time. There's a lot to experiment with and consider at the moment- and you betcha' I'll update the blog as the process carries on.

this is a work in progress - eventually i will conquer the horse. finding Richard William's online how-to videos and book, "The Animator's Survival Kit" to be of great help.

catch and throw on maya - from loose plan to the real deal. i've definitely gotten a lot better at 3D recently (the last two days) perhaps the intensity of having to get work done for a deadline helped//?

i've had fun reconnecting with the how to train your dragon soundtrack recently