Friday 30 September 2016

Thursday 29 September 2016

Minor Project: Art Direction tests



I'm happy with this design of my bird and I'd like to begin refining it, though I'm currently speaking to other people who suffer from anxiety and gathering their thoughts and feelings. They're currently in the process of developing their own Anxiety animals which I'll review when I've received them. For now I felt like it might be a good time to consider how this art direction may go as I want them all to feel as part of the same group.

My next job is to imagine this bird as a 3D character without taking away what I've created here.

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Wednesday 28 September 2016

Tuesday 27 September 2016

Minor Project: Anxiety Bird Continuous line drawings

After speaking to Phil it's been decided that the Anxiety Bird will have some friends (details coming soon) and in order for them to be consistent they need to have a certain style to them. Phil suggested looking at wire sculptures and experimenting with continuous line. These are the results of my experiments. 

1

2

3


5




9

I think there's something really nice about number 3 here and I think the next stage is to continue drawing with some closeups on wings, etc.

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Friday 23 September 2016

Minor Project: Initial Sketches of Anxiety Bird

Initial Thumbnails


Here are my first thumbnails for my Anxiety bird. The first few thumbnails I followed 100% the anatomy but realised it was crushing my ability to design. from 3 onwards I decided to keep the shape in mind but start exaggerating features to see what that would give me. I used research of birds of prey to help me draw however towards later thumbnails I noticed the anatomy of some of them look a little off. 

My Favourite Thumbnails are 3, 5 and 8. 

Once I've begun figuring out more about the larger Anxiety bird this will then make it easier to design the baby version. 

I don't have a lot of experience drawing birds so I think it will be helpful to look at more bird references and practice sketching them to help improve my overall anatomy and design process.


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Thursday 22 September 2016

Minor Project: Proposal


  • The Type of Project: Animated Short 
  • Area of Study: The subject area for my short is around Anxiety and my personal experience with it.
  • Potential ideas: Personification of Anxiety as a character, The Anxiety Bird. 
  • Outcome: Within the Minor Project I would like to create the assets I would need for an animated short. 
  • Goal: I would like to improve as a character designer and modeler. 
A Timetable of Study

I'll be writing a week by week timetable, but this is how it will generally look. I start work in November (I'll get the Rota soon) so I'll have to keep that in mind however I'll make sure enough time is going into both projects equally. At least Mon-Wed will be spent at university but I'm sure I'll be camping in the Base room Mon-Fri.

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Minor Project: Visual Design Aids

Before I go through the process of designing, I've first thought through the anatomy and life cycle of my Anxiety Bird. 


Though this isn't what the Anxiety Bird may look like, I'm hoping to achieve a similar bird. This diagram is just to help me visualise it's lifecycle.


I've also drawn what I believe it's anatomy would look like. It's claws and wings are generally large. I will use this as a basis while I am designing this bird!







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Tuesday 20 September 2016

@Phil Minor Project: The Anxiety Bird Creative writing task

I've continued to imagine a personification of  anxiety as a bird and have built on this visual image. 

The anxiety bird starts off smaller in size and can sit on your shoulder, it’s lighter in colour and assigns itself to protect you. It doesn’t want you to feel anxious to hurt you but instead to protect you from danger. It does not stay this size however, it grows to an unbearable weight and slowly becomes a much larger bird. As it grows it loses its baby feathers and grows a darker set of feathers which make it seem disorderly. Its beak is generally larger and is situated on a head with a somewhat longer than average bird neck. It uses these features and its beak to peck away at you and become a nuisance.  Its claws are long and are used to be able to perch in advantageous positions, from these positions it can observe and prey on you. It can use your own voice against you and can mimic your negative thoughts, trying to validate these as the truth. It’s wing span is large, roughly around the 2m region, and can easily swoop to your presence. Though it cannot pick you up in your entirety, it can use the power behind its wings to elevate you towards a different direction, changing how you want to be. 
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Thursday 15 September 2016

@Phil Minor Project: Creative writing task

As Phil asked previously I've completed a short creative writing task trying to visualise Anxiety. 

Anxiety is the feeling you get when you trip and fall but you don’t stop falling. It smothers you in fear, doubt and undermines the person that you are. It’s loud and will attempt to block you out as much as possible, telling you you’re not capable of tasks that you want to do. It’s incredibly clever, it sneaks up on you and will pick slowly at you until you notice it. It’s annoying and will consistently try to get your attention, it’s difficult to block it out. Sometimes anxiety takes a holiday, those days are the nicest because you feel like you’re free and there’s no weight on your shoulders.  If anxiety took a physical form I’d imagine it as a bird. Consistently chirping and pecking away at a person. It’d sit on your shoulder and cause a fuss when you had something important to do. It’d have fairly big wings, large enough to block the paths you wanted to go down. When it feels like it’s done its job it’d fly away and migrate until the next time.



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Friday 9 September 2016

@Phil Minor Project ideas so far


Previous Ideas
  • Animated Short focused around Lemurs. Story ideas stemmed from the idea of the Lemur social group being broken in some way (Lemurs are highly social creatures that stick together) 
  • Animated short based on the Rainbow Cat. Story of a mischievous cat.
  • Animated short based on the Little Green Monster. A monster burrows up into a woman's garden, breaks into her house, and proposes love.
  • Animated short based on the Tidy drawer. Abby is told to tidy up by her mother but when she's cleaned up and about to collect her reward they find fun things in the tidy drawer.
Additional Ideas

I've now considered an animated short idea that is more personal to me. 
  • Animated Short focusing around a Cat helping a woman with Anxiety. This idea came from my boyfriends cat helping with my own anxiety, pets are proven to help people cope better. 


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Thursday 8 September 2016

@Phil @Alan Minor Project: Rainbow Cat progress

I started by writing a possible script for the "Tale of the Rainbow Cat" and mostly took from the story itself. This is my first draft.

Rather than having a narration I felt that speech would work better. It does mean I would need a facial rig for my characters and during animating I would need to spend time on lip syncs. I think this suits me better as I like the idea of bringing a character to life! 

I also started some really basic Cat thumbnails with ink to understand what shapes would work best for the Rainbow Cat. 

My favourite thumbnails are 1, 4 and 7. I think a mix of both circles and triangles will show that the Rainbow cat is both good and cunning. 

I'm going to continue with some Cat thumbnails now that I have a better idea of what I'd like but I'm always open to ideas and suggestions!
  

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Saturday 3 September 2016

@Phil @Alan Minor Project: Idea Update

I'd like to do an animated short based on the short story "The Tale of the Rainbow Cat".  This a Japanese story in which a mischievous rainbow cat visits a wedding in the clouds and tricks a Thunder God.

You can read the story here!

With the nature of the story being Japanese I'd like to base my art direction on traditional Japanese art methods such as wood block printing. I've missed a more hands on approach to animation and I would like to create my environments using printmaking with the aid of Photoshop.  


The artist that first came to mind was Katsushika Hokusai who is famous for his woodblock prints. I really love the use of line and the bright colours within his work.




I also took a look at how Gods and Cats had been depicted in traditional work. Gods often look somewhat evil and demonlike whereas cats look fun and charming. 





What I'm hoping to achieve is a good art direction, based on the culture this story is from. Thinking of something that has done this well I would think of the game Okami. It's visually pleasing to look at while maintaining the charm of the artwork it's based on. 




I'd love to know peoples thoughts about this idea! Especially if there's anything that will need work, I'd rather have an idea in the bag before we start week 1!










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