Ugly Dinosaur Production: Well On Its Way

We're nearing the end of The Ugly Dinosaur Production and things are starting to come together. We've got about a week left.

Rough:

Clean-Up:

I animated all of the roughs for the Torvosauruses in Scene 4. I also did the clean-up of Dip in Scene 3 (roughs originally done by Izzy Kertis).

As the Pipeline Director, I updated our group blog, Youtube page, Facebook group, and Dropbox. I've put all of the Harmony project files onto our team flashdrive.

Starting into Animating

So this week we started animating for The Ugly Dinosaur Production. Since I am one of the general animators, I was assigned to do some of the roughs and went ahead and cleaned up part of it.

Roughs:

Clean-Up:

I animated the roughs for the Compsognathus in scene 1, and I animated the roughs for Doop in scene 3. I also did some clean-up work on Doop in scene 3, although that part is not completely finished.

Other than animating this week, I also have been updating the Dropbox account. Jinny also bought us a Team Flashdrive, which I keep and upload our project files onto as a back-up.

I have also been helping Hillary update the Youtube page. We've been updating all of the progress files into a playlist called WIP Animations.

Interpretation of Music Animatic

My next project for my Visual Narrative & Storyboarding class is about interpreting music in an animatic.  The song I'm using for my animatic is Saviour of the Dreaming Dead by Malcolm Brown.

And then here are some concepts for the characters:

The basic storyline is taken from the very beginning of my larger series, The Nays.  A group of kids find themselves in a mysterious World after heading through a portal. Basically I'm going to be focusing more on backgrounds in this animatic. Since I don't have all that much experience with backgrounds, this will be a more challenging take on the project. I've taken a bunch of reference pictures of the general idea of what I'm aiming for:

The Ugly Dinosaur: Finishing up Pre-Production Work

This week I've been pretty busy with my team's Ugly Dinosaur Project. Here's basically what I did this week:

Animatics:

(If you cannot view Scene 2, click here)

I put together the Animatics for Scenes 2 - 5. I only drew the storyboards for scenes 3 and 5, but I timed out all 4 of those scenes. Hillary put together scene 1 and combined all of them into the final animatic, which can be found on our Youtube page.

I also updated our Youtube page a bit. I added a Production Playlist, which includes all of the videos created for our project. I also added a Crew List of links to our Members' Youtube pages on the right side of the page.

As the Pipeline Director, I've been continually updating our Dropbox account. As I receive files, I  upload them to the specific folders.  This provides for easy access to all of our files among our group members.

Thumbnailing:

Since I am one of the general animators, my job was to do some basic thumbnailing for some of the characters. Jinny suggested experimenting with the Torvosauruses and Dot's parents, since they were not assigned any specific members to animate yet.

Practice Sketches:

And as always, I have been practicing drawing the characters. Since Vincent finalized the model sheets earlier in the week, I was finally able to experiment drawing the characters in the finalized style.

Lots of Work

So I haven't really updated my blog recently that wasn't for my Design for Media class. I've been working on a lot, I just haven't found the time to upload it all. Design for Media's definitely been keeping me the most busy though. But here's everything else that I've been working on that is not for that class.

"Meteor Age Animatic"

My first actual colored animatic I've made. This is a trailer for a movie I made up called Meteor Age. It's basically a small portion of my slightly larger series, Biggert City. This is basically just a story about R and how he is kicked out of his band and forms a new group.

"Arianna Digby Model Sheet"

A Model sheet I created for my character, Arianna Digby. You can see her walk cycle animation below.

"Arianna Walk Cycle"

My first time doing a walk cycle. This is Arianna Digby, a shy and nervous girl. I did this for my Animation I class.

"Character Doodling"

A bunch of various character sketches. The first two are Jinny's characters, but the colored pencil ones are mine. And then the girl on the right is a concept idea for my game proposal I made last week.

"Trailer Storyboard Thumbnails"

The thumbnail sketches I did for my current storyboard, Meteor Age Trailer.

"Biggert City & Nays Sketches"

Some sketches I've been doing. The Biggert City ones are on the top, which was basically me re-designing some of the characters for my trailer. The bottom are just a couple of sketches of The Nays.

"Gozo Morph Animation"

A morph animation I did for Animation I class. So I did a milkshake turning into Gozo, then turning into a cheeseburger.

"Various Gestures"

The first portion are just from figure drawing sites that I did with my roommates one day. The majority of the others are from the day that I went with Renée and Chris around Columbus to draw. There are some from when I went to Gamestop to the Pokemon Black & White 2 midnight release. And then the rest are of my friends Blair and Austin, who volunteered to pose for us to draw.

The Ugly Dinosaur: Project Launch

So this week in Design for Media, our class was split into three groups. Each group is working on a different project. So I get to work on Jinny and Laura's idea, The Ugly Dinosaur. I have been assigned the jobs of: Storyboard artist, Animator, Clean-up Artist, and Pipeline Director. So here's what I have so far:

Storyboards:

Scene 3 Thumbnails

Scene  5 Thumbnails

Practice Sketches:

These are basic concept sketches so that I could get an idea on how to draw the characters. I'm mostly trying to get in the habit and get used to drawing them. I also did an overhead view of the scene I was working on, so that I could get a better sense of space for the storyboards.

Since I am also the Pipeline Director, I created a Dropbox account for the group so that we could all upload our files there.

Animation Demo Reel

I finally got around to making a quick demo reel for myself. So far I only have a couple of first animations, animatic, and model sheets from my Animation I and Storyboarding classes, but I'll definitely make another one in the near future once I have more work to show.

Project 2 Proposal

This week my Design for Media class is starting up a new project called Project Pipeline. Basically we have to pitch an idea that will later turn into a group project, if chosen as one of the three that our class will be working on.

So what is the idea exactly?
I would like to create a short Point-and-Click Adventure video game. 

In order to create this project, a couple of us will need to know how to do some basic programming, of course. I am proposing that we create this game in Adobe Flash, since I am fairly familiar with Action Script 3 and it is not difficult to learn enough of the basics needed to create this game in a short period of time.  Although, if there are more experienced programmers on the team that would be able to create it using another programming language, I am completely open to that as well--in fact, I'd definitely encourage it!

Obviously with the time given, it will not be a terribly long game. I am very open as to what the storyline will be for this game, but I have created a few quick concept ideas to start us off.

First Idea:
This game will be about a middle-aged woman who was attacked by her boyfriend, and accidentally ends up killing him in self-defense. After murdering him, she is wanted by the police and heads off on a quest to escape their pursuit.

Second Idea:
This game will be about a young girl, by the name of Lizzie, who was abused by her peers in the 4-H Club. After being abused for a long enough time, she eventually snaps and murders all of those at the camp. She ends up killing more innocent people, and the whole game is about playing as Lizzie, murdering victims. Her method of murdering her victims? She beats them to death with a golf club.

I am basically thinking this will work as a reverse of the usual detective-styled games. Instead of playing through the game as a detective to trace down the murderer, this game will be about the murderer who must stealthily escape from the police, without leaving tracks for them to find. Although I have not uploaded concepts for the second idea, that is the one that I am leaning more towards. It will be up to the team to decide on which of the two to expand on, though.

And here are a couple of concept sketches that I put together for character designs for the first idea:

Note: All of the storyline ideas and character concepts are very rough and can definitely be negotiated and changed around by the team. This is just a starting idea to kick-off the project.

Roles
Here is a basic flow chart for the roles needed for this project:

I have chosen a couple of people who I believe would be very well fitted for the positions. These are the descriptions of each job, as well as nominations that I have chosen (the nominations are very flexible and subject to change if necessary).


-Director: I personally do not want to direct my own project, so I am open for suggestions on who would be willing to take the job. The director must have a strong passion for the project in order to help it all come together. They must be able to take control of the team and keep everything in order.


-Head of Art Direction: The head of the art direction must be able to instruct all of those in the visual development of the project. I feel that Jinny Hinkle would be best suited for this position.

-Story Director: Although I created a basic storyline for the game already, it is very far from a final concept. The director of story is in charge of creating the script and overall direction on how the story is drawn out.

-Programmers: For this game to be put together, there will need to be at least two programmers. The programmers must have an understanding in at least some kind of programming language (Note: If no one on the team has any programming knowledge, I will be willing to take the position as one of the programmers and help teach another how to use Action Script 3 in Adobe Flash, if necessary).

-Background Designers: There will need to be at least two background designers for this project. The background designers will be the ones to design the landscapes and spaces in which the story takes place. They will also be responsible for creating the objects that the characters will interact with, in the game. I am nominating Laura Mansfield and Tara Nester and as background designers.

-Character Designers: I have designed a few characters, as seen earlier in the post, although these may not be the final concepts. This project will require at least two character designers. The character designers will refine the designs and unify them together. They will be responsible for designing model sheets and final concepts for the characters. If I am not a programmer for the project, I would hope to be one of the character designers.

-Animators: This project will require at least two animators. The animators will be responsible for creating the animations of the characters within the game. They will also animate any objects that the characters interact with. If there is enough time, they may also work on animated sequences within the game. I feel that Emma Pennington and Katie Fuchs would be best fitted for this position.

-Sound Developer: The sound developer will be in charge of locating or creating the sounds for this project. Their job will include locating the voice actors, creating or finding the music, and sound effects for the game.


-Head of Editorial: The head of editorial will be responsible for the organization of the group. They must maintain the blog and organize meetings for the group.  This position is for someone who is very organized and a great note-taker. Hillary Hastings is definitely the one best suited for this position.

-Publicity Director: The publicity director is in charge of the overall marketing of the game. Their job is to search out competitions and ways to advertise our project.

-Branding/GUI Director: The job of the branding and GUI director is to keep everything unified. Their job is to create the overall color palette, logo, and menu screens for the game. They will also be responsible for creating a unified type and fonts to use for the game.

-Documentary Director: The overall creator of the making-of video. The documentary director must have strong knowledge in video editing programs such as Adobe Premiere or Adobe After Effects.



Overall Timeline
And here is the overall timeline to explain roughly when everything should be completed by, and within which time frames.