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.

D4M: Project Complete

So I finished my project for my Design for Media. This week, I created a whole bunch more concepts and sketches before ending with at those final pieces. Instead of doing one final piece, I decided to go with a series of three illustrations in order to tell a story. Below you'll see the final pieces as well as my process.

"Demon World Journey"

The three of these final pieces tell a progressing story together. In the first piece, Akuma, the demon boy, is approaching Sarah and Clove. He is welcoming the two of them to the Demon World. Akuma has been sent to become Sarah's Guardian Demon because she has recently become a DarkVao (which is basically a human who has been infused with demon cells). In the second piece, the three of them decide to travel together through the Demon World. And then in the final piece, they are depicted embarking on their adventure together through the Demon World. Akuma is the leader of the group, since he is native to this World.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "Digital Composition Drafts"

These are a couple of tests that I did before putting together the actual final. I was experimenting with different compositions, and overall placing my characters within the landscapes.

"Traditional Composition Tests"

Here are some more sketches that I did of placing my characters into compositions. These ones are all traditional, very rough sketches.

 

 

"Rough Posed Gestures"

I made a bunch of attempts at creating poses for my characters to be in for the final piece. Basically these are a bunch of gestures I made from memory, trying to play with shapes and place my characters in poses relating to their personality. Akuma is the red, Clove is the green, and Sarah is the blue.

"Quick Experiment"

Just a quick sketch I did of Sarah this week. It was mostly a rough piece to get a sense of what mood I wanted my final to have, and to experiment with color mostly.

And if you would like to see the rest of the progress on this project, check out these links:
Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

Animating and Shape Experiments

So this week I've mostly been working on concepts for my Design for Media project, which is located below this post. I've also been working on my animation a lot recently, as you can see here. And then the rest of my time has been dedicated to working on a lot of gestures and shape figures.

So this was my second assignment for my Animation I class. We had to create a three second animation by using tension, conflict, or anticipation. So I decided to use this idea of Scott punching Ralphie across the face. I mean it's obvious that Ralphie and Scott don't like each other at all, but they're still twin brothers so I intentionally made the punch a little softer.


"Shape Gestures"
So I've been practicing drawing figures out of shapes a lot as of recently. A great thanks to my friend Jinny for helping me understand this concept. I feel like it's got me on the right track back to improvement.

 

"Morphing Ideas"
A bunch of ideas for my current animation. I decided to go with the first one.

 
"Morphing Key frames"
I created a bunch of key frames for my current animation. My animation is not near being done, but these are some rough layouts.

Finalizing Concepts

So I've been working on finalizing my concepts for my Design for Media project. I am pretty certain at this point that I will stick with the first idea, but I have posted up my progress on both thus far.


Idea #1:

After going through and fleshing out my ideas, I've leaned more towards this idea. These characters fit together because of their relation to the Demon World. I'm definitely heading for more of a darker piece here.

Some more character concepts for these characters with their color palette beneath. Most of these are just rough sketches, but I digitialized a few. The first ones are just basic gestures and shapes of my characters; trying to figure out which poses to use.

I decided to do a bunch of concepts of different views and areas of the Demon World for this idea.

Idea #2:

I'm considering going for more of a dark and eerie feel for this idea. I have a large variety of backgrounds because I haven't finalized that yet. Besides the designs being similar, the main aspect that links them together is that they are a family.

These are just some more concepts I did of the characters with their respective color palettes.

Some ideas I had for different landscapes that would fit with these characters. There's a pretty wide variety because I was a bit uncertain at first on which way to go with this.

Inspirations:

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, my main inspirations come from Steve Rakar, Wes Talbott, and The-Ez. Some of their individual pieces inspired me directly for this project, though.

For my first idea, I got more inspiration from darker art. The-Ez did a great example of creating a darker piece, but still making the brighter colors contrast or pop out. Wes Talbott has done so many beautiful pieces that are dark, but use brighter colors to make the piece feel more alive. I definitely am planning on using a ton of contrast like he does in many of his pieces. 

Since Steve Rakar and I grew up together, we ultimately worked on the many of the same projects together. We've created many of our characters together originally, and then just re-designed or developed them on our own a bit. The characters from idea #2 were mostly made up beforehand by us both, but I re-designed and developed them more for this project. And overall, I got a whole lot of inspiration for the background from Steve's piece. I got the same kind of feel and inspiration from The-Ez's work. Since Syntax's family comes from a desert area, these pieces really inspired me.

So overall, I plan to create an illustration that has a dark feel to it, but has enough light in it to feel natural or alive.