Frames for animation

The first picture is going to be the camera starting left zoomed in, going right zooming out. The camera will seem like it is following the character as he approaches town.








This is going to be a short shot, probably the second shot of the animation, i want it to seem eerie and lonely, zoomed in on the lettering on the floor, with just the candle light flickering the camera will zoom out to reveal the whole room.











The building on its own here with the moonlight from behind is going to be the first shot, Using about 6 of the same shots only moving the cloud over the moon, and also adding shadow to the building and light from behind. This is going to be a long draw out shot. with the credits rolling down the screen. I want a sense of wonder from the audience, later on in the animation reveals the intentions of the ghost.






















These 4 frames of the ghost leaving his house were all about layers using photoshop, the door was a seperate layer to the inside which was a seperate layer to the wall outside.
I payed intricate detail to the doorlock especially as kids seeing this animation are very perceptive.






For the shot of my ghost walking through town, i used the same background image and just drew him in different positions. Using after effects i will blur the images into each other, giving the effect that he is moving, also in each background i changed the light and shadows on the buildings according to where his torch is.

Song for the ghost giant

The idea i have is to have this story of a ghost giant with an affinity for collecting letters and write a relevent song that goes with the story.

("Ive got so much to say,
But cannot open my mouth,
I hide away in the day,
And ponder my thoughts in a lonely house,
See im from around here but you wouldn't know,
Because i lost my friends a long time ago,
I collect letters every night,
And even if i could spell i wouldn't know what to write.")

7 illustrations storyboard

house in pastel

before and after

Invisible Architecture-The Letter Collector

These images are the first concept ideas for my new idea for the invisible architecture project, The story is about a 1000ft tall ghost who lives in a giant house on a hill over looking town. He comes out at night to carry out his favourite hobby... to collect letters from buildings, shop names etc. He takes these letters to a roundabout to write stories, poems, anything he likes, the only problem is finding the right letters , the right size, the right colour for it to look just so. He then goes back to his house just as the sun is starting to rise, and sits in his big crooked house that is full of letters until the next evening falls.

Invisible Architecture

The lonely wondering ghost giant

keeping my DandAD progression up to date, i have a final piece to hand in. For this project i have made 3 characters in 3dsmax, 2 being scary and not really right for what i had in mind, and 1 character resembling a fox that is perfect for the role.. Ive written and recorded my own track for it and am even thinking of making it a full song and playing it with in my band "CoCo."
I have used after effects and premier to edit the video, Done blue screening and key colouring! which is a useful thing to know.
I didnt think i would get a finished piece i would be happy with but i am so chuffed with my character, and the whole video in general.. My favourite part of the HP video is when Fox Mcgee turns the drawing in to a real ball and the music kicks in and it goes all physcodelic and colourful. i absolutely love that part, and the way ive animated him to be dramatic with the use of his arms and head.

Heres the physcodelic video, its so colourful, im thinking that as i was listening to one of my favourite bands MGMT whilst i was making the video to inspire me, i would like them to be playing in the background for the final video.

This is my favourite part of the animation so far, i used the background i had for the other character and i think it works really. I love how physcodelic it is, i love the video i have taken this screenshot from.

chuffed with this one to be honest! im guna carry making fox mcgee do some acting!

fox mcgee stage 2

i have boned the character, given him sight and now he is ready for his acting role for the dand ad project.

Foxx Mcgee

This is my cute fox character with a full body and fur, i will do the eyes next, then the bones, then the animation!

New character

After doing a couple of sketches for a new "cute" not "scary" character.. and using the new method from the link in the post below this one. I have finally emerged with a character im happy with.

Self Evaluation on DandAD

I feel like now im at a stage where i need to evaluate my work for the DandAD project because i just keep making characters for this project and im not actually happy with them, and all this time im spending which is a lot of time, im not really getting the actual video started.

I have a plan,for a video thats going to last 30 seconds or so.
The video is going to encorporate real footage with 3d animation: A boy will be sat at his blank computer bored... he draws the letters "HP" and sticks it to his computer....suddenly the computer flourishes in colour and and style.... a funky world appears and a character walks on screen...
He shakes the boys hand through the screen....He asks the boy to draw him a picture of a random object like a ball... the boy gives the drawing to this character....the character brings it to life and hands it back to the boy.
I have now modeled 3 characters,2 being just heads, and i have modeled these with the DandAD project in mind. I have wanted to create a decent quality character but unfortunately im making these characters really freaky looking, i will literally be freaked out by my own work!! and its because im trying to make them look too detailed and too good when simply im not really at that stage yet, apparently its called "uncanny valley." i want to start again and create a new character but a lot of time has gone into these other characters, and i feel like ok yeh i am getting better with 3dmax but at the same time im not getting this video done. Now im going to take what i have learned and am going to do another character, but im going to try it from a single plane and follow a tutorial from a website called http://www.ghouseproductions.com/tutorials.html
Im going to draw up a couple of cute pixar type simple characters, and try and nail it on the head. Hopefully im not going to have nightmares about my next 3dmax venture!

New post

This is a new head i have modeled,i put a lot more personality in this one. He is a lot freakier than my previous creations. I did this in mind of the DandAD project because i wanted a character who was quirky but i can animate his mouth movements. i will do 10 different phonemes and then il create a body for him and hopefully at the end of that will have some awesome animations for him.

NE

NE

"i hate you boy!"

using the morpher modifier, i turned auto key on and had a little mess around with mouth movements. I ended up having my character say i hate you boy, but i dont even think its really that hard to animate the mouth movements to a real voice, there is no sound on this only because its my first ever lip sync animation and i didnt have one prepared but im going to get on making a good talking animation.

LIP SYNC

Here i made a simple devilish looking character from a sphere.
giving him a mouth that can easily animated, also creating an
inner mouth as to leave it looking finished and nice. Then using basic phoneme samples i recreated different mouth shapes according to the different sounds the mouth makes.

HP character world

here i have put together a psychedelic environment for my character, i love the colours and the style. The only thing im not too sure about is weather it suits the character with it being a 2D environment. I am going to have a go at making this in 3d max and also after effects.
But first i need to animate my character