Inspiring Animation - Lone Digger

 

Lone Digger Video

This is a music video, Lone Digger by Caravan Palace. I was introduced to this quite a while ago now, but I recently encountered it again and thought I could talk about it. The animation works really well with the music, the shots cutting in time. I also really love the lineless style, like I've said about other animations before, and the lighting is also quite striking to look at. The story of the video takes an interesting twist too, with the characters being not quite who you thought they'd be.

I unfortunatly couldn't place the video directly, so I have provided a link.

Concept Drawings

Here are some of the drawings I have been working on for one of the preproduction projects.

Currently it is only the characters, but over the next week I intend to work on the backgrounds as well, although these will take a little longer because of the style. I think these are quite dynamic poses, although it would be good to investigate some more to make sure the silhouettes are interesting and they have a lot of action in them.

I have also been looking into action scenes for the other bible. Here are some examples, one being from an anime called Cowboy Bebop, and the other is from a live action movie called

Inspiring Animation - Sand Planet

This music video, Sand Planet, was released a few months ago. I really love the 2D effects animation in this short, and the movement of the smoke as she swipes through in the first gif is really impressive. The shadows through the smoke are also quite interesting. The way the clothes move looks quite realistic, and their is nice anticipation on her arm movement.

 

I also really like the character designs in the back. They're all similar yet have subtle differences that make them unique, in both their masks and their coats.

Space Live Brief Progress

Recently I have been putting a lot of work into organising and setting up our scenes so that we can finally begin animating and rendering for the final film. As producer, I am very determined to keep the team motivated so we can produce something we’re proud of, and I am glad that most of my team also want to dedicate time and get involved.

Here are some screenshots of some of the scenes I have been working on. Seeing these will break the illusion that we are going to create in the animation once it’s is rendered and composited. The scenes themselves look quite simple, but I have to shape the planes, apply the textures and places the rocks, as well as plan the lighting. The lighting also has to be consistent between scenes, which is something difficult I have had to deal with.

Something we’ve had a hard time with is getting the crater to look as large as it actually is. Our model can only have so much detail before it starts to become unusable, so we have started talking about ways we can use lighting to respond to feedback about this problem.

Since it is the beginning of a new study block, we will again be producing new animation bibles for submission this term. I have decided that I want to contribute to others work this time, and help them develop their stories to become something better.

One project I am interested in is about rat pirates, with the title in progress. Here is a sketch I have done for this project already, although the style hasn't been decided on and the story is still in progress.

Another project I am showing an interest in is very action based, with a lot of fight scenes. I will be working as producer on this project, and will hopefully be able to create a good bible with a very different subject matter and style to my last.

For our Live Brief, we will now start animating and finishing actual shots, and I am excited to see how far we progress, as we have a lot of work to complete.

Above is a piece of concept art I did for my bible. I used noir reference for the scene, but then made it my own with the characters and the colouring. Below are a couple of facial expressions for the Monkey character. I had fun doing these as I really like his character design, although I think I could have worked more on the colouring of his clothes.

Below are the images that I only coloured, as the sketches were created by Dorian Barry, a member of my team. I had gained a lot of experience at this stage with the colouring and was happy to take on the task.

http://dorianimates.blogspot.co.uk/

Final Test Shots

Here is a video of the final outcome of my test shots. I've tried to stick to the style as best as possible with the characters and now the backgrounds too. I struggled quite a lot with the backgrounds, as the ones seen in Rojankovsky's work are mostly of grass and woodland, whereas the setting for my story is more urban. Even so, I tried to get across the pencil strokes - this was quite different working in TV Paint rather than in Photoshop.

I looked at atmospheric audio that would put across the slightly eerie and tense situation Parrot is put in when he's about to discover the victim. I used sound effects such as footsteps, breathing and a squeak. As for the Chameleon, I wanted to use the short piano sound to indicate his surprise alongside his gasp.