Update For Narrative

Just a quick update for the narrative project. As you can see our group blog is were we focus on putting up our research for the group project. In this case I just wanted to add up some draft concepts from the pre production stages of the project just to show my progress.

These images below are a few pen sketches which I did using special felt pens. These images were made to capture a mossy/seaweedy feel which you would get after the town was submerged in the black lagoon for years.

I have also added up a selection of pre viz shots which we have been using to practice camera shots and location.

Character Design - The Sidekick

In this post I am showing an influence map which is linked with my Sidekick. I have been trying to figure out what I wanted my Sidekick to be or even look like. After having numerous chats and brainstorming my ideas I finally decided to make an influence map with some different animals which would make a good Sidekick. As you can see in the image below, I have used my influence map to bring images of different reptiles which I will use to breakdown my ideas and create my Sidekick for my character design Project.

Maya Tutorials - Lip Sync

So I havent added up any of my maya tutorials over the last few weeks but as you can see in the post below I have been doing them. In this post you can see weeks one and two of the Lip Sync.
Something which I havent done yet but I will be doing either over the weekend or the not too distant future is using a different piece of audio which I will use to practice my Lip Syncing on.

Week One -

This isnt my first time doing Lip Syncing. When I was at college, one of our tasks or units was to make a basic animation using 3DSMax. In this project we was given a basic rig which we needed to Lip Sync and animate the character with a piece of audio which was a very famous speech by George Bush.

I found the Lip Sync scary at first but after I had a few weeks practice I found it more exciting because I could play around with the controls, exagerating the movement which allowed me to get used to animating with an audio track behind it.
When we was given the Lip Syncing tutorial from Alan I was a bit unsure at first but as I said, after a few days of practice I found myself getting along with it.

Week Two - Adding Phoneme and Viseme Shapes -

Week Three - Adding Tongue, Blink and Brow Animation -

The Walking Dead

So I have always been a fan of comics and graphic novels but it is only since recently that I have started to move away from the "Marvel" style super hero and villains style of comic and moved onto different styles and stories.

I was with a friend the other day and we were discussing comic books and which ones were a good read and also eye catching, so he recommended a comic book series which was called "The Walking Dead".

The Walking Dead comic book series has been on-going monthly since about 2003. This comic book is a tense zombie action drama based in a zombie infested apocalyptic America. The Walking Dead was and still is written by Robert Kirkman and Illustrated by Robert Moore for the first several and Tony Adlard and Cliff Radburn up until present.

 

The new T.V series of the walking dead is being released in the USA on the 31st of October 2010 which follows the popular comic book series.

Redefined Influence Map

Over the last couple of weeks I have been trying to concentrate on both my projects along with any other work and problems which I have been having at home. I have been finding it a bit difficult to come up with ideas for my concept project were I am creating three characters, a hero, a villain and a sidekick.

Earlier on in the project I was thinking about creating a story based around an old western Japanese story. By creating an influence map I was able to brainstorm my ideas by creating a mood board which throughout the project has helped me in creating and developing ideas.

The influence map in this post is a redefined map of one earlier on in my development stages. using my first map I have put together a new one which is more accurate and should very helpful when designing my final three characters. This map is an overall look on my ideas for this project, in time I will add up three more influence maps which each correspond to each of my individual characters.

J.Michael Straczynski - Rising Stars

Whilst we were in a lecture with Matt the other day he was recommending different people to us who were very talented people worth looking up. 

One of the people he talked about is a very talented man by the name of J.Michael Straczynski. 

"Rising Stars is a comic book series by J. Michael Straczynski about 113 children (called specials) who are born with special abilities following a mysterious light in the sky. The comic explores how a society may react to the introduction of superpowers, and how those specials may react towards society and themselves. Rising Stars was one of the first comics produced under JMS's own Joe's Comics imprint for Top Cow." 

http://hollywoodjesus.com/rising_stars.htm

Narrative - Week 3 Update

Yesterday we had a meeting with Matt about our ideas for our group project. Basically we talked about our back story and showed him our draft script and all of our concept art which we put together over the last few weeks. This consisted of environmental, characters and props which we have been developing throughout the project. As you can see that my blog doesn't consist of any group narrative work because all of the work has been going on the group blog (Gremlinbox.blogspot.com).
throughout the last couple of weeks our group has come together on many occasions and thrown ideas at one another until we came up with a basic idea. over the weeks we have taken the idea and developed it, creating a draft script which we are now putting the finishing touches into.
We found that by each individually writing a script allowed us to come together at a group meeting and picking pieces from each helping us develop it into a fully completed and refined draft script, all which can be seen on our group blog.
Anyway, after we had our group discussion/presentation to Matt he gave us a few extra added ideas which we may put into our script. Apart from a few minor ideas, Matt had nothing else to say to us other than good luck, which we are going to need throughout the remainder of the project.

Kung Fu Panda - Character design

I have been browsing through the internet and came across some really good concept art for Kung Fu Panda. This post is basically a quick synopsis on the film an array of concept art from the movie.

The movie, Kung Fu Panda, is all about a panda who finds himself being chosen as "the dragon warrior". The one who earns the right to that title earns the right to unlock the powers hidden within an ancient scroll.

Above are some conceptual sheets which were used in the pre-production stages of the making of "Kung Fu Panda". I really like both of these conceptual sheets because they show development of an idea and how it can be interpreted by the audience.

The concepts above are one of the best amongst all of those which I have throughout this post.
These concepts show lots of different emotion in which the panda could portray throughout the movie. when designing a character we need to know what different facial expressions that character will have/use to show his/her emotion once the the pre-production stages have been made.

Character Design - Ancient Weaponary

I was having a little think about whether I wanted any of my characters to have a weapon/weapons and thought it would be best to do a little research into some of the Japanese ancient weaponry!

Weapons -

 The weapons which I have chosen above are an interesting selection which could inflict a serious amount of pain to their enemy from close quarters and even at range. From the three weapons above I find the one on the third image most interesting of them all. For the Hero I was going to go with a sword but for the villain I was looking to create something a little more dark and interesting. Much like the weapon in the third image.

Character Design - Location - Ancient Japan

So i was thinking about a location for my character design project because I need to have a background for each of the characters. My key words for this project which are the basis of my character design are, Anamorphic and Ninja.
I looked at a few possible locations, time periods and countries and decided that it would be best to base everything around ancient japan. So below are a few images of some places which will help with my referencing.