Layout designs

For these layout designs, I was experimenting with media, colour, space and the main components of the puzzle image, which is mostly the outside pieces of the puzzle as these aren't animated over.
When I scanned the images into the computer, the colour didn't come out properly, mostly in the images i drew with colouring pencil. I've written notes beside the images in the sketchbook for more details on these designs.

To make an absolute, final decision on which layout to use, I'll show my group the images to help me choose and to develop any further, if necessary.

Main layout idea

To get an idea of what the overall puzzle image would look like so that we could start storyboarding and making the animatic, I drew a couple of designs- one in normal pencil and the other using colouring pencils.

Mum Character Design

Due to a lack of team for a couple of weeks, the project fell behind a bit, especially as our main character designer wasn't around. We decided that with the three of us left in the lesson today that we would take it upon ourselves to design a character each.

I decided that I would quite like to design the mum character, who is made up of the basic shapes- triangle body representing the dress and a circular face, with stick arms and legs.

After designing about 4, i wasnt overly happy with them because I thought they looked too styalised to have been drawn by children, especially when i looked back at our reference images drawn by Tom's brother.
Therefore, to create a more sketchy effect and so that the shapes weren't too 'perfect', I decided to draw a few designs with my left hand because I thought that I needed to go back to basics and put myself in the mind of a child trying to draw- and using my weakest hand helped achieve this. I was happier with these designs as they appeared to be more child-like.

After deciding which character design worked best, i tried to draw it with my right hand so that it would be easier to reachieve. I then drew a couple of turnaround, well attempted after realising that my characters were 2D being children's drawings. I also tried to draw the kneeling down pose for one of the end scenes in the animation.

Character Design

To begin designing the character, I researched into children's drawings of families and used some of the elements of the drawings from Tom's 6 year old brother.

If you visit the group blog (link in previous post), we have many posts on research for the animation, but here's an image of a mini collage of useful images I produced in my sketchbook....

The next images are a small collection of rough character designs...

The writing on the right hand side of the page is some very useful information that Laura found on the internet, describing the development of children's drawings as they grow.

The most useful part (in the red box) says, " A blue line and sun at the top of the page and a green line at the bottom, become symbolic representations of the sky and ground."
This is very useful when producing layout designs.

Blue Cloud Studios- Group Blog

For the project, we have been asked to set up a Group Blog to publish our work...


You'll find the Blue Cloud Studios Blog at http://www.bluecloudstudios.blogspot.com/

My Team- Group 5

Woo, so my idea got chosen to be produced as an animation, with me as the director and im very proud to announce my team i was given :):


Director: Jade Midson
Producer: Laura Swindells
Team: John Goodhead, Tom Cooper, Imogen Mynott

Make Your Own Family- Pitch Idea

Make Your Own Family

- A simple, Stop-motion animaiton, also mixed with 2D hand-drawn.
-In perspective, seeing the child's hands piece together a jigsaw puzzle.
- Starts with a puzzle in a box with the name 'My Perfect Family' It can be left up to the audience's imagination as to why the child is making thi puzzle- perhaps he is an orphan wanting a real family, an abused child wanting a different family or portraying family difficulties through the child's mind.
-He creates the puzzle but there is one space left to fill- however, the final puzzle piece doesn't fit in because of its size and also design.
-His frustration can be displayed in his hand-gestures or music
-The scene on the puzzle comes to life (2D hand-drawn) and the characters welcome the child, or within the picture, they comfort the drawing of the child- all smiles etc.
-One main take on it could be that families don't always piece together and not always perfect, but they do somehow all fit.
- I would like this to all be portrayed through child-like designs resembling typical children's drawings.
-Through one of the group brainstorming sessions, I was advised to just ue music to convey the mood of the piece, changing speeds etc to portray the emotions.