Jade~Tamara: 2011

Monday 7 March 2011

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.

Wednesday 23 February 2011

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.

Development of Final Ideas

The two main themes that I decided I would like to create an animation around are Time and Family, as these are wht interest me most. My first idea was based around the topic of a make-your-own family as I thought that I could take this in many different directions and prodice a solid idea. I liked the idea of the time theme aswell as I thought I could create a really abstract piece. Here, I will display my development of my ideas:

Make-Your-Own Family

I particularly liked the idea of using typical children's drawings as these display their own personal ideas of family.

Notes on MYO Family

-Stop motion
-Perspective- see the child's hands building the jigsaw
-No speech- music
-Wooden puzzles (left hand pic)- odd shape that doesnt fit- mum and dad fit into their places but his haracter doesnt fit in the gap.
-Educattional
-Building blocks/lego house
-Child/someone who doesnt have a family making one.

-Complete puzzle- but one gap and one piece left, but it doesnt fit.
-All peces fit except for him
-Piece missing on each family member
-Puzzle all breaks apart- broken down family
-Happy ending- realises that it's still a happy family
-Puzzle family could come to life and welcome him, therefore, he feels wanted and like he fits in.

Final Ideas for Time

Page Notes

-Person in a clock- he makes the clock work- his job- humerous
-people turning the cogs/ people running on them to make them turn.
-metamorphosis/time lapse- fruit rotting
-flower growing then dying.
-when one life ends, another begins
- personify objects- have their own character- audience can relate to the, rather than them just being moving pictures.
-baby -> flower-butterfly for example.
-Symbolism

Sunday 20 February 2011

Brainstorming Ideas

We were given 4 main themes to base our ideas for our animations on, then were put into different groups over 3 lessons to enable us to brainstorm collectively as many ideas as possible. We were then able to develop them by discussing our final ideas with our peers to make them as strong as possible.

Brainstorming Ideas

Ideas for the theme of Time

Ideas for the theme of Phobias

Ideas for the theme of Family

Ideas for the theme of Informercial

Semester 2- Movement, Story and Structure

Our next unit for Semester 2 is based on movement, story and structure. We have had to create and brainstorm ideas in groups to come up with a 1 minute animation with the theme of either Time, Phobias, Family or Infomercials. The next blog post will contain all my thought out ideas and my Final Idea to be pitched. After pitching our individual ideas to the class and 3 tutors, the tutors will then select the 10 ideas that they would like to see made, meaning that thechosen 10 would become the directors for that group and team members will also be allocated by the tutors to take part in producing the ideas into animations.

Narrative Animation Designs

My 30 second animation is based on Tim Burton's 'The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy,' as i figured that ithe imagery in this poem is very effective and could eaily be made into a short narrative. I came up with a few character designs, most of which I'll show here, then produced the main shots using Photoshop.

Designs

Story Board

Character and Background Design for C&M

Characterisation and Motivation

My scenario I was given was a woman who remembered she was late for an important appointment.I started off with basic character designs and then started to focus on the fact that I thought the character would look quite scatty, but at the same time, looked like a business woman.

Character Design

Room and Furniture Design
I thought an appriate room would be a staff room and the scenario would be that the woman is chilling in the staff room, when she looks at the time and realises she's late for an important business appointment, therefore leaving the room in a hurry.