30 November 2009- First consultation of Week 7

I managed to edit my character designs (change outfits and make legs longer), and I also managed to work on a walking line-test.

Some comments on Facebook (where I posted my line-test) really criticized my line-test (“jerky and stiff”, “not a proper cycle”, “cannot make it” and even “=.=”), and so I made a second line-test (using reference from the Internet)…which seriously is worse than my first line-test. 0_0.

But I showed my line-test to Mr. Ronald, and he said that it was fine, although it did looked a bit stiff and looked more like skipping. He did point out though, that in animating movement, it is essential to study the anatomy of the character, and thus plot out the bends and pivot points of movement on the character’s body according to the design.

He was a bit disappointed that I decided to make my characters taller, as he did not mind my characters being short as short things can still move (like Patrick Starfish and Spongebob Squarepants). He reminded me about plotting the pivot points of character movement, and advised me to start on production quickly (and save the edits for later).

So I guess I better start on production now…plan to animate Shot 1 (sun rising) and Shot 4 (shadow coming off sign) tonight.

26 November 2009 - Interim 1 (Week 6)

Before Interim 1, I managed to have one consultation with Mr. Ronald where I showed him my lighter-colored character design and lighter-foggy flashback mood board.
He gave them the green light.

Now, onto Interim 1.

Story: My lecturers are completely fine with the story, saying that it is a nice simple storyline. However, they did say that some shots were redundant, so maybe I have to chop off a few extra shots later.

Character Design: Plenty of problems they pointed out here.
One, the outfit my character is wearing does not look very Goth-punk. Ah, may have to do some research on that…
Two, my main character looks a bit plump and stumpy. What is up with that wide body shape and short legs?
So I guess I have to edit those two things…and maybe darken the main character’s skin…

(my stumpy character design...soon to be edited)

Mood boards and backgrounds: They said I should de-saturate the flashback mood board rather than put a solid color layer on top and reduce its opacity.
While that is not an issue, the problem lied with my backgrounds.
One, although they are flat-colored, it lacks depth and looks more like a flat picture. So maybe I should add some gradients and shadows to add tone and depth.
Two, my backgrounds need perspective. My lecturers said that some shots do need more perspective, and in my mood boards, the perspective was very off. So keyword for this part: Perspective.

(my edited flashback mood board...lowered saturation to -60 and increased lightness to around 20)

Further action: I was advised to do some animation line-tests (walking and head-turning) for my main character before I can really start on production next week. Luckily, I got my long weekend ahead…

18 November 2009- Second consultation of Week 5

I showed Mr. Ronald my edited mood board, as well as my animatics…

Edited Mood Board: Now the issue is that it is too white. Mr. Ronald advised me to experiment with different opacities and different ‘whites’ in order to achieve that ‘cloudy flashback which still can be seen clearly’ feel, since I was using opacity on a solid-color layer to get such an effect.

Animatics: He said it was okay, though a bit too long at some points. Now I should get to work on my music for the piece…

Current agenda: First, work on music, and render out animatics. If have time, improve on character designs and mood boards.

17 November 2009- First consultation of Week 5

So I showed Mr. Ronald my two extra mood boards, and my character designs. But seems I have to do a bit more work here:

Mood boards: He was okay with the one with the entrance sign, but he was rather unhappy with the flashback mood board (the very brown one); he said that a background needs to be established since it looked bare, and also, the brown tone used was too dark.
For that flashback mood board, he told me to use a whitish tone to emphasize that is a rather misty flashback, and also draw up a background behind.

Character designs: He said that the character design for the main character was way too dark, and was afraid it would go black when projected on a big screen. He advised me to use lighter colors for the main character, but I have to see if I have time.
The design for the secondary character got the green light though, so less work for me.

Now with those little edits aside, it is time for me to work on my animatics…

12 November 2009- Second consultation of Week 4

I have realized that I have been blogging on the process of my project, without saying what the story was.
Also, I did a minor edit to the title; I changed the title from “Miss-Understanding” to “Miss-Understood”, considering how the main character is the one looking for acceptance.
So my story is this:

Bunny Glade is a cheery forest filled with only rabbits; happy cute bunnies dressed in nice, preppy clothing.
But from the outside world comes an unlikely stranger; a black cat dressed in Goth fashion.
As she tries to seek shelter at the forest, she is heavily discriminated by the residents.
But in the end, she manages to find a friend in a resident who chose not to judge her by her appearance.
I am hoping to put this message across: Do not judge people by how they look, or by how different their appearance is from yours.

Anyway, I managed to do two mood boards and show them to Mr. Ronald. He seemed pretty okay with them, but he asked me to do two more: One of the cat’s flashback, and another with the entrance sign to the forest.



Now I already done those extra mood boards (finished them an hour ago), so now I have to make use of the weekend to digitalize my character designs. And then try to finish up my animatics next week.

10 November 2009- First consultation of Week 4

I managed to finish my storyboard, and the number of panels is 91. Wow.

Luckily, Mr. Ronald approved of my storyboard…except for that bit where he said some scenes were redundant, and will just lead to beating-around-the-bush on the story.

So now, I decided to take his advice (it will help to lighten my load) and chop off the scenes of the stall-keeper and the lady.

He reminded me that it is not the length of the animation which is important, but rather, the message I want to put across.

So now, with the ‘deleted’ scenes, my animation looks set to be around three minutes.
Now, with storyboard down, now, I just need to get started on mood boards and animatics (as well as digital character designs).

Here is my storyboard (unedited, without the chop):

6 November 2009- Second consultation of Week 3

So I managed to get my Learning Contract up, drew up some more views for my main character (side, three-quarter, etc), and done up some storyboard panels (from my draft thumbnails earlier on, it looks set to be around a 100 panels…have only done 20 so far).

The gist of the consultation is that I got Mr. Ronald to sign my Learning Contract, and he was pretty okay with the other views I drew of my main character.

Then, I showed him the storyboard thumbnails I drew so far. He said that there were too many tracking shots (as in, shots of the character and background moving in sync with the camera) and more character animation needs to be seen. He advised me to experiment with more shots and to include more character movement (like moving across the frame).
Better complete my storyboard ASAP…

3 November 2009- First Consultation of Week 3

I need to be more focused…I haven’t even started on storyboard. -_-

But still, I managed to show Mr. Ronald my Learning Contract and re-vamped character designs today. He seemingly approved of my Learning Contract, other than a few minor edits in statements.

As for my character designs, he was okay with the fact that the forest residents are now all rabbits, and that the main character is the only cat. However, he noted that the ears of the rabbits look more like the ears of cats (that has been fixed already). He also advised me to experiment around with eyes, as the eyes of the characters shouldn’t be completely round. I guess that is just a minor thing… Not only that, he wanted to see more profiles of the characters (side, three-quarter, etc) as I was always showing front.

Guess it may not so soon I start on my storyboard, mood boards, and animetics…Interim 1 is in Week 5, and I am still stuck doing character designs. I need to be more focused and less distracted…