One Hour Daily Challenge No. 4 Bad Piggy (Angry Birds)

Took me less time than usual (ftw), so I had more time to add shading and highlights. Think I nailed the expression, thought it was appropriate to add a few bruises here and there to avoid it looking too simple.

Time: 45 mins

One Hour Daily Challenge No. 3 Scar

Here's my next character, Scar, from Disney's The Lion King. I particularly enjoyed this one, and think I nailed his personality. He could probably have a bit more muscle mass, but other than I think I did okay on this one. Gonna try and work faster to be closer to an hour, but I think 20 minutes extra isn't too bad.

Time: 1.20

One Hour Challenge, No.1 Sonic and No. 2 Shifu

Simply drawing for the fun for it, this time with a target of close to an hour of drawing and colouring time. I wanna try and draw a character once a day, and I aim to improve my time with each one I create. Both of these were drawn in Illustrator and then coloured in Photoshop.

Time: 1:20

This one of Sonic the Hedgehog I created at about 12 o'clock last night, partly because I couldn't get to sleep. Overall I think I did alright, but his legs could be a tad thicker as well as more detail on the hands and shading.

Time: 1:25

I created this one of Shifu (Kung Fu Panda) this morning. Could do with more shading, but out of the two I prefer this one the most, I think his Shifu's characterisation is better than in the Sonic one.

These were both created in slightly over than an hour (oops), but I think with practice I can create characters quicker. I should have another character ready for tomorrow, and will try and keep you posted daily.

My Animation Showreel

Looking back at my blog, I've realised that there's very little animation on my blog. I've decided to edit together what I consider the best pieces of animation over the last two years of my university. Enjoy the video, opinions much appreciated. :)
 

Medieval Knights Dramatic Poses

Some extra work I did for Jess' Knight Dragon project. She asked me to create about 3-5 medieval knights in dramatic poses that could be referenced as portraits within her film. She specifically asked me to make reference to the previous knight experiments I made, even the slightly more dragon-esque designs I created in the beginning. 

Due to the open-endedness of what I could use, it was important for me to look at each design again to understand which ones would be better suited for development. I preferably wanted to use ones that could imply the villages origins, while also giving each knight a distinct look.

This is my first design, a knight that's about to swing his double-handed sword. I decided to choose a design that's slightly more traditional knights armour. However, like the original designs, the ridges give the armour a slightly more unique look. I think the pose I've given him helps in showing off his courageous side, almost like he's about to slay one of his enemies. I think that this is my most successful pose of the three, as it clearly identifies the personality of the character, while also giving him a look of dominance and power.

For the second design, I wanted to make it look a bit more ancient in aesthetic, almost like the very first armour that the warriors wore when they first encountered the dragon. I looked at my very first experiments for inspiration, and found that this one represented the look I was going for. The spikes almost give the knight a bit more of a tribal look. His hunched position also gives him a brutish persona, which I think is appropriate in comparison to the 'modern' knight. The axe also amplifies his strength, which is quite important to keep in line his power. This is one of my favourite designs of all of the knights, as he has a very unique look compared to the other knights I've created.

This final character I envisioned as being a leader of the past, a character which all of the warriors still respect after his death. I added the colour red to reflect his power and royalty. The helmet also makes reference to the current knights; I felt that this was important to establish the current knights mutual respect for each other. The spikes also give the knight a slightly more ancient look, to acknowledge him as the king of the past. I gave him a pose that almost looks like he's watching over his kingdom, meaning that even in death he still watches over the people he helped to protect even in death.

I feel that I've chosen the right characters to represent the origins of the knights. However, due to commitments to other projects, I was unable to provide more detail to the characters, and if given the chance again would provide more detail to their armour, such as scratches and shininess.

Overall, I enjoyed working with Jess on this project, and has given me an experience that I think is similar to contemporary animation practice, particularly teamwork. However, I must also acknowledge the limitations that I had with this project, mainly due to commitments to my own projects.

Medieval Knight Designs - Group Project

As part of one of my modules at university, I've been working with a 3rd year, Jessica Mckay, to create medieval knights for her project, Knight Dragon. I was required to create concept art for two knights to be used in the film, and then create turnarounds of the two of them to be eventually created in 3D. As usual, I made numerous designs in Adobe Photoshop to see which ones Jess liked.

My first designs were very dragon-like in nature, and were almost fantasy themed in look. In the story, the knights worship a dragon that resides near to their village, so felt it was important to reflect the knights trust and respect of the dragon they worship within their armour. I created one design, then duplicated it and edited each one with different aesthetics. I liked these designs quite a lot, as they had a unique silhouette to them and looked quite imposing. Unfortunately, they weren't what Jess was looking for, as she was wanting designs that looked slightly more traditional. This meant I had to go back to the drawing board and rethink my designs.

The next few were a lot more traditional in design, but  I wanted to have my own personal flair in the design. Thankfully, I had visited Leeds Armouries Museum a few years ago, and took many photos of the armour there. This acted as my main inspiration for these designs. However, I also wanted to keep the dragon element intact, so I added things like 'scales' to the armour as well. Jess liked these a lot more, and once she chose two, I got to work on the turnarounds so they can be created in 3D.

This first design was designed with many ridges to almost look like scales. I also knew that the colour red is important in establishing power and dominance, so I included it in his cape. He was the first one I designed, and I'm pretty happy with his design. I purposely created the knights in a t shape so that Jess' 3D modeller could easily replicate them in Maya. It was also important for me to avoid making the character too complex in design to make sure the rigging did not take too much time out of the production schedule.

This one is a slightly more bulky version of the first. I think this design helps in maintaining the consistency between the characters, while also giving him a slightly more unique look, particularly in the shoulder padding and the cape.

I am happy with the way these two characters turned out, and would be happy for Jess to use them in her project. I can only hope that the 3D modeller can successfully replicate these designs and in turn enhance them to truly represent my vision of powerful, dominant knights.

Sweet Planet Creation

Here's a new project I'm working on called 'It's A Sweet Life'. I'm currently working on the planet so it can be animated in stop motion. I've attached numerous sweets to a ball using a glue gun. I won't lie, it was a challenge in itself not to eat everything, but through personal will I got them all on their eventually over a week and a half. 

Here's my first test of the planet rotating on its axis, shot at 12fps:

Gromit Unleashed Submission

My design for the Gromit Unleashed project. I've always wanted to get back into creating aboriginal art, and felt that this was the perfect project to do it. Aardman Animations are looking for someone to put their design on 60 Gromit sculptures, and the best ones will be presented around Bristol.

As usual I experimented to see which design was best, and it was a toss up between the hot air balloon and aboriginal designs. I then realised that the hot air balloons would be a common choice by contestants, so I chose the aboriginal design instead.

Here's a link to the website, the deadline is closed but there's lots of interesting news about the project:

www.gromit-unleashed.org.uk

3D Marco

Here's a 3D model of Marco I'm currently working on. I'm proud of it so far, but I just need to iron out some of the bumps in the mesh which I shall do soon.

I'm also int the process of rigging it, which is taking a bit of time. Hopefully I'll have it ready to animate for the project deadline.

Life Drawing No.1

Some Life Drawing work I created over the last month.  The first one was created on brown paper with oil pastels. My aim was to utilise perspective to create a foreshortening between the model and his environment.

9/10/12
42 mins

This next one was initially drawn on brown paper, unfortunately, the dots were not showing within the final image when photographed. As a consequence, I decided to redraw the image in Photoshop. The focus of this image was to represent details of the model rather than the environment. I added a some creases below the model just to express the substance he was sitting on.

2/11/12- 3/11/12

Original Drawing - 25 mins

My Plasticine Gromit

Here's a little Plasticine model I made of Gromit at one of FLIP animation festival's workshops with Jim Parkyn from Aardman. Considering there's no wire framing in the model, I'm pretty impressed with how it turned out. If I had time I'd smooth out the surface a bit more, but due to other projects at uni I think I'll leave it as it is.

Here's a link to FLIP's website:

www.flipfestival.co.uk

Polar Opposite Characters No. 5

Here's my final polar opposite characters, for this project anyway. The aim for these two characters was to sample two different positions of authority. Lionheart is supposed to represent an order of control and order, passed down to him by his commanding officer.

Here we have Typhoon, a character meant to represent pure power. I created him mainly as a plot twist to represent Storm's alter-ego when he gets angry or stressed, which he rarely ever does. He is also different to Lionheart in that he is not bound by limits or restrictions. I particularly liked the cape as it represents authority.

Here's the final design. I'm not quite sure what to make o him to be honest, as he was created due to time limitations. I also think it may limit Storm's emotions and could be out of character for him. I might replace Typhoon with a different character, but for now he's being shelved for possible future use.