Dean Gordon (DG) will be doing the backgrounds on our project so we talked and settled on a similar style to the ones Scott Wills did for samurai jack. I wanted to get a few images for each location and send them to DG so he understood what kind of visuals I had in mind for the project.
For the first location we settled on a red palette. The idea is to arrive on a desolate planet that is destroying itself with molten lava and and acid water.
(Loc1, Red)
In the second location the acid water transforms into fresh river water and the character emerges into a lush green jungle full of plant-life.
(Loc2, Green)
The third location is the only one to have a slow transition so we went with a colour close to green, yellow. We then decided on an Arabian theme which felt like a good way to ease into civilization
(Loc3, Yellow)
For the last location we went with a SciFi city set a night time so we could do a Pink and Blue colour palette to pop out from the rest.
This week I have had a look at Niamh's background drawings and asked that she do more thumbnails as 1 was not enough, then when she had done more that she start drawing up some assets such as different Tree, Mountain and Ground designs. That way it would be a lot quicker to apply them to the thumbnails and change any layout designs and we can start comping in AfterFx a lot sooner. I have also asked that she look at this website as the artist work is good reference showing the process I want her to follow through with. https://www.behance.net/gallery/11163093/Background
As for the animation, I got the main character rig sorted and have made a Flash file for Emma containing the rig and the Animatic with all the settings set up so she can focus on getting the key-framing done right away. After talking to the tutors, Kevin and Tracy, I have also asked that she concentrate on a specific section (The walking section) and have it sent to me as quick as possible as I want to start clean up so that there will be a sample ready for when Catherine comes in the following week.
For this week I have asked Niamh to start thumb nailing out and designing something similar to the references I showed at the pitch .
I decided after some research to do the animation in Adobe Flash with a similar process to cut-out animation, meaning all the body parts of the character would be on separated layer and posed to the keyframes in the rough animation.
So for this week I will be making these assets so that Emma can start posing them out by next week.
After the pitch to the Pieta House member my idea was chosen to go forward with and so I was put in charge and was teamed up with Emma and Niamh. I will be making entries to the blog on the direction and progress of the project.
Week One
For this week I have asked Niamh to go and design some background concepts as she is a background Artist with the hopes of her taking it and setting up the layout comp in AfterFx and Emma will be doing the Animation with me.
I will also be researching the best way to do the Animation. I will be looking at the differences of setting up Rigs in Flash and Toonboom and any alternatives that will help speed up production.
I have also set up a Facebook group for us to communicate as well as setting up a Google drive for us to share files more easily.
This year for the professional animation project we are to work with Pieta House and where asked to create a 30 second Animation that would help describe one of the service or a aspect's of the charity. For me it was the "Bereavement service".
The first thing I did was write out some bullet point as to what the Bereavement service was so that I could better understand it myself.
What is the Pieta House Bereavement service?
-The Pieta House Bereavement service is a Free external Helpline for those who have been effected by the suicide/attempted suicide of someone they know.
-The helpline service is open to anyone 24/7 to call in and request a liaison officer, who will come out to the home of the person/'s who need help and someone to talk to.
-The liaison officers will talk with them about services offered and point them in the direction that best suits their needs such as Therapy, group meetings and other charities.
Video Reference
I decided that I wanted to do an Animated Info Graphic for the 30 second animation that had a story in the background so I began by researching Saul Bass, an artist who did many of the famous title openings in film today such as Vertigo, Casino, Cape Fear, Psycho and many more. The reason I chose to look at these openings was beacuse Saul would come up with a way to illustrate the story you where about to see in a much shorter fashion while still getting the information of the cast across in a visually plaesing way and I thought his methods would work perfectly with what I had in mind. I then came across an hour long video with many of his title openings and found a lot of the 2-D graphic openings he did to be very useful reference...
I also found the title opening in "Catch me if you can" that was inspired by Saul Bass's work to be very helpful too.
Live action reference
After looking at some videos I decided to also take inspiration from the T.V show called "Stranger Things" as I though the parallel of their "Normal" and "The Upside down" worlds to be a good visual in the animation and with this in mind I did a story board. I then showed it to Catherine from Pieta House and she gave me the go ahead with this idea.
Design Reference
Once I had the Story Board I went and got some visual reference, I looked at many different styles and found silhouettes with minimal tone to be best suited for the animation. I even found a stranger Things poster that helped me illustrated my idea perfectly while I was giving the pitch to the Pieta house members.
Ref: Stranger Things (ProMo Poster), D.K Country Returns (ScreenCap Of Game), Limbo (ScreenCap of Game), Digital Painting by artist known as Yao Yao.
Concept
Once I had a fair idea of what I wanted to do I began drawing out some Art based on the minimal tone and silhouette style and while I like the silhouette style for the backgrounds I decide to add some highlights to the character as it made them feel a bit more real and separate from the backgrounds.
