Monday 31 January 2011

Thought of You - by Ryan Woodward



This is the contemporary short animated film that myself and Sarah Rettie have been given to research and do a presentation about to the rest of the group. The film is called 'Thought of You' by Ryan Woodward. I'd watched it before and absolutely loved it! It's a very beautiful animation!

Sunday 30 January 2011

Deathly Hallows Animated Sequence

Was browsing the internet today and came across this interesting article about how the first animated sequence in a 'Harry Potter' movie came about:



http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/awards/2011/01/how-the-first-animated-sequence-in-a-harry-potter-movie-came-about.html

There is a rather nice quote at the end of the article by the animation director, Ben Hibon, behind the sequence:
"Animation is the art of smoke and mirrors, lights and shadows, and the team of artists behind this piece are true magicians."

Character Turnaround

Once we had explored the look of the character we had to make up character turnaround model sheets:
And here are construction drawings, these are the basic shapes the character is made up of:

I then explored his range of expressions he might adopt during the animation:

Ta-da! :D

Character design drawings

So here he is! Marlo the Magician! These are drawings i did, with added detail. The character is depressed and sad because he has never really got over the death of his companion and magic show partner - Merrit the Ferret. This is a drawing of him with his pre-show cup o' tea, zapping his slippers into shoes:
Once Marlo puts on his top hat he once again becomes Marlo the Magician and performer.
However he gets a little carried away and goes to introduce Merrit - then realises he is not there anymore
Here are some other drawings, one where his beard gets tied into his bow tie by mistake, the other of him looking a bit depressed


Friday 28 January 2011

Hi there!

Hello! Kinda new to this blogging thing but should get the hang of it soon :p
'Character Animation Performance' is the big project for semester 2!
Here is a general outline of the brief:
"Your group’s character is dressing or undressing when he or she notices something unexpected about his or her appearance or his or her clothing. Alternatively, something unexpected could happen externally to the character, ie, he or she hears a noise, sees a light or object. Whatever the unexpected incident is, it should be relevant in some way to his or her back story. After the incident, the character’s focus has changed – his/her body language has changed, his/her emotional state has changed."

My idea of a magician character, called Marlo, was chosen amongst our group. We have a blog specifically for this project, :) http://marlo-the-magician.blogspot.com/
Here is the description of Marlo from the blog:
"Marlo was a sensation. The world of magic had never seen such a young and talented performer like he! With the help of his sidekick ferret, he would tour the country leaving excitement and wonder in his path. But... that was many years ago. After the death of his only true companion - his ferret- his zeal for magic dwindled, and so did the crowds interest. Small crowds and equally small stages hardly seem enough for this once brilliant magician... but the show must go on."

The next stage was to come up with some designs for the look of the character, here are some initial sketches I did of poses and movements:

More drawings on the way! :D