11 second concepts and ideas

Here are some quick sketches and conceptt designs on how I want my 11 second animation to look, and also a few thumbnails planning out the scenes I want to include :)

11 second ago-go!

One of our main projects for this term is a brief that co-incides with the 11 second club, which is a monthly animation compitition that provides a specific sound clip and people from across the world can submit their own animated interpretation of the script. At the end of each month, the most popular animation is selected as the winner, which provides animators across the country an oppurtunity to get their name and work out there in the business.
So we were given the task to have a go at animating the november competition, which is in fact a shortened clip from the popular film 'planes, trains and automobiles' (though it is advised to put aside any previous knowledge or impression you have of the clip, in order to prevent it affecting the final outcome.) I like the clip that we have been given, because it contains some humour, drama and isn't too 'fixed' so that we can be a bit inventive with it.
So over the past few weeks I have been trying to think of a good idea that would work well with the clip, but I must admit it was harder than it looked. I was thinking about it too much to start with, and my inspiration ran dry for a while so I just put the project to one side and focused on my experimental. But I now have a firm idea what idea I'm going to do, which involves an animal being stolen from a zoo with kind intentions. I really wanted to do my animation hand drawn on my lightbox, but I have left it a bit too late now, so I think I am going to make cut-out puppets and painted backgrounds, scan them into the computor and complete the animating in flash. I have finished all the dope sheets and have done a few character designs, hopefully I'll get cracking on making the cut-out pieces soon!

Sketchbook project: 'Conversations'

Running alongside our experimental project and the 11 second brief, we also have a sketchbook project that focuses on the theme of conversations. We have to analise the conversations that we witness and encouter every day which usually go unnoticed, and take into consideration body language, facial expression, mood, etc. I'm glad that we have a sketchbook project this term because it provides a bit of a break from all the animating we have to do over the next few weeks and also gets me back into the flow of drawing again. Here are the few drawings that I have managed to do so far :)

experimenting has begun!!!

Oops its been a while since my last post again, I really need to stop neglecting my poor blog!
Well I finally made the decision to go ahead with the bead idea for my experimental, because I thought the animation itself could look really dramatic and visually eye catching if I managed to get the timing and colours right. I work in a little bead shop, and my boss was kind enough to lend me loads of beautiful glass beads which are perfect (and extremely heavy to carry home!) I spent all of last weekend getting all the dopesheets needed for my experimental project completed, which took a hell of a lot longer than what I anticipated! But I've managed to finish it, and fingers crossed the animation will be in time with the music! :s
I have actually started animating the beads now using the line testers in the studio, so far it's looking ok, I've got about half way through and I'm already seeing beads in my sleep!! If all goes well, I'm hoping to complete the animating this week.. if I don't throw the beads out of the window in frustration, that is! Here is a still from the animation, just as an idea of what the patterns will look like in the finished thing :)

Emotion change exercise

For this weeks character assignment we had to animate someone who goes through an emotional change (eg from happy to sad etc) but we were adviced to stay away from using facial expressions to help get the message across and to just use body language. At last I have finally kicked myself up the bum and finished it!I must admit I didn't really have a clue how to start, and spent quite a while trying to decide what emotion to depict. In the end, I decided to animate a woman who is upset for some reason, until someone hands her a bunch of flowers and she is flattered and happy again. Although the animation is pretty corny, I'm pretty happy with the movement of the character (although the flowers look terrible when coming onto screen!) Here is the finished animation, enjoy! :)

Wall painting

Since moving into our new house in good ole fally falmouth, I was getting bored with just having photos and posters on my bedroom walls.. so I decided to be creative and actually paint ON the wall, wahaaay! I'm not really sure what it is, I just kind of invented as I painted, but I quite like the illustrative style and I may use this as an idea for the 11 second project if I can fit it around the sound clip :D Hopefully our land lord wont get too angry.. :s

And here's a tomato sauce bottle I drew at the gylly beach cafe whilst guzzling tea and yummy cakes with Sasha and Insa :)

drawings from the summer

Here are a couple of paintings I did over the summer, I used acrylics and fineliner and a wee bit of watercolour! One is a painting from a photo I took whilst on holiday with my friends in Zante, another is a little watercolour piccy of my boyfriend playing computor games, and the other is my own adaptation of the alice character from the AMAZING game 'American McGees Alice,' which, even after about 6 years of playing this game, I still cannot defeat the mighty jabbawocky boss!!.. One day, one day....