Creating Spooky Scary episode 2

For a while now I have been trying to motivate myself into animating this idea I had in mind but I found myself constantly struggling trying to get it started. It was a more serious plot about an orphaned cub in which the story would reveal parts of his life as he grew up.

The problem was, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get anything to paper or at least very little.

In the end I decided to drop the idea and return to writing a comical script.

As soon as I made that decision it was if a barricade that was in way got pushed aside. I am now in the middle of writing the script for Spooky Scary Investigation episode two. But I wont scrap the design I had already completed from my first idea, instead I'm going to implement him into Spooky scary episode two.

Below are some of early concepts of creature

This is the final design (with what was going to be another character on his back)

I have also drawn up some character interactions and soon as I finished up writing the script and storyboarding it I'll post another update.

 

Credit Sequence

I haven't posted for a good while and that is because I have come close to finishing my film and I didn't want to reveal any more and spoil film.
What I can show is the end credit sequence which I have been working which involves have case come onto the screen show the credits through each page turn, but along side that I have posters of my characters on some of their other adventures.

I felt this would be the most interesting way of doing the credits that would also fit in with the theme of my film. Below is the video of the credits and still of the posters that I did.

Ultimate Image Development Part 2 13/04/15

Using my final concept as template I fine lined my work in flash and then continued to colour and shade it Photoshop.

Below are some of the screenshots I took during the development process but I have cropped them because I don't want to give away how I colour or layer my work.

Below is my final image (The text isn't part of the poster, it is there to stop anyone from taking it and reposting). As a whole I'm satisfied in how it turned out.

Ultimate Image Development Part 1 08/04/15

For the last few days I've taken a break from my final film in order to work on business projects.
This first of which is my Ultimate Image, which in it's simplest form is a poster which promotes your work as an animator or character designer.

When doing initial research for this project I took a look at the work from past students as well as looked at movie poster that are currently being used to promote movies out in cinema's.

(I would show examples but until I get permission from the artist I won't post there poster just yet)

After looking over my research I knew I wanted to have poster which incorporates the character I have created over the last three years of university. So after drawing a few concept I managed to narrow them down to one idea, then I refined that idea a bit more and played around with the composition to get my final concept (while getting general advice and ideas from colleagues and family).

(Final Concept)

Werewolf Mummy Puppet

From the very beginning I planned to have the ghost in my animation be stop motion puppets and use after effects to merge the stop motion into my 2D animation.

My fellow colleague Saeed Ahmed needed to collaborate for his final brief and seeing how talented he is I leaped at the opportunity to have him make my models.

At this moment he's only revealed the werewolf mummy on his blog which turned out amazing
(I've linked the post below)

http://thelittleworkspace.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/third-year-final-brief-collaboration.html#more

When he has posted the ghost knight I will post a link to that as well

Pre Production Slides

With my pre production handed in today I thought I would upload some of slides which I liked the most and didn't get around to uploading during course of blog updates.

Production Test

Today I started and finished a two second clip of what my final film will look like (although this clip is missing shadow effects and at this moment I've ran out of time to speak and need to get other tasks done first.

Character Outline

Tomorrow is Christmas so everyone is rushing around doing what needs to be done and I'm still trying to get through the new second animatic as well as my dissertation.
I've gotten a fair amount of Concept background done which I'll show when I but them into slides but for now I thought I post the slides detailing the backgrounds for my characters

Characters Expressions

I managed to finish off all the character expression sheets today and tomorrow I plan to work on more background concepts

Protagonists Turn Around

Since my last post I have either been updating my CV and cover letter, drawing some expression sheets or creating some concept backgrounds. But haven't done anything that I'm willing to post yet apart from finishing the turn around of the three main protagonists (which are shown below).

I hope to post some of my backgrounds I have done in the near future and also finish the new animatic I'm doing creating. 

Character Development update

Through out this week I have been working on my characters. Finishing their design, creating a turn and making action/expression sheets. Below are a few turnarounds and expression sheets.

Three Protagonists Complete

Today I completed my third and final protagonists design (which I have shown below). The original back story of the characters where very different from what they are now. Although this doesn't effect the plot at all for the animation I thought it would be interesting to bring up.
Originally the  three characters are unrelated and work for the one character Trixy, But after designing the third character I wanted to change it to that the third character is the father and the other two are his son and daughter.

Again although this don't changed anything for animation I'm creating, it would if this was to go onto be on going series.

(below are two images of my first initial sketch and the final characters I decided to go with)

Protagonists Character Development

This week I have been working developing my three main characters for my current project.
I have finished two out of three but still need to create a turn around and expression sheets but I decided I wanted to leave that till I finished that until all the characters are designed for two reasons:

First, I want to see if they look had staying power, because many of times I have designed a character and thought I liked the way they looked to completed all the expression and action sheets and find out I didn't like the design as much as I thought I did and then I wasted a day or two.

Second reason is I don't want to spend all my time on some of my characters expression sheets to run out of time which results in maybe the world design being cut short.

Maybe this will come back and hit me back of the head or maybe it wont, time will tell.

Below I have posted images of two of my characters (final design... which might change if the staying power doesn't last) and concepts for my third character

Character Trixy's Clothes

For the last day or two I've been developing my characters but to be specific gathering research images and drawing what clothes they should wear.

I've done a few concepts for one of my characters (Trixy) but I still got a few more things to want to try before I going to detail. Below I've posted some of the concepts I have done.