Right. Let's update this thing.

First, I'll show you two videos;

Tim Minchin's 'Pope Song':
[bad language]


Not only do I love Tim Minchin's music and agree with the lyrics, but the actual video itself really caught my eye. The cut-out style is simplistic but effective. I like the use of shaky camera and the flickering film. I've noticed lately how much better things can look with a non-static camera, even to a subtle degree. I'm not sure why it looks nicer, but perhaps it's to do with it seeming more natural as if we are there, as our eyes and heads almost never stay perfectly still. I found this out first hand making that Dead Space animation, it looked quite bland with a static camera, but add some jiggle and BAM! Panic!
The video was made by a man named Fraser Davidson, who, after looking through his other work, has had quite some experience with motion graphics.
I'm still humming that tune in my head.

Dead Space 2 Trailer:


Multiple reasons for this one being here.
Firstly, I'm still excited about winning that competition and that I will actually be in that game.
Secondly, I really like that inkblot/rorschach effect. They've used this before in two promotional images [here] and [here]
They've chosen this because in this sequel, the protagonist Isaac isn't in the best state of mental health after witnessing the massacre on the ship, Ishimura.
In these inkblots, silhouettes of creatures from the first game are seen.

-being the horrendous geek I am, I translated the last bit on unitology writing in the trailer, just after the man talks. It says "reborn as one 614". Hmm, perhaps that's when Dead Space will be coming out? 14th of June next year? Hmm.-

Enough geeking it up, how's all this work stuff going...

just to get this out of the way, the arrowtongue is actually, believe it or not, nearly completely unwrapped. Once this texture is sorted out, it will be ready to rig and animate. with all of the current projects, however, I can't imagine this will be completed in a while.


Right. WHAT?:
We've gotten character designs and a basic storyboard done, although it's going to need a bit of cutting down before we get animating.
We have 2 characters modeled, the policeman and the 'forensics guy'

He still has some textures to sort out, which is in the capable hands of Olly
We've got Hugh working at the environments, which should turn out well.

Word games:
Last week I used something I made up in free periods in upper school. I call it (very imaginatively) the 'three word game'.
You simply get 3 people to give you a word each, one a verb, one an adjective and one a verb. You the draw what comes into your head. The good thing about it is that you aren't in control of the muse, which lets you go to ideas you wouldn't normally go to.



Animal Firm:
In all honesty, I haven't really thought about this one much. I think the WHAT project is taking up most of my brain.
But I haven't got nothing to dictate.
I did have one idea, which as distant from the brief as it is, could be worked into a more fitting situation;
So there are a bunch of octopuses [yes, not octopi] that are posing as a band of clerics and bishops. Claiming as a divine line to an afterlife. The poor victims of this deceit are a colony of crabs. However, when a crab is 'divinely' chosen by the bishops, they believe they are saved. Instead, they simply become the octopuses next meal.
I guess think of it as Shark's tale meets the island.
I'm still trying to think of a way to make it more gangster-like, though.
I chose octopuses because they are intelligent, they are manipulative (a play on their dextrous tentacles) and they can turn bright colours and intricate patterns using their chromatophores, amazing to any lowly, dirty crab scurrying in between the rocks.
As for making a world to fit in with the setting, I really like the idea of organic, living buildings. Perhaps the main cathedral is a giant sea sponge, decorated with bio-luminescent jellyfish and anemones , with the doors 'made' of living crabs, and perhaps this could apply to other furniture.
I like the idea, and I do want to do something underwater, but I'll scrap this idea if I really can't make it work. maybe I'll go watch snatch a few more times; get some ideas.



What do you see?

And we're back.

It was a good holiday with lots of ideas and sketchbook-filling doodles.

More importantly, that Dead Space competition I entered...

I WON!!!
That's right. I was so excited when I received the email.
As the winner I get my animation interpreted into the game and I get my face put onto a NPC character.

Pretty.
Awesome.

So here's my entry (again)


Right, let's move on before I explode my joy all over the inside of the monitor.

We've just been given our two projects for the term, which are as follows...

1: Make an animation using only 5 "whats" OR design and create an animated title sequence for a fly-zombie-esqe show called 'formation'. Initially I had a good flow of ideas for this, lots of bleached colours and selective pallets and pans etc. It all felt pretty original... then I heard everyone elses and they were, give or take a few details, nearly identical. We had all gone for the cliche' approach because that's how the show's concept felt and despite some really helpful words from Derek and Andy on going beyond the envelope, I still couldn't shake the cliche'd feeling.
Our alternative brief is to work in a group and make an animated short based on the word "what", using this word only 5 times throughout the entire piece, relying on visual storytelling and contextual acts and performance to drive the narrative (if there is one).
This is a group project, and I will be working with Hugh and Olly.
I was really surprised how quickly we came up with initial ideas. We started off with a character of Hugh's, a detective [PICTURE SOON] and it all conjugated from there.
We already have all of the characters mostly designed and a storyboard/animatic will be up by monday.

2: A sketchbook jobby with kathy with a twist. It's essentially letting fate decide what we discover and draw, which is a great way to do things, especially if you've got a block.
One game I used to play with a similar effect is what I called the 'three word game'. Basically, the person drawing asks 3 separate people to say a word (one must be a noun, an adjective or a verb). Because the words are from 3 different brains, the vernacular sputters will all (hopefully) be unrelated. This is good to use for comic effect. One of my favourite old ones was "Bee. Pillage. Big" and I ended up drawing a massive viking bee raiding a honeycomb.
So this sketchbook thing sounds like it'll be some fun.

I'm still very excited about the Dead Space thing. I get a photoshoot and everything.

Altman be praised!