NOTE: with the cup and pencil animation I found that only having one frame showing the impact is two quick. I took the lesson of the bouncing ball and drew a second frame of the objects just as they impacted the floor.
When given the topic over the summer I decided to do a folk tale that didn't come from one specific culture. Instead I thought that a story from the broader "European" culture which multiple countries shared. This was when I remembered being told the story of Stone soup during primary school. After research I discovered that most European nations have their own version of the tale, one that interested me was the French version, where a soldier from the napoleonic wars uses the stone soup trick to feed himself.
I then took upon the task of researching all about the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars. From this I got the general timeline of events alongside what the common man went through during the 3 decades of turbulent French history.
For the overview I had our Protagonist play the part of a French light infantry soldier who spent his youth amist the Vendee counter uprising, where in order to survive he had to become resourceful and quick witted. After joining the Grande Armee and taking part in the great retreat from Moscow he got lost along the way. He goes through Europe on his way home to France.
The story would start as The Soldier makes his way through what is today Germany. He finds an old garrison town among either the Elbe or the Rhine (he doesn't really know anymore) that's entirely empy. After the first plea for kindness he uses his scally French ways of getting the town to cough up their food and makes a big pot of stone soup where everyone find out the power of co-operation.
As it centres along the continent with French and German protagonists I wanted to follow the style of Albert Uderzo and his work on the Asterix Comics. I thought this would help further illustrate the "europeanness" of the idea.
Of course I came to realise that this story would go on longer than a minute. So at about 2 weeks till the presentation I quickly decided to do another idea I had, based on Norse mythology (specifically Odin and the wild hunt). From the research I gathered from the library I discovered that Odin would go on a wild hunt across the world, and if you left his 8 legged horse sleipnir some food and drink he would return in kindness sweets for your children (the Anglo Saxon equivalent would become the forefathers to father Christmas).
I did some oil paints to see what colours I thought would be essential. I went with the second one as it helped reflect the coldness of Scandinavia during yuletide.
The video: this was before I knew much about photoshop so please forgive the shoddy quality
With the cartoon characters we had to design I thought of doing a middle aged trade unionist and a young manager. I remember watching the news on the deliveroo driver strikes in london and thought about doing characters around those issues or workers rights and entrepreneurialism.
When watching the demonstration of the driver I noticed that the boss who tried to get them back to work was this young bloke who looked like one of those posh youngsters wearing a rugby shirt and gelled back hair. I based the manager character around this and people like Mark Zuckerberg.
He's one of these spoilt youngsters with a trust fund and never worked a day in his life. He has the "Sod them I'm alright Jack" mentality. When his behaviour finally earns him a striking workforce he can't fathom the idea that he was at fault and continues the belief that it's just the workers being entitled. I feel that these points are shown through his design. His snobbishness is shown through his gigantic nose and flashy hair. He constantly has his head turned up and a line of action that makes his belly point forward, making looking at something below him (physically) hard.
The Trade unionist character I had more sympathy for. When designing him I based him around my granddad; a middle aged union man whose worked his whole life.
Friday, 6 May 2016
Narrative draft:
Final version:
My work on the project:
Tuesday, 26 April 2016
All videos for work.
I just realised that videos on slideshare can't play; my bad.
To remedy this I'll be posting all the videos from this year's work. Animation Principles
Walk 1.
Here it is, the playblast of the full film because the renderer decided not to work. i'm to blame really for not doing it sooner.
Since I couldn't make the skin boil like roobarb and custard I could at least make the animation like roobarb and custard.
I wanted to make the animation jerk around like they were all keys. It reminds me of the children's TV shows the BBC did on the financially cheap (though they had a lot of heart poured into them) that were endearing.
For the third time, I'll see if I can render them over the summer.
Overall this course has been a roller coaster of emotions, mostly between me and Maya crashing or glitching out. However at the end of it I have a new found respect for those who chose 3d as their careers and I will continue to hone my skills.
