Feather tests

Been trying out feathers in maya. I made them using paint effects converted to polygons which are attached to an nhair system(or using this tutorial on youtube; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXVRGC15gtQ)

The feathers look dull because I haven't sorted out the specular maps yet.











Here's my testing, the last two I was trying to make the feathers stand on end, did this by keyframing gravity.

Boards for sizzle reel

Just for my own personal organisation, its useful to have all the boards together for quick reference

Sizzle reel animatic

Have created a sizzle reel animatic that contains the centre of my film. I still need to tinker with the timing a bit as the start goes too fast in some areas. It is just under 3 minutes long but I can always cut out the first scene because while it is interesting, it still probably isn't as interesting as the dragon scenes.

I'm thinking that that will be my back up plan if I find that I can't get the full 3 minutes done. This is good because it means I'll have certain scenes as a priority. I'll get the prioritised scenes done and if I still have time then I'll start on the other scenes. If by some miracle I get both done on time then I can start making the rest of the assets for the film(Unlikely)

After finalising the timing of the animatic I'll go on to shot breakdowns and asset lists. I still need to make myself a schedule too, I want to give myself 3 or 4 weeks just for the rendering which means I'll have to move fast

What I'm up to now as well as old work

Currently I'm drawing up orthographics for all the characters for later modelling, I'll be done with that today. Otherwise I'm going to decide what scene's I'm using for my sizzle reel. Once I do that I'm going to make a list of assets I have to make. Once that's done I think I'll start modelling those assets but at the same time I will also start breaking down the rest of the shots, giving them numbers and names and asset lists so that everything will be prepared for next year when I animate the rest of the film.

Here's old work when I was trying to work out the design for phoebe

Early dragon concept drawings

Found some of the early doodles that turned into the dragon character. They were on my media culture notes. Originally the dragon was going to have wings at its head behind it's jawbone.

Thumbnails

These were some of the very first things that I did when working on the 3rd year project. They are mostly only legible to myself as they were purely just to create an animatic to find out how long my project was going to be.

Birds

There are several birds featured in my animation, I'm using a combination of native and exotic birds;

Silhouetting excercises

When working out the character designs for my third year project I started off doing silhouetting exercises;

Above are silhouettes for old lady art critic characters.

These are silhouette concepts for my main character Phoebe

Above are little girl concepts as well as the concept for a father

These are concepts for a mother

3rd year personal project, moodboard

I started my personal project a little while ago so I've got a build up of materials for my personal project. Here's some mood boards;

 These two boards are for the bird/dragon character that I have in my project. The Philippines Eagle was a great inspiration because of how shaggy its feathers are. I've also used the rainbow lorikeet as a colour pallet for the dragon.

 These house trucks above are the inspiration for the exterior of the train carriages

 Above and below are the inspiration for the interior of the train carriages; they are supposed to have plenty of sunlight but be tight and cramped like a ships cabin with equipment hanging from the ceiling. For my inspiration I have scenes from films; Lewellyn Moss's trailer(No country for old men), Roosters room(True Grit), Ariettys house(Arietty), The clubhouse from Up from Poppy hill, Interiors from Whisper of the heart and My neighbor Totoro as well as Moonrise Kingdom. Otherwise I have looked at interiors for housetrucks and conservatories.

 There is a scene that I want taking place in the city, it was pretty easy to find the type of city that I wanted on Google images although I did grab a picture of the city in Belleville Rondeveu

 In my animation there is a scene where Phoebe, the main character goes to a job interview in a gloomy inhospitable building where she walks through progressively larger and larger rooms. The first room I was going to model after the entrance into Inverlochy house(Wellington), and the second or third was going to be similar to the interior of Massey(Wellington) or the old museum building.The atmosphere for the building was going to be hazy(objects in the distance lose definition as if there is fog inside the room) and greenish. Films that I'm getting the colour pallet and lighting from are; an old horror film called Black Sabbath(Where the band got their name from) which has a segment called the drop of water which uses very greenish light. There is also a specific scene in Shutter Island when they enter into ward C that I like. Also Pirates of the Caribbean also has a very greenish hazy light in a bar scene.

 There is a theatre at the end of my animation and I was going to model it after the St James theatre(Wellington)