Background tests

Today, I played around a lot trying to search more for the look of my film specifically for the scene in the streets- more like how to execute it technically.  am I going to just digitally draw them? Hand draw them? Or a mixture of both? After today, I found that the best option is painting my backgrounds traditionally first and then brining it into photoshop and tweaking it.  

I have a clear image in my head of how I want my backgrounds to look- no detail, flowy, colors meshing into one another,, vibrant but soothing... but when it actually came to designing and trying to get the look, it was much harder than I thought it was.  After many failed attempts, I finally achieved a look I more or less liked.  Going to keep experimenting!

The shapes and colors are a little too muted here, but I like the contrast of light and dark. 

This was so fun! I literally just bought my painted piece in Photoshop and changed the hue--- thats's about it. And this happened- I really like how it turned out!

Another one of my painted backgrounds painted over slightly digitally- I added a color dodge on the right, and it gave it that nice magical glow.

Same thing but with no color dodge. 

UPDATES on storieeee

This past couple of weeks, I've been working on ironing out some story glitches and trying to shorten my long ass animatic which apparently was running at about 5 minutes.  I managed to cut it down to 4 minutes ish! Below is my updated animatic.  Some things/ shots are still going to change, but for now, I'll post it as is.

Some things that have changed:

I believe I'm going to start of the film with him holding the music box with the center piece in tact.  There is not revealing of the centerpiece in the end.. too complicated

The guitarist in the end will not be his father- again to complicated.  It is going to be a random person he meets and shares a moment with. Short and sweet.

vis dev stuff

which one do you like better? can't decide

Test paintings!

First Experimental Walk Cycle!

Title is totally misleading.  Couldn't post my walk cycle for some reason, but here is some work I did on the music box over the weekend instead :p I decided to do something unique for the centerpiece, someone more abstract and artsy looking, clearly hand made. After looking at a bunch of wire sculptures, I experimented with different shape and curves until I came up with this.  It's supposed to be the guitarist and a boy in case you couldn't tell :)

First pass animatic

Since my story has changed, this is my first animatic since my last one last semester.  I like where it's going, but of course, there are ALOT of things I would change.  The challenge I faced was asking another person to help me storyboard, and although it took some off my hands, I found it harder to be able to direct the film the way I wanted to in the short 2.5 weeks with specific camera angles I had in mind.

Things I would change in next animatic:

His facial expressions.  I didn't really draw his face in my storyboards, but there are some instances where he looks too happy or perplexed, and it doesn't look like he's blind, looks like he can see in front of him.

Actions- more hesitations, exploration, no looking directly at objects, like the trees at the end. It's all about feeling everything and finding his way with his stick.

More close ups? Definitely going to play with more camera angles/ compositions. I feel like some shorts could be more intimate?

Ready for revisions!

WHAT'S UPP??

Damn, so I realize that I haven't updated my blog in FOREVER. I keep another blog on my website that I update more often, so I kind of forgot about this one. Sorry!!

Butt, anyways updates for my thesis!! Everything posted so far has been from last semester (so long ago, but not really again), but thankfully I have been working on it and slowly chipping away at my film during the summer in between classes and an internship.

This summer, I spent a lot of my time refining and revising my story and making it into something I was satisfied with.  I had started with a seed of a story I really liked last semester, but I knew I really need to tie up a lot of loose ends and just make it more cohesive. So after racking my brain for a while, very frustrated at times, I finally knocked out a script that I am more or less satisfied with.

The boy is not a child beggar anymore but is now an orphan trapped in danky closed walls longing to get out and explore the streets.  There is no coin anymore, it has been replaced by a music box! And the guitarist- he is not just anyone random, he is actually the boy's father. With that said, the whole concept of the boy being able to dream through music is still there. And there's a slight "twist" at the end that I won't tell just yet :)

Along with revising my story, I mainly worked on some concept art and character designs this summer.

Exploring orphanage shapes for the building!

Some quick, really messy sketches. I had this idea of the orphanage being on the hill but it was more for illustration purposes than anything.  I cannot imagine a blind boy maneuvering himself down a precarious slope...

I wanted to make the orphanage look rather ominous.

Emile in his bedroom holding the music box. This one I don't like how it turned out because it looked much cooler in my head ha. 

Wondering through the snowy streets ...

Some water color tests on how I would like it to look in the film! I did not paint these but edited them on photoshop.   I would love to get this look though.

The park where they meet. Just concepts! 

Emile! 

The guitarist/ his dad. I'm not crazy for his design at all paticularly... maybe because I just can't draw men. But in my film, you won't see him face anyways so I guess it doesn't really matter?