theothernine

Another Story Idea and Old Sketches

2011-06-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, I've been out of town so I know this is all coming late. Obviously we really need to have a talk about story, and everyone is going in different directions. I was working on a story in response to the early critique that our story was less magical and didn't show enough of the wish process. I think there are strong aspects to all the stories and we need to put them together better. There are things I really like about Tara's story, but I feel like the theme of our other story more. This story is rough, and I'm not sure if it's the direction we want to go in, but it would showcase more wish stuff.

A kid makes a wish and it shoots into the sky. We see the wish collectors gathering the wishes and sending of through the processing line. A wish creature steps away from the rest and opens a little box. In it is his own wish. He looks on it with affection. A loud noise startles him and he sees the discarded wishes from somewhere higher up getting released and fading away. In fear, he covers up his own wish and tucks away. But in his haste, the wish falls out and he turns around a sees another creature collect it up. He doesn't want his wish to get discarded so he chases after it. The wish travels through the line, with him trying to retrieve it. We can show how wishes are assessed here. Maybe they are weighed for value, inspected like diamonds for purity, etc... He finally catches up with it a grabs it just as he gets to the granter. The granter holds out his hand to look at it, but the creatures see the discard vent and retreats. As he turns he looks at his wish. He finally decides to be brave and give it to the granter. I don't know if it gets granted or not, or what it is yet.

The theme in this story is something like: You never get the chances you don't take. Like I said, I was trying to present more of the fantasy of the world, and use the creature more, because that was the major criticism of the last story.

I was going to do boards and stuff, but I feel a little out of touch with what we want to do with our story, so I think we should have a honest discuss about it today. Here are some old sketches:

Inspiration and concepts: The Secret of Kells.

2011-06-03T00:45:00.000-07:00

This might be a tad early, considering we're still in the midst of figuring out our story, but I thought I could post this now as food for thought. While it's not the style we're aiming for, The Secret of Kells is good example of having a clear, cohesive style and just smart design choices to enhance the visual style.

After seeing The Secret of Kells the first time, I scoured the internets for anything I could find on the movie. Screenshots, promotional images, concepts...you name it. So here is a small taste of the fruits of my ransacking endeavors.

I would strongly suggest watching the director's comments; Tom Moore and two of his colleagues go into quite a bit of detail behind the design choices they made, some of the major influences they pulled from, and also a bit of history behind the film. Really good stuff. (I own the movie so if anyone would like to see it, just ask.)

Also, if you still haven't seen this film, what the hell is wrong with you.

Design notes:

Character concepts and model sheets:

Stills:

Misc:

More stuff...

2011-06-02T15:49:00.001-07:00

Hi peeps! Here are some sketches I did for the Pokem... Wish Granters, and also some for the kids.

As far as the story goes, I'm leaning towards Tara's direction. It's more clear and the elements come together better. For instance, the wish granter doesn't seem to have a purpose on the ballerina version. I think we can expand on that story and make it work great. I really like the idea of the little wish creature being an outcast like the girl and so they suit perfectly for one another. I really want to see some more of the bigger wish granters being pompous and mean to the little one.

Wishgranters

2011-06-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

Just exploring different shapes for the wish-granters. I'll hopefully come up with more for tomorrow!

*These are just explorations of how the species could look, not the character itself :D

stuffs

2011-06-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

So here are some paragraphs in regards to the "C" we were talking about last Friday--how wishes aren't always just granted, sometimes you need to work to to grant them yourself.

1.) An ambitious young girl wishes all her life to become an artist, but she learns--along with an assistant wishgranter-- that dreams and wishes are not without hard work and dedication.

2.) A wishgranter's assistant holds out hope for a young aspiring artist when her wishes fall to the boss' deaf ears. Yet as time goes by, the assistant and the girl discover that wishes always come true to those who work to grant them.

3.) When a young girl's wish to become an artist is denied by the wishgranter, an industrious assistant refuses to give up on her. As the years go by, the wish granter's assistant saves her discarded wishes and waits. When her dream is finally realized through hard work, both the girl and the assistant realize that real dreamers grant their own wishes.

There are just some ideas, I tried to keep them as short as possible while still getting the point across. I do, personally, like the idea of the girl trying to "become" something, rather than just being lonely and needing a friend as I think it would be easier to show visually. I like the idea of her being an artist of sorts, but I am completely up for other ideas as well! Anyway, here are a few quick concepts of the girl I did:

Chicken scratch and wishing star bogs.

2011-06-02T04:05:00.000-07:00

And then Jenn lost her rights to post on the blog.

So I had an inane thought while pondering upon our story: how does one collect wishing stars? I mean, shooting stars are pretty dangerous and I wager that they don't conveniently slow down prior to landing. So how to does one safely gather them in one location to be sort out orderly? And then cranberry bogs came to mind. And it went downhilll from there.

Wish star bogs? The idea was so distracting that I vomited this out.

Oh right, story.

A young child has a dream to become something/someone. The child makes a wish to see this dream come true. The wish travels in the form of a star to a wish granting factory, where decisions are made to which wishes come true and which ones do not. The child's wish is denied. Over the years, the child continues to make his/her wish, never losing hope to have his/her dream come true. Though the child's wish is denied every time when made, the child continues to move forward, determined despite setbacks, learning and honing his/her skills. Finally, the child, now an adult achieves what he/she has always dreamed of, through his/her own perseverance.

Another Story?

2011-05-31T20:13:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone :]

So when we originally decided to go with the "wish on a star" type story, I really liked it because it has a lot of potential such as the "ooooh" factor when it all ties together in the end, the magicalness of it that you could only do with animation, and the cuteness factor...

I like the idea of wishes do come true, which I know isn't necessarily enough of a C to stand on its own... it's really more of a theme. But I think that with the right storytelling, we can integrate a C into that theme. What I've come up with is pretty much a "there's someone for everyone", and "don't judge a book by its cover" kind of message.

I've done a pretty rough animatic of my idea so far, but I've also written a script which contains a couple of things I didn't put in the storyboard yet. Those things are marked by ****. We still have about 40 seconds to work with, and a few parts can probably be made a little faster than what I have timed, so I think there is still room to squeeze in the parts that I didn't include yet.

Also, I thought it might be good to have the creature be ugly or scary (in a cute way to still be appealing)... and maybe for the little girl to have some aspect of her character that makes her unaccepted by other kids... that way her and the creature will compliment each other and it adds to the "don't judge a book by its cover" and the "someone for everyone" part of the story... those things are not included in the board so far though since the designs are so rough, but something to keep in mind...

Anyway, please read / watch and let me know what you think :]

**** A little girl passes by the kitchen doorway of her home as a hushed discussion between her parents takes place. She clutches her teddy bear as they talk about their concern for their daughter not seeming to fit in/being able to make friends for whatever reason. (about 10-12 seconds)

The little girl continues outside and climbs up onto the swinging bench on her front porch. She looks up at the stars. She sees are particularly bright star. She takes a breath and then begins her wish, still hugging her bear.

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight... I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish, I wish tonight." (I have no idea if this poem is copyrighted or not, but we should maybe make up a similar verse if it is)

A shooting star zips through the sky. The camera follows the star as it flies over a mysterious world/land and rains sparkling stars down over it.

close-up on raining sparkles to reveal shining star-shaped lockets.

All the stars fall onto a long conveyor belt that is surrounded by creatures who are all quite large and majestic. The creatures are opening the lockets and sorting them.

One locket tumbles off onto the floor and pops open.

A small creature walks on stage. He is clearly the same species as the rest of the workers, but much smaller and "uglier" (in an appealing way. i.e. the beast) and mistakenly treads on the little star. He turns around and is surprised to see the little locket laying forgotten on the floor. He glances around then peers at the message written there.

"please send me a friend", it says on one side, with a glimmering picture of a little girl on the opposite side.

The little creature appears touched by the message and bends to pick up the little locket. As he reaches, a crowd of other creatures bustles past and knock the locket off-screen.

When the crowd passes, the little creature looks around for the locket and spots it on the other side of the conveyor belt.

He hurries after it, crawling under the belt to the other side of the area.

As the little creature peers out of the other end, a larger creature notices the locket on the floor and picks it up as the little creature watches.

The larger creature brings the star up to his face, opens it and reads it.

*** He laughs then looks down as the little creature tries to get his attention. (2-3 seconds)

*** The little creature gestures to the conveyor belt, asking that the locket be returned to the wish granting line. (2-3 seconds)

*** Seeing the little creature, the larger starts laughing even harder. He tosses the locket back and forth between his friends as the little creature tries to reach for it. Eventually they toss it into the "ungranted"/"Trash"/"no" box and they walk off laughing. (6-7 seconds)

The little creature marches over to the box and looks in to see the little locket laying all alone within. It's difficult for him to reach the locket because he's so short, so he has to pull himself up onto the edge of the box. He wobbles and falls into the box.

The creature shakes his head and picks up the locket, pleased with his success.

Suddenly, a shadow looms over the little creature. He looks up to see a larger creature closing up the box. He doesn't notice the little creature inside as he lifts the box and takes it to the edge of the world/wherever they dump the trash.

The little creature falls out of the box, still holding the little star. He falls faster and faster until he glows like a star and shoots back to earth.

The little girl sees the shooting star from where she was laying on the bench and sits up straight as it crashes into the ground. She leaps up from the chair and rushes down from her porch.

The little creature is laying in a star-shaped crater as the little girl approaches.

The little creature opens his eyes to see a figure standing over him from on the edge of the crater.

The little girl stares down at the creature then sets her teddy bear down for the first time, (symbolizing her transition from being alone.)

The little creature sits up as the little girl comes down towards him. He recognizes her as the little girl from the locket and feels horrible.

As the little girl comes to stand in front of him, the little creature looks down sadly, feeling ashamed of his looks and small stature. He offers the little locket back to her and shakes his head apologetically.

The little girl sees the locket and smiles suddenly. She wraps her arms around the little creature joyfully, thankful to have her wish granted.

Here are a few concepts I did as well.. but like I said, I think it might be more meaningful if we changed the design of the creature to something less sugary.

New Story, Roles, and Links!

2011-05-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

Some art from Tangled and Brittany Lee for inspiration.

NEW STORY:

There's is a little girl who wants to be a __________. But she sucks at it. She makes a wish.

The wish is retrieved by the wish creature, but the wishmaster dude says no. Instead of tossing it in the No bin, it decides to save the twinkling little wish.

We see the girl at different phases of her life, trying to get better at ________. She still wishes whenever she can for her dream to come true. The wishmaster keeps saying no, and the little creature keeps hoarding all of the ungranted wishes instead of throwing them away.

In the end, we see that the girl has become successful. The wishes are still stockpiled in the sky and at her moment of victory, the creature pushes them down and they rain down upon her.

OTHER NOTES:

So everyone can modify the story as they wish, but some things Pamela said to keep in mind are 1) Contain the story to one single escalating event. We want to make sure it is just about that one thing. 2) It cannot be more than 2 mins.

Right now our "C" is that sometimes you have to make your wishes come true on your own,

JOBS (as of now)

Main Focus Other Tasks

Noel*- Concept art, matte painting animation, lighting

Tara- Character artist modeling, texturing

Jenn* - Environment, texture character modeling, concept artist

Jay*- Environment, Lighting props, environment modeling

Marcos- Character modeling post-production

Julian- Animation character design

Campion- Animation post-production

Thomas*- Animation everything but unwrap/texturing

Elle- Animation, story props, whatever else

This is what I have down right now. if I got anything wrong, just let me know. I have *s by people who mentioned they might not be taking proj400 in the fall because of internships. Sadly, that's most of our environment people, so we may have to work something out there.

LINKS:

I forwarded these links from Pamela earlier, but I figured I would post them all here too:

"Nuri" 2:11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7WOwuDK6RE&feature=related

"Girl Talks to Moon" 1:38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCZaAcgL0hk&feature=related

"The Song of the Sea trailer" :55 (for style)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2aDh05nqMI&feature=related

"Le Lac gele" 1:11 (for style)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVl7a0sZ21k&feature=relmfu

"Heavenly Appeals" 2:22 (for simplicity of story)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYq_35xJtFY&feature=related

Oktapodi 2:12 (for a complex action sequence with a simple story)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badHUNl2HXU&feature=related

*NEW* Dear Sophie (for time lapse)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4vkVHijdQk

"I wish I could be a ballerina." "NO!"

2011-05-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

So I love our story, but I want her to be a ballerina. An artist seems too typical and generic coming from a bunch of artists. But anyways heres an idea for what I was thinkin' for the girl (even though i suck at drawing) and the big wish granter dude. I imagine him pointing with his thing on his head to the not granted pile.

Ariana (idk random name) wants to be a ballerina in the nutcracker. She wishes and wishes for it, but through perseverance and hard work, she reaches her goal on her own.

Style!

2011-05-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

This is from a short Pixar has in production. I really like the style. Anyone have any concept sketches or thoughts on style?

Headless Productions

2011-05-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to the studio that did the art direction for Nocturna.

http://headlessproductions.blogspot.com/

Story!

2011-04-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

It's still really rough, but I wanted to put up here since it's been awhile since we talked about it.

HOW WISHES COME TRUE

The story starts at night with a kid in some situation (lonely or something) when they look to the sky and see a shooting star. They make a wish.

This wish shoots to the sky and and latches onto the star. As the star finishes it's journey it is collected by some creature. The wish goes to the place where wishes are processed by a wishmaster (or grantfather). There are also creatures that clean up the discarded wishes that are not going to be granted.

One of the creatures sees the child's wish and empathizes with their situation. Maybe the creature is lonely too. It decides to try to get the wish granted.

The wishmaster takes the wishes to the star where they get granted, and the little creature decides to venture there too. But the journey get hard. He doesn't make it, but he finds out that the child has managed to make the wish come true on their own.

Theme?

I was thinking about the theme of the story, since that's what we have had trouble with. For me, the core idea is that some wishes aren't meant to be granted. Some things you have to work for to achieve. Now that I have some time I want to refine some of the plot points, but that's the gist of it.

I put up some images from Nocturna, which was one of my major sources of inspiration and I really love the art style. Also, some idea sketches about the little wish creature. I wrote some notes on him. I think he would be really fun to animate.

Francesco Giroldini

2011-04-15T20:54:00.001-07:00

http://giro3d.blogspot.com/

After the Rain

2011-04-11T22:09:00.001-07:00

Old Character Sketches

2011-04-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

These aren't really character designs, they were just some sketches to explore character ideas I did awhile ago for the old story. Just wanted to start a little more brainstorming.

Cool stuff we might need to learn!

2011-03-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Cool stretchy stuff in Maya. For beautiful skinning and deformation.

And 3D Coat. For Sculpting and topology.

Campion tested this program out and said its really easy to pick up and he went from opening the program for the first time to modeling to retopologizing and unwrapping in a few hours.

This program is volex sculpting (volumetric pixels), so no worries about polys stretching and poly count. It also has an auto re-topology with user defined guides and auto unwraps. You can also paint textures on the model in it and light it.

Inspiration!

2011-03-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

Just in case people are starting to feel a little spent. These are some pieces by Skottie Young, a Marvel comic artist who is working on a retelling of the Wizard of Oz comic series.

His blog is http://www.skottieyoung.com/

New take on story

2011-02-18T19:45:00.000-08:00

Please leave comments about ideas for the beats

Story Beats & Preliminary "C"

Girl and Boy isolated

Interactions

· Close Minded

· Provoke

· Retaliation

Chase

· Blending Imaginary worlds

· Face off

· Boy and Girl pulling on the boy’s animal

Crisis

· Animal rips in two

o Back to Reality

· Fix Animal

The World expands when you open up to friendship

Working on the Story

2011-02-05T00:12:00.000-08:00

Here is where we are at with the story:

Characters:
Boy and pirate Monkey
Girl and princess Bunny

----
A
Whose story is it?
Boy

B
How to get from A-C?
Boy's imagination is interrupted
Monkey steals Bunny's crown with hook
Girl is dragged into Boy's world
Chase through the "playground"
Boy drops Monkey
Girl grabs Crown, Boy grabs Monkey
Pull back and forth
Monkey's arm rips off
Boy is sad
Girl uses Bunny's ribbon to tie Monkey's arm back on

C
Why are we telling the story?
Its an important message on how two unlikely friends compromise and learn to be friends and play along.
Whats the point?What are we trying to say?
To accept others for their differences, friendship brings great joy
What does the boy want?
Adventure, Control, Treasure
How do we want the audience feel?
"Awwww, how sweet. So cute! Let's watch it again!"
----

Beats to change in and out of the imaginary world:

Open with epic imaginary ocean scene
Girl interrupts imagination to bring back to reality
Chase sequence begins and they run off into their imaginary world
Monkey's arm rips, bringing them back to reality
They walk off together in their imaginary world

More kids and stuff

2011-01-12T15:53:00.001-08:00

I figured I would post something since it's been awhile. These were some brainstorming sketches I was doing for projects, but most of the ideas I thought up for these characters were too involved for 20 secs of animation.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

Kids in winter jackets

2010-12-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

These are some of the development sketches I did for story board class. Inspiration!

just ran across this

2010-11-26T12:19:00.000-08:00

found this while i was browsing some blogs, a good story starter...

Baker

2010-11-22T21:50:00.000-08:00

A fun little set of characters

Mr. Erik D. Martin

2010-11-21T15:04:00.001-08:00

Here's the link to his blog :)
http://caffeineartist.blogspot.com/

2010-11-21T14:11:00.001-08:00

This was on the Paperwalker site. Wings For Roger video is pretty cute and the design is pretty fun.

Story Starters..

2010-11-21T13:26:00.001-08:00

WTF is he poking!?!?!?

Another idea I had for a story starter was...Brothers, Video Games, Jealousy

More Styles

2010-11-20T19:39:00.001-08:00

Here a few styles of drawing I found intriguing.

http://www.domitille-collardey.com/rubriquedynamique/?p=339

http://www.hellociaran.com/swim.html

Free to Fly

2010-11-19T22:39:00.000-08:00

I just saw this (longish) short on deviantart. The animation is not that impressive, but the story is kind of interesting, I think. I mostly like the concept of the kids imagining their toys are alive and also the topic of dealing with peer pressure and growing up is a fair conflict for a kid, I think. Anyway, see what you think :]

In the spirit of the fall season and Harry Potter...

2010-11-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

Story Starter?

2010-11-18T22:38:00.000-08:00

My sketch for the week :]

Summer Sketches

2010-11-17T16:30:00.001-08:00

Here are some character designs I did over the summer. Thought I would post them for inspiration :)

Out of Sight.

2010-11-16T20:40:00.000-08:00

I just found/saw this little gem. Wonderfully simple story and beautiful animation. Enjoy!

Virginie Izoulet

2010-11-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

I came across this dude's blog a few days ago. It's kind of a fun style.

http://viiiiz.blogspot.com/

Cool texture

2010-11-04T01:17:00.000-07:00

Hey guys :]

Just thought I'd share something I found over on Zbrush Central. I think it's a really interesting style... using zbrush to do some normal mapping, we could even make the characters look like hand-made which might be an interesting effect. Kinda like clay-mation :D It would certainly be unique, I think! Anyway, just thought I'd post it cause I think it's pretty cool whether we use it or not :]

Training!

2010-11-03T01:25:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

Aside from making the story, in the meantime we should consider watching some videos online (tutorials) to learn how to rig. This is a demo of a guy's rig:

This one is pretty cool too!:

Let's make sure to be ready for next year and do something really good! So if you guys have any tutorial out there let everyone know so we can learn from people.

Also it doesn't have to be all rigging...Rendering, lights, modeling and other tutorials would be useful. Let's get ready to get better before the big show!

2010-10-31T15:37:00.000-07:00

This is another way of mixing 2d and 3d. The 3d is the "real world" and the 2d is the "story world". Just posting other examples of mixing these nicely!

Love this

2010-10-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know if y'all have seen this. Its kinda creepy but cute. And I really like the character design and the look of it.

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Finnish Music Video

2010-10-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

Here's the Finnish Music Video I told you about. Enjoy!