BACKGROUND TEST

I was just messing about in photoshop again, trying out stuff for backgrounds for my final project. I was just playing around with styles and stuff, tried doing that offset outline thing, looks a bit dodgy though. It looked really plain too with it just being block fills so I thought I'd try sticking that crap paper texture in the background. I'm not that pleased with it, I think its too boring, maybe it'll be better when my characters are on there.

POSTER

I was chatting to the owner of a small pub me and a few mates visit quite often, and I told him I'd try and help wrangle some more customers. I did a quick poster when I was bored, thought it'd help seen as most people don't seem to know its even there.

GROSS SQUARED

I was just messing about in photoshop with that sketch wot I did.

LINE UP

know I have already posted something similar to this, but this is the final line up for part of my pre-production. I do plan to have a few more characters in my animation, but these are really the three most seen characters that are sort of essential to the main plot.

ACTION

These are just the action poses for one of my characters. I guess they're okay, I was originally going to go for something a little more extreme, but then decided to tone it down a bit.

GROSS

I really like the disgusting close ups you get on Ren and Stimpy, and when I was messing about in my sketch book I thought I'd try one. It's not exactly a close up, like right up on a dribbling nose or something, but I just thought I'd put a little detail onto the weirdo character, maybe I'll try something like that in my film.

PRE-PRODUCTION

Some more pre-production work for uni. Hopefully I'll get to use some of those expressions.
(and that I havn't spelt anything wrong!)

EXPRESSIONS

These are just some expressions for my main character, I'm pretty sure he'll be sticking to the default one most of the way through my film but for the purposes of the expressions sheet I am doing for the pre-production I've done a few different ones. I looked to the Flinstones for some inspiration with the faces, I think thats the kind of simple style I would like to aim for.

TURN AROUND

This is the final turnaround for one of my main characters. Its not perfect but its okay.

WEIRDO TEST

This is just a test, basically an animatic for part of my film. I had the audio and I just thought I'd have a mess around in flash. I must stress that this is nowhere near what my final film will be like, as there is no lip synch, the animation is very limited, and I also intend to have some cut away shots of the two main characters being talked at. I might have to mess about with the audio a bit. I put the subtitles on initially because the speech is a bit hard to understand, but I also think it might provide some comic value; the weirdo being so hard to understand that you need them.
Also, for some reason, I can't stop flash from putting in a bit of lag between the audio and the animation, even if I set it to stream, so in the final exports I might just leave the sound, and put it back in using premiere or something.
(oh, and I must give credit to my mate Dean for the nice voice acting)

DIGITALISED CHARACTERS

These are my characters, still likely to change a bit, drawn in flash. I'm not totally sure about them, but I quite like the colours; quite pastel, apart from the orange skin. I also stuck some wacky fonts on there to show who they are.

ROUGH BRIAN

This is a really rough page of my idea for the design of the second character, Brian, Edwin's housemate. I also sketched a quick left side view of his head, to get his "flesh tunnel" in there, which is partly important to the plot.

EDWIN TURNAROUND

Some time had passed in between the sketch in the last post and this one, and my ideas for the style had changed a bit. I think this is a bit more minimal, and for some reason one day I was messing about with my felt tips and coloured the face in orange, I quite liked it, and now all my characters have orange faces. I don't think I payed much attention when I scanned it in really, which is apparent in the tilt of the page.

MAIN CHARACTER IDEA

This was just a sketch I did for an idea for my main character, still not set on a style. Hopefully I can get across the personality of a character with the way it looks. My intention for the main character is that he looks like a normal guy; maybe he'll come across a bit tired, and his "normal-ness" is juxtaposed with the weird people you have to put up with in daily life, such as the weirdo in my story. I've also done a quick coloured version in my new felt tips just to get the idea of how the colour will work, i.e. without outlines, except to define the stuff like shirt sleeves and other details.

LIFE DRAWING...

I always seem to waste my time on pointless things, like uploading crap things to a blog when maybe I could actually focus on doing some good things, then maybe put them on. But I saw a photo on the internet of someone's face that must have been taken with a fish-eye lens and I thought it was good so I drew it for some reason. It also reminds me every time I flick through my book that I should do some life drawing to back up my other work.

SKETCHY CHARACTERS

These are just a few sketches, trying to come up with ideas for characters for my project. I know these aren't too good, and there are probably elements that look similar to stuff by other people. Think I'm just on my quest for a style, something minimal.

EVEN OLDER WORK

Something even older, which I found on my computer earlier. Think this was maybe the second thing I ever did in terms of animation at uni. It was part of learning the principles, this being my take on "anticipation". Again, it's a bit rubbish, but I think I was pleased with it at the time.
I should probably try and get some of my current work on here when I get round to scanning it in, instead of just clogging it up with things I did 2 years ago.

OLD WORK

I found this in a folder on my computer that I probably haven't checked out for ages. It was for a project at the start of my first year of uni; to make an animated intro for a site using flash. I know its a bit crap, it includes violence, there is no sound and the quality is rubbish, but I was quite proud of it at the time seen as I had only just started trying to use flash.
(and for some weird reason any time I try and upload it, it has a few seconds where the video is just grey, that's not on purpose)

DIGITAL ART GALLERY

I know this isn't the best place to advertise anything, seen as this blog probably has had about 3 views, all from me, but I thought there was no harm in putting this here just in case anybody does happen to see it.
Anyone interested might want to check out Standby...Art, a new digital gallery based in Sunderland. They're calling for artists who may be interested and are offering free limited membership.

MESSING

I'm already a few weeks into my final major project in my last year at uni. I've been trying to scour the internet for sites and blogs to inspire me with a style, and I really like looking at the old Hanna Barbera and Disney backgrounds. My idea is to go for a style with this project and I think I am using the old "limited animations" as my inspiration. Anyway, I was just messing about in photoshop and it evolved into this. (nothing too special, I was just experimenting with shapes and colours.)