hello

Its been absolutely ages since ive been on here, so i apologise!, its been busy, what with course work, and money earning work! anyway, ill slowly start to update this thing, starting with these!! jus a few research images and what not, :)

Basically just a few images ive gathered, mostly of wolves and classic images of the red riding hood story. its really interesting that all of them are completely different, it makes me want to do something different so ive been looking into other things... more to come. :)

Awesome picture

Im getting a bit obsessed with looking at wolves now, this picture is awesome!

3rd year research

Hello Folks.

Well its been most interesting researching this red riding hood lark, so many variations, its all quite exciting!
im still in love with the charles perrault version (the grusome one were the wolf eats everyone and wins haha) but i recently came across a version written by a chinese auther and illustration called Ed Young. This version is very different to the one we all know,

Story Summary
This is a Chinese Red Riding Hood story of three young children whose mother goes off to visit their grandmother. That night, a wolf comes to the door, pretending to be their grandmother (or "Po Po"). The eldest child, Shang, asks why "she" comes so late and why her voice is so low, and the wolf finds excuses. When the two youngest children let the wolf in, he immediately blows out the candles so that the children cannot see him. He pretends to be sleepy, so they all go to bed. The children feel his tail, and he says it is hemp strings to weave them a basket. Finally, Shang lights the candle, and even though the wolf immediately blows it out, she sees his face. She gets her brother and sister out of the house by saying that they are going to pick gingko nuts for their grandmother, because they will make "her" live forever. The children climb to the top of the tree, and Shang tells her siblings that the "Po Po" in the house is really a wolf. They devise a plan to trick the wolf, and successfully kill it before their mother gets home.

Its not the story im really looking at here, its his illustrations, theyre very beautiful and set the mood wonderfully. heres a few






I love love love these drawings, they reminded a bit of my concept work, purely because of the textures he's used. and the wolf looks a bit similer, This is the style Im hoping to get across in my animation, i hope it works! :)

In reply to charlotte post..

WELL twilight.

I feel like a little girl swooning over someone so much,
The book is amazing. i cant wait to read the others, to link this into this 'animation blog' the new film looks really good, a lot more CGI and effects than the first one, im hoping they dont look ropey cos i hate crappy CGI

xxxx



since when were vampires so damn desirable!

3rd year project shizz.

WELL! starting our 3rd year project already is mighty scarey, BUT i am really looking forward to it, im currently working on my own, which I dont mind but Im worried that im not going to be able to finish my work, as I want to do something i havnt really done before,
I want to aniamte little red riding hood, but in a way so we hate little red and like the wolf, I want the audience to feel sorry for him, and to not actually care when the girl gets eaten. BWHAHAHAHAHAHA sorry but im fed up of villians always losing, so yeh, he wins in my version!
I plan on doing all this by hand, (lightbox) I know its going to take huge amounts of effort and time but Im willing to do it because I know the outcome will be worth it :) Hopefully ill be able to drag some second years into helping me with sound and colouring my drawings! any way heres some concept work for you to get your teeth into. (no pun intended...)

Kathys Final Pieces

After scanning the drawings I did i edited them in photoshop,I really enjoy using photoshop to colour my work as i love the effects you can use, :)




This is one of my favourite things ive done, i really like how the flowers look after i added colour,and the great thing about photo shop is that you dont have to re-draw everything you can clone the images then change the size and colour to make different looking flowers. :)



Thi image was a little different as i only scanned in the ciggerette and the people, the background and the sky were all drawn by me in photoshop, i like this image because i really like the compistion ive used.

Kathys Drawing project

Kathy set us a project were we had to put some people in either an enviroment that was much bigger than them, or one that was much smaller than them, i choose to do an enviroment that was a lot bigger.

heres some concept work.

doodlets

Just a few doodles ive done, I love drawing animals, :)

Talking dog continued.

The Talking Dog production is finally finished. here a few more bits and pieces.mostly of concept work.

a Lovely rancid ratty.
To create the walk cycle, well, scurrying cycle, i jus flipped the image and made it into a symbol which made animating it pretty ok.

Tunnel shot, before photoshop...



And After....

Chunky Ladies.

Platform concept.

Rattys again.

Story boards.

Overall the project went really well, although we did finish two days after the deadline.. we were one of the few teams who did complete it, I am very pleased with it,

I also did the credits and I gathered and helped produce the soundtrack for it, although it was Alex who tweaked it to its perfection!

Overall I was pleased with the effort we all put in to acheive something I am very proud of.

talking dog

SOOOOO the talking dog project, the big BBC thing we're all doing, its all getting a bit tense in the studio again, Im working with Ceri and Alex and after a slow start due to random things (including a massive easter break) we're getting on track.
We've each taken bits of the animation to do, and I feel very happy because i get to animate the man falling out of a train and getting eaten by rats =)

heres afew doodles, and concept work etc.
I HATE HOW THEY DO THE PRODUCTION MEETINGS HERE.






brb

editing shizz

Yeh so Ive finally done my mashup, i choose to do edward scissor hands and the terminator to make a cheesy sci-fi horror movie. and its alright, i would of liked extra time to of really worked hard at it, and tweek a few things like editing the sound. I tried to export it but it would only let me use soundbooth not audition so i gave up.

I also managed to complete our editing task of changing the sky on a moving image, I was so worried about this project as I have never done any of it before, I was so stressed about it I burst into tears on the bus the day we got set it... hmmm. Just thought it was highly unfair that considoring the amount of work we've already got on, why should we be set a project that we have absolutely no idea of how to even begin? luckily Pete Felstead was on hand and he found us a wicked tutorial on sky replacement, I actually whizzed through it which was nice and I guess its once less thing on my mind, Ill post it on here when i can be bothered.

The talking dog project is going ok, Alex Ceri and I have taken on a character each, Ive got the fat woman, I was researching this cos if you type in 'Fat women' on google you dont get much so i went one step further and typed in Feeders... you know.. those weird men that feed women until they get obese and cant move and photograph them.... GAG. note to self. stop looking at rancid websites. even if its for research!

bbc project research,

dont you just love a crowded train? lol..

New Stuff. Lots of sniping.

Soooo. we've been given a new load of work to do, a lot of it readin in prep for our dissertation next year, and a project for the bbc which seems quite fun.

The reading and writing task sucks, to be honest, I dont mind doing it i just dont like how we've been given lots of stuff all at the same time, and i think it would of been more beneficial if we had started this in january and been given one reading/writing task every two weeks or so, :) anyways ive done the first one and I found the text we had to read actually quite interesting. especially. From Mouse to Mermaid. So much so ive asked my dad to buy me a copy so I can do one of the thousand word tasks on 2 more of the essays in it. I love arguments, I dont mean with friends and stuff I just love a good discussion especially when it envolves disney and how sexist/rasict/nasty they actually can be.

The bbc task seems quite fun, we've been given some scripts for a pilot show and we had to choose groups, my group is Ceri Ralph and Alex (i think) Im happy to be working with Ceri again as i feel we get on well and respect each others ideas. This task is going to be fun but with the time we have its going to be tough thats bbc quality! either way it will be a learning experience.

SNIPEFEST 827. yeh no jokes. the studio has turned into a war zone, everyone sniping at each other over deadlines and shizz. to be honest im letting it all blow over my head, yeh we've got lots on, but we all have to deal with it, we wouldnt of been set all this stuff to do if it was impossible. which it isnt. Ive made a mini schedule which i hope to stick to as my time keeping is and im admitting it... awful. I left the first reading task until 5 days before it was due in... maan. i need to change my habits, but i figure ive always been ok before so why ont i be ok this year? :)

over and out

My favourite Mr.Firth

David Firth has been off my radar for quite a while and I recently checked out his website (http://www.fat-pie.com/) to see whats been going on in his crazy world. ANYWAY it seems Mr.Firth has decided that since his internet succsess of salad fingers and spoilsbury toast boy has calmed down quite a lot hes taken on a rather massive project..

Hes decided to make a feature length film on his own under the working title of 'The Meadow Man' hes even said himself that it could take him years as he's doing it soley on his own, (brave brave man..)

I am so excited about seeing what Mr.Firth has conjured up in his bizarre mind, but in the mean time i guess ill have to watch his old stuff, which by the way, i never grow tired of :) he does have a more recent short animation called Dog Of Man which you should all check out.


http://www.fat-pie.com/dogofman.htm

it is as you can expect, incredibly strange, but delightfully dark all the same :)

chow xx

Movies Ive watched recently...

HIII so yeh my laptop died which im fecked off about so ive been borrowing Hollys dvd player and telly to kill time... ive been going through my studio ghibli collection and have watched these in the past week.... Howls moving castle, My neighbour totoro, Pom poko, Only yesterday, Kikis delivery service, Princess monoke, Grave of fireflies, Laputa:castle in the sky, Porco rosso, The cat returns, an spirited away,

I LOVE STUDIO GHIBLI. i love howls moving castle but thats only cos im an old romantic.. :) other faves include Pompoko which probely is one of the most random animation ive seen... its about a group of raccoons who can morph into anything they want and they start a vendetta on humans... hmm. one i really reccommend is kikis delivery service cos its such a sweet movie. but theyre all good, :) yeeeeh

Oh and i managed to find my Ghost in the shell:2 dvd which im chuffed about, I love just watching it for the detail in the background, along with Steam Boy and Metropolis, Background design is something im still very interested in pursuing and watching movies with beautiful backgrounds makes me want to do it!!

im gunna stop blabbing now cos this post makes no sense. :)

storyboarding and lipsyncing

HELLO! man its been ages... anyway the two projects.. storyboarding, I loved this project, i liked how we could finally choose what we wanted to storyboard rather than being given something to storyboard. At first I choose to do a song by sigor ros, theyre an icelandic band who sing songs with no real words meaning that the listner can interpret them how they wish, i drew out loads of thumbnails dipicting a love story but at the last minute i changed my mind as im really not that good at drawing the human figure, i would of stuck with it if we had had more time but instead i choose to do a song by blur called coffee and tv, I used a robot as my main character and im really pleased with how its come out :), i really really enjoyed this project and its definately given me a clearer view on what i want to do,
Lipsync: When we got set this project i was absolutely dreding it, not only had i not used flash for months but im crap at lipsyncing, anyway i gave it whirl and it came out ok... flash came back to me pretty quick which was good, but i had come up with an elaborate storyboard which i had to severly cut down because it wasnt really the aim of the project, I think the end result is ok, it could be better but i felt a little bit rushed, i was going to do the maya character instead but i didnt like hopw you couldnt really customised the character and make it your own. all in all i think these projects went ok, i loved the storyboarding and its something i would like to continue with in my career after uni :)