My world

Project

2009-10-08T19:15:00.002+01:00

After a year of tiresome commercial projects and very un-inspiring workloads my next animation is in the making and I aim to make it worth the wait. I have been writing a few stories when I have had the time to and I now have a story in the making. The story involves two characters, a boy Macca and a goose Pete. They find a key which will unlock a very exciting adventure.

For the next few weeks I will be working on stills, character sketches and working on the story. Would love to hear peoples feedback and if anybody is interested on working on this project with me!

Act 04

2008-05-20T22:40:00.001+01:00

Act 03

2008-05-17T23:28:00.000+01:00

Act 02

2008-05-16T16:52:00.000+01:00

Act 01

2008-05-12T06:08:00.000+01:00

The past few days have i have been putting together some of the scenes for my final animation. The character model is causing a bit of a problem as expected and the expressions don't really come off smooth. But at this stage it's probably too late to make adjustments to my characters and will concentrate on finishing the animation short. Will recap on my final Aim over the next couple of days.

Trojectories Reference Video

2008-05-08T23:55:00.000+01:00

Old Man and New Man

2008-05-07T11:33:00.000+01:00

Final Characters

2008-05-07T11:22:00.001+01:00

Coming towards the end of the project now and some technical issues have slowed down the animation side of things. The Previous Old Man Character has now been remade because of problems with rigging. My aim for the next week is to have a short animation in rough. Possibly the week after will have some full renders or possibly some high res stills.

NGA

2008-05-01T17:14:00.000+01:00

his animation follows after kelvin soh eng zhe in group chain 01. My topic was how messages can be distorted through different methods of communication.

2008-04-28T00:05:00.001+01:00

Just a short render to get an idea of how i would like the first scene to look

Opening Scene Test Render

2008-04-28T00:05:00.000+01:00

Video Reference

2008-04-27T20:09:00.000+01:00

Creating the Train

2008-04-25T03:01:00.000+01:00

Today I have been building the train which will feature in my short. It based on the Hudson 4-6-4 because i liked it's unconventional look which I think will fit in well with the world of my characters. I used this image for reference.

Photo Reference

2008-04-24T14:38:00.000+01:00

More Illustrations

2008-04-23T21:04:00.000+01:00

Old Man Expressions and Illustrations

2008-04-21T00:17:00.000+01:00

Just been adding some features to the old man character. His face and body are quite jagged but I think thats the kind of style I had in mind for him. Which works out better for my poor computer - come on you can make it through!!!

Old Man Walking

2008-04-19T00:40:00.000+01:00

Both of my characters are now fully rigged so now all it's down to is the animation which should commence sometime after next week. For the time being I will be concentrating on the sets, character tests and film reference.

Walking Test 02

2008-04-18T15:31:00.000+01:00

This is another walking test I made last night. Will still like to maybe add a bit more personality to the character.

Recap on New Aim

2008-04-18T00:56:00.000+01:00

I aim to create a short animation that will focus on the engagement of two characters that contrast (a young boy and an old man). Instead of concentrating on the journey of the characters on the train I have turned my attention to their differences. The new theme for this project is conflict. I have also taking into consideration the characters common goals i.e. they both want to have a peaceful journey - this is again where they differ and the conflict takes place. This can be seen in most films and animation e.g. tom and jerry.

With this project I will also be concentrating on the character development, movement and expressions. This will be a big learning curve technically and will help me to expand my knowledge of 3D and animation principles.

Animation tests and Animatic

2008-04-15T10:33:00.000+01:00

This week I have been mainly focusing on my storyboarding, animatic and animation tests. Some of my key areas of improvement discussed in last weeks lesson have been improved also i.e. character movement and animatic. For next week I aim to have gathered actors and started filming scenes, further my animation tests, create sets and think about the sound track.

Why Mr. Bean of course

2008-04-12T00:53:00.000+01:00

Some Improvements

2008-04-08T02:30:00.000+01:00

Now in week 6 and the panicking is starting to commence. The past week or so I have been concentrating on one of my main characters. I have been studying how to rig a character correctly and I have come across some very annoying problems as expected. Nothing every seems to go right?hmmm. On the other hand I have come nearer to a conclusion to the story which has changed quite radically but should benifit me with the work load. The story focuses on two characters that are very different in personality, one an old man and a young boy. The main theme for my aim has now changed to conflicting characters (previously was storytelling). The reason for the change is just partly because the other idea was probably more suited for a short film rather than an animation. It could probably have worked if it was a music video. Here are some of my sketches and mood boards.

Expressions

Moodboards

For next week I aim to have a finalised storyboard and animatic. Would also like to include some more testers.

The past few days

2008-03-26T00:37:00.000Z

Well the past few days I must say have been drag. One of my aims for my final major is to greater knowledge my skills of 3D max particularly character animation, rigging, modeling and skinning. It's a very tedious process. Especially when your still trying to learn. However, i feel confident that when the character has been created really let fly on my other skills within max. I just can't wait to get to the story and realise whats actually going on! It's very frustrating at this point to not know what is actually going to happen with my characters. It's all about patience I guess. You need a lot of that I tell you.

Any way these are some shots of the work I've produced in the past 3-4 days.

REFERENCE IMAGES

FRONT RIGHT PERSPECTIVE

MOUTH AND TEETH CLOTHING SKELETON

In the next couple of days I will be creating character expressions and hopefully getting some animation experiments underway! =)

My Aim

2008-03-20T14:04:00.000Z

My Aim

I aim to create a short animation that will focus on the engagement of two characters that contrast (a young boy and an old man). The theme for the project is story telling. The audience will follow the animation through a series of stories that are told by one of the main characters by using either voice over techniques to avoid problems such as lip sync or no dialog with music e.g father and daughter (2005) Michael Dudok De wit. The animation will also deal with the sub-theme of contrasting characters in confined spaces e.g. Pitbull http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A9451839 which could also allow me to inject comedy.

I have chosen this aim because i feel i need to develop my character and narrative skills. This will also demonstrate existing skills such as composition, illustration and landscape. For my target audience I will be focusing on an older audience mature teenagers --> adults.

I will record my development by keeping an RVJ and personal blog,
http://waynemccauslin.blogspot.com/

Principles

Exaggeration

Narrative / Storytelling - make sure my work is well received

Characterisation

Inspiration

Sean Tan - The Arrival (Storytelling without word)

Shaun Tan - The lost thing (Visual Style)

Andy Whiteley - Lloyds TSB advert (Visual)

Waking Life - Richard Linklater (Storytelling + Visual Style)

Experiments. Character rigging tests

What make's a good animation?

2008-03-18T20:32:00.000Z

As a student animator it is very easy to fall into the trap of trying to make the perfect film that everyone will love. Even though history tells us otherwise with some of the most successful animation using the simplest method of storytelling and some of the biggest blunders well being the needlessly complicated (e.g. final fantasy). For over three years I have considered myself to be an animator but not till recently have i realised the importance of simplicity.

The temptation to swallow more than you can chew comes from the great level of expectancy at university with the next step being the industry. With the chances of becoming successful in the arts being so tight it’s understandable why we shake at the knees of Pixar (in my case). One of the disadvantages of being a student animator is the workload. It’s hard enough being an animator but to come up with a concept, storyboarding, audio and visual direction and of course thee animating seems abit too much don’t you think? Anyway losing my point here, but maybe if i decided to make things simple and take all that workload off and do what animation is all about I might actually be able to make it through Uni without going crazy. But I guess I’ll just have to see where my next animation takes me. (please please win an oscar)

Here’s a cool animation I came across today, pretty funny and -->simple