Lea Dambeck DDM 2015 (Animation College): Group Project "The Chase" Day 1

GROUP PROJECT

Wohoo! Started our first day working on our group projects! We all went over the schedule for the 16 weeks we will have to work on our project. We also started a weekly schedule, to make sure everyone is on task, and knows what they have to do when.

We all decided to do some character concepts first, working on a more defined style. We also discussed the backgrounds and how the 3D and 2D will work. Oana suggested making the circus scene 3D and the dream state 2D, but we all agreed that it would look too different.We though 3D backgrounds would look good with 2D characters (like Gorillaz). I continued planning our schedule, and thought about assigning each 2D animator one character (eg. I animate the boy, Liam animates the Beast and Danielle animated the Girl).

CHARACTER AND BACKGROUND DESIGNS

With the industry feedback, we played around with the idea of giving the main character a Mohawk, and making the Zebra stripes more "Zebra like". I tried having a go on the Main Character, Danielle had a go on the Girl Character, Liam had a go on the "Beast" and Jaron tried out the Dream state.

Jaron had the amazing! idea of making the trees hands (reaching, fist) either as a whole tree or the branches having hands. His concepts looked amazing and inspired me to keep working on my own designs!

I also suggested making the Era more "modern", kind of like in "Madagascar" where they use bright lights in the circus and make the circus tent look really appealing and abstract in a way. My group liked the idea and we all tried out different ideas.

Danielle also had a really cool idea of making the Girl African. Her designs are looking really good, we also played around with the idea of giving her an Afro, and integrating the afro with the monster.

3D AND 2D INTEGRATION

After Lunch Oana and Frans talked to us about the 3D and 2D collaboration. Oana said that we should still do the circus scene in 3D, and showed us some examples of how it could work. After seeing the examples we all had a better idea of what they were thinking about for this project.

Oana showed us a Short called "Meet Buck", and Frans showed us "Salesman Pete". They both combine 3D and 2D and do it so well that it is hard to tell the difference when they do switch.

We all agreed on making the circus scene 3D and having the dream state 2D.

Jaroun is going to make a 3D Hand tree in Maya and tomorrow we will try out painting the texture and putting it on the 3D to test out what look we want to go for.

CHARACTER SKETCHES

MAIN CHARACTER

I tried out doing some sketches for the main character, girl and beast. I tried making the Zebra stripes look less like a Tiger's stripes, I think they are still too sharp and I need to make the stripes wrap around. I like the idea of giving the guy a mohawk, I looked at some reference for modern mohwaks (I have no idea what that hairtsyle is called).

(Scanner at home stopped working :'(, going to scan these in properly tomorrow)

GIRL CHARACTER

Tried out giving the girl and Afro, and other hairstyles. I like the idea of the afro and messy hair. I also tried out fur collars but also gold collars. I tried making her eyes more lion like, I looked at Lion images and tried simplifying it. I also had a play around with fur arm bands. I thought it looked too "Eskimo-like", and stirred away from it a little. I will have another go at it later though.