Storyboard 02 (UNDER THE CUT)

 Week 3 - Day 4

It was advised that I put in all the shots that I eventually deemed "unworthy" into a post so here it is! First up was the first establishing shot of the funeral home. I stopped halfway and restarted again to the inside of the building instead. This was a good decision as I don't have to fiddle around with an extra scene of a VAN AS A PROP!! And also an extra background, so PHEW!

TAKE 01

TAKE 02

I kind of messed up a little bit with the angles, proportions and poses for Emelyn but I just put the opacity down and redrew over it, ignoring the cake because it totally threw me off the first time. UGH!

I also made the mistake of erasing several other ideas before I had the thought to put them in a separate folder as scraps. OPPS! If it doesn't look like much, well...


EXTRA - The first title idea for this scene was supposed to be "Wrong delivery!" but it didn't have as nice a ring to it as "CAKEBURSTER!!" does so I went with that instead.


P.S - I bought a ukulele and Hamish doesn't think it's very impressive.

P.P.S - That is a total lie because Mikayla thinks it totally is and she's awesome, so that's that.

P.P.P.S - Hamish is just jealous...

Cheers!

Storyboard 01

 Week 3 - Day 2

Storyboarding!! Four words: I don't wike it. SO NOT READY FOR IT. But, you gotta do what you gotta do, so let's get a move on it.

Yesterday, I made a start on the storyboard but I started a bit too weirdly with trying to do an establishing shot of a street view outside the funeral house where the delivery van was supposed to pull up. Thankfully, I realized about halfway in that starting the shot like that wasn't quite the way to go so I scraped that idea and decided an inside look of the building would work better instead.

I started off yesterday but it didn't feel very productive and I only managed to get 1 and a half pages done which I re-did a bit of today and I couldn't really be bothered posting up until I at least finished all of it. (Phew.) Total, I managed to get about 3 pages of storyboarding done. Yay! Thank goodness I don't need to worry too much about audio/dialogue and lip syncing, but here you have it!

Cakeburster Storyboard 01

Cakeburster Storyboard 02

Cakeburster Storyboard 03

I tried to keep as close to the actual Alien scene as much as possible, minus the blood and gore and...twitchiness coming from the poor unfortunate soul and this is the end result of it. It's not so bad for a second go around.

I showed Sam the storyboard and he approved. WOOHOO! But I need to get more people to look at it...

Tea and Adrian both mentioned that I should add a candle on the cake to make it clearer what it is so people don't confuse it for a two-tier wedding cake at a church (wedding and a funeral, anybody?). Adrian also thinks I could probably stop it at Shot 02, Panel 04 for a more comedic aspect of the scene, ending it off with the audio of the grieving widow.

(I would also like to apologize for my atrocious handwriting. It started off nice but it got worse as I progressed along...)

Ben thinks I could include a pause in between Shot 02, Panels 03 and 04 for more dramatic effect, and the whole animation could easily take up to 6 seconds, maybe more.

PROGRESS IS GREAT!!!

You can kind of tell where I restarted from the brush size starting on page 2. Trust me, the first try was horrendous but it helped me figure out a better pose so ALL WAS NOT LOST.

Adios amigos.

CHEERS!

Character Model Sheet 02

 Week 2 - Day 4 (This has been a good week.)

So, I worked a little bit more on the facial structure of Emelyn on Keat's advice and she does look a bit better. Sam and Oscar both agree that she looks nicer with an actual forehead and with the contour of her skull as well. So, woohoo!!

Facial Structure!!

Next is...putting together some color concepts for Emelyn and the cake! I'm going to through out a few combinations and HOPE SOMETHING EVENTUALLY WORKS!

Colors

I'm not too sure about the silk and the cashmere, but that's maybe because I suck at photoshop and I don't know how to manipulate photos and colors on top of drawings. You can hardly see the texture of the clothing on her, but ehhh...it might show up a lot better on the 3D program but I'm just gonna keep this here for referencing and come back to it later on once we actually start on using Maya properly.

I will definitely keep the icing on the cake as the same color as the clothes on Emelyn, though, so that's one less thing to fuss about which is nice. As for the texture...well...

Cake Textures

I tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn't even matter!! DFGJKSDFGJKHD The marbling effect looks nice. Tea helped me with how to liquefy the diamond texture so it fit the contours of the cake which is great because I used that to do the marbling look as well! Unless the colors are a bit more desaturated, it looks a bit too much and might take more from Emelyn in the final 3D animation. As much as I like the look of the textures on the cake, I'm not too sure how well it'll work in the end. I'll keep this here anyway and, who knows? Maybe it'll work a lot better in 3D than trying to figure it out on photoshop.

Anyways, this is it for the week. I am ready for storyboarding! Stay tuned to see how I crash and burn...


P.S - I annoyed Hamish today with the Lava song. It's soooo funny.

P.P.S - He is not amused.

P.P.P.S - I don't care.

CHEERS!!

Character Model Sheet 01

 Week 2 - Day 3

Next on the agenda is...some model sheets! YAY! Here we go on the turn around and a few preliminary tries of expressions and poses. I included the rough line-work of the cake just so we'll know how Emelyn sizes up next to it. I don't think it's going too badly? In any case, I'm quite happy with my progress. Double yay!

Model Sheet 01

Model Sheet 02

Model Sheet 03

Ehhhh, the more I draw her, the more she reminds me of Ariel...but moving on from that, we'll work on the cake next. Tiers, trimmings and textures! OH MY!

Ethan likes the expression on Model Sheet 03 of Emelyn looking down (bottom left side corner). She's so pitiful. DX

What makes a cake, a cake?? Is it the shape? Is it the size? Is it the look? Is it ALL OF THIS? But hey, cakes these days can get pretty creative. A cake might not even look like a cake but for our purposes, we're gonna keep this as simple as possible.

As you saw in my previous designs, I'm aiming for a two-tier cake, basically a copy/paste/resize of the same tier piled on top of the other. It'll have to be simple because it's secondary to the character. Here are a couple of variations on the trimmings and icing/fondant designs I'm thinking of trying:

Cake 01

Cake 02

I'm halfway between deciding a pearl or a teardrop shaped design around the cake. The pearl is a nice simple spherical shape but I the teardrop offers a variation of shape and is visually more appealing, personally speaking...

Oscar thinks marbling might be a bit much for the cake, and I kind of agree with this but I'm not aiming for bright colors so maybe a desaturated color palette might work?

As much as I like the look of the flower tip nozzle to be the trimming, I feel like it might take away from the main character, and also because I might not have the time to try this, NOR THE ENERGY. I haven't even started yet and I'm already feeling a little high-strung and a little overwhelmed with the thought of trying this new 3D programming. IT'S GONNA BE SO WHOA.

Oscar mentioned that the flower nozzle might not even be too hard to do since they're basically going to be copies of each other laced around the cake. I might try this, but no promises!

The extra decoration is gonna stay as a simple cylindrical shape (#2) that's thin on the edges, thick in the middle and wrap around the cake. There's going to be two of these per line and I'm going to try and see if rigging it to manipulate the shape around the cake will be doable or not. WE'LL SEE!!

So, that's the cake. Let's move on to the textures on cloth! This is going to be what Emelyn is going to be wearing. I'm not sure whether I'll go with a simple flat color, or an actual pattern. Not tiger skin but I'm not ruling it out. Here's a couple of ideas!

Clothes Textures

I'm not sure which one I'll go for because I really like the faint pattern from the grey colored cashmere but I also like the smoothness coming from the cotton. I'll stick with flat colors, though, because that's one less complication to worry about, unless it's super easy to apply textures to 3D models? But I have no idea...

Tomorrow, I might work on more expressions and poses for Emelyn, and maybe try some more variations of colors and textures for her. Mix and match, why not? If I've got time, I'll throw in the cake together with her.

Cheers~!

Concept Development 03

Week 2 - Day 2

MORE VISUAL RESEARCH!!! How does one research comedy and dark comedy? I'll tell you what NOT to search up on google, don't search up dark comedy because there's a LOT of stuff in there I could've gone on without EVER knowing. SO, in conclusion, dark comedy requires actually insiders knowledge. Without that, you're basically up a creek without a paddle where the end leads to a WATERFALL!!! Yeah, no.

Anyway, after some quick clarification with Keat, I figured I'd just google some family-safe visuals, like Winnie the Pooh, Lilo and Stitch, Kim Possible...and throw in some Alice in Wonderland because, why not? I mainly looked at character styles and background designs and this is what I got!

Visual Research 01

Visual Research 02

I'm going to try for some realism in my background but I'm not too fussed about it since the whole point of the animation is the actual 3D and not the aesthetics of the surroundings. We'll see how modelling and rigging goes, though...No promises.

And...that's the concept development DONE!! BOOYAH! I'll move on to character model sheets in a new post aptly named: 'CHARACTER MODEL SHEET'. I'll post it up tomorrow along with other stuff...

Next on the list is the CAKEEEEE! Which I will do tomorrow as well. And also some texture swatches? I'll figure it out along with the cake, or something.

Cheers!!

Concept Development 02

Week 2 - Day 1

Today, I started on some background concepts. Which basically means I did a lot of google image search to get a mood board going for some color concepts and layout ideas. I think I'll stick with the color scheme of brown and grey (but this might change later on, we'll just have to see...) so Emelyn will POP out a lot more in comparison with her bright colors. SEE BELOW:

Background Mood Board

I'm not too sure how Maya works? And who knows, maybe a 3/4 view of a background will look TERRIBLE but I like it so I'm going to try it and see how well it works. If it doesn't then I'll switch to a normal flat view but that sounds a little boring. I DON'T KNOW HOW 3D WORKS?! (Total noob.)

So! In the background, I want the coffin and the flower pots to be up on a mini stage. The podium will be in the front. For the sake of simplicity, there won't be any extra characters although there will be the original audio from the "Alien Chestburster" scene playing in the background. The grieving widow will have her moment!! The cake, if possible, will wheel into the screen as shown from the arrows below.

Background Layout

I'm thinking that the cake decoration/trimming will be the same color as the clothes on Emelyn, or maybe slightly desaturated to offset and not take attention away from her.The rest of the cake will stay white, unless another color works better but this is what I'll be going with until stated otherwise. (I'll make note of this in a later post...(we'll see how well I remember this!))

Cake Model Sheet

SO!! This is day 1 of week 2. Tomorrow, I'll work on a model sheet for Emelyn and, if possible, squeeze in some expressions sheets for her as well. Yay!!


P.S - We watched "Inside Out" today with a short at the beginning called "Lava" and IT WAS SO CUTE! I cried. I am not ashamed to admit this. "Inside Out" was nice, too. AND NOW I know the reason why I get annoying songs stuck in my head. UGHHSDJKFHSKFHSJK!

P.P.S - Bing Bong!! Why, Bing Bong, why?!? DX KJSHDKHSDKFHSK


SONG OF THE DAY: Lava song in the Pixar short also in the same name. It's inspiring! And so, so sweet...


Cheers~

Concept Development 01

Week 1 - Day 4 (I'm so good at this daily posting thing...but I swear I'll do better? In any case, prepare for an information dump.)

We watched some iconic scenes, did some brainstorming, tried the old switcher-roo to twist the original genre to fit another one and this is what I got:

Idea 1: Cakeburster! (Dark comedy)
A woman bursts out of a cake, at a funeral!!! Talk about awkward...?
Idea 2: Chestburster!! (Totally original)
A doubloon digs itself out of a pile of treasure to the disbelieving eyes of pirates.
Idea 3: Beerburster. (I don't even know any more)
A beer bottle is being shaken up and a fountain of bubbles burst out of the lip.
Idea 4: Chestburster. (Total crack)
A chest hair (aptly named Chester) makes his grand appearance in the middle of a body builder's chest.

Idea 1: Cakeburster!

Idea 2: Chestburster!

Idea 3: Beerburster!

Idea 4: Chestburster!

I personally preferred the first idea , and it was well received with my peers. I worried that the idea would be too offensive - for making light of a serious situation - to which I had another idea to fallback on if needed but it seems the humor was too good to pass up. Here is the character bio as well as a summary for the sequence I'll be using:

Character Bio

I looked through a few artists to find a style that would be simple to do on a 3D program that tests my boundaries without over-complicating it. I like Skottie Young's style of drawing, especially with the long limbs, definable joints, and curvy bodies. Here is a compilation of some pieces I drew inspiration on:

Skottie Young Inspirations!!

Character Research

I also tried to draw inspiration from other cartoons that was family/comedy oriented and mostly got examples from Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb, Jessica Rabbit. I'm aiming for something feminine, voluptuous and simple! Simple is the keyword here.

And this here...is my attempt at trying to mimic the style to something I can easily work with, keeping in mind simple basic shapes and trying out different styles that's outside of my comfort zone. Let's have a look!!

Basic Body Explorations

The first one was a bit of a...uh...well. It could be better, let's just leave it at that, The second attempt was closer to what I was looking for but was too skinny and too long and too...something that I just can't describe. The third one looked the best (yes, I'm aware the legs look a bit weird but I'll fix it next time), with a nice combination of curvaceous in her hourglass figure and long limbs.

These are the exploration of facial and hair types. I preferred (4) over the others but I asked a few of my peers to see which one they liked overall. See below:

Facial Types

Now that I've, more or less, figured out the look of my character, I decided to pick out some generic color schemes and also a few that were suggested by my peers. These are the results:

Color Scheme 01

Color Scheme 02

In the first picture, I preferred (1) and (4) while in the second I preferred (4) and was sitting on the fence in regards to (3), I've asked my peers and gathered a few of their personal opinions, which you will find scribbled on the same pages. (Good luck reading my chicken scratch.)

Sam also mentioned that the character looks very easy to do on a 3D modelling program. I'm going to take his word for it and I hope the 3D version of her will look similar to her 2D drawings. FINGERS CROSSED.

I'll have to do some research on backgrounds later so I can figure out a better color scheme to use with the character and the cake prop. I'm thinking of using a desaturated background (it's a funeral, come on) with hues of browns and greys so that the character will stand out like WHOA! As much as I like my original choice in coloring, I don't think she'll stand out a whole lot, so I might have to choose the most popular pick of the blond girl with the racy red get-up. Ain't that stereotypical, though? In any case, nothing's set in stone yet so things might change in the near future. Stay tuned to find out more!


INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK: Shia LaBeouf - "JUST, DO IT! YESTERDAY, YOU SAID TOMORROW!"

You have NO idea how often I've heard that voice going on replay in my head. It is both motivational and laugh-inducing. Great fun.


P.S - CAN YOU SEE MY WORK PROGRESS YET?!?! This is the accumulation of an entire week's (3 days) worth of work. I'll do better about posting my progress next week rather than dump everything into a single post.

Cheers!