A little touch of colour in our lives

A significant title for a fairly insignificant post...here's some shots of Maera coloured, though not set into her backgrounds



Oh yeah..had some issues with toonboom for that second shot...thus the black bit of hair...I wanted to hit the computer in frustration so for now, I'm leaving it haha

A Barber, A Baker, A Hairdresser

I had another belated Halloween party to go to last Saturday, so I've had a very busy last two weeks. I made the Cabaret Vampire costume and then as soon as that was finished, had these 3 costumes to do!

I made everything for my costume from scratch (including the fingers in the pie) except the corset and gloves. The boys' costumes were pieced together with stuff from op shops, Sweeney's vest was once a suede jacket which I cut up and attacked with sandpaper and wood polish. I styled and cut Edward's wig, and did all of our makeup.

I'm reeeeaaaaallllly happy with how it all came out, I think we looked great!

A Vampire at the Cabaret

Funsies

A little bit of colour

I had a snippet of coloured animation to show but the blog wouldn't process it, so for now...a still! It looks a little foggy, but it also looks underwatery which is good...I think I have to decide whether I'd prefer it to be super clear OR look like it's in the right environment....think I'll go for the underwaterness

She has some hair now

Schedule for this week

Monday

- Work out with music the number of frames needed for each shot
- Draw out the start and finish key poses for every remaining shot
- Begin animating first dance with fish shot (Shot 22) using this clip as reference(from 1:12 - 1:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOdr_BPxKXA&feature=related

I like the style of this dance, better than say, traditional ballet, as it uses the arms alot, which a mermaid would have to, as she has no legs. Ballet is so beautiful but after watching many clips of it, without the use of legs, it would not have the same effect.

Tuesday

- Animate hair on last weeks animations (Shots 20 and 21)
- Rough animation of the dance

Wednesday

- Ink a small shot (perhaps Shot 5?) in preparation of a finished shot
- Linetest animations
- Scan in Shot 5, fill colour, try out in After Effects scene

A little more animation

Another update....

It's beginning to get to that time now where I'm freaking out, totally stressed and worried that I'm not going to get enough of this done, and yet it's like I can't force myself to work on it aaaarrrrgghhhh.

Fishy

Update of Fish #1's transformation....I may give all the fish names...maybe

Sept 8

Another update hooray!

Finally an update!!! Here's some linetests of animation, as you can see it's waaaaaaay too fast, needs a whole lot of inbetweens, which is a bit annoying as her hair moves in every frame, meaning i'll have to redo it all, no worries though, it'll get done!I think I'll start doing her hair on another layer anyway, it'll make it easier and more practical in the long run. So yes anyway, this is in no way finished animation, not even close, but yay something!

Experiment Stuff

Just experiment thingies for Andi

Fishy colours

Updated turnaround of Maera, and also colours of fishies!

25 Expressions

A challenge circulating around DeviantArt...thought i should give it a go.

I can't say I'm very happy with it, let's just say I'm happy Maera is generally happy during this film haha.

Rough Timing Layout

Set to a small section of Mozart's Claniet Concerto in A

0.12 – Maera emerges from coral and seaweed
0.26 – Twisting dance sequence
0.30 – Looks around for something else to dance with
0.38 – Comes up with an idea! Hooray!
0.42 – Starts making a fish
1:05 – Fish is created , choreographed dance sequence
1:20 – One friend isn’t quite enough
1:30 – Makes jellyfish
1:40 – Makes another fish
1:45 – Choreographed dance sequence with the fish and jellyfish
1:53 – The fish swim down into the seaweed
1:57 – Maera beckons them back up
2:01 – They swim down again
2:06 – She makes another 2 fish
2:16 – All the fish swim away
2:19 – Choreographed dance for Maera alone
2:29 – Others start to come back
2:30 – Maera dances faster, making more fish and jellyfish
2:39 – Maera creates an eel
2:47 – Eel dances around Maera
2:53 – Short choreographed dance sequence
2:59 – All the fish swim up (choreographed)
3:03 – Fish swim down in choreographed lines
3:07 – Maera dances above the rest
3:09 – Main choreographed dance sequence
3:27 - End

More Maera

Just two new pics of Maera, one of her showing how she takes on the colouring of those around her, and another of her creating a fish, hurrah!

The Story....so far

As this film is going to be experimental and isn't based on a script there's not really going to be a time when I have to pin down a story. But it's good to have a basic idea of what I want to happen in the small space of 2.5mins.

The whole basis of this idea was that i could just create something beautiful and flowy, set it to music, have Maera dance, and it would all be beautiful. But I just couldn't help developing just the smallest bit of storyline to help it along. SO! I'm kinda taking an approach where Maera is creating the sea life around her so that she can dance with them. I think the actual creating bit will be really lovely if I can do it. I've drawn out how i think some of the animation would go, but I'm yet to quickly test it in flash just to see. But here's a very rough picture of Maera creating a jellyfish.



There will be more to come, hopefully some rough animation tests to get the idea across, stay tuned

Maera

Maera is the name I gave to my mermaid. I've been drawing a bit more of her, though not as much as I would have liked due to illness, but I'm on the mend now and so able to upload a few things. Her design is subject to change, though I like how it is at the moment. The eel-like tail allows her to swim with the classic mermaid look without having a anatomically incorrect fish tail (which just gets to me) attached to her.

I chose all very sea-like colours for her, as I want her to be seen as belonging to the sea. Her top was originally much more detailed and sea-weedy, but for animation it was going to be easier to simplify it a bit, and just keep it that colour. So here's just a flat colour design of Maera.



I actually think she looks a bit stumpy in this now that I look at it, probably because I ran out of space on the page haha.

Another cool thing about Maera is that when she's interacting with things a different colour to herself, she takes on thier hue ever so slightly.

Pelagus Puella

Sea Maiden. Sooo....Phoenix is no longer happening at this present time, instead I will be doing a short (around 2.5 mins) musical, sometimes choreographed piece featuring a mermaid, hooray!!!

The great thing about it is it doesn't particularly have to have a story, it's going to be mainly an exploration of music, choreography and dance in the beautiful world of the ocean. The hardest part so far is creating my mermaid. Generally not something I struggle with, but as she needs to be animatable, I have to cut alot of my usual detail...but as Liam pointed out, there can be moments where she is very detailed and then she can easily be blurred as she shifts through the water, becoming one with it etc.

Anyway, I have many more ideas running through my mind but for now here's my first concept of her....she's not based on any particular fish like I usually do...I'll go into the reasoning for this design next post.



I love how her eyes are totally crooked :S

Just some more reference pictures for Phoenix. I've found a real location to loosely set it in, I figure it will be easier to create if I have somewhere real to base it on. So it's going to be in the Toowoomba, Gatton, Maryvale sort of area of Queensland...it's not overly populated, lots of wide open spaces, plus forests and it's fairly dry to boot, making it perfect for a bushfire.

Birds and their Ladies

Dusk Fae and Bee Eaters

Beautiful Books

I adore books...I always have, but nothing makes it hit home as much as when I visit Borders. The smell of coffee and paper hits you as soon as you walk in and it is just the most delightful thing. I went yesterday and came home with a new journal, a new diary, two novels, one being this very cool edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland



And a Little Golden Book - The Colour Kittens, a beloved classic of mine.



But no matter how many books I buy, there are still more that i want, leaving me with a wishlist for the next time...

Poison Ivy

So when posed with the question of who I should dress up as for a Heroes and Villains party...how can i possibly go past Poison Ivy, my very favourite fictional character!

It was a wonderful party, and the costume was a joy to make, though many hours were taken up haha. Katherine as always helped me along with the corset and the skirt, though I'm glad to say I did alot more of this one myself. The leaves on the corset and the strands of the skirt were all hand sewn.

The costume was made complete with a fabulous wig from ebay, white body paint, amazing green eyelashes and plenty of green eyeshadow.

Abigail

After playing with my niece's Disney paper dress up dolls (with her of course) I thought i would make a book for her...all about a princess who wears a different dress for everything she does in a day. It's been very fun so far...
I've found I'm not very good at continuity, as Princess Abigail looks like a different person in every picture, but creating different dresses has been very very very fun.



Colouring will be....interesting....digital or watercolour? Hmmm

Octopus

...has nothing to do with anything...

Inspirations

If you haven't seen Fantasia 2000, there is one piece that you should definately watch. It's called the Firebird Suite, and without realising, the idea and timing and overall feel of my film idea borrows heavily from this piece. I hadn't seen it in years, and yet everything about it stayed with me, if you have the time to watch it, please do. http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn1oKz9V7NY

As far as colour treatment, I can't go past this...just those bleak greys and black, and then bam! awesome bright orange and yellow...sigh....love
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=dadyuoc_jkM&feature=related

Stages of a Phoenix

These are just some very rough concepts of my phoenix for my Honours Film. Going by the script I have at the moment, Phoenix has 6 main stages of development, beginning as a tiny flame that's hardly bird shaped at all, growing larger and slightly more bird like each time it comes into contact with flames. Stage 5 is the most 'phoenix-like' as I see it...in any case it's the one I enjoy drawing the most. The final stage will ultimately just look like a giant firestorm with somewhat bird like shapes and movements.
Also while doing these I'm starting to see that watercolour might not be the best medium for the phoenix, though i would still like to use them for the backgrounds. Digital would be quicker and more controllable, and it would also create a brightness to the phoenix against watercolours which would serve it's purpose well.....something to ponder and experiment with...

Beginnings of concepts

After seeing the beautiful concept works of Alexis, one of my fellow Honours students, i was inspired to get a start on visualising my film for this year. I'm going to go do some drawings soon, but for now here's some images for reference...

Always my favourite....

Sigh.....I do so very much like drawings mermaids, they're so fun and versatile and lovely.

First picture of 2009

So, starting the blog got me inspired...it was nice to just sit in front of the tv, 'watching' Peter Pan while colouring this. I'm sure they have a story, yet I'm not sure of what exactly it is...

A New Year

It's the start of a New Year and so the beginning of a new blog, that will hopefully this year be updated regularly, keeping a record of progress in my uni projects, as well as my own personal artwork, including costumes and cooking creations.
So in what I guess is a New Years resolution, i'm promising myself to work hard and keep track of that work....every week. Welcome to 2009...