Minor/Major Project: Idea Progression

In last Friday's tutorial with Alan, I learned that I somewhat misunderstood the idea of using the sound clips. Instead of having a series of short animations, that are all in different locations with different locations, it is about having the same characters in the same World/environment - like old people at an old people's home. I have gone back and listened to all the sound clips again, so now I am thinking about what genre(s) would suit each clip, and then I'd try to think about how it could take place in an old people's home, for example.

I designed these three characters relatively quickly, and I tried to make them have different personalities, so that when it comes to intergrating the sound clips it can suit a certain character - or be for the wrong character (the grumpy one having a fun, high pitched voice, for instance). Of course, these are just initial designs, so once I have figured out what clips I'll be using, I can design suitable characters.

Adaptation B: Building Layout + Story Idea

Using the 6 intial designs, I have organised them into the layout in which they'll be organised. This is only really to show what building is next to what, and so the distances between each building is something I'll work on. Just like in my very first drawings, there will be more than just these 6 buildings in the animation, and so there will be walls, fences and street lamps in between some of them.

My thinking behind this layout was so that it could lead to more of an interesting story and show the relationships between the characters:

Scrooge doesn't like to share his company with people, especially children, and so he restricts himself from as much contact with others as possible.  However, Miss Havisham, the ghostly figure that she is, haunts Mr Scrooge, as she is very much aware of his "past", where interacting with ghosts is concerned.  Miss Havisham's opinion of Oliver is split into two. When Miss Havisham looks over to Oliver she is often reminded of her adopted daughter, Estella, and her relationship to a boy named Pip. Although Oliver is scared of Miss Havisham's haunting appearance, he feels slight sympathy for her and realises what she has lost. Oliver is protected from the evil figures of Fagin and Uriah Heep by the strange, yet comforting, Mrs Gamp. Despite her lousiness and "tipsy" manner, Mrs Gamp cares for Oliver and treats him to the food that he so often craves. Fagin and Uriah Heep, the dastardly pairing, persistently mock Oliver and his lack of strength, as he requires a drunk old woman to protect him from them. In some instances, Scrooge joins in on the laughs and also mocks the low class Oliver - something that neither of Miss Havisham or Mrs Gamp appreciate.

Adaptation B: Oliver Twist & Uriah Heep - Initial Designs

 

As I hadn't yet done nitial designs for Oliver and Uriah heep, I have done these designs in the same method as my other initial ideas. The reason for doing this is so that I can have all the buildings having an initial design and so it would make more sense in the crit on thursday. Obviously because of this these aren't that useful, but do give an idea of my own first ideas behind each of these two characters.

These were a lot more tricky compared to the other four and so they have very unrealistic body/building shape. As Oliver is different to the other characters in that he's the youngets and is genuinely nice and friendly, I wanted to show by drawing him differently by being less "skecthy" and being more smooth with the outlines and details.

When I progress with these designs, I should try to make Oliver look quite cute and innocent, and a character that the audience will like. Uriah Heep, on the other hand, should look ugly and quite mean, similarly to Fagin.

Adaptation B: Fagin & Mrs Gamp - Initial Designs

Using the same methods of editing and drawing as the other 2 initial designs, I have created my initial ides for Fagin and Mrs Gamp's Building. These were a little more tricky than the previous designs and so they took a bit longer to do. 

I wanted Fagin's building to be quite siister looking and being very crooked. I think this needs quite a bit more work to do as I think it's a bit too upright and isn't very scary. Mrs Gamp, however, is the opposite. I wanted it to look friendly, which I think it does. As Mrs Gamp will be looking after Oliver, it needs to look very 'caring'. When drawing this buildin, I was looking at images of cosy cafes as well as cottages. 

I'm quite pleased with the Mrs Gamp building as it looks friendly and, in that respect, is much different to all the drawings that I've done, so far. Like I said, the Fagin builidng still needs a fair bit of work done to it to make it look like how I want it to.

Adaptation B: Ebenezer Scrooge & Miss Havisham - Initial Designs

Following on from the previous post, I have done these quick designs for Scrooge and Miss Havisham. By looking at the shapes that I found and looking at the details of all the drawings, as well as drawing inspiration from specific shops, I have managed to produce two designs which I actually quite like.

For the scrooge building, Alan metoned the idea of the building being a bank, which is of course refering to the character's greed and lust for money. I wanted to keep the pose in tact, as I will intend to for all the buildings, but I wanted it to look like a bank also. The images of Banks nline all seem to have pillars running down them, and so I thought they could be in place of the legs. The arm holding the candle was based on Jack Skellington's house in Nightmare before Christmas. I then made sure that it looked like a building from the Dickensian era, which I personally think it does.

Miss Havisham was a little more difficult. I wanted to make her building a Wedding/Bride shop, but with a scary/haunted appearance. It's by no mean a 'nice' shop, but it's not particularly scary yet. I wanted to keep the building's shpe in line with the wedding dress that she wears and I think that shows.

On a somewhat different note, one of the things that I've always wanted in my work, or improved, is how pictures are presented. Often, and this is the case for posts in this project, I end up posting plain black and white line images. As I always draw on paper first then photograph my work, so I can edit it in Photoshop after. While doing this, it got to a point where it looked more interesting, I thought. I then changed the background colour to a very light brown. That is the image at the top of the post. I really like this and think it looks better than the one below. Hopefully, I can achieve the same effect with the other designs.

Adaptation B: Initial Sketches

 

First 4 Sketches

 Last 3 Sketches

I have done these 7 sketches to show the style that I'm going for. I started with the intention of designingthe building for Fagin, but when I noticed some of them didn't fit the character, I opted to just do random ones. I like my illustration style and so I decided to keep them in black and white, which also suits the Charles Dickens era, I think. I quite like these as they're quite abstract and unusual and so they will add a certain degree of character to the buildings.

All 7 Sketches

Adaptation A: Initial Scene 1

I have done the first scene of the info-graphic, which can be seen above. I haven't yet found suitable music and so it is just the voice over with the flash animation at the moment. I think it looks a little fast, so I think it would work a bit better on a lower frame rate as it's very jumpy at the moment. Although I want it to look a little stuttery, it looks a bit too rapid at the moment. Also, there are moments/frames that are too different to the rest ans so stand out a lot i.e. his body goes a lot smaller for a split second. Regardless of these little issues, it gives a vague idea about how it will look. The scene is quite basic with not much happening, so that's why it looks a bit flat at the moment.