Environment

For this Brief I couldn't decide what type of environment would be best for my Character. Recently I watched the film 'The Golden Compass' and from the design of the city, it gave me inspiration for a city design.

I really like this picture, the composition is well done and focuses your eyes into the distance where the sun is setting, also the style of these building are very futuristic which I like and slightly remind me of steam punk era, which will be useful because my character is set in the steam punk age! However I wish for my character to be in a room, so I will have him looking out of this view.

  

Using the Back position of my character from my second brief I can get a idea of what my final picture will look like with a few tweaks.

Here is my version 1 of the final design.

I'm recreating the city background by using a graphic's tablet to help easily draw the city and block in the colour quickly. The shadow/silhouette character is my character (brief 2) and the reason why i have placed him to the left is to create more atmosphere with him next to the building arching to make your eye see him then slowly look to the sky/distance.

Along with the room I have made a floor plan and a elevation of this room he is in.

 This is the floor plan.

 The elevation (360 view of the room)

FInal Design of the room/environment.

Animation and Animators

This is my Animation.

For this Animation I used a flipbook and drew each picture, sadly this animation is only one to two seconds long but the next one will be better and much longer.

This inspired me to look at some animators but not renowned ones like Disney and Pixar.

First is a set of short films created by 'TomSka' of 'Youtube' who has made 'ASDF movies 1 to 5' working with James Cunningham.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYnsfV5N2n8 

This is only the first movie but I like the fact that it is similar to mine in that it's in black and white and uses only basic figures. I also like the fact that it's just funny. By using basic figures and lines you can make anything happen.

TomSka was also a character in a animation called 'EDDSWORLD' and helped create it. I discovered this through a related video which I viewed and it was even better than the 'ASDF movie' 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-iJUbN0hzM

I found it very funny because of the snappy dialogue. The use of colour is very bold and basic and can be changed to create mood, e.g. a blue green background turning orang/ red to emphasise anger. Each character is quite unique and I hope to create something like this because it's awesome and even though it's simplistic in design, it works really well.

Before the release of Skyrim an Animator named Harry Partridge did a short parody film called 'Skyrim' and this was done when the first trailer for Skyrim was released. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9eGtyqz4gY (Mature rating) I do like it because the animation because it's realistic and is over dramatic, along with the singing it's funny and flows well.  Unfortunately I dislike the characters at the start because they look really weird and odd because their faces have a grey tone which is somewhat depressing. However quickly the tone lifts and a Disney like imagery emerges.

Josh Palmer "Zeurel" makes funny Animations which are very, very strange.  I do like this style of this animation because it's very simple and bold with clear blocks of colour. Although this is very far removed from Disney some elements of Disney's style appear e.g. the white gloved hand with the 3 fingers. This 'trick' was developed by the Disney studios to avoid the problem of a five fingered hand being clumsy and avoided the problem of drawing finger nails. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ElpUKFk7jI&feature=BFa&list=UUukCyHaD-bK3in_pKpfH9Eg

Finally the last animators is a group called Rooster Teeth, they are known for making "Red VS Blue" and they use the game system called 'Halo'. However they have only recently started to animate their show because Bungie (former Lead Designer) and 343 industries gave them the game system, therefore  they are able to make these awesome SGI animations now in their show. I really liked this animation. I prefer their earlier work, before they started to use 3D SGI (and they have been going strong now for 10 seasons). I love all of their work and I would aspire to animate like they are doing now.

http://roosterteeth.com/archive/?sid=rvb&v=more (link to website on the red vs blue playlist) 

Character design in T-pose, Side and Back positions

Here is my character, Sir James Thompson in a T-pose, side position, and back position

Also I did a pose for this character.
However the body proportions in this pose are incorrect because the upper body is much longer than it should be therefore making the legs look short.




Evaluation of this project.
I enjoyed this project because it allowed me to design my very own character with a full background and his traits. However when I make my next character I will look at some anatomy to get proportions correct and also add a lot more detail to him, an example of this would be the coat and to put a pattern on it and add detail to the hat; finally I will look at different colours because these are nice but I don't think they are very appealing.