Blue-Zoo

This morning we had a brilliant lecture from Blue-Zoo Animation Studios. They presented to us lots of concept work as well as breakdown passes for the different pipeline stages for one of their pieces called Stitch-Up Showdown. It was good to see the level of details in their models as well as just how many different passes including dirt, lighting have an overall effect on the final outcome...something i think we need to take into account on our project this term. 

Later on that day...

an update on how were doing. Dan has comleted another environment concept work complete with suggested colour palette which is brilliant. The bright use of colours suggests a place of happiness and fun which as we know is not the case for john the clown...who would probably be anywhere else. I love Dan's bold use of colour, and i think i need to be more like this when experimenting with the colours for our characters. A few pointers though...after the Blue-Zoo lecture it became aparant that their work has appeal because it has a unique style to it....and thats what we need to push in our animation. Dan has completed a very stylised tree in the picture, but i've suggested if he can possibly push the design more in terms of the circus tent and surroundings...however, i don't want this to overtake the piece as it is afterall about the characters. See Dan's blog for environment imagery.

I showed Dan my facial expressions sheet i completed for both characters and discussed the extremes i wanted to push some of expressions e.g John's mouth can be raised or lowered to really push his expression. We also discussed some ways in which we think we'll be modeling the characters, as Dan has never done this before, i want to make sure he's comfortable with what he's doing. As I have designed the characters i know how they will look in 3D, however as im giving drawings for Dan to create in 3d, its important he knows how the character will look so i've created a few different angle drawings for him to look over so he's fully prepped on what the outcome should be and theres no confusion of what parts of my drawings are. Dan mentioned a few colour ideas for the characters which i will try at home tonight along with creating the model sheets for both characters so we can get underway with making now as time is pressing on. Dan and I have got copies of each others work so we can keep the look of the environment and characters united as well as be aware of what each others doing.