Narrative: Story beats and Scripting

Brief

Reminder: For this Project I have to create an outline, script and a analyse Essay of the work i have done. It is a brilliant project and I will be using it to help me make one of the comics i have had in mind for a little while.

I had created two premises before; the Cafe one with a young inexperienced but diligent lady that owns her own Cafe and her struggles with troublesome customers. This was going to be in an animation format.

My second one was a a very brief idea about a comedy Zombie apocalypse survival comic book, which in the end I opted for because, it has been an idea I have had for a while and wanted to develop but mostly because I am more interested in the subject matter, if I am completely honest.

My last blog post on this was 08/10/2015.

My To-do List

Currently I am still working on the outline of the story and the brief, I have done a very rough version of the comic itself to help with the process.
I have now finalised my character outlines and my world setting, as well as what format my story will be told through.
I need to make the premise better, but that is now one of my last jobs to think about; I have the story all down, it is just a case of typing it up properly.
This blog in itself is going to help me log my toughts and account to some of my research.

I have done quite a bit of research on the topic, there is still more i need to do such as actually reading some more of hte comics in hate action/comedy/zombie genre. And grasping hte demographic of what my comic book will be targeted at. as well as cleaning up on most of my work; elaborating and condensing parts of my character profiles and the format of the comic.

My Script/Premise

It is all quiet on Randal Farm Texas, the sun is setting, and the golden light gleams on the fields of wheat, illuminating the dust and insect fuzz in the air.
The ground scuffled harshly by rugged boots, the pop of a Winchester shotgun...
Three wanderers arrive at the farm, their feet dragging, mouths drooling; they’re hungry. They rip planks off the barn groaning with anger and torment.
“Yeah, there’s chickens” one cries; Alana the leader of the group.
They tear at the barn more viciously; ripping the whole side of the barn off, straw and dust whirling up in to thick clouds. The farmer of the plot emerges out of the dust, mouth dribbling with blood, pitchfork in hand.
“F***”


 I know this premise needs some more work on it, to make it flow a bit more, it also downs meet the word count yet either, but it is a work in progress.

Drawings/Examples

COMING SOON!

Minor Project: Celaction Character Performance

Overview

After recreating a character for the first part of this module, I then have to put the character into Photoshop to cut up elements ready for CelAction animation. To create the animation in the software it helped me to think about making those 2D paper puppets with split pin joints.

A few notable animations in created in CelAction are Peppa Pig, Charlie & Lola, Mr Bean (animated series) and many others. 

Log

20th October - I made a list of all the artwork i might need and noted that it might be helpful to traditionally animate to see if I had missed any replacement shapes. Replacement shapes are used to actually animate in CelAction, for example to turn the head you would need to draw the front as the main element then 3/4  to the side as replacement shapes, and change them when needed. 

22nd October - I refined my list of elements to the parts that I needed for the animation --in hindsight this was a bad move as it restricted my animation towards the end, if I had made more than I needed I could of made the animation smoother. 

I also noted hotkeys for CelActions to speed up the rigging and animation process. 

25th October - I will be putting everything in to CelAction on Monday (26th) to animate and find out what I have missed.

29th October - After rigging my character, it became apparent that there would be gaps in the joints when the character moved. I made some patches for under the joints so the limbs moved seamlessly. Another option is to take out the line art completely.-- If i were to do the project again I probably would do this.

My character redesign.

I had also missed some replacement shapes for the feet and the head, so I

make those in Photoshop and added them to the rigged character.

31st October - I have learnt a lot from this though although the project isn't currently where I would like it to be at, I am still making steady progress for my deadline on the 9th November, I have been doing replacement shapes today .

31st Oct- 3rd Nov- I continued to animate the scenes. 

5th November - I tried to add "Limber" to the tail of my character. Limber is a tool that is use to make something move in a different way, through stretching and an manipulating through using nodes rather than rotating a limb from a joint without having to 'redraw replacement shapes.

I also figured out that when adding limber the character would have to be replaced. I learnt of Replacement Actor Wizard, which is a tool that lets you put a different character in the animated characters place. When the character was replaced the tail didn't show up but I found out if you clicked on each individual node and pressed "V" it would become visible, that was luck really. 

6th November - I started to rig my second character for the next scene.

"I have been sat at my desk  for over 6 hours and procrastinated a bit, i feel the software is beating me. But i think i have figured it out mostly. If I were to do this project again, after a short break of course, i think i would fair a whole lot better I manage to get a walk cycle down today, it is far from perfect but I have learnt a great deal." 

I also made a layered background for the characters and added it to that animation.

7th October - "I have nearly finished the animation today, both sequences. I will try upload my new storyboard later as well as my previous. I have to simplify it a lot due to restrictions of my skill in the software. I was in university today trying to change out a tail I made with limber, I thought it would work petty well in the tail, but it didn't look great. If I had more time maybe I could make it look better, I'll try it out again in a couple of weeks anyway. So I was replacing the tail today to just a normal element just to bob up and down no proper animation really, I would make an animation cycle with replacement shapes but time and skill restrict me currently. Alas the tail didn't work after 4 solid hours of trying to attach and replace a tail I have called it a day."

"after a number of attempts replacing my character by creating numerous actors and replacement shapes, the best outcome with a tail was a mess, also the limbs were not attached, meaning i would have to go through 500 frames reattaching them- but the tail was no where in sight, i tried pressing "V" on the tail element but nothing showed up, there must be a way to solve it, but with limited time and knowledge I think is it best I leave it as it is. In the end limber didn't really work for it and hindered my project probably again due to lack of knowledge."

Conclusion:

This project over my years at uni has been the trickiest, as I am not a digital animator. I have done the entire project digitally to kind of throw me in at the deep end and force me to learn things, needless to say it has been pretty stressful for me. However I have learnt a great deal and I will try it again, I would really like to learn more about CelAction and other digital methods of animating. I am planning to do a small side project of my own in a digital medium in the next few weeks.

Ruined Civilization, Market Places & Processions #1

Visual Forms

Everything on this blog will lead up to building my Visual Forms Sketchbook, Essay & Presentation.
So there will be a reoccurring blog posts well into next year.

What you can expect is research into some key themes i have been given to kickstart my project; Ruined civilisation, Market Places & Procession. I am allowed to interpret in anyway, as long as I have evidence backing up my argument.

Ruined Civilisation 

For this I will be mainly focusing on concept design of characters and landscapes in games & films. topic.
The games & films providing me with my concepts are things such as Destiny, Mad Max, Zombiecide, Matrix and Dishonoured and alike.

So all post-apocalyptic worlds this would be my argument that they are all ruined civilisations, civilisations that are not at their peak, but are now grumbling in the bowels of destruction clinging to that last piece of their civilised nature.
Firstly, the abundance of violence which is certainly not civil, is that is not our idea/ norm of what civil is. There is a threat to humanity as we when it in all of these texts; Darkness, machines and plague all an ominous threat to humanity's survival.

Also max max. I would like to take this excuse opportunity to look at things i am very interested in.
ZombieCide, i can talk on this about how you take part in you're own fate, it is a zombie survival base board game with beautiful concept

Looming extinction. a ruined civilisation (the last known point of the civilisation is before it breaks.)
A threat to cause one to be not so civil. thus ending civilisation.

Market Place Studies

I have been to my local market, I just wanted to portray a simple market place, no other interpretation. Just lazily simple.

Procession.

I will like to take a cultural route for this one, tapping into a bit of history no doubt a long the way. I will begin with local processions; my home town in England has a procession every year in the Summer. It has lots of fun and creativity involved, raising money for charities and awareness as well as advertising local (and now not so local) shops and businesses.
I am hoping that this will lead me on to other things such as fun fairs, circuses & festivals both local and around the world.