Over the break

New years eve is over, I am done eating an insane amount of food, ready to go back working on my animation. I haven't being able to accomplish much home, mostly because I was too busy write that cursed dissertation. Took a long time but I managed to get it done today.

Well anyway, I still managed to get some backgrounds done for Falling in Love and I am dealing with some color issues: I want the character to blend in but to stand out at the same time...it is an oxymoron but I know what I am doing, ahahah! Or at least I think i do. All my crew member are working on it as well, so hopefully someone will take us out this sticky situation.

My color test, Salomone blends a little too much

In the free time I have been doing some more drawing on Photoshop, I am trying to do different things and different poses. As usual I keep having issues with colors, Don't know if it is the saturation, the shading or the color themselves.

                                           

I managed to scan some of my latest drawing, since I am done with my old sketchbook, I'll practice by coloring them in my free time.

Here are some examples

                                         

                                          

Scanning fun times

I am baffled if not outstanded (if that is even a word) for the amount of fun I had painting over the the scans I had since last summer. It so simple and yet so satisfying, Leonie kept telling me to render properly my sketches but I always thought it would be so time consuming and complicated.

It isn't

These are a bipolar bear and a berzerker, creatures I invented

This sand beduin is based off my dad

And this is a smoking owl

these are very old sketches, I am looking forward to scann more recent stuff and paint over it!
It got me so pumped up I even drew something completely irrelevant for the sake of painting

Gavianander

Course wise, I have been doing great! I have done lot more props for Alphabet Patch and I find quite challenging the fact that Leonie, my director, is very picky about what she wants, so I end up re doing the same thing lots time: I am sure this will come in handy when I will have to wrk professionally ahah

More leaves

Spoons (more)

Pencils

Rocks

Stool

Butterflies (super fun)

Register

Let's not forget of the ten million apples I had to draw. The easier the task the more perfect it has to be, just like cooking an egg: it is easy but it takes practice to make it properly.

anyway, apples

Final apple design

Meanwhile the animation I am directing, Falling in Love, is doing great. I am so lucky to have such an amazing crew that I can barely believe how good we are doing!
Leonie is my producer and keeps track of every possible mistake we could face in the future, James and Leigh do superb animation, while Sophie colors it and Katie adds shadows.
I do clean ups and I am currently being helped by a second year, Annie. When I look at my clean ups I am often quite perplexed of the results, but when I see the product finished, Oh man it looks good.

Lately I finished the design of Maria and all the backgrounds for the second scene. We completed the test shot and it looks DOPE thanks to Rob use of vfx.

Some Backgrounds

                              

Maria turn around (Sophie helped coloring)

Backgrounds and designs

I finally handed in my dissertation draft. Uff I am so happy I can concentrate on my animation now.

These week I was assigned to do some Alphabet Patch props: despite being fun and creative is quite a diffult task. Leonie has a very unique style rich of colors and textures. I am glad I am doing lots of these because I love experimenting with new techniques.

The spoon needs more work, it is more complicated than I expected.

to see more o the project, visit Leonie's blog here.

While in my project "Falling in Love", since we had the Ok from the tutors, we started animating. James has done a keyframes version of one of the scenes, I will clean them and Leigh Juggins will do invetweens. Sophie Rippington and Katie Wyman will add shadows and color on the characters. If it works as good as it sounds, I am going to be the happiest director ever.

Thanks to Leonie we also have all the production side set up! ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ

This week I worked on the design of the scene, the background and the style of the future backgrounds (we picked UPA style)

These are the design of the old ladies

The Background

Aaaand the different backgrounds style

I personally like the first one, in red with messy beije