Boatmurdered SHEESH

So we have gotten all of the organisational stuff out of the way for boatmurdered. We've been annoyingly busy with graduation and then Christmas! But I'm personally going to dive in at a comfortable pace this week.
To warm up I was going to draw up a new wallpaper, here is the rough composition.

Dorkly Diablo Animaiton

Here is a freelance project I recently finished for Dorkly.com
I worked with two other uni friends Troy and Tom.

Was fun!
http://www.dorkly.com/video/28510/dorkly-bits-how-diablo-destroyed-tristram

Cool Animation Dump

Still doing my shading, I'm taking it easy post the frantic crunch.
Here are some great animations worth sharing!
Zoologic, an old favourite of mine!


My friend Sharnee just put me onto this one:

Sébastien Tellier - Look from Record Makers on Vimeo.

AND Tom Ward threw this one at me, amaaazing. Be sure to watch full screen.

Les chiens isolés from CRCR on Vimeo.

And Tom and I are starting to ramp up Boatmurdered again! WOO!

Film Submitted

So my film the wedding is all submitted for the screening and I'm practically on holidays now. But it aaaaaint over. I'm now shading the film, something that I didn't get time to, it's going pretty quick, I did 3 scenes in like half a day so that's cool.
I could probably finish it off tomorrow if I work hard. I also inbetweened a tiny bit more and am going to redo my credits and tweak some other things.

OH and I'm now looking into film festivals I can submit to.

Film FINISHED and Demo Reel

Hooray! My film the Wedding has been completed, now I need to sit on it and work out what I can do with it regarding film festivals and the like.
We have to present our work and demo reels and stuff immediately after finishing it, so here is a kinda goofy demo reel I busted together in a semi delirious sleep deprived state. It cracks me up so I'm happy!

the wedding post pro

Here is two post comp tests. I think I will go for a mix of the two, as the second is a bit too digital for me, I don't think I will use the Depth of Field either.

The Wedding Colouring progress

colouring colouring colouring.
I have been working like literally non stop from 10am-3am for 3 days in a row now. I've never worked so hard on something, it's great! I've been home alone for 3 weeks now too so I've gone a little weird, but I'm having so much fun. It's frantic to get this thing finished.
Here is a quick test for my colouring! I'm a bit more than half way through the colouring now thank god. Then it's comp city. I want to do a shading pass, but we will see if I have the time and how quick it will be.

The Wedding Colouring

Ok, I'm prepping to colour my animation in TVPaint.
I only just then finalized my character colour palettes. Here they are!

I was playing around with using the "official" Griffith University red, but it's a bit too light and weak.
YOU HEARD ME GRIFFITH.

The Wedding CLEANS DONE

OH BOY! Huge milestone today. I finished all the animation! Cleans dooone. It took forever jeesus, haha. I've basically been working non stop for 2 weeks now, like from the moment I wake up till sleep.

Now it's time to try implementing the music and start my colouring tomorrow. Only 12 days till the film needs to be completed so it's absolute non stop work madness at the moment. I hope I can finish the colouring by in 4-5 days. God I hope so.

Here is a commemorative drawing of all of our uni films, done by my boy Cameron.

The Wedding Update

I am almost finished my cleans, it's been an intense clean journey I will tell you what.
Then I'm onto colouring.
My musician vanished which totally sucks, but luckily I managed to get onto a fantastic French musician who I think will be much better than my original one!
Sound stuff is also going ahead and I had a skype meeting with my radical sound guy Dan Brumm.
Here is a sample image I had to produce for a EPK (electronic press kit).

 The final coulouring style will probably be a bit different, as I'm using TV paint to do it.
This was coloured in Photoshop

The Wedding BBW and Backgrounds

I've got 2 more scenes to do some degree of rough animation on and my animatic is completely locked down now, which feels great! I've also been trying to work my way through all these backgrounds, there are like 50.

And here is some BBW walk test!

Wedding Background progress

I have been working away on my film, making a move on animation and backgrounds.
Today I've been experimenting with background styles and dimensions so that I can have some cool camera moves if I need to.
Here are some of my experiments.

And here is a (slightly) moving background test:


I had a great meeting today with film editor Mary Stephen and it was really rewarding and helpful!
I will finalising my animatic tomorrow and sending it off for score and sound!

How to make a Homunculus

I'm back at uni in my final semester now.
I'm doing an Illustration for Design class, where we get weekly assignments.
This is my first week one!
The brief was: Create a Diagram.

CLICK FOR FULL SCREEN

Dorkly.com Comic

 HI! I was visiting family for a week.
I finally got around to getting an iPhone also, so that is pretty exciting!
I just discovered Kerbal Space Program, an indie game where you build rockets to launch into orbit. It uses real physics too! It's still in really early stages, but the core that is there now is crazy fun. I'm really interested in the world that is developing around it. I was inspired to draw some fan art. Mostly because of Riess's AWESOME art work that has become the loading screen

Another Dorkly Comic.
I already have another one to work on. And lucky me it is League of Legends themed! I have been playing crazy amounts lately.

Click to fullscreen

 

sketchin

Tried something neat and had an online sketch jam with some buddies. It was a one hour speed sketch with the theme "white walker king". Mine turned into a goblin thing.

Also here is a new comic I did for Dorkly.

Art n Clan n Projections

Bit of a whatever I've been up to update.
I'm working on a short little pixel sequence at the moment and learning TVPaint animation software!
It's interesting to use it for pixel stuff, as it is a bitmap program, rather than vector, so you can actually animate at a true pixel level. Learning all the shortcuts for it and the interface has proved complicated, it's very unique in it's layout and shortcuts. Frustratingly unique.
I'm considering using it to colour my film.

Here is some concept art for a side project I am doing. Hammertrots!

I've been researching medieval architecture a little, as my house mate just bought a buncha castle and siege warfare books!

Hey, check out this awesome car mounted projection animation thing. Very very cool.

run by vjsuave from vjsuave on Vimeo.

New Dorkly.com Comic

My latest comic for Dorkly.com is up now
(I don't write these, just draw them from assigned scripts).
http://www.dorkly.com/comic/17257/gritty-mario-kart-noir

Final Ass* Animation Done (*assignment)

This was an intense little animation to finish in time. The colouring ended up being tedious, though I watched about 6 episodes of Red Dwarf while I did it, so it was cool.


I wanted to colour it in photoshop, but that technique turned out to be too time consuming on my schedule. I still plan to colour my film with that technique though.
The dialogue is Bill Hicks. Animated in Toon Boom.

I've also just gotten into League of Legends. I blame Jouste and his amazing daily high 5 drawings.
It's free to play so give it a shot!

Necromancy!?

I've been playing around with an "idea" and trying to flesh it out and weave story arcs and character profiles into something. I think THIS project could be pretty neat, the problem with it is it's not for anything. IE not for uni, not for work, just a personal project that would require a buncha effort. I really want to give it a shot though, I have some ideas for distribution.
I won't mention what the idea actually is until I've done the initial stuff for it, that way I won't "talk it out" too much.

Click for a BIG OL version

REGARDING MY UNI FILM:

We had another pitch a few days ago, this time to the head of school and another lecturer. The response was really good. Some students had a rough time with questions and interrogation over theirs, so I was pretty relieved. A guy I had in mind to narrate my film dropped out which is a bit of a bummer, but that's ok.

So I am thinking I will do it myself... again. Just record it with a bit more "personality".

I'm almost up to ACTUAL animation on it. I'm just doing a short animation project at the moment.

Dorklin

I have an irregular freelance illustration gig for Dorkly.com at the moment.
Basically drawing up comics from scripts they provide.
LIKE HERE

And here is some real ROUGH ROUGH animation keys of uni related stuff.

Pokemon and Sperm

That title is a bit weird I understand.
The pokemon plague ravaged through our house a while ago and I ended up doing a bunch of stupid Pokemon pictures on some image boards, but never compiled them. So here are some of my favorites.

Click for full res

I've also been working on a uni project for a short film pitch that involves pixel art, sperm and eggs. All will become clear later. But for now, here is some concept art.

on the film front I am currently trying to lockdown and locate a great voice actor for my narration. I've also been sharing my animatic with as many industry people as possible. Been getting some great feedback.

Character redesigns, animatics and shaving

Hello hello. Lotsa progress has been made of late.
I have my animatic in a real good place. Basically it is the first final candidate animatic. I've been showing it to classmates and trying to get as much feedback as possible. I am also about to send it off to a bunch of industry animators to try get their feedback too! One point I am still trying to make my mind up on is my narration. I just worry it is currently my weakest point and may need to look at finding a proper narrator real soon. Stressssful!

I have also shaved my moustache, sideburns and got a haircut as I am having my "Beardstones" or facial hair milestones linked to my film, so I got my animatic done so now I'm fresh and clean to grow my beard until my film is finished. It's going to get rough...

I have also been revisiting my character designs and updating them. I find they grow organically as I do my animatic and end up drawing them a bunch. The biggest change is perhaps the wife. I also just had an idea for a new hairstyle as I never liked my old one.

And I updated the boy a little, to make him looser and gave him tails.

 

I've been diving back into pixel art and tried recreating my characters as just a warm up exercise

Greedo Wallpaper

So continues a strange Greedo infactuation. NOW IN WALLPAPER FORMAT!

Click for big ol size.

  I don't have much more to say now sorry.

Colour Script v1 and Greedo

I really think Greedo is an interesting guy. He is a character I would like to explore further (disregarding actual canon).

My colour board is now in some kind of version. I don't know how indicitive it will be of the final piece or anything. I discovered that having intense tones to then paint over created some interesting results. ie. me fighting with colour constantly.

And here is an amazing animation that my friend Alex shared with me (be sure to check out her production blog).




[Director] SUGIMOTO Kousuke
[Music] MANABE Takayuki

Post Progress Pitch and Boards

Last week was our follow up progress pitch. I'm happy with how I went and people seemed responsive.
For it I finished my layout/storyboards so here they all are together!

 

 

 

So on a basic level that is my film. I am now going through the process of doing colour research and looking at lots of colour boards and theory. Then I will colour these boards to get a vibe for the mood and emotion of each shot.

I'm also going to be starting up a side short film project in collaboration for something much more exciting which I will reveal eventually. It's going to be all pixel animation! But a bit more artistic and abstract hopefully than your stock standard stuff.
Ok... I need to go try work in the small amount of time I have until Portal 2 releases. OH NO.

Wedding Compositions

I had gotten into a semi rut with my film recently. It came about from iterating my animatic too much and losing a little faith in my narration. I had recorded my writer Jack doing a narration and I had thought it was pretty good. But upon getting some fresh eyes on it and then really looking at it I realized it was both too fast and sounded a little forced. I have now taken a step back and decided that my film length shall be completely dictated by what should be the appropriate pacing to make it as good as it can be and that perhaps I should narrate it myself (I'm undecided). So to give me a break from all this I have started working out my shot compositions.
I started by making a complete list of all my shots and taking inspiration from Pixar's process begun creating the foundations for a colour script/story board. Here is my first page.

It is unfinished obviously and uncoloured.

I was in a bit of a panic about how I would go about framing these shots. I felt I had infinite possibilities and perhaps not the skill to pull it off interestingly. Then I found an amazing blog by Up! Colour board artist Lou Romano. It is his second blog and called CINEMOSAIC.
Basically he has been making collections of shots from great movies and throwing them together in a kinda colour script style. He has heeeaps. Basically when I need to make a shot I look through all these panels and find other examples of similar scenes or shots for inspiration. That way I have some degree of confidence with my composition due to being able to say "Well Citizen Kane bloody well did it!". I watched Citizen Kane last night actually, I've been meaning too since forever. It was great. Unreal sets and scope.

Here is another stupid animation line test.


Simon C Head Moves line test from Simon Cottee on Vimeo.

I've also discovered that Joe Brumm's friend Damian Pin has joined our vimeo line test group to check out our stuff, Damian recently won the 11 second club and has some INSANE 3D Animation. Oh gawd.

Production update again

Lots to do and lots done. I'm a little stuck in the cycle with my animatic at the moment, constantly recording new dialogues and rejigging my animatic and the timing. My latest dialogue was discovered to be too quick and after a meeting with script writer Priscilla I came to the realization that my film has to be as long as it is needed to make it as good as it can be. Yesterday I recorded myself in the sound booth, but I'm not sure if I will use it. I'm starting to think I might just narrate it myself as I will then be able to make constant changes with ease.
I've been animating a lot for Joe Brumm's animation class. Here are some very rough walks:



3 Walks Line test from Simon Cottee on Vimeo.

I think I will now do a kind of colour script for my film after being inspired by some Pixar stuff. Also to work out the layout and compositions of my shots.
I'm also growing my moustache and hair until I finish my animatic. Then I'm going to completely shave and grow my beard until my film is finished I think. My moustache is pretty insane at the moment. I'll put a pic up when it's about to go.

Hey check out this cool blog! It is a film condensed into strips that come together to create a barcode of all the colour in the film.
http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com

Here is Pinocchio!

The Wedding Update Whatever

So all kinds of things have been going down. Production has started proper now so it's starting to get stressful. I'm currently going through all kinds of narration tests.
I originally got my housemate Jack to do one, then I did one myself that I used for my first version animatic, then the script was revised so I did a new recording of myself. Then yesterday I got my friend Michelle Law to narrate it using the proper uni sound booth, but listening back to it I'm not sure using a female voice is gonna work without too much confusion, so I just hounded Jack to come in and do a impromptu recording session at uni. He was home doing our dishes so I feel kinda mean.

So we had to pitch our films to our tutors, students and a few industry peeps. My pitch went pretty well I think and it was a lot of fun! I am permitted to make mine on my own and got a 10/10 mark for the pitch! I was amazed, I assumed I just pissed the tutors off due to my cockiness and perhaps perceived unrealistic ambition.
But there you go!

I've been iterating my animatic at the moment, I have a real basic version going. I showed it to Joe Brumm and he had heaps of cool input and seemed genuinely excited and encouraging about it. I've also met with script writer Priscilla to go over the deeper motivations and direction of my story. It was very intense but useful to work out character direction.
I told myself I would have my animatic at a close to ready point by the end of this month, it's the 23rd so if I want to achieve that... I need to get working. But I think that is unrealistic now as I want to iterate it as much as possible. I plan on getting Joe's wife Suzie to have a look over it too, she has been a story board artist for some time.

We are also all animating like hell for Joe's animation class, I'm currently trying to animate a toddler, adult and old man walk. HARD!

Here is an AMAZING animation I stumbled onto that I can only hope mine has such rendering:


Old Fangs from adrien merigeau on Vimeo.

Divine.

Pig Patrol

This was just for fun, I only intended to do one character then I got addicted and busted them all out.
3 buddies and myself have been running a pen and paper Warhammer Fantasy Role Play v2 game for about 2 years now. I have had some of the most fun during it I will tell you what. This is the first time I have digitally drawn our characters. They have gone through so much and are all now mentally ill and very socially unstable.
The best of friends.

CLICK TO BIGGEN

Pig Patrol: Wiegel the Tomb Robber, Janusch the Physician (myself), Helmet the Knight, Donny the Manchild, Mengot the Undead Hunter

The Wedding Update and albums

I've been very busy indeed. Been back for a week at uni and this coming Wednesday I need to pitch my film to my tutors and classmates. I'm lucky I have done a chunk of work over the holidays so I have it a little easy.
My script has been going through a bunch of revisions too, and my first crap draught of my animatic is almost done. I've also modelled a 3D yacht in Maya for my sets.

Here is a colour panel for an idea of the art direction and perhaps final design.
I've been very inspired by Graham Annable's amazing paintings as seen here.
One of my classes is crazy intensive with 2D animation, at the moment I am trying to figure out how to animate a pole vaulter. If that wasn't hard enough I have to do it with crazy perspective! ARGH! 

I have also turned my recent Chiptune Poster into album art for my buddy Dot.AY's new release!

Poster Finished (I believe)

It took a while (mostly me just lying around watching movies due to heat) to finish it.
I'm fairly happy with it. I will probably look at it in a weak and dislike the overlayie stuff. I'm starting to get into this incorporation if pixel aspects into standard cartoony stuff. I guess it should only be in there for a good reason though, like this being for a chiptune gig!

Click for full res
And for kicks here is a PIXEL VERSION.
Resizing an image using Nearest Neighbour does wonders.

Also, I am considering starting a video blog soon on the development of my Animation. I have to keep a journal for uni anyway, so I figure this might be a funner way to do that.

I've also been thinking, do I need an artist alias?! So many cool digital dudes have them... I wonder if my work would become more easily recognisable and rememberable if I did.
I don't know, I will think on it.

ALSO. Be sure to check out 2 player productions awesome proof of concept minecraft documentary.

New Poster WIP

Working on a new poster/album cover for a chiptune collection for my buddy buddy dot.ay.
It's based off probably my favourite piece of fine art, Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David.

BM update and Animatic Progress

Hello THERE.
SO the my animatic for my film is SLOWLY coming together. It's tough to figure out how to frame shots I am telling you! I found the Brad Bird's storyboard guide a real useful refresher before I started.

REGARDING BOAT MURDERED ANIMATION
SO. Tom and I got real lazy. I'll tell you what. We started working on our new films and everything kinda got put under the rug for a while. It wasn't until our friend John Grist, through attempting to motivate me to finish it somehow got conned into helping us! SO, we now have another great animator on board to do the character shots. We plan to meet later in the week to start production.
Sorry we have been such lazy arseholes. Here is a little ANIMATED SAMPLE I did.

Character Turn Arounds Video

Here is a short video showing off the character turn arounds. I learned that throwing it into an animation you really learn where the incorrect placement of things on the different angles are.

Turn Around

Turnaround, every now and then I get a
little bit lonely and you're never coming around
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes
Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and
then I fall apart
Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and
then I fall apart

HEY! Look! Turn Arounds! Luckily for me my Mount and Blade game semi corrupted so it forced me to be productive. As you can see the wife has been fixed up to fit with the others, thanks to lots of great input from Joe Brumm!

The Wedding Characters v1

Here is version 1 of my characters for my final year animation.
I think I will tweak the BBW woman to better match the straight line work of the other characters.
I think my biggest break through was realising I could turn my last name "Cottee" into a little upright rocket ship, as seen in the corners.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy Xmas and New Year friends.

I have been holidaying with family and all that, but now the new year is here I am back to UNI WORK (work is a funny word for me cos it is more like fun). I have to get a pre production pack finished during my holidays before I go back to uni. So I am starting concept art and things like that for my big new animation. It will be called "The Wedding" (perhaps working title, but I like that). I'm not sure if I have mentioned but I will be adapting my house mate Jack Vening's wonderful short story. I also have a pretty exciting sound guy on board to score it!
Here is the first peak of concept art! I have been playing lots of monkey island so I am pretty influenced by their art direction at the moment.


I also just made this pencil like brush preset for photoshop, My first brush design.

Tom and I are also diving back into Boatmurdered to finish it by uni start!
Here is proof, a shot of Tom's flash file.