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.

Vote for me on Threadless!!!

I put my new design on threadless, so please vote 5 for it!
CLICK HERE

Finished Cryptozoological Design

Here is the finished Design.
CLICK FOR PROPER RESOLUTION

All star cast: Mothman, Nessie, Big Foot, Fairies, Jersey Devil, Bunyip, Wampa, Mongolian Death Worm, Jackalope, Chupacabra, Dover Demon, Jesus...
I had lots of fun researching these dudes.
I am pretty pleased with it. I did like 3 colour tests, finally settling on this simplistic one. I basically looked at lots of designers to try see how they colour these complex things. Threadless.com I find is a great source to see how pros do it.

I'll be doing up the actual poster tomorrow with it.