NC: Narrative: Revised Animatic (No Sound)

This revised animatic still has some problems with pacing as I am unsure about some things, like speech and speed of movement and they were hard to visualise in my head, so some scenes and shots are either too fast or too slow. Overall, like the storyboard, this is an improvement on the original, I think, as it easier to understand.

NC: Narrative: Revised Stroyboard

At long last, I have revised the storyboard in accordance to Alan's feedback in last week's tutorial. It proved to be quite a challenge, for me, to make the story make more sense, and so there hasn't been many changes. I think it is still an improvement, however, and so it is easier to understand what is happening. I had some problems trying to think of the ending and so I left it open to interpretation as to whether he throws it successfully or not.

NC: Narrative: Target board Model - Progress.

I will work on this once everything is imported into the main scene if it seems like it is needed. This is the target board that Oliver is trying to through knives at. I need to remake the texture as it is not circus-y enough this was only a practice and I will switch out the textures when I create the right one.

NC: Narrative : Knife prop models Idea 1

As our main character is going to need some knives to throw I have modeled a knife and duplicated different forms of it. It has a chrome reflective texture and a wooden handle. I will probably improve on the design as the rest of the environment is built as it may not suit the environment I will adapt it.

Assistant Modeling: Neck and Smoothing

Continuing on with the assistant's head. Just need to add the hair then its on to the body. 

NC: Narrative: Circus Environment model Progress.

After I few pointers from Alan I have simplified the chair models to one polygon shape as to reduce their density that way when it comes to rendering it out it will not take to long. I am going to discus with my group members as to what else needs to be modelled at this time as there is not really much else I can do until the characters are finished, therefore I know what scale to put the stage in and what scale the chairs are, how big the knife board needs to be etc. Then I can think about texturing and such. As there only be one light source, texturing need only be simple as we are pressed for time. 

NC: Narrative: Set Pieces - Chairs

So in our set you can see the outline of the audience's seating area. So I have modeled a couple of chairs which can be duplicated over and over to form out audience's area. If  I alternate them from the seat down and seat up position I believe it will look quite effective even in low light.
They were quiet easy to model. Even without a orthographic. They are just a added piece in our set.

Assistant Mouth and eyes Remodeling

After making the base model, I felt like the eyes and mouth weren't similar enough to what I had designed originally. Taking some time this morning, I rearranged the vertices around the eyes to make them more slanted/pointed and decreased the size of the mouth.

 

 

 

 

Assistant Modeling: Head

Over the past few day's I have been working on modeling the assistant. Surprisingly modeling human character's is difficult but ill keep going with it.

At the moment she looks fairly basic, I will be adding in the black outline's around the eyes and making her face rounder towards the end of the modeling process.

NC: Narrative: Animatic (No Music/Sound)

This is the animatic that I have made from the storyboard. I think there are some issues with timing, as some shots need to be a little longer/shorter. I wanted to add the camera pan to the first shot, but my Adobe Premiere isn't working at the moment, so that is something I will look to achieve when sound has been added. As a group, we will discuss suitable music and sound effects.

NC: Narrative: Storyboard

I have created this new storyboard which is based on our new script draft, but isn't completely the same. The reason for this is because I felt that it should be more of a shock to discover that he isn't the knife thrower and is just the apprentice. I haven't shown this in the storyboard, but in the animation there will be visual hints, like posters, that suggest he isn't the knife thrower, and so will make the real knife thrower's appearance more understandable. I have tried to keep it as simple as possible, while still trying to show a convincing story.

NC: Narrative: Circus Model Start.

There is a little collapsing happening on the model which I aim to ask help with tomorrow. But here is the start of the circus set we are placing our animation in. It is the ring in which the performances are held and a little pillar set that will connect to the tent's roof structure.

NC: Narrative: Environment In progress

Just wanted to show that I hadn't be doing anything for this project I've started to work on the main interior environment for our group. It has a pastel effect for the moment as I build up on it. I also plan to do a model of this to show scale after I confirm with my group if this is the type of setting we're setting it in.

NC Character's: Final Designs and Color

NC: Narrative: Environment

As discussed we will be still sticking with the circus setting but this time it only happens within one area, the main arena. Where here we place out scene I decided to put together a few quick and rough concepts to gain a better understanding of this place and how things are being laid out. I wanted to wait until the new storyboard is up before I make anything more solid as I need to know the direction in which to take it.

Oliver: Starting to Paint

Just getting an idea of how Oliver is going to look when fully painted. 

Assistant: Starting to paint

Starting to color the Assistant now. Referring back to the 1920's reference's I used for the original design. 

Assistant design: Line art + Orthograph

The assistant is the new character that we are introducing to replace the father we originally had. As we are changing the story, it was suggested that we ditch the father in favor of something a little different. 

This is the new character's design. I looked into the costume's for circus assistants in the 1920's and most of them had this kind of swimsuit, design with frills and bow's around it so I thought it would be interesting to try and include them in the design. 

As with Oliver, I will be refining theses designs after the color stage. (I will also add the feet back in when I get to that stage as I ran out of room when drawing them) 

Oliver Redesign: Line art + orthograph

After the OGR and a tutorial with Alan, it was suggested that we re design our characters to fit into one cohesive style and to match our world more appropriately. This led to all the character design being handed over to myself.

This character is the redesign of our original character Oliver. Moving away from my own style and more towards and cartoony style. I choose to do them this way as it seemed more appropriate to our funnier, cuter story, which has also been improved upon since the OGR.

As you can see he is very similar clothes wise to my original design, just in a slightly different style. 

The orthograph for this character. I will be straightening them up and refining them when I get past the color stage. 

NC: Revised script draft.

So after yesterday's feedback we comprised a much simpler script and my group asked me to upload it so they can assess it and we will discuss any changes and improvements and get it written in Adobe story:

Apprentice tries being the knife thrower, which doesn't work out and so continues to be the apprentice.

-          Woman stands against the board.

-          Man attempts to the throw knives.

o   Camera focuses on man’s hand.

o   CUT to man throwing knife. Side Shot.

o   CUT to knife hitting a ball.

o   CUT to knife hitting traipse ladder.

o   CUT to knife hitting the middle podium.

o   CUT to knife embedded in board.

o   CUT to long shot, woman stepped slightly out to avoid the knife.

o   CUT to apprentice's face, showing fear and her swallowing. Knife hits just past her ear and she tilts her head away.

o   CUT to Long Shot of him throwing a knife that completely misses the target

o   CUT to Woman being tied to the board as the board starts spinning slowly.

o   CUT to Man throwing knife.

o   CUT to Woman’s face shocked.

o   Pan up to see knife has cut her hat in half.

o   CUT to full body drops the knife.

o   CUT to knife in the floor inches from his foot, Focus on trouser leg ripped.

o   CUT to long shot man continuously throwing knives at the board in light frustration. Ripping the woman’s dress.

o   CUT to long Shot, man throws knife it cuts the rope holding her and she falls forward.

o   CUT to his face looking sad.

o   CUT to woman’s face looking angry, then softens up.

o   CUT to woman and man full shot, she pats his shoulder.

o   CUT to man on board spinning.

o   CUT to Long Shot woman throwing knives and framing his body with them.

o   CUT to man leaves board leaving knife outline of his body. 

                              **** more content to be discussed ****

NC: Narrative - OGR Presentation.

OGR Presention

Script Link: Final Script
Sounds: Entry of the Gladiators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5csNO3oMrQ
              Ragtime Piano - The Entertainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPmruHc4S9Q

Narractive Character: Oliver Final color.

A color version of my Oliver design.

Narrative Character: Oliver Final Design (before color)

The final design for Oliver. Our wannabe Chef.
Using Julia's original designs I aimed to create a character who seemed more open then his cross armed father. Some one a little more lively and enthusiastic, before the process of the story takes it's toll.

(This is the character in the clothing he will be wearing for most of the animation, It will change towards the end)

NC: Colour Experiments - Frederick Caro

Using my previous Frederick drawing, I have done these colour experiments to see what ones with work best. I used similar colours to the ones that Julia used in her Oliver colour tests as that will show a link between the characters. We will continue to explore Frederick's design and see what colours we shall use.

NC: The Apprentice - Character Concept.

This is a smaller detail in our story, as Oliver is a knife thrower he needs an assistant to practice with. As we wanted to keep the concept that Oliver is still young and has had a childhood dream despite his fathers persistence, this little guy is his companion, his best friend and the help that he has turned to to get through things. He was designed by Lewis and I took the liberty of turning him into a concept. I had a lot of fun with this, slightly altering his design to make the bear seem more tattered. Here are two versions. 

NC: First Character Deign - Frederick Caro

By reading Julia's character overview of the father (Frederick Caro) and looking at the clothing/appearance of men in the 1920s, as well as trying to create a character similar to the ones in the influence map, I have created this design. I have tried to make him look like an unfriendly person, and one that the audience wouldn't like, through his treatment of Oliver. I demonstrated that in his expressions in his face and his pose of his arms being folded. 

Finished Storyboard.

The final storyboard for our narrative project. Some scenes have changed a little since the initial drawing...

(would have been up earlier if I hadn't fallen asleep while working)