fashion in animation

I really love fashion.  Let me just put that out there.  I don't think I have the best sense of style, and I don't follow all the designers very closely but I really love someone with spot on style.  Trendy, Classic, Urban, Casual, Preppy, I love it all!  Like I said, I'm not the most fashionable person, but I'm so happy to be welcomed into the chaotic fashion industry that I sort of fumbled into for my day job.

Due to my infatuation with this form of design, I really want to incorporate interesting fashion into Arrival.  In no way am I setting out to create this ground breaking collection of pieces, however.  I really want to use the characters' clothing as an expression of seasons changing, and I think it would add a new layer to the protagonist's personalities.  What I AM setting out to do however, is create a collection of outfits that seamlessly flow into each other- specifically with color.  My theory is that it'll help pull the numerous time jumps together a little bit more, and the viewer wont feel as disoriented when the scene changes.

You other animators out there are probably laughing at me b/c of the detail in these outfits.  You're probably thinking "YOU FOOL.  TOO MUCH DETAIL.  THE ANIMATION WILL KILL YOU." However, I HAVE A TRUMP CARD MY FRIEND.  That trump card is the simple and weird fact that I absolutely LOVE to animate clothing (see almost every other post where I go on and on about it).

Even if you don't like the outfits, I hope you can get wrapped up in the story that will be presented as well :)

the boards

I'VE FINALLY COMPLETED MY STORYBOARDS!! The story is finally complete and in a place that I'm happy with!  Of course there's a COUPLE of small edits I have to go back and do, and I'm sure I'll find some more revisions to make once I've made the animatic.  However, I think it's safe to say the story is LOCKED!  I've scanned some of the boards here for you to see without giving away anything.

(Obviously I've only picked out the ones I like since I don't want you to see the ones that look like dirt.)

From here on, the next step will be a final animatic, the layouts then animation! not many steps, BUT SUCH A LONG WAY TO GO!  

I WILL finish this film. It means everything to me...

memories in shadow

I recently had to have my computer fixed (for a billion and one reasons), but now that he's back to me I can share with you some of the work that I did during that time!

I started actually doing detailed drawings of some of the more complicated interiors- these three specifically are of the same room shot at different angles for one scene in the film.  I absolutely love the contrast that natural lighting gives to films (ex. Maboroshi) and for this environment it's really important to the development of the mood.

A little bit of tweaking will probably be done before I actually do the final colored versions of these, especially since I might decide to draw them bigger-not sure.  However, I hope that the somberness I'm trying to express reaches you!

hair toss

I really wanted to start off this post by saying "SO....blah blah blah..."

But then I realized how many posts of mine start off in such a way; this made me depressed.

THEREFORE I will start this way :)  Here's another REALLY SHORT animation test I did for Arrival.  I had actually finished it a while back but had some issues with After Effects.  I wanted to have a background with it but I got lazy and just kept it as is (also all the backgrounds I made for it previously sucked).

I have a pretty long amount of time off of work ahead of me so I'll be working on Arrival and doing my best to finish up DYDIC? (FINALLY!!)

testing testing 1,2,3

So, as promised here's a little treat for you! For the past couple of weeks I've been putting together some test animation for Arrival and I'm pretty pleased how it came out. It's not perfect, but I learned some good techniques about how to make it look like there's a lot more going on than there really is haha.

I was also going to have the clouds move left to right (or visa versa) but it actually ended up looking rather cheap and very boring. So instead I have the clouds pulling back slightly as the camera zooms in- also known as a "Dolly Zoom." It blurs reality every so slightly and it makes the background seem much more vast.

Basically the point of this was to see how detailed with the actual animation I could get, while finishing it within a reasonable amount of time. I have another, quicker set of animation to clean up as a test, but I'm going to take a bit of a break for the time being. Enjoy!

oh HI, I didn't see you there!

"OH HOHOHOHOHOHOOOOO"

SO! I'm still here hahaha. I haven't really posted in a month but there's a very good explanation for that, and you'll see why soon. Just hang in there for a bit longer while I finish everything up. Expect a new post by the end of the month :)

CIAO :D

two worlds

Two mood studies I did pretty quickly (obviously I still need a lot of work on my cityscapes...) Inspired by the awesome new BRAVE poster from Pixar. The top one is definitely stronger, but I'm not completely disappointed in how the other one came out. hope you like them!