Journal

 

 

Sept 12 2016

There's some things that really bother you, such as the opening shot when the camera zooms in. The trees should move a bit faster than the background, so I went ahead and removed the trees and this is what was left from the background.

Sometimes, mishaps happen and they look better than you intended. I removed the lines from the background and it looks better. At some point, I might revisit the non-contour line animation.

 

Sept 5 2016

After a wild summer, I was inspired by the street art around Sao Paulo and Bogota. The illustrations are so free and wild. I felt there was a separation between the 2D elements and 3D elements of the short and this could be that bridge. I also included shadows, motion blur and depth of field along with the rotoscoping outlines of the characters. The additions really give the work a richness I'm pleased about.

 

May 5 2016

After a week I receive the rest of the background that would appear. It try to implement the rest of the panels that Kris made, but it's difficult to add them in.

 

May 2 2016

The last shot, with the ground and all the gore which is essential for the shock factor.

The black lines is overpowering, but the imagery is interesting. It's also not looking very '3D' in the background.

 

April 30 2016

Added some lines to make it more ridiculous. My mark making is slowly getting better.


With most of the background plates drawn out, creating the 'seamless' mesh between 3D and 2D is a surprisingly difficult task.

It's also becoming apparent, that there needs to be a shadow ground pass. Using Mental Ray to create the shadows is great, but takes a very long time to render.

 

April 28 2016

Slowly getting the backgrounds, and this perfect to represent the ground in the 'Candyland'


The village looks great, but could use a bit more rendering. In hindsight, this would work as well, since the characters don't have any outlines.

But this is a much more compelling image and the high contrast is working. However, will it work with the 3D characters?

 

Apr 27 2016

After a receiving the watercolor, it looks like there might be a need to extend the painting.

A minor change and I did a rough of this. As you can see, there's some spots that aren't perfect, and that's something to be ok with. If you don't notice it in the final work, then there's no reason to get bent out of shape about something you don't notice.

It's been a while since I drew on the tablet, so I had to do some refreshing ... on some props first.

It took about 30-60 minutes to get used to the Cintiq again, which is a lot faster than the tablet. From here, I began to clean up the lines that I started with, since I had more control of the pen.

The ridiculous scene was a lot of fun to give it the stars and burst.

 

April 25 2016

Since Kris is on the other side of USA, it's often hard to remote and get work done. But after a slight delay, the background art comes in and I'm off to touch them up!

 

April 14 2016

Spent most of the new year animating, and now it's time to light!

Experimenting with different colors of light

I've never been a fan of green in any of my work.

So far, the slight purple gives it the candy kind of energy I'm looking for.

Adding orange, gives it a sunset type of feel which is not what I'm looking for.

The morning sun? Probably not ...

Two lights, a key and fill.

I've added an exaggerated bounce light to give it a more surreal feeling.

Pumped up the key light intensity to give it a better overall brightness.

More lighting but this character is inherently dark.

Pumping up the diffuse helps a bit.

Overall, with the limited number of shots, the lighting process was fast and painless. I generally give myself 10-15 minutes to light 1 shot and with the loading times in Maya being slow and sluggish, I would say the help of software rendering sped this process up a bit (inspite of the long load/save times in Maya)

 

Apr 12 2016

With much of the animation complete, the rest was up to the backgrounds, so it's always best to contact the artists well before you need the materials for the animations.

 

 

Nov 30 2015

Asked Anna to push the design further, as seen on these.

 

 

Nov 16 2015

Trying to play with the shape of the castle, as the last one with the angled lines appears more playful.

 

With the colors set, it's time to figure out the landscape!

 

 

Nov 9 2015

Additional refere

 

 

Nov 2 2015

The first designs for the background. The limestone cliffs are an important visual trait of Laos. The colors are all working but the props such as oversized fruits, etc. isn't coming through.

Some early designs based on the architecture seen in Vientiene, Laos. The playful colors are essential to give the characters a reason to be attracted to the 'green' side.

 

 

 

Oct 26 2015

Some of the mashup castles, taking in the German design along with the Lao designs. Overall, it's beautiful but may be confusing to take in the imagery in only a couple of seconds.

 

 

Oct 19 2015

Early designs of the environment. Since the characters want to be enticed to want to visit the castle, it has to be accessible, and being on a cliff won't work. The body of water also doesn't work, as the characters need a clear path. The fruit and cake style of castle isn't working either.

 

 

Oct 20 2015

Additional reference image of the situation in Laos with kids playing next to the cluster bombs.

 

Oct 13 2015

The characters are all set up with the minor characters less detailed. It's a 1 minute short film, so there needs to be shortcuts.

 

 

Sept 9 2015

One of the strongest designs by Anna, and it looks ok in Maya as this model and rig is the same as World's Next Top Superhero. Thanks Dave Senter!

The 2D version and the 3D. Some of the detailed elements like the rendering in the ears had to be left out, just because the time to made the changes wouldn't be worth it in the end. You have to make sacrifices.

 

Sept 9 2015

The first designs of the rooster. Seeing that my uncle in Laos lives next to a rooster farm and I'm woken up everyday at 5am by the rooster calls, I felt it was necessary to have a rooster in the short.

Another version with different eyes. The previous is more friendly with the white space

Sept 2 2015

The first reference images. Since the characters need to be animals found in Laos, I had to be thoughtful to decide which to represent.

Some of the familiar animals in Laos. Laos and Thailand are very similar in fruits and animals represented.

The environment reference sheet with all the temples, popular landmarks and exotic fruits in Laos.

Additional landscape reference sheet. Candyland Laos mashup!

Sent this to Kris to produce a watercolor version of a Lao village.