Doug's Character Sheet

Greetings.

In CG, in order to model a character you need decent Character Sheets. You can model without them, or with poor ones, but I've found that this takes a lot more time to get the character correct. Last night I have been mostly working on....character sheets. Doug's specifically. James drew me a Character Sheet that had certain elements that I liked, and others I didn't. I decided to rectify this in the wee hours of the morning using Photoshop.

Here is the original sketch:



Although construction lines were used, there are elements that were way off being symmetrical. I took Doug's right hand side of his face (on the left), duplicated and mirrored then blended over the top to his right, keeping his hair. The same was applied to his body and legs. His ears were then moved up and rotated, similar to his nose. His waist and shirt were altered to be the correct length, and his eye-brows were shrunk and rotated to match. His shoes were also slightly altered.

Here is the updated sketch after being photoshopped:



This character sheet can now be used for modeling in a CG program. It will make my life easier to model the character how the drawings line up in the 2 views.

If only modeling was so easy...

Feedback and Friends. A good combination.

After showing my current character sheet and animatic to people, I felt that a few things needed changed. My good friend Peder Kallin (who owns his own CG animation company) told me that in it's current form, he would see me next year. The character and story were still too complicated to produce on time. Seeing as he has full proper production experience, I tend to agree with him.

Doug, was far too human and realistic. So, after going over a large number of designs of the character with James Cox, we eventually decided on this:



As you can see, the character has been greatly simplified. Using simple but great animation rigs as inspiration (Animation Mentor's Stu and Andrew Silkes Generi) the new 'Doug' should be a hell of a lot easier to animate and much more fun to use. Plus, his limbs are longer and more useful - great for character animation. Also of note are the eye-brows and forehead which will be great for expressing the character when he has no lines to deliver.

Here is a version of my animatic that is undergoing some changes. Enjoy.

Story is King...and Doug.

So, I've been working on story now for quite a while. Which is a good thing, as the great minds say, "Story is King". However there comes a point where you're so wrapped up in story that you need other's opinions. I reached a 6th draft of the screenplay and showed it to many lecturers. It seemed strange, as I have received completely opposite feedback from nearly all of them, which contradicts many points they all make.

Thus, I decided to listen to all criticisms and take on board the ones that seemed to fit the main theme and story while disguarding the ones that distracted. This proved beneficial as I now seem to have a film that does actually have a meaning and yet has the potential to be quite humorous.

It's about time I started posting up some artwork and videos, so I'll start with the central main character of 'Doug'.



In a surreal and subconscious way, I seem to have created and named the main character of my film 'Doug' after my Dad Douglas, and even stranger seem to have developed him to look very very similar. I assume my Dad must have issues with going into Public toilets, and that is the reason I have decided to put him in this situation.

I have been developing my animatic recently. I am currently on my 4th revision and as soon as I have put sound in it I will upload for people to see. The first version was very basic and simply filmed storyboards, but the latest version includes some basic cutout animation to help with the feel and timing of shots. The feedback so far has been good - the story can easily be read. Which is nice.

Build it up, to tear it down, to build it up.

One of the great things I learned from Annecy this year was from one of the many Pixar talks I went to. One piece of advice about story was that Pixar often had screenplay/script reviews. Often. Very often. This was so that problems could be ironed out and the story could be perfected as much as possible before going into full-steam-ahead production with millions of pounds worth of people and equipment. This is to help avoid any last minute changes to story and script while in production, which is both costly and time consuming.

I have decided to follow Pixar's example with my screenplay and animatics. After my third draft, I gave it to a number of people for review. Some classmates and friends and one lecturer who I thought knew a good story when they saw/read it. Amazingly, so far, positive reviews. But this is to not say there weren't critical. I asked for honest opinions and suggestions and I got them. Not only that, many of them seemed to voice the same opinions and problems. Which is a good thing. It means there is a problem, and it's now easier to fix.

The main great thing I've got out of this technique so far, is the ending of the screenplay. After hearing that people were not satisfied with the ending of the tale as it was slightly boring and a bit of a let-down from a large build up, (while being happy with the build up) I decided to re-write the ending completely. Now with my fourth draft of the screenplay in hand, I feel confident this was a good move as the ending now seems to fit better, be more funny and overall a better fit for the film.

We as animators and storytellers must listen to (most) people's opinions. They are after all, our target audience. We must also be open to critical review, as without criticism we cannot improve our art.

Ok, so that went well...

Um, yeah. Summer went a bit different than expected. After I did my work experience at Arthur Cox, a few weeks later I got another work experience working at Calon in Cardiff. There I worked on a pilot of a children's TV show called Psi 5. So in the end, I didn't exactly get as much done as I had hoped over the summer.

However, things have now changed. I have just completed my second draft of my Screenplay for my short film tentatively entitled "Please, wash your hands". I will be working on the third draft shortly after I have presented this to a few select people for reading and constructive feedback.

Adiós.

Go go gadget 3rd Year Final Film!

Yes, and so I have started a new Blog. Totally separate from my website blog which is mainly used for posting films I've worked on etc.

I now have a really different idea from what I proposed a few weeks ago. That idea I've been thinking about for ages, but would probably need a team of people to do. So, I may revisit it at a future point.

My idea right now...I'm keeping slightly under-wraps. I'm working on the story and throwing it up on story reels in a few weeks. Once I've shown it to really good story tellers and get good feedback I will post them all up. I plan to have the animatic online by the end of July. I'll start organising my timetable soon - as I want to get the story PERFECT before I get anything started on production.

I learned much from Annecy. One of the best examples of this is the great Pixar saying "Build it up to tear it down". I will build up the story and tear it down until the story is strong enough to stand on it's own. It just happens to be animated.

So....little will happen here util I finish up on Chupa Chups @ AthurCox. Once that is done, work shall commence! (after a few days rest....maybe).

Peace out.