Background Designs

Decided to finish up an old background design for the now-on-hiatus Pirates Life:

Also, here's a sketch of a BG/Layout of an upcoming, quick animation:

The Pirates Life: Props

Continuing on with preparations, working on prop designs now, and some layout designs coming soon

The Pirate's Life: Color Variants

Started making some color variants for the characters:

The Pirate's Life Update: Character Height and Silhouettes

My buccaneer short, which I've decided to call "The Pirate's Life", is just about underway as my senior film. I've got tweaks to make to the story still, but I've started designing backgrounds, props, and finalizing the characters.

I tried stylizing them further, playing with shapes and proportions, but I wanted to make sure they all "fit" together.

Here is the first new character design sheet, to be followed with turnarounds for each, as well as color tests.

Buccaneer Progress Report: Dad Turnaround and "Ben" Process Sketches

Just some more work done for the Buccaneer short in between doing layout for the scenes.

Also I'm still sort of struggling with the son, who I've deemed "Ben" for no real good reason (he kinda looks like a "Ben", no?)

I just feel that he is visually boring compared to the Dad and the Cap'n, both of whom I'm pretty happy with at this point. so here are some sketches of me trying to "find" what Ben is going to look like in the final version. I think i'm getting closer with this newest incarnation

I'm trying to make his body shape some sort of rounded triangle, and just adding rounded points to him in general. I'm pretty close to being happy with it, but i think it can still be pushed.

Buccaneers: The Project Thus Far

I've begun to commit a lot of time and energy into this still untitled short film project, and I wanted to talk a little bit about it. It is a simple enough story, about the relationship between a father and his son. The father is an overworked man, but his son is still very important to him. They continue to share an annual traditional fishing trip wherein the two play “pirate” together, though the son has far outgrown this phase of his life. This years trip is cut short however when the pair stumble across a treasure chest that naturally lures some very real pirates to the father-son duo. The father and son must work together to escape safely, and in the end find a new way to bond, albeit still slightly unorthodox.

The trappings around this story have changed over the course of my working on it, how we get from A to B, little plot points here and there, etc. but the core concept has remained the same: A father obsessed with one facet of his son's life, so much so that he hasn't noticed that his son has moved on. Obviously my own relationships have informed the story, and the fact that it revolves around pirates is also due to my own interest. It's true that artists put themselves into their work, but I wanted that to be especially true for this project.

I haven't thought extensively about a soundtrack yet (sound design and the like are not my forte), but I would like it to possibly be informed by Mediterranean or even Celtic music. The son is learning to play an acoustic guitar, so form of reoccurring arpeggio or chord progression would be included. There are moments of comedy, moments of adventure, as well as some somber moments. It'll be an interesting and difficult challenge, as the story will be reliant on a marriage of the visuals and a cohesive score to explain to the events to the audience, as there is no dialog in the piece.

This piece is keeping me excited and motivated though, and I'm really enjoying the time spent on it.

Animation: Odds and Ends

Just some further tweaking on two previous animations.

The puppet rig of my "Dad" character is now acting along to the lip sync, albeit better in some parts than others



And I continued to work on the Pirate Cap'n as well, this one being hand drawn. I added some temp colors too him, too

Animation: Rig Experiments

Lately we've been learning about/experimenting with Toon Boom Harmony's puppet rig/deformation capabilities in class, and this is the result of that, thus far. Soon he'll be acting along to the lip sync, but I wanted to get that part done first, using the drawing substitution method.

Cap'n Turnaround

I'm working on finishing up the turnaround for The Cap'n, for class and because my friend Allison
is looking into making 3D models of other people's characters, and asked if she could make a model of him

so here he is so far, still haven't made any color choices though:

Also, watch him spin!

Layout & Timing: Draft 4 w/ Sound and some Rough Animation!

The sound appears to be desynched in the playback...Thanks, Youtube.

Sketches: King of the Pirates

Cause my friend Jess said so...

Layout & Timing: Draft 3

This is closer to the final version of this storyboard/animatic before diving into the layout process. This is also the story in it's entirety, finally. I still need to rework some things for clarity, and add sound effects, plus various other timing tweeks and what-have-you. But I'm getting happier with it, and closer to actually making something of it.

Still doesn't have a title, though...

Layout & Timing: Draft 2

A Second pass at the Buccaneer storyboard, still a work in progress

Layout & Timing: Draft 1

This semester I'm taking a course in "Layout and Timing" for animation. I'll be focusing on the first half of an animated short I'll be finishing in the future. It features the characters I've been posting lately.

I've got the first draft of the storyboard done, in a very rough form. I'm trying to make a strong, pantomime-focused film this time, visuals only/no dialog. I'll be adding sound effects later to make some parts clearer, but for the most part I'll be relying on screen direction and acting to tell the story

here are some more character sketches, as well as the first pass at timing this animatic out. Enjoy!

Sketches: Buccaneers Part 2

I started to get some idea's for the pirate captain of the short:

Sketches: Buccaneers

Here are just a few early concept sketches for characters in an upcoming animatic/short film idea from me.

More on these guys (and a first board draft) coming soon!