Tuesday 31 January 2012

Background Transformations

Hey Folks

These are some background attempts taken from the storyboards. I am quite proud of the space one actually i just experimented with some brushes and techniques i learned from VU Animation tutorials is sooo simple yet so effective. The 4 of these were drawn straight into photoshop

See what you think




Enjoy Muchly

THE BUBBLE BASSES

Hey Folks

Please let me introduce to you, The Bubble Basses.

Now think of these little creatures as the animals of Planet Deckturn They are made up of bubble shapes with specific characteristics on them. They are each born with a propeller in which helps them to move around in the sky, however these propellers produce specific things which helps keep Deckturn going.

For Example if we look to the top right we can see a crazy looking bubble bass that produces which looks like smoke but is actually clouds. We also have a leprechaun type which produces DOUBLE RAINBOWS.

We also have ones that are artists in themselves and produce equalizers that sync with the music being played on the planet :D and we have bums who have no specific job to the planet and have epic beards that grow in time with the beat.

A few of these guys will be picked and made for the film.

Pick your fave



Enjoy Muchly

Storyboard Thumbnails

Hey Folks

Here are some early storyboard Thumbnail sketches for you to peek at

Enjoy Muchly

Some Piccys Of the Characters

Hey Folks

Here are some character sketches for you to awwwww at :D

Enjoy Muchly

PLANET DECKTURN

Hey Folks

Welcome To Planet Deckturn

The Influences for this little planet came from Edmund Mcmillen, he has a tendency to give a lot of his outer background characters faces and personalities so i thought well what if the planet that my character lives on also had a personality.

I also thought about what would be even cooler if he had a pair of headphones too so that he could listen to the music of his world :D.

Then Combine it with the mechanics of saturn's rings an there you go, PLANET DECKTURN.

Enjoy Muchly

The Model for My reflective Writing

Hey Folks

This is a basic model of what will expected to be in my reflective writing essay.

Animation, what is it to me ?

Ren and Stimpy

Edmund Mcmillen

Bob Clampett

Tex Avery

Exaggeration

Extreme facial expressions

Animation styles

Abstract Story Telling

The Music, Can you feel it ?

Electronica

Daft Punk

Deadmau5

Skrillex

The Effects

Look Into The Visual Side!

Influences

DJ Hero

Super Meatboy

Scott Pilgrim VS The World

The Mighty Boosh

I Got The Skills!

Drawing

After Effects

Photoshop

Flash

Pro Tools

Ooooh Does it Work!

My Experiences with learning new drawing techniques

Learning VFX

Gathering New influences and References

Trying New Animation Techniques

Think Small, Think Smaller

Character Building

Story

What About Yourself As A Person?

Maturity

Research

Collaboration

Abilities

Technicality

Any others


Reflective Writing

Hey Folks

Here is another reflective writing exercise.

Warning swearing may occur.

I can hear my fridge door making some noise its like water but i can sense the cold coming from the pipes. Must make sure i do this model thing for tomorrow, this is hard i have nothing in my head because i already cleared my head today, still need to stop scratching my arm its getting sore.

im glad that ive got my new animatic all set up and ready to go :D feeling better for that, i can hear my parrot speak and its funny haha. Man i just cant be bothered with this right now i just wanna get to work instead of writing up this shit :(.

Is this even right what i'm doing i'm thinking of DJ shadow right now and i am in the mood to play one of his songs. hmm what if o got everyone to do a reflective writing piece based on the brain heart music that i have been researching i wonder what would happen then :D.

Ok so thats 6 minutes i dont think it works so well with me in the morning because i am so used to sitting in my bed and just thinking about everything. i get it from my dad and i cant be bothered getting up in the morning and heading straight to the notebook or the computer because then i am awake and ive lot most of my concentration.

I dont know about this to be honest i couldn't come up with anything i cant even think about a past experience or anything i am actually thinking about this stupid thing that i am writing right now all i am experiencing is my hand getting bloody sore from typing. I think this experience has not worked for me today i personally think that i need to do these sort of things either after lunch or when i am needing to write something up, ive noticed that works wonders but when it comes to a day when i know i am doing something practical. I dont need to clear my mind because it just sets in so well with the practical stuff. When i have to write up this 500 words thing and the 3000 word thing i think i will use this method to get better results.

Enjoy Muchly

Target Practice


Hey Folks

This is a small practice thing i have done in after effects :)

its like some sort of target thing

enjoy muchly

Sunday 29 January 2012

brand new animatic 2_1.mov


Hey Folks

This is the brand new animatic, finally after reducing so much of the quality i managed to get it on the bloody thing.

Hope you guys can make out what happening and.

Enjoy Muchly

Some Lovely Pictures

Hey Folks

Here are some sketches from my animatic for you all to look at, some of these are some of the layouts to the film. The little dots you see in the first picture in the background is what i call bubble basses. i will have some sketches of them up soon enough :)

Enjoy Muchly





Tuesday 17 January 2012

Edmund Mcmillen Independently good, but is it for the wrong reasons

Hey Folks

This is going to be one of my biggest reports ever on this blog, probably because i have found my ultimate new hero.

EDMUND MCMILLEN




Ok so here we go Edmund McMillen is an independent indie games artist and comic book artist. His work is very recognisable for his graphic characters, odd backgrounds and very strange stories for his games. Edmund is responsible for creating popular games such as;

"Gish" Winner of the 2005 IGF Grand Prize, the 2005 IGF Innovation in Game Design, and multiple Game of the Year awards.

"Super Meatboy" Downloadable game of the year - Gamespot (editors choice, Readers Choice), Downloadable game of the year - EGM, Downloadable game of the year - Gametrailers, Most Challenging game of the year - IGN, Most addicting game of the year - Destructiod, Best Soundtrack of the year - Destruciod, Best DLC of the year - Destructiod and Best old School Kick in the ass - Gamesradar.

"The Binding Of Isaac" nominated for Independant game of the Year - VGA

Mcmillen grew up in Santa Cruz California with his mother and stepfather, his mother has always dreamed to live near the beach and so she took her family including Edmund to Santa Cruz along the side of the beach. Despite the attractions and the perfect place for a kid to grow up in Edmund decides to stay indoors whilst drawing and playing video games all day long.

Edmund's mind tend to take him to very strange places and draw strange things, one in particular was monsters illustrating his phobias as a child.
In third grade of school his teacher suggested that Edmund suffered from being mentally disturbed and suggested his art was "A cry for help". Edmund never got on well with his stepfather and when things went out of hand he would stay with his grandmother, she was very supportive of him in everything he did especially his art. when she passed away Edmund realised that she kept all his drawings in a box but written little notes on then describing what Edmund was feeling that day he drew them.

Edmund started a pastime of writing comics with a very dark and eerie style to the illustrations, he wanted to become an independent artist and work for himself to satisfy others so he wrote, designed and printed his own comics. He designed a comic called "This Is A Cry For Help" and promoted it to a company called Slave Labour Graphics and independant company particularly known for dark and humorous off beat comics. Edmund sadly got rejected right away, he tried again a few months later and again got rejected so he decided to promote his comics online.
Edmund started to work online and slowly moved into animation. Strangely enough Edmund never had any art training, he never went to college and just worked on his own. He tried a flash course but failed the programme but he was happy with the experience he needed to get off the ground. Edmund trained himself art basics online and slowly moved his way up to the hard stuff like lighting and anatomy.

When he got into animation he worked with an animator called Dan Paladin who worked on the animations for castle crashers. He suggested to Edmund to pick up "The Animators Survival Kit" a book made by Richard Williams, one of the main character animators for the film "Who framed Roger Rabbit".
Edmund now had some experience on basic animations and artwork for games so he joined a small indie games company called Chronic Logic where he worked for free and created box art for games such as "Bridge Construction Set" and "Tryptych" Eventually Edmund wanted to create a character driven game with basic mechanics so they worked on a game called "Gish" a character made from a blob of tar who can jump and stick to walls and used the environment to defeat his enemies.


By using Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux,They created a physics based blob that can mould and move to any shape of the environment keeping the weight and physics mass to the character.

Edmund worked on his first fully independant character driven game called "Cereus Peashy" Created in Flash in 2007.
When a Peashy comes of age, he is given a mask made from the skull of a Kankerling and sent on the trial of Ire. Working his way through Golgotha, the young Cereus Peashy must prove his worth by killing all who cross his path.
Eventually making his way to the Fall City where like his ancestors before him, he will adorn the Crimson Mask and become a true Cereus Peashy.
Edmund worked with Tom Fulp who worked on the flash version of "Alien Homonid" together they worked on all the mechanics, animations, colouring of "Cereus Peashy" but eventually Tom Got an offer to make "Alien Homonid" into a console game so he couldn't work with Edmund anymore which meant he had to work independently again.
Edmunds influences were a combination of computer games, illustrations, different people and cartoons he watched when he was younger aswel as today.

He has been inspired by his niece to create a game called "Aether" about a boy who climbs on top of a monster and they fly around outer space exploring different planets. He meets odd and weird looking creatures who needs his help to solve their problems but when he does they are still never satisfied. As he solves these problems that planet grows smaller and smaller until eventually the boy could hold the planet in his hands and the earth breaks.

Edmunds aim of this game was to let people understand and look into his mind when he was a child. To explain that its great to have all these wonderful ideas and go all out t uncover them and explore them, but it pays a price of isolation and being obsessed with things that never seem perfect no matter how much you have done to change it for the better.
He has been inspired by animations such as; "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Ren and Stimpy"

You can see from his influences and these pictures or Ren and Stimpy where he gets his gruesome images from but what really gets me is his influences from "The Garbage Pail Kids" these are illustrations of some of the most bizarre things i have ever seen even more gruesome that what i would come up with.

Edmunds disgusting characters


Edmund used to go to church a lot when he was younger and when he created "The Binding Of Isaac" the inspiration for this game came from biblical terms, as such Isaac's mother was told by God to sacrifice Isaac to prove her faith of love in God. The same idea as the story of Isaac in the Bible but Edmund creates a horrible twist in this game with dead babies, monsters with diseases and man eating silk worms all trapped inside a basement in which issac descends into to hide from his psychotic mother.
Edmund has been inspired by Miyamoto who is the creator of the "Super Mario" franchise. Also in the fact that Miyamoto like to explore outside and gather inspirations from all around the world. As Edmund explains himself.

"the world outside your room is important. It can also be very inspiring. Go take an adventure, then come home and write a game about it. That's what Miyamoto did. I believe that you can't be inspired without living."
So onto the games you know a bit about him so here is my talk about the games.

I have only played three of his games which are "Cereus peashy", "Super Meatboy" and "The Binding of Isaac"

So lets start with "Cereus Peashy"

The first thing i notice right away is the design of the character, Its a cactus with a mask a very unusual but interesting character to play with a quest to kill everything in his path.
The environment is in the dessert with warm colours to help display the dessert there is a balance between background, middle ground and foreground. The background is blurred with a mist to show what a typical dessert would look like also there are birds in the background so that shows more life around the world. The middle ground has usage of thick and light lines to portray depth in the mountains and the environment. The foreground has some clouds and effects of dust past by as you play.
You would expect to fight characters like scorpions and snakes but that is not the case edmund surpassingly makes you fight dead featus birds and strange floating monsters with stitches and little bug eyes.
The thing that catches my eye is the animation there are lots of things here that interest me.

First Peashy, when he is standing still he is shaking all over the place which to me could indicate he's insane, there is a good usage of squash and stretch in the character particularly when he runs, as his foot lands on the ground his head squashes to show weight in his cactus like head. good sense of gravity when he jumps with the delay at the peak of his double jump height with a somersault effect. good use of squash and stretch when he lands on the ground or jumps on enemies. I can see the anticipation when he emits his double jump.

The enemies in which some of them are called dumplings are with good qualities among the few i have seen during gameplay, if you notice the little dumpling enemies that stay in one place tend to have a unique squash to them which gives off their individuality as an enemy in the game, however the jumping enemies have no anticipation as they jump upwards. Then again the bird fetus boss has nice anticipation before he coughs up his blood ball.

there are nice animated effects in the dust that comes off Peashy and also when the enemies die theres a nice splatter of blood onto the camera and i like that sort of thing myself. The music is alright i feel that it needs to have a bit more of a beat going through it because this is a fast paced game to play. some of the sound effects are recognisable so i feel there should have been some originality in the effects.

Above all its a great little game to play but be warned it is extremely difficult to play and if you are not into all the gore and violence, then its not for you.


So second is "Super Meatboy"

The first thing i notice is that "Supermeat" Boy is heavily influenced by quite a few popular gaming franchises. The story is simple go through the levels to save your girlfriend, there are secret warp zone areas and unlockables to collect. the gameplay itself is influenced by Super Mario with the jumping abilities and the animation of supermeatboy because he raises his hand in the air like mario and can jump off walls just like mario.

When you enter the different worlds there are some introductions that are familiar to games such as the megaman introduction with the camera panning upwards a building with supermeatboy sitting on top of the building beaten up.

The first introduction of the first level is a reference from Street fighter however it is turned to a humorous state where Dr Fetus punches Meatboy's girlfriend in the face.

what is interesting about this game is the design of the environment its a simple looking style to play on with some effects of clouds and lighting when some of the obstacles become destroyed. Also when you go into a warp zone the whole game changes into a retro style platform and when you enter the dark world the whole environment turns into a silhouette style so very simple style but good use of the effects for the game.

there is not a lot of animation in this game that might be because of how the balance of gameplay comes into it. The levels you play you need to see practically the whole environment to see where to go. Also the characters are very small in the levels which is needed so you can see where to jump to or avoid. The cutscenes in the game were generated in flash, there are some squash and stretch but not enough to make them look visually pleasing. Its more about the gameplay rather than the story and the animation itself.
Lastly "The Binding of Isaac"

This is Edmunds most recent game to come out, this game has been heavily influenced by "The Legend of Zelda" franchise particularly the older style games where you complete the dungeon rooms to access the next one and finally defeat the bosses.

I feel that this is edmunds best style for animation and character design, every character has a unique style to their design in which they all fit perfectly in the world of Isaac each character has a unique way of attacking and all share the same principles of squash and stretch with anticipation and a good sense of weight and gravity.

The references are very well thought into place for example a troll bomb, Trolls are people who cause problems on the internet by putting irrelevant and offensive comments on peoples videos, messages and debates. In result these trolls cause problems and when you are playing isaac if you defeat and enemy or sometime clear a room one or 7 troll bombs appear in the room causing, "problems"

The interesting thing about isaac is the items you collect, these items changes your character design and makes you maybe more appealing or maybe more gruesome. However the game is very difficult to play but that is deliberate because the aim of the game is to not complete the game but collect all the items in the game by getting better at it.

So there you have it that is my small review about Edmund McMillen i have another article to write about him sharing what i personally feel about his work and his influences on me plus there is a debate about piracy that he discusses so i want to do that too.

so here are a few places where you could play some of the games :D

(Cereus Peashy) http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/358510


(Aether) http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/459147


(Super Meatboy) http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/463241


(The Binding of Isaac) http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/581168


His Blogs


http://supermeatboy.com/


http://edmundm.com/


http://edmundmcmillen.blogspot.com/









Monday 16 January 2012

Hey folks

so today i decided to give some colour to the little guy but i cant decide what colour to have him originally before all the cool effects take place because he will be changing colours during it. so please have a look and take your pick or suggests other colours.

Enjoy Muchly

Im Not Promoting CS5...Honestly

Hey Folks

I just thought i would show you the box of my master collection. its well worth the price if you are a student, and its good for all round people.

give it a try its also got an awesome one liner

EXPERIENCE ALL THE PRIVILEGES OF OWNERSHIP

Enjoy Muchly



My Room of Adverts

Hey Folks

I was quite bored today so i thought about going for a wander around and i spotted a few more postcards and things that i put on my wall. Ive noticed that its getting quite impressively full so I thought I would share it with you guys to let you see where i get all my ideas and inspirations from since i am a PLANT after all haha :D

its got everything on it from postcards, keyrings, parking tickets, an email tree that i made myself to even money on the wall im not that crazy to actually put a fiver on the wall but you never know maybe one day it might be worth more than a fiver haha :D.

Enjoy Muchly



Wednesday 11 January 2012

reflective writing

Hey Folks

So today we were given a small talk about reflective writing, we were told that one of the best ways to do reflective writing is to do a mind dump.

now i don't mean as in slam your head on the table and hope that your brain fluids spill on the floor, what i mean is grab a sheet of paper, or a computer and type for 6 minutes of anything and everything that comes to your mind.

so heres mine CAUTION SOME STRONG LANGUAGE.

I wonder what felix's drink tastes like, cool cup though, my God theres a fucking machine behind me typing like mad .__. What to write i have no idea likes getting bored already. I got the moves like jagger I got the moves like jagger, I got the mooooioooioiovvves like jagger. Kinda reminds me of Jager the drink, my hands are sore, lets grow old together in every way EVERY WAY!!! yeah drinking drinking bitch haha LOL. Need another drink of my shitty warm coke which was a failed attempt of getting it cold by putting it in the sink filled with cold water fucking hell so many mistakes its pissing me off. Backs itchy and scratchy hey thats a cool saying my backs itchy and scratchy hahaaaaagh, i cant think of anything now my brain is in a time warp zone, like super meat boy. now i have the theme tune for the first level in my head hmmm weird do dodo do.

6 minutes up.

next you had to write for 20 minutes about a past experience you've had recently. at first i never thought this would work because the 6 minute thing was meant to eventually evolve into an experience of its own or help you write up one so here we go.

Well so far that book is a piece of shit. I have not thought about any experiences ap..well...apart from this one ive kinda learned that if i want to draw shit not literally mind you but yeah if i want to draw shit i can write it down or just draw it so its kinda good in a way because if i get stuck during this practice at least...i just heard a weird sound coming from a phone, yeah anyways. If i get stuck i can just put out all this shit im thinking about on paper until im spaced out then have a fresh mind, you know what book. your not so bad after all haha.

So ive been playing a game calle "The Binding of Isaac" which has been created by a team called TEAM MEAT which are the guys who have done Super Meat Boy haha thanks book. Anyways yeah so I played the game, enjoyed it but its fucking hard mind you but what i really liked was the art of the game so i researched the artist and found out who it is, Its an artist named Edmund Mcmillen an indie games artist who has been drawing from a very young age and has inspired me so much over the christmas period, 5 MINS, so i found out that he drew tone of stuff on paper obviously but when he got into games he learned that the best thing to do was draw straight into the computer, so over xmas and new year i have been learning to draw like him and also draw into photoshop. I must say that its a lot of fun and cheaper than buying paper cause im a tight fisted basterd LOL. So i can say that this is a good experience plus i just happened to stumble upon "The Binding of Isaac" on "Teh Internets" and watched a "Lets Play" video on youtube and then after i saw that i downloaded the game and spotted Edmund in the credits. So after all that unsuspected experience it has helped me step out of my comfort zone and also increasing my character design skills plus a bonus for me because Edmund's drawings are gory and crude as fuck so this is totally up my alley :D smiley face. Now i am learning to get more and more confident in drawing into the computer and i will eventually start learnign to animate straight into flash and get my animations done much much quicker and better thus one more step closer to becoming the fastest and very skilled animator eveeerrrrr

FUCK!

so there you have it, quite a weird exercise but its well worth it. Try it out yourself, the best time to do it is when you've just woken up, going to bed, just had some food or did your daily thing that you do like work or exercise. Maybe you can do it after you've been drinking who knows try it out and comment:D

enjoy muchly

Equalizer bar


Hey Folks

This is my equalizer bar test that i did in after effects after watching that tutorial its not perfect but you get the idea.

Enjoy Muchly.

How to Make Equalizer/Music Bars | After Effects Tutorial #2


Hey Folks hows everyone doing hope you've had a good new year and things i have :P.

here is a little something that i have been doing over the holidays which is a tutorial on how to make a cool equaliser bar just like on those cool t-shirts you get or on other musicy things.

enjoy muchly