Dial W for Wallace & Gromit: Hitchcock’s influence on Wallace and Gromit films

Hey everyone! I was going through some of my old files from school and I stumbled upon my first quarter term paper. It's not perfect but hey for a first draft I think it can hold some water. Oh Master's degree making me think and and analyze and write and junk. Please enjoy. You can also click here to view my presentation that went along with the paper for more pretty pictures.

***Mandatory disclaimer***
So this should go without saying but it is the internet after all. If anyone out there stumbles across my paper and decides to expand upon it or use some of the ideas I proposed cite me as your reference and shoot me a message. Thanks!

I got myself a job!

I seemed to disappear then reappear depending on what my school scheduled was but that is all over now. I graduated in June and had a short week off before starting at my new job. I am super amped about landing a spot on the flash animation team at Floyd County Productions!

I have been there just over 1 month and it has been an incredible learning experience for me so far. I had a spell of self doubt and some intense anxiety questioning my skills my first month at work. But that has nearly passed by now and I need to just enjoy the fact that I got to help on episode 1 of Season 5 Archer! Probably my favorite show on television right now so what's to panic about? We have started pre-production on Chozen which is where I will be animating.

During my first 2 weeks I was lucky enough to catch a super fun project and worked on some inbetweening and clean up for a few of the lead animators. I can't say what the show was BUUUUUT I will announce here on my blog when I can and be all "I animated that hand!" and "Cleaned up that action!" just to claim what little involvement I had on the project...hahaha

Thumbnail Color Script

So while one of my teammates worked on the storyboard the other was putting it all together in the first rough cut animatic. I was tasked with the color script for the film. So I took the storyboard thumbnails and painted this quick and dirty color script. Pending some tweaking we are in week 4 and will hopefully begin production this weekend. Time to start animating!

New "logo" for self branding

Hey long time no post! I've been busy of late but wanted to throw something up on the blog to show I am alive and kicking. Our first assignment for portfolio class was a logo design as part of our self branding. Below you can see my final direction along with the simple animation I will include during the title of my demo reel. I wanted to explore an illustrative story with my "logo" so I have these abstract thoughts sprouting from the box guy's head. Oh and what's the ladder for?  Click here for my resume! using this new style direction.

Done in Flash. Just some fun straight ahead animation :D I will layer what I have cycled to make the animation fuller like the static illustration.

Props Update

Been hard at work with the rest of the class on our collaborative film Vita Magus. I've moved over to the props and effects side of the film so below is some of the work I've produced the past few weeks. I have a group working along side myself to model and texture everything but I've also attached the Props I modeled. It's going to be rough, we are 5 weeks in and have 5 left to finish the film with 0% of it animated!<

Props_FoodTruck_Turntable_Ver001_MacDonald from Vita Magus on Vimeo.


Props FoodCart Turntable Ver001 MacDonald from Vita Magus on Vimeo.

New Collab film

Just finished a few pieces from the new film I am working on in class. I still have some other concepts I'm finishing up tonight/tomorrow but here's one character sheet and a speed painting of the street performing location the help capture the mood. The entire class will be posting to vitamagusfilm.blogspot.com so check it out.

The above character is a woman in her 60's that has been performing as a magician for over 40 years. I wanted an older woman that wasn't what you normally see in animated films; hunched, wrinkled, and eccentric. She should have a sophistication and refinement about her gained through performing her act for decades. A past that was filled with stardom and beauty in which she continues to confidently project.

My key influence was the beautiful 63 year old Jessica Lange. Another is a Canadian street performer by the name of Billy Kidd who along with Janelle Monae inspired the androgynous outfit. This adds an interesting character trait to her unseen history of struggling with not only trying to introduce magic to the world but also to stand out and become accepted. Billy Kidd stated in an interview "It's a boys' club,"... "I have to work harder and do different things." which is one reason for Kidd's androgynous persona.

Lastly the color pallet chosen is an example of how the world could look towards the final few scenes of the film. Bright colors that play with a high contrast complimentary pallet. This method is more about experimenting with hue contrast than value contrast.

After finishing the last environment frame I decided to do a quick concept of the little girl in the street to refine that sloppy painting. This idea of having a child being able to also see the magic everyone else overlooks was brought up in class and I though it was interesting and worth exploring. I wanted her forms to reflect the magician she is impersonating so I tapered her arms and legs to mimic the magician silhouette.

Newest Sketchkablam

So this week I FINALLY got off my ass and completed something more than a shitty sketch! The inspiration was "Smoking Conference" and all I could think about was those sad, sad rooms people cram into at the airport. I decided to go with a retro look since it was the golden age of travel. That and I was just watching Iron Giant. Oh I also wanted it look like a screen captured from a film. Enjoy :D

Second New Short

Hello followers. I wanted to let everyone know that I am returning to school Tuesday and will be working on a total of 2 films this quarter. FML!

The first film is my own called Jellie and you've maybe check out my posts here. The second film is for my 2D/3D Collaborative Project class. So far it is myself and my two friends Jenna and Davonne. The concept was brought forward by Jenna and I thought it sounded cool so I jumped on board to develop the kernal of an idea into a, hopefully, bad ass little short.

Please jump on over to The Keepers of the Trees and follow our progress over the next 10 weeks as we try to finish our film!

Another Edgar update/my 100th post!

So I am calling the rendering 80ish% finished. I stepped away for a while to work on Jellie but I picked it back up today and got it to a place I am happy with. I want to rework some of the UV’s around the eye socket so the texture is less noticeably stretched and then I will maybe add some reflected light from the water surface on the sand. Not sure about that one since this is more of a stylistic rendering but I think it will also be a great way for me to experiment with this for Jellie since the tank/room will need lots of effect lighting. Oh! I also need to add some graphics to his loot and then maybe some sand dollars on the floor.

So here’s the process of creating the 80ish% piece

And the, nearly, completed composite

Jellie Update!

Whew! It's been a busy week. I've completed all but 2 or so shots in the animatic. It's been fun designing the backgrounds and adding some new cuts/reworking old ones from the original thumbnail storyboards. All in all I feels it's coming together quite well. I will return to school on January 7th so I would like to have the entire short completed in animatic form to show my professors and get some feedback during the first few weeks of the quarter. I am also in a collaborative class and I do have to opportunity to pitch the concept as the short the class would work on for the coming 10 weeks. I am however reluctant to share this project. Over the past few weeks I have built upon the original concept making this film quite personal with some metaphors that may or may not be so subtle.

Jellie WIP animatic 02 from efmuok on Vimeo.

Jellie

So I have a new working title for my short film. I am calling it “Jellie”. Updates too. I have a sound designer that will be working on the short. Check out his blog over at Sound of the Hunt. And lastly some animatic work. I have about 80% of the scenes finished with the main character added. I am working on more backgrounds now then I will add in the flying fish and some subway riders/pedestrians.


Jellie WIP animatic 01 from efmuok on Vimeo.

Lastly, the biggest update. Due to MARTA photo policies being ridiculous, the aquarium always being packed and the fact that there are some shots of things that simple don’t exist and/or would be impossible for me to shoot I will be painting all the backgrounds digitally. Sucks but hey I think it’ll be better and closer to the film I see in my head. That being said I now have good photo reference hahaha.

Aquarium Backgrounds and Styleframe

Alright. Finally got off my lazy ass and took the photographs for my aquarium short. Went to the MARTA last night and after getting yelled at by 2 security guards and 1 police officer I got the photos I needed. But NO FILMING! And I wasn't allowed to use my tripod. I'm not exactly sure what the restriction on tripods is for. I mean midday rush hour sure but there was maybe 5 other people on the train with me. It was a pain in the ass to shoot at night w/out a tripod though.

I've been editing, compositing, and color correcting all day but I now have the first few shots completed. The first background has the top of the stairs with an alpha, I will go to the aquarium and grad some photos of the underwater tunnel and the viewing wall the combine. The subway windows also have alpha so I can put images and lights passing by as he travels on the train.

I also grabbed the illustration I did and dropped it into one of the backgrounds to get an idea of how the final animation will be composited together. I've been tweaking the colors as well to get the mood of the film I want. Enjoy.

I am on a deadline for this one...April in the job fair and I need it for my demo reel!

Happy Holidays

American Horror Story Asylum

This weeks topic was Psychotic Quarter. But I sketched a whole symphony. Oh and did I mention its an American Horror Story fan art as well. So I know I barely whip these shitty sketches together each week but this one and am going to finish cause it's been so long since I've done a fan art and I miss it. Stay tuned this week for the final piece.

Aquarium Character Design

Grabbed my sharpie and threw down some silhouettes for the character in my aquarium short.

He is influenced by many things.  He has some eel, also threw in some some jelly fish and octopus/squid. Basically I was him aquatic-ish but to also have the ability to walk upright at the beginning of the short. Also flexibility is important because I want him to really squash and stretch.

When he returns to the water and loses his little suit his arms/legs will become him tentacles and he'll move probably similar to a squid. But this is all up in the air and animation tests will polish this chaos in my head.

Sketchkablam quickie

Done this afternoon in my sketchbook then thrown into photoshop to add a flat color pass. I need to get on this Sketchkablam thing and up my quality haha. Key words were "Autopsy Society" and I drew this little girl who I guess won the science fair and is now the newest member of the Jr Society.

More sketchbook stuff

Haven't posted up life drawing in a few weeks. I was introduced to love castle by a former classmate  and it is GREAT! Basically you set what you want to draw and how long then have at it. That website has been great supplement for time such as now when I am on school break to too stingy to pay $5 for an open model session.

Enjoy this page of hands and a few figures. All 2min or less. Working on my speed/confidence still. Honestly I still do not do figure/observation drawing enough but I'm trying to add it into my scheduled more. Also broke away from my brush pen and used a black Copic.

Also I was browsing a sketchbook and found some sketches that I did to setting on the character I used in my Blagurgitate film. The assignment had us mix two different styles from art history, I mashed Egon Schiele with African masks. The left page is me re-sketching a self portrait of his to better understand how he does that magic. All sketches are with a 50% grey Copic.

Edgar update and new (unfinished) Sketchkablam!

So I’m SLOOOOWLY finishing up all the side project. The video game I have been working on for the past 6months is nearly finished then I’ll have some more time for other projects. That being said I have been chipping away at the Edgar model/rendering. I have him fully modeled, and UV mapped so it’s ready for texture and lighting! Below is a quick ambient occlusion pass.

Also this past Mondays Sketchkablam was Scorpion Procedure. I was originally going to do a human/scorpion trans species post-op guy but when I typed scorpion into Google for reference images I saw this photo.

I just had to draw them flash forward at a reunion tour in the retirement home. Enjoy.

Edgar update

Have a the tentacles in a rough pose :D Thinking this will be fun once it's finished.

New Short?

So my wife took this awesome photo at the aquarium a few weeks ago and it inspired a short film in my mind.

 
Basically it will be about this little jelly fish guy that finds a dying fish on his way home from work. When he picks the fish up it comes back to life and begins to swim through the air. He follows the fish and is ultimately lead back to a giant fish tank and then returns to his natural state. Lol nothing special but should be a fun project. That being said I had been thinking about it some time but did nothing, then last night I could not sleep thinking about what I wanted it to look like. So I got out of bed and threw a quick storyboard together so I wouldn’t forget

I know the sketches are AMAZING!