What I'd like to do

Hmmm.. tricky.


I really like concept art, I like the development and thought that goes behind animations and games and the amount of detail that a development team can put in. Seeing all the rough works, sketchbooks and all the nitty gritty development work has always been my thrill. Art of books for animation are amazing (of course any animator will say that) but what I'm trying to say is I'd like to go into the direction of research and development, 2d concepts maybe? It's all a bit scary really.
     Of course I definitely need to improve my drawing skills. By miles. I'm a very harsh critic on myself and I guess the only way I can remedy this constant feeling that I'm not doing well enough is by drawing. Tons. Like... all the time.
   That's why I'm wanting to do environments for Pirates, even though I've only touched upon them due to the fact that we spent most of this semester doing character design (which I also find really interesting, seeing all the elements of design going into characters, from shapes that influence their final outcome to learning how they can be appealing in terms of colours and shapes.) Doing environments I find really interesting and I want to improve in that area, especially in the basic like perspective, colour etc. I find composition important and I'd love to be able to create images that tell a story just by glancing at them. But then on further inspection you'd see all the details, little things that the artist has added in that makes up the bigger picture. I really like my colour stuff, it's kinda obsessive and I still need to definitely master colour theory if I want to make effective backgrounds for pirates. Even for the character designs I feel I could probably still do tons more sketches for the Burly guy (probably again this feeling of never doing enough.)
     Anyway I've rambled, what I'm basically trying to say is I enjoy doing character design and environments... and animating too. I'm not sure I've found a good strong point yet but like I've mentioned before, it's the smaller details that I like in concepts that really help the final picture have that much more charm...


Will probably edit this later. It's pretty much a ramble right now. :)

What's gonna happen...

I want to tell stories. Or I want to HELP tell stories at least. All kinds of stories. I reckon storyboarding is the way to go.

This aspiration is why I'm undertaking the storyboarding on Veggie Pirates, and Kieran and Mark and kindly let me have a go at re-doing the storyboarding their film. It's also why my dissertation will be discussing storyboarding and storyboard artists. This will give me both hands-on practice at storyboarding while simultaneously studying the craft - studying and comparing artists such as Hayao Miyazaki, Chris Sanders, Bill Peet and of course, directly being able to talk with Wayne. Studying camera angles and so on in films (both live action and animated, being careful to choose the best examples), and sketching them down to get a feel for it. The Bruce Block book will no doubt be of great help, as will Hans Bacher's Dream Worlds (specifically for animation). 

For Veggie Pirates, I'll be animating as well. We'll be studying animated and live action film, observing and acting out. The tone of the film is slapstick and over the top, and yet still epic (in my mind anyway), so thinking about and sourcing the appropriate reference material  is crucial.