vegetation/fungus reference (more jellyfish like inside the tree)

loris maquette 2 turn around

quick loris maquet

HI Managers.
Christine emailed about an issue of not being able to add a member due to permissions  issue limited to Managers....so instead of trying to reset privileges every time its needed I suggest I make one person per group an administrator with the powers of a GOD....this way it will limit permission problems and limit the chances or  corrupting sites but at the same time not having to wait for me to change individual permissions so you can do your work....so
Please decide amongst your group managers who will be raised to the power of ADMINISTRATION GOD....soon as you email me I will baptize them
but be careful if you are the ADMIN...with great powers come great responsibility
DQ

Badger maquet

Hey guys heres the badger maquet I made during our story meeting

If you sent me an Hotmail email for the Shotgun please send me an alternate that is NOT hotmail...Gmail or other
Shotgun seems to not like hotmail.....

send it to this site if you can or email me at sheridan and put shotgun email in the subject

with your full name group number

HI D1

if you have not received an email from Shotgun yet please send an alternate email to this blog for me to try...please do not use one that has a period "." in your name like dave.quesnelle...use a davequesnelle instead...that maybe the problem but I am not sure

also check your spam or junk folders first

If you did get a Shotgun email to join please upload an avatar even if its a temp so i can tell you got on it...thanks

DQ

I just added a temp billboard BG ...to put some image up for your site..change it when you have something better

I just reset all the Mangers to Administrator ...you should now have all the control you need to reformat and add names and ...well.... do anything....including loosing information...so be careful

HI ALL

Now that Shotgun site is live ...I expect everyone to watch the online video tutorials....
I am learning as I go along too...so I am not the expert to talk too...
I do expect the people who are listed as Managers to be the ones to get your head around this...everyone who is listed as artists should be ok with that level of permission but if you as an Manager need to be listed as ADMIN let me know but I think that should be good for now anyway....a dont want people by accident deleting files...or changing data.

either way for safety and caution ....keep a twin file system going on the school servers just in of a major disaster...

lets play with this and see how it goes

DQ

Did anyone get an email about logging onto Shotgun....I want to see if it is workig....please let me know....
I have Alison listed as Manager for now...is there anyone else I need to add as manager?

DQ

Rough concept sketches

Badgers, sorry for the lack of scanage

some loris stuff (also how a grayish pallet would contrast a colorful environment)

More Island exploration

And back to art :D

 

Can you let me know if you have a final production name and a film tittle ...or at least a working one...
I want to format your site with what you wanted
if you dont have a final one then at least a temp one for now

Shotgun update

I had to change the URL access...so when the site is open
you project will be under
Sheridancollege
SheridanDQ2013@shotgunstudio.com

once this is activated then I will be able to create the individual group productions that each group will only have permission to there own site production

gotta start over...but its a start
I will let  you all know as soon as it is up!

DQ

Hi ALL
I just sent in the request for the site
I put in the company name as D1
and created an URL named

BADGERED@shotgunstudio.com

It will take 24hours for the site to go live ...I will let you all know when it does

hope I did this right...I needed a temp name...hopefully you can update it later

DQ

GOOD NEWS......SHOTGUN!!!

HI ALL

 I Just got conformation from the SHOTGUN company ....we will have full permission to use the SHOTGUN production software until JUNE 1st....
I will be spending the day trying to set up the links using the list of Name and emails that you have sent me.
Remember in order for the whole group to use Shotgun, everyone on the production will need to work online using .
YOU also need to keep a twin files system on your schools network just in case of technical crashes...and I suggest the production people use an external Hard  drive to do an extra back up just in case of a meteorite hitting the earth!!!

I will hopefully get this done today and will send you the detail as soon as I can.
The production People will have most control over the site and so I suggest they take the time to learn as much about this as possible and there is plenty of online tutorials to watch.
I am not an expert at this software either so I will be relying on you guys to try and learn this too...so we can both get our heads around this....

Hopefully this will work out great for us...then we can present this to the school on how much this helped us get production done...

This is a trial for us all lets see if we love it or hate it....

Thanks

DQ

Check out this fur stuff....
is this helpful...???
http://blog.animationmentor.com/furry-animation-pink-and-blue/

Style Sheet/Notes

Hello design team and story team!

Great concepts everyone, I feel like we're on the right track. I know we probably all want to start modelling ASAP. I think the best way to go about this is to start concept-ing stylistically. What we have now is great, but it's not as geometric as we initially agreed upon. I've gathered some references for what I think would work with our film.

I've also compiled some notes for consideration based off of the book, The Noble Approach that we should keep in mind when designing props/assets/environments.

This is just a quick run down of the more important elements of my notes. If you want all of the notes, I'll be happy to give them to you just send me a note or something.

---------------------------------

NOTES:

• Audience should feel comfortable with your designs and know what they stand for.
• "In Illustration, an artist can be more subtle, because the viewer has the opportunity to spend more time with the art. In animation, design it is is a rare luxury to spend more than a few seconds with an image. The focus has to read quickly and clearly. Movement and colour all help with this focus, but everything begins with value."
• Design supports but does not intrude
• Simplicity is key to design
• Design supports character and story
• Design to the strength of the medium
• Always be specific
• Capture the feeling of a place instead of look
• Animation: "a distillation of the truth, with all irrelevant parts removed; a kind of visual reduction sauce. It's the strength of animation as a medium..."
• "When turning natural things into designs, pick the most outstanding characteristic of what it is you are designing"
• ex: when designing a chair for PePe Le Pew cartoon, Maurice notes "swooping back, curved legs, high arched back"
• Experiment with size relationships, shape, pattern
• Once a general approach for pattern and shape language have been found, narrow rough sketches to ones that will work best
• "Values: valuable" -> "colour: icing on the cake"
• "Don't be afraid to be ridiculous with your shapes and forms. If it makes you laugh, it will probably make the audience laugh too"

----------------------------------------------

I am heavily leaning towards a style similar to

• Emperor's New Groove
• Bastion
• The Croods
• Wakfu
• Madagascar

This is just style though. We should explore simplifications of this style given our time constraints and limitations. I think simplifications to the level of Journey or even External World - David O'Reilly would be something worth while to explore.

We should start working with shading and values to really elaborate on the 3D-ness of the design. This is just so we can really start to flesh out what the film may look like and if the designs work. Colour is not so important right now, but if that's your thing, feel free to explore.

CONCEPT EXAMPLES

• Really try to elaborate on the 3D-ness in your drawings
• Think of the overall shape of the design before details
• Start with values before colour

SHAPES

• Again, thing about the overall shape
• Don't forget about gesture 
• Keep in mind the rhythm of silhouette of your design. 
• Where do you want the audience's eyes to rest, or be drawn to? - that area is usually where it should contain the most detail and rhythm
• Silhouette first, detail/stylization later

STYLE ELEMENTS

• KEYWORDS
• Steps
• Swirls
• Squares, Rectangles, Triangles
• Geometric
• Angles, Lines, 
• TIME PERIOD
• Aztec
• Mesopotamian
• Ruins
• Early early civilization. 
• Pre-Roman Empire, Post-Austrolopithecus
• What's weird? What is unique?
• Reference real life!
• Do research from real pictures, or places you've been. Draw from your experiences/memory

That being said.....

There's not much the design team can do other than do concept art with style until we all know the story.

Design Team:

We need specific pieces of concept art/thumbnails that can give us a visual on the type of world we want to create. I want to ask you guys to come up with some concept art for MONDAY OCTOBER 28 that will show and elaborate these things:

ENVIRONMENT

Design these with style in mind and stage the character(s) if you can

1. What the world looks like outside of the island
2. What the world looks like from the island looking in toward the island
3. What the world looks like from inside the tree

FRUIT/TREE

Fruit needs to work with the environment. There needs to be an element of consistency between the fruit and the tree so we know that the fruit is from the tree. Fruit/tree concepts should be done together.

1. Come up with an idea for a fruit that you can justify 100%. Always ask why you are designing this particular thing the way you are. The reason must support the story.

BADGER/LORIS

Who is this Badger/Loris? Who do YOU think this Badger/Loris is based off of our story? Reference Alison's story notes!

1. Beginning of the story, what does the badger look/feel like?
2. Contrast this to the end of the story (where he's still a badger), what does the badger look/feel like then?
3. Poses with expression, mood. A feeling that will be conveyed in our film. Explore the limitations of the Badger's/Loris's body (reach, bend, exaggeration)
4. 3/4 views of the design
5. Thumbnails/Silhouettes/Shapes!!

Please also feel free to post on the blog as you go!

Most importantly, have fun with this (!!!) and don't forget to put a bit of your vision into what you draw. :)

-------

Next steps:
I'll be getting in contact with Brandon while/as soon as they are done working on the rough boards. Once we know what's happening with the story I'll talk to Alison about co-coordinating meetings (group and design) to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Our first fruit concept model. When it opens the skin become like leaves, they shrink, the insides will sag down as if pulled by gravity.

HI D1

Great meeting yesterday...covered a lot of issues and everyone that was there had great Ideas and suggestions.

I like the visual look and story direction

and your characters are comming together



I know there are some issues about how far to go with the loris (Lorene) and I am little  concerned about going too outrages with the loris and take away from the Badger...but hey lets see how it goes..thats part of the fun.

I had a good time thanks

DQ

Film Color/ Shape Language

Here is just another look at color/shape design for the film. Stole the idea from a Disney lecture, shh.

more trees anyone?

Dariks concepts (I did a color swap)

tree concept color experimentation