Gloop Café - Lighting Test

We did a few lighting tests for the exterior background of Gloop Café today, which I didn't enjoy because it was very difficult working out lighting, aperture and all that stuff. However, I feel more confident about shooting it tomorrow, ready to animate over.

Keeping the lighting bright and consistent was the biggest challenge. The session also yielded new feedback into our set design, with the recommendation from our tutor that we stick a blue screen in the back and model simple cardboard building silhouettes, to add context. This is a sound plan. I'm excited to have it shot to begin animating.

Live Brief 3 - Durex - Animatics

Here's the Wonky Nigel animatic. It's formatted to A5 as the physical poster will be A2. I'm enjoying making this so far and I get on with my collaborator. This year I'm focussing on keeping my cool and I think I'm succeeding, but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

And HEEERE'S THE Dave Frisbee animatic. We want to make them short and snappy, mostly for the sake of effort and time but also to accommodate for the atrocious attention span of my generation (i'm probably just as guilty)

By catering to ever shortening attention spans, are we making the art more accessible or are we perpetuating a problem that affects our ability to empathise and engage with things?

Live Brief 3 - Durex - Characters and Rough Storyboard

Designed some more refined characters. These people will be hellbent on obtaining a condom in the morning. It's their favourite thing to do.

Here I wanted to return a little to my classical style and incorporate my usual energetic animation. My worry with the characters is that I want to keep them playful and colourful without it seeming patronising and childish to 18-24 yr olds.

Dave Frisbee changed his name to Adrian Frisbee, to sound less like a middle aged Yorkshireman and more like someone the YOOF can relate to.

Wonky Nigel's style has been updated since I drew this, so he looks like he could inhabit the same universe as Adrian Frisbee. He still has the flower on his head, though. Someone suggested I change his name to 'Flower Head Jim' but this suggestion was met largely with vitriol and hatred from my coursemates.

Shmick Spence needs the most work. I'm not really sure what to do with her so might redesign her a little. In a weekly crit, the rest of the class thought her name made no sense. 
To me it makes perfect sense. Her name is Spence and she's pretty shmick.

A brilliantly composited styleframe demonstrating how the AUGMENTED REALITY will look.

The ORIGINAL Dave Frisbee rough storyboard

The ORIGINAL Wonky Nigel Rough Storyboard

Live Brief 2 - Hostelworld Comp and FINITO

I have finished Hostelworld!

We got 3 gifs and a final tv spot which has been really well received so far.

Coloured in tvpaint.

I'm incredibly pleased with how this turned out. It was nice to work on something a little different.

Were I to repeat the task, I'd emphasise the depressingness of the man's life at the start of the commercial. Luckily, I think sound goes a long way towards building a good atmos. It was our course leader's recommendation that we make a lot of the sounds with our mouths, and I think it gels well with the look.

Animatic done (again)

Now it's REALLY done. I've made some changes in time for this week's presentation and the feedback was more positive. I've stripped the story down to it's PUREST purest form.

TWO cafés, both alike in dignity

What a BARGAIN

Sausage? With GLoop??? It's ungodly

Cross - cafe tensions rise

With deadly consequences

The folly of man is revealed

I'm done with it. It's going to be incredible. I'm glad I've changed it so much because it's taught me a lot about what people respond to and how to tweak things, but it's been a painful process.

I'm looking forward to taking it forward. I'm going to spend some time with my character designer next to ensure that the Gloop Cafe clientele and the Sossidge Diner clientele look distinct

Live Brief 5 - Wetherspoons

I recently made some work for the large pub chain Wetherspoons, who were requesting illustrations to boost team morale.

I thought it would be cool to be featured in the Wetherspoons gallery so I entered. The conditions of the contest specified that I could only enter my work after having a few pints, and that I was only to create the work using Wetherspoons branded crayons that are handed out for free with the children's menus.

This is me working on the design

And this was the final design which I submitted. In future I must be more experimental with my character design. This brief opened my eyes to the potential of cheap crayons as a creative tool. The medium is the message, after all.

Live Brief 3 - Durex

I'm collaborating with another illustration student on a Durex ad campaign in AUGMENTED REALITY.

We're going to use ARTIVIVE, an intuitive app that means even luddites like me can produce mind-bending AUGMENTED REALITY

We threw a few ideas around. A video game where you played a condom, flicking STDS away from a helpless person.

We considered animating a horde of cartoon diseases, but since the campaign is aimed towards 18 to 24 year olds and is meant to promote carrying a condom out of habit, as one would brush their teeth, we thought it best to illustrate that point with three case studies. People who always carry a condom.

INSERT FIRST DRAFTS

Live Brief 2 - Hostelworld animation

Armed with my collaborator's sketchbook of fantastic and bizarre creatures, I spent the last week animating with charcoal and fineliner. It's quite liberating animating from Simon's designs as I don't have to do any roughs, or consider the dimensions or consistency of the characters.

I've managed to churn out the animation quickly while Simon does backgrounds. It feels good to deviate from my regular style.

While I work on this and my other live brief, I have put the final film on the backburner. I oversee the building of the sets.

Some snippets of our organistion process. We deviated from these slightly