Pocket Sized Grandparents: General Update

So after last week, where I presented my idea / character for a second time I received some pretty good feedback. Firstly I need a name change for the whole thing which isnt a massive issue anyway as the title was always a working title. Secondly my character designs seemed to ahve gone down well but I need to develop some actual concept work rather than just character sketches. In other words put the characters into situations that they would actually find themselves in within the film. For example Ron and Iris would constantly struggle to find clothes that would fit them, so I need to develop some images that would suit that idea. 

Last night I quickly drew up some more sketches of Ron, of which I feel I have a good understanding of as a character now, how he would move ect. 

Ron perhaps after he has lost Iris, and only has her wedding ring left (which would have been to big for her fingers as they shrank) 

Ron cloth less, with just a few rags he has safety pinned to his scrawy body. 

Lastly, and most importantly, it was mentioned that my main character should be the boy / teenager that is looking after Ron and Iris. We decided that this film would focus on two points, the struggle of getting older and the struggle of looking after your grandparents, but decided that the main focus should be the latter as its the only that I could personally relate too. I hadn't given a thought to what the teenager would look like, so have now got to work on that. Below is a rough concept I have after a bit of research and design.

Pocket Sized Grandparents: Ron Update

So after posting my last update I decided that Iris needed a lot of work, so
thought I would quickly try and get a solid picture of Ron down so I felt comfortable with him that I 

could spend the rest of my time working on Iris. I thought It would give me a better idea

of how he might move by doing some gesture poses. Following this, I decided to do a very very rough 'take' animation test of Ron.

So here is there the very rough test of Ron, sort of a 'take' of sorts. This was just to give me a rough idea of how he might move, but am going to do some better tests this week.

Pocket Sized Grandparents: Character Update

Although I was fortunate enough to be able to earn some money working this easter break, it 

didn't leave me with tons of time to focus on developing my pitch idea: pocket sized grandparents.

However, in the last few weeks being back in Falmouth I have focused completely on gaining some direction in terms of how this project may play out. I've started off by developing my characters some more; Ron and Iris (which I have named after my grandparents, of course!). They are coming along nicely I feel, however very much unpolished and still in need of colour work. I'm particularly pleased with how I think Ron will eventually work out, and I feel the need to do some animation tests shots with his lanky body soon!

Firstly, here is some very early development work for Ron and Iris. I want the couple to both be fragile and easy to empathise with, but also endearing. 

Next are some more recent developments, as well as some character posing to get a feel for how they might move. 

And finally a quick gesture sketch of Ron, holding a rose to his wife, Iris. More to follow shortly...

Pitch Update: Pocket Sized Grandparents

A few weeks have passed since I have started to develop the idea of pocket sized grandparents, and I managed to find time to pitch the basic concept to Derek our course leader. His initial response has been very positive, and thinks there is a lot of potential within the idea. He explained that if it is really well written, it has a lot of promise.

So the next step really is to write the story, even if its just a few hundred words in terms of a more detailed account of whats going to happen. I have quite a few random ideas bobbing around my head, but its true that it never really makes sense unless I write it all down. Im still a little unsure how it will end, who the teenager will be, if you even ever see the teenager, or if I want to make it more serious or focus more on comedy. However Im going to attempt to write a short story for it, and maybe enlist a buddy on a creative writing course to help out.

As for now I have created a few extra character visuals for the short; the Grandpa, Ron. And the Grandma, Iris. 

Pitching Ideas

During the 3rd year of our course, the main project is to create a final film, in which we work on for the duration of the year. Its normally a big project which involves lots of people, and 2nd years are roped in to help out. Normally, we would be pitching ideas for our final film in the 3rd year, however it has been decided that we would be better off with a head start, and to think up and pitch our ideas this year.

In reality this is a good idea, as we would definitely be a step ahead of previous years, the problem is that initially I have had. However I am aiming this week to focus on this, and to come up with 4 or 5 solid ideas that I think could be good enough to get through, as only 6 or 7 ideas end up being chosen.

So far, I have had only one solid idea in which I think could be successful. So far I am calling it 'Pocket sized Grandparent' however that will change. Its essentially a story of a boy / teenager, who's loveable grandparents are slowly but dramatically shrinking in scale. Its a story of his life looking after his grandparents, which initially is fun for them, but as the story draws to a close, it becomes increasingly clear that this is a sad story, as the boy struggles to look after his tiny grandparents, who he eventually looses as he cannot see them anymore.

Its a bit of a strange idea, but I wanted to pitch something that at first seemed humorous, but had a very serious, somber tone to it, something that was thought provoking and emotional. Its still just an idea in the early stages, but it might work at some point. I did a very quick concept piece for it below

Deep Update One

Being invested into the design side to this project, myself Jordan and Carl have been focused on

how characters will look, and the over all style for the first week. So far, we really only 

know that we are seeking to emulate a Hellboy comic style, that is a style which includes heavy contrast of black and whites, in a very graphic style. We also only really have two characters within

this scene, a female and male. So really in terms of our design process we are concentrating in this early stage on the way the characters look and how the overall scene will look.

These first early concepts are just playing around with the graphic style that we are trying to mimic. As an artists I rarely draw in this style, so this kind of stuff is quite new to me. However I feel that there is some real promise in working with this style in terms of animation.

These next few images are seeing how colour looks in this graphic style. We have been looking at comics for reference, including the Sin City original comics, Hellboy and various others that all include a similar style. Within these comics we found that often there are various bits of colour used in a mostly black and white image.

Finally, I have drafted up a early concept of what the background may look like. Again here I have added some colour to the black and while image. Within our scene there is a lot of snow and trees, and originally we thought the shot was during the day, however we have now been given more free roam in terms of design, and thought that having the scene in moonlight would enhance the contrasty look.