doodle update

fruit of my labors: informative test

Bertie (animation/concept test) from Ana Kim on Vimeo.

alrighty, so. i wasn't going to post this, because it's not a very successful piece, but i guess it is an important part of my research and process, so i will post. i guess it's successful in that i learned a lot from doing it. also maybe you guys could give me feedback i haven't heard already?

i'm well aware of the compositing issues (green screening 101 in the works, here), but feel free to point out anything. i'm going to try backlighting my character with a magenta gel....and if i have studio space, hopefully i can move the set up further away from the greenscreen itself.

what i have coming next is a new version of Bertie; that is, i will finally put together the ball and socket armature parts that i ordered in the fall, and make a few adjustments to his design. this time i will put a hand tie down, too, so i can anchor the camera to his hand. (advice from our awesome guest critic).
i think i have to make the felted wool a bit more solid, too.

as for the set, i'm going to use different surface material and try to make things really smooth and lumpy, like in the surrealist paintings i've posted before.

and the blobs, of course. .......more brainstorming, but i think the replacements worked. now it's just....trying to get some flexibility in the movements, since i want to have many, many.

my peers and teachers have given me really good sound advice, particularly about the voices i slapped in to match the blob. seeing as it was done during the frantic night before my last crit, i wholeheartedly agree, hahaha.

sorry for the blabbering! happy winter break, and i'll try to post a holiday doodle soon!

it's a little late, but here's some pastel concept stuff that i did for my film about 3 weeks ago. it's the most accurate, in terms of how i envision my film to look like, ultimately. one of my teachers sort of suggested that perhaps i do my film in 2D with pastels. yea....not happening. HAHA. although! i've always, always, always wanted to do a pastel animation in the style of the Hubley's...in particular "The Tender Game." i've probably fangirled about it on my blog several times, haha.

ANYWAY, i completed a little video....animation/concept test, more like, yesterday. my intermediate stopmotion final! i used it as a test for my senior film. it doesn't quite look like how i wanted, but  i think the result also surprised me, too. i'll upload that by the end of the day.

still from test animation

test animation coming along. going very slowly, as usual. but walk cycle is not as mind boggling as last year!
you know, i really like this character, lol. i feel like there's a lot i haven't learned about him, yet. hopefully i won't inhibit him too much, like my puppets last year.

the final set will look more globular and....finished, lol. not an old science project. and NO MOAR ACRYLIC PAINT. so shiny...badbad.
i think i'd like to fill the space with more bounced light, next time, too.

my brain hurts. end of the semester, in one week!

he's photogenic, isn't he~ this might be one of those proud parent moments. HE HAS A BUTT.

though i'm really looking forward to building him again. soon!

blob update

the past 2 weeks I wracked my brain and tried to pick others' brains, too, on how I could achieve the look/animation I wanted for the floating blobby things in my senior film.

somehow I thought I'd give underwater live-action shots a try. 

except, the glass of the tank clouds everything, and I learned that balsa wood is SUPER DUPER buoyant (should have been a duh fact, haha), and well. it didn't work.

here's me sometime during the night last week. note the worsening acne. gross, but indicative of finals season.

I talked to my teachers some more, and all signs pointed towards trying replacement blobs. I saw Piotr Kamler's Une Mission Éphémère, and of course it had beautiful replacement animation, so. In desperate times.....so it goes.

so! clay blobs with balsa cores, so I could drill holes in them if necessary. I hashed out a short loop on paper, first.

The animation test came out ok, so that was that. No more time to test anyway, so I hope it won't look too badly! At least, for this semester...

Set time~

bought joint compound

I thought I'd try to texture it in a cool way, but it looked nearly as derpy as the botched plaster (the chunky blue mound) attempt, so I smoothed it back before it started to harden.

painted black blob on rig! 

set pieces covered in joint compound.

did some new pastel concept sketches. my film idea is slowly coming together. I have the pieces, I think, but still figuring out how they can fit together. I still don't think making a storyboard for my particular film will help...last year it made me feel pressured into thinking the film had to be a very logical sequence of events.