My Mickey Mouse Degree

Haha, oh man. I’m kicking myself now. In the face. With spades attached to my feet. It hurts a lot.

So today I’m getting on with some designs etc. for my final year project, I’ve been trying to get all the design work and all that stuff sorted before I go back to uni in order for me to concentrate on the animation and story and all that for the 8ish months I’ll have to work on it.

But recently I’ve been getting to the point where I can’t really design much more, and I need to start thinking of the story. At this point I’ve realised that none of my “characters” have any personality whatsoever, they just look nice. And thusly (nice phrase), I’ve had to start thinking about what makes them all tick, and have now realised I never envisioned them to have any personalities in the first place.

Fun.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to go back to the start and really focus on what this is all about, because I’m struggling to come up with an entertaining story with my bland, lifeless characters right now.

Silly, obvious mistakes, yes, but I figured I’d share them just to highlight how important it is to have a strong focus on personality and story from the start, after all, that’s what this animation lark is all about, right?

Ah well, I never liked doing things the easy way. Bring it on, tomorrow!

Here’s your drawing for today, keep it safe -

Beach Fight

What would happen if a beach going wolf threw his ice cream on a man with massive hands? They’d probably fight, and then I’d probably draw the moment just before they started hitting each other.

I’m rooting for the wolf.

Since I’m not really “feeling” the drawing at the moment I’ve done a bit of 3D modelling today. Pretty simple stuff, because I’m still not that confident with anything complex, plus it’s for my final year project which coincidentally doesn’t requre realistic sets. How nice.

HouseProp

I must stress these things ain’t finished, and will probably get redone later into the project, but I’m just throwing stuff out there at the moment. I’m leaving the texturing for now until I got a solid colour palette for the piece in my head. At the moment it’s all over the place.

Well

A lot of the stuff in this project will involve doing normal stuff in odd, but nevertheless practical ways, as evidenced by this well. The bucket on the left still needs a handle, and the rod needs some string or whatever fancy technical term fishermen use for string.

I’m also looking to make sure everything is uneven or off kilter. It gives it all a homemade look, plus it means I don’t have to be as precise with my modelling. Clever, eh?

As far as life news goes, I’ve just starting listening to swing music and enjoying it. Is that a bad or good thing?

Bleh, been in a bit of a slump recently, I dunno what it is, I think I’m getting impatient with the rate of my skill development as I tend to every so often. Still struggling with anything bordering on realism as usual, and I’m not happy with the poses I’m putting out in my cartoon sketches.

I’ll get over it soon enough.

So today I’ve been looking at some cartoons that I haven’t really checked out since I was a kid. Generally speaking since starting my degree I’ve pretty much ignored most television animation that I grew up with, assuming it all would be disappointingly cheap and nasty looking if I saw them now, but today I had the sudden urge to take a look at Alvin and the Chipmunks (the 1980’s series) on YouTube and was pleasantly surprised by the opening titles.

It wasn’t superb, certainly, but it was compared to a lot of the stuff that was about in the 80s, and it leant much more towards Disney than it did the limited stylings of Hanna-Barbera.

As often happens when I get suitably impressed by an animation, I’m now on the lookout for a DVD of the show, but it looks like I’m going to have to delve into Region 1 because I can’t seem to find an R2 release.

Anyways,

From today’s Chipmunk realisation.

Street Scene

I wanted to see what I came out with without using any construction lines (how I used to draw).

Yogi

The one on the left is copied, so don’t give me credit for the nice pose. The one on the right is all mine.

And this final sketch is part of some concept sketches for what should become my final year project at university, I’m putting it up here in good faith, so please don’t rob me blind, as it were.

Final Year Project

That’s all for today, come back soon.

I cleaned up and coloured that Raz pic today, but I’m not too pleased with it. I still need a lot more practice with digital painting, but hell, you may as well see it.

RazCol.jpg

I dunno, I prefer the original sketch by a mile. This is a bit naff. Plus I somehow forgot his backpack and didn’t correct the horrible eye mistake. Ah well, live and learn and other cliches.

In other news I finished BioShock today. It was blimmin’ amazing. I felt the ending was a bit abrupt though, didn’t really give me chance to muse over the climax as I tend to do when I’ve just been told a good story, so it kinda deflated the whole thing. Still, never before has a game told a story so well without any cutscenes whatsoever (ignoring the beginning and end), Half-Life 2 has been officially dethroned. Though only just, mostly because of G-Man’s voice. That is one fine voice he has, and I don’t even swing that way.

I also did a bunch of drawings today, but I can’t really be damned to photograph them now so I’ll post ‘em up tomorrow, just for you. Have a pleasant evening.

Man, I’ve been playing BioShock a lot recently, mostly because it has the best story ever, in the world, and I want to kiss it.

If you have an Xbox 360, or a fancy PC, you really should check it out, it continues to amaze me every time I fire it up and consequently wet myself with fear and joy simultaneously.

But enough about BioShock for now, I’ve finally attempted to get my head around Burne Hogarth’s Dynamic Anatomy (a book, not his actual anatomy, which may or may not have been dynamic). I’m kind of starting to grasp it, but I’m not reading all the words because they scare me. Actual muscles names may indeed be useful, but they’re a bit daunting for me, so I just draw the pictures and read the distances between each body part. Ah well.
Anyways, here’s the best of today’s produce (there were many others that sucked royally) -

Ears and Necks

Eyes and Nose 2

Eyes and Nose 1

Ugly Looking Blokes

And one more from BioShock, just for kicks. I forgot the canister things on his back, but I’ll add them on when I clean it up.

Big Daddy

Speaking of cleaning up, I’ll hopefully have chance to stick that Raz picture up from yesterday with inks and colours at some point this week, I quite liked that one. And possibly the Clown picture too.

Well, that’s me done for now.

Well, I finally got that banner done. It’s a bit crude but making things look good in Photoshop isn’t one of my strong points.

Figured I may as well show some of my recent drawings while I’m here.

Some Psychonauts fan art! -

Raz

A Clown! -

Clown

A doodle (with some perspective issues) from a project I’m working on! -

Windmill Boy

And some pose sketches! -

Poses1

I can’t really be bothered to write too much now, I’m horribly addicted to BioShock on the Xbox 360 at the moment, so with that, I shall leave thee be, mateys.

Okay then, let’s get started with this thing.

Hey, I’m Matt, and I’m an animation student.

That intro may sound like a heartfelt admission at an Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting, but I like it.

I also like animation, thankfully. I like the painstaking tedium, the mind numbing frustration, the wondrous feeling of joy when all those marks on the paper finally come to life.

Currently, or rather, in a month or so, I’ll be undertaking the third and final year of my course in Computer Animation at the University of Teesside here in the UK.

For the two years I’ve been studying animation I’ve learnt a lot, as I started knowing absolutely nothing.

I just thought animation was about drawing loads of pictures, when I got to uni and found that it was about drawing loads of pictures, acting, animation principles and all the rest I didn’t know where to begin. Hell, I still don’t half the time, but I kind of grasp what it’s about now. I wouldn’t say I can animate well, but I think I could get there.

I enjoy all the usual stuff aside from animation – playing videogames, watching movies, reading, playing guitar/piano etc. etc.

So I guess that’s basically me, hope you stick around to look at my blog.

Oh, and here’s a link to the last animation I did (couple of weeks ago).

Hey all, I’ll be updating this thing with a banner etc. over the next day or so, plus a post introducing me and my mindblowingly exciting life that you won’t be able to stop yourself reading about (perhaps).

Until then you’ll have to attempt to enjoy reading this particular post repeatedly, or go do something else for a while. Up to you, my friend.

Cheers for stopping by.