I had more time to do some research on the way I want this film to go. So I noted a few things that I wanted to do animation and story wise. I looked up a few people that I’ve seen in the past that had a profound style that I liked such as Tim Burton, Jean-Pierre Junette, (and more recently) Shane Acker, The Quay brothers, Walt Disney, Brad Bird, Hayao Miyazaki.

My recent sketches have really been influence by these people so I’m looking at developing some of these ideas and seeing where it might take the film.

I was doodling at work today (while rendering of course) and I was greatly influenced by a short film that I saw shortly before on youtube called “9″ created by a fellow called Shane Acker. I find that trying to come up with an idea just after you’ve witness something cool like that really stinks. I’m not sure if I’m the only one, I hope not. I was doodling and I kept noticing that my sketches were a lot like the short that I just saw. I kept trying to make it different somehow but it wasn’t working. Even though I was making concepts for FF by the end of the doodling session my pages were filled with characters and scenes that where a hybrid of 9 and FF. It was mainly the villain in 9 that really inspired me to redo some designs for FF.

One thing I that I got out of all that is that I’m set in adding a few more things to the story and design of this film. I’ll have to wait a few days until 9 is out of my system so I can come up with original ideas again.

http://shaneacker.com/

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted something. The reason for this is because there is nothing to post. I’ve put flower-foe on pause for a few weeks. I recently resigned from my job so I can focus more on personal projects likes this and drawing…and sleeping in.. and working a bit more on my demo reel. I officially finish working as an animator on the 5th of April. I shall be moving back, rent-free at mum’s for a few months while I figure out what I the meaning of life is.

In other news, I’ve been playing with mudBox for a few days now. I believe it’s a program developed by these guys at Weta and a few other fellows to really make digital sculpting really fun and easy. It just got release a few weeks ago so get your 15day free trial and start sculpting!

Here’s a test I did off a simple 500 polygon head with one reference image:

mudbox3d.com

I did a render test a few months ago just to see how the model stood. I didn’t like it but I just saw the image again today while I was hard-drive wandering. It appeals to me more now than it did then. I’ve since changed my mind about the colors and render style but here it is anyways.

Over the past few days I’ve been working on converting the blog over to wordpress. What is wordpress? Wordpress is a bunch of scripts that make up a blog. It’s simple enough to customise and update so converting was an easy decision.

I’ve been too slack to scan pages from my sketchbook because it meant that I had to set it up and wait for the light thing to go all the way to the end and back. The idea of doing that several times was not too pleasing. But I did it so there you go.

I just wanted to play with colour pencils. It’s not often I get to do that. I think doing random concepts is always good for something.

What do you get if you cross a cloud with a tree?

This is the earliest sketch that I could find that started the look and style of this short. I did this sketch way before I had a solid story planed in my head so the characters here are not relevant anymore.

This sketch was done around the beginning of last year. It was one of the few sketches that I have kept when I was trying to come up with a story. The flower was originally a robot with a flower growing from his head.

I did these sketches while my computer was rendering at work. I was trying to see if anything would spark to give the story more spice.

I won best Student development in Sydney last week which I couldn’t attend. But they were nice enough to send me a trophy and email me this jpeg to post on my site. So I should return the niceness and do it.

Whiteboard. Animation. Enough said.

http://www.minilogue.com/
http://www.ljudbilden.com/

Toys!!!

Toys have always inspired my work. I’ve found a few good links to some cool toy sites.

Toys link:
SCHMANCY
Kidrobot
Shane Hillman

Contact me if you have some links for me. I’ll appreciate it.