I also have planes in this final animation, which i have decided will be F4F Wildcat fighter planes, they come from the 1940's WW2 and fit with Bert's life's timescale. They are quite simple planes and one i have laid the uvs out i will be able to simply assign different shaders for the enemy, Bert and the Fly. I have already located Orthographic images for the plane.
I am still sticking to my overall style so everything is a lot simpler than real life, there will be just two sets of dials, an over sized sight fixed to the front of the plane, and simple textures all over. The orthographs above with colour was me just playing around with some colour to see the effect. I was considering maybe some sort of artwork similar to the first photo at the top of this blog with a twist, for instance something that you would associate with an elderly man and then something you may associate with a fly, but these are just thoughts at the moment.
I am going to begin modelling Bert's head this evening and work on that as well as perfecting the storyboard and plane design this week.
I created my story board by cutting out each frame and organising them onto a whiteboard using blue tack. This way it was easier to move sections round and eliminate sections altogether, also i could clearly see my story.
I have kept all of the frames and will continue to add and subtract frames where i feel it needs it. I sometimes become quite stuck and frustrated when creating storyboards because whats in my head doesn't always transpire onto paper the way that i mean it to, but this method gave me some of the control back being so much more visually accessible.
These are silhouettes of my character designs so far,
leaving the real Burt on the far right hand side.Below is the 'new' Bert skinnier and more stylised
These are the sketches i created before creating the above turn around as you can probably see there are a few things proportionally wrong with them and these were corrected when i re drew them in pen.
Also an update on Bert's past life.. As i have already decided he is an ex RAF pilot from WW2 but i had not really decided on what his 'ex plane' was. This is important because although there will be brief flashbacks i need to get the style right. I have looked at quite a few 1940's planes but my most favourite one that seemed to fit this project was the F4F Wildcat... It initally started off in the Royal forces but ended up being primarily used by theAmericans. My plane will only resemble my it in the animation, i just needed a starting point. It is very rounded and has soft edged components, and will lend to the style i already have in my animation. Other British fighter planes all seemed a bit to mean for this animation, too pointy and fierce, and please don't shoot me any plane fanatics out there, but personally, not knowing anything about planes, i found the wildcat quite sweet.
Below are a few images of the F4F Wildcat
Below is a composition on the things i will be expecting to include in Burt's living room. Ive stuck closely to the 1940's/WW2 era, also keeping in mind that it is an elderly mans home and what sort of effect this will have on the things he would fill his house with.
I worked on further developing Burt into a more stylised and like able character. I must admit on developing him further and looking back at the old Burt he is rather sinister looking. The newer Burt is comprised of the same features however i played around with adding extra parts to him, such as the glasses and moustache and altering his hairstyle, until i came to the newer style. Another thing that i did do was shrink him down slightly. I made his legs shorter and enlarged his head ever so slightly, which i feel gave him an overall better 'elderly' appearance. I haven't finished developing him yet as i want to push this stylised characteristic much further until i am at a stage where i can ensure his environment and entire surroundings all correspond.
After developing his appearance i also started to develop the story line. Initially i had intended to incorporate a military style part of him into the story, but after a chat with Phil it made so much more sense for him to be an RAF veteran. This then enables me to tell a slightly different story about Burt. I did want there to be small clues about him in his room, but choosing this more focused past it has opened up more doors to his character. For instance if he was a veteran there are certain parts of his character that will never change, for instance the possibility that he still wears his old uniform, or that he is still very tidy and neat, and also there may be old memorabilia in and around his room. I have always considered the story to involve him as an old man alone, but with no real main focus onto his wife. A re-think of the story means that his past will become a little more in the foreground then it was before, making my animation an animation about Burt and not just and old man and a fly. Phil suggested comparisons to the fly buzzing sound and the sound of an old fighter plane engine holding some sort of significance in Burt's mind, and so i am going to begin some basic stick man storyboards of possibilities for each scene.
Below are the progressions in my sketches of the new Burt so far, i will post continued imagery as it is created.
New Vs old proportions With and without tash... Newest sketch of Burt, with smaller legs A test using some colour...
I would like to also post an animation that Phil showed me, that is incredibly stylised to the point that at times all you see is the characters and a very basic background. These are all things I'm thinking about at the moment to do with my story - what is it exactly that i need to tell this story of mine?
I continued working on my initial sketches i had drawn regarding my only character 'Bert' taking into further consideration his personality. I had already had simple thoughts as to the sort of person he was in my mind but after doing some further reading on character design i discovered i needed to know exactly who he was. I then took into consideration his age, and what effects age has on a persons body, an also how these effects could compliment his persona. For instance as you can see below Ive decided that he is going to be an 'easily disappointed' elderly man, easily bugged and annoyed by little things, but not excessively grumpy.
To contribute to his mood i decided he would need more of a hunched back, but also a contributing slouch, to emphasise this, 'I'm never impressed by anything' sort of look. Ive also decided that his arms are to be held back over his hips so his pelvis is the lead part of his anatomy, he would have a slow shuffle style walk with a slight wobble from his top half.
I have been reading through a very helpful book entitled, 'exploring character design, A step by step guide to designing and developing characters for visual media,' by 'Hedgpeth & Missal'.
These are my working images of Bert, focusing on the curved, slouched shape of his back and forward forcing pelvis.
In these images i was just trying to achieve the right, 's' shaped spine without making him look like an grumpy teenager, and rather more like a tired old man. I made his spine to humped and then took curved so that i could find a suitable middle ground to draw from.
I started on doing a few pose test of which I'm working on some more now and then further development of his body. Below i went over my pencil sketches in pen on a sepearte sheet and added a touch of colour using illustrator to see how he is beginning to work as a whole character.
Using completely basic geometric shapes and two suggestive ovals for eyes he is still able to animate the characters in a way to provoke emotion. This simplicity is what i need to bring into my own character, obviously not to the same extreme.
I must admit i have been finding it hard to visualise something in my head that isn't realistic in appearance regarding my character, but after a few tutorials with Phil and Alan today it started to click in my head. I think that the initial thing that caused me to get slightly lost within this visual difference is the 'how' when it comes to animating it. At first i was unsure if it would still be able to be as expressive as i would want it to be but the answer is a definite yes. For now i am going to continue with solely the character designs; researching faces, technical character design processes within industry and efficient means to create a character.
