Huzzah! (And Beware of the Dragon!)

Well today i finally got off my arse this week (been really tired from all the work i did last week) and headed off to St. Giles Cathedral on the royal mile to meet up with the ministers secretary to discuss my animation for dynamic communications. It went very well and they gave me permission to do the work , so long as i dont post the animation on any public viewing websites (that includes here unfortunately, so anyone wanting to see it can ask me and ill send you a copy)
So while i waited for my trusty camera-man Dechlan, i did a bit of drawing

This is the really cool organ they have on the right side, thought it would make a great line drawing but alas it was far too detailed for me to finish before my camera-man arrived and we could begin working.

So thats a rough overview of the storyboard i had created for the animation, and in a much shorter space of time than i anticipated (only about an hour and a half) we had enough i believe (and hope) in order to do the animation. So now all thats left is to actually combine all the images in the way i have planned and get the show running!

In the last scene of the animation, our lego hero is seen to be building a church of his own.However, what we do not witness in the animation is the shocking story that unravelled in this lego mans quest. Lego bricks aint cheap (even a 1-square block proportionally in comparison to the lego man would be the equivalent to a bulky TV to us) so in order to cut back on costs, used bricks from his own house. Demolishing it in the process.This unfortunately led to the death of our Lego Hero's love, as she was crushed by a falling balcony.
Bereft of his loved one, he continued on his quest to build the church, but alas, ran out of useable bricks upon his own land. And still in a state of shock and despair, set about stealing his neighbours blocks too! But this angered the neighbours pet dragon greatly, as the removal of his chamber walls interrupted his slumber!They fought long and hard in an epic battle, but in a move to end all moves, our Lego hero-turned-renegade took forth what life-energy he could from all the living things around, and fed it into one giant blast of pure energy.This proved to be too much for the dragon to handle, and so he fell at the hands of our Lego man, and defeated he lay, helplessly watching his lego bricks taken from him.

Alternative Ending!: Dragon breathes fire on the lego man, and eats his remains.
Just to be clear, this little side story will not be associated with the final animation at all and was just a little bit of fun me and Dechlan had!

Wanted: Dead or... em... plastic

Things iv done today

• Woke up at 8am - WOOHOO! big achievement for me
• Finished reading my book that i used for my character and scene images (i had already read it so i already had an idea of which scene i was going to do etc)
• Sorted through my lego and created my starring character for my dynamic communications stop motion animation!

Hes such a camera whore...
Afterwards i began to think logistically about the animation, this is all presuming i find a cathedral willing to let me do this. But basically i came up with a plan to reduce the workload by quite a bit, and quicken the pace of filming somewhat. I decided to clone my lead actor *ignores protestations of angry lawsuits outside* so that instead of painstakingly moving his legs everytime i wanted to do a scene of him moving, instead i could have a bunch of him, all slightly changed so that i could just replace them one by one. See Below.
However 4 is the maximum i can make... damn me in my childhood for only buying 4 sets of the archeologist lego! Damn me!... So im currently about to search for any friends in Edinburgh with enough lego that they might have some of the parts to clone my lego man. The Hair and Torso are the only ones im short of, the torso is from the archeology sets, and the hairs in a whole bunch i think (its black just to be clear). Any help is much appreciated! (and will earn you a place in the credits)

Recovery

Well, it would appear that all those all nighters didnt go unnoticed for my body. I thought i could fix my sleep pattern in one night, oh how i was wrong... Been doing ALOT of sleeping the past couple days (yes days, not nights). But i still managed to have a great time seeing loads of friends on Friday night, so its all good.

Today i managed to get up slightly earlier than nightfall, so i decided to put the tree up! Always fun, and puts me in the holiday cheer. Theres just something about putting all those shiney things up while listening to some very christmassy... er... Iron Maiden songs... but yeah! Christmas spirit is very high right now!

Also very happy from the knowledge that SAAS (in a seemingly Christmas Spirit related moment) finally acknowledged my poverty, and increased my payments by like £100 and backdated the £400 odd they owed me! so now i can actually afford to shop for food! And i should still have a little extra, huzzah!
Work-wise: getting up early to start some sketching, and going to begin planning the filming of my stop motion animation

ITS CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSS! (8)

well, titles pretty self explanatory, curently in my last visual literacy/animation tutorial of the year, just handed in my finished essay at the coursework box, and yesterday Me Dan Eilis and Neil had a victory pint and burger at the pub! gave Gary a phone call to see how far hed got in his essay, turns out he was out drinking in perth and right now is either hungover in bed, or frantically writting something! But yeah, after this tutorial im heading off to the bus station, heavy bag on my back, and making my way back to edinburgh for 3 weeks of being with friends and family (and doing more coursework - but im a bit too cheery these past few days to be terribly bothered about that, ill get it done)

So to all you Dundee folk reading this, if i dont see you today, then have a merry Christmas and a happy new year! see you in January.

Finally got the momentum

My good mood from having completed my character sketch and most of my visual literacy work is continuing (partially because of the bit coming up and partially cos a fellow student passing by my window at 8am just now gave me a thumbs up for my room decorating skills - giant che gevara flag Wins!), i stand on the brink of a completed essay, with a small bit about digital photography being prepared in my head in order to put down on electronic paper. That will take a load of my shoulders, as the rest of my deadlines are now just under a month away, giving me plenty of time for their completion! The sketchbooks are still a little bare but now that Neils given me some coloured chalks i feel up for doing something with my favourite artistic medium to date.

So since iv not had a chance to actually do anything yet on that front, ill just post some pictures of my past chalk favourites from high school for your viewing pleasure

This ones a still life of a guitar, radio, trumpet and double bass on a blue cloth. Its probably my favourite bit of art iv ever done, but that could be due to the fact that iv done the image so many times, in different ways, that i could draw it right now without even looking! But yeah this one in particular i put a hell of a lot of effort into, and it got me an A in the end for all the staying up late finishing it that i did.

This ones a self portrait i did the night before my interview to get into Uni (even the REALLY important stuff i tend to leave till near the last minute it seems - need to change that quick)

So anyway have a good day everyone! And happy birthday Freya!

I'm on a roll with the coursework!

Currently, my mood is glorious. Im as pleased with my final outcome as i think i ever could be! And my confidence of using photoshop has skyrocketed with the completion of this project, I feel ready for anything this course can throw at me! But enough victorious speech, lets get down to business. In terms of conveying the character from the book, i think this portrays Cadvan from "The Gift" (by Allison Croggon) just as i imagine him. He's a man whos constantly sent on missions to far off places, so imagine that his "dark, roughly woven wooly hood" (in this case i stretched it into a full blown cloak as it seemed more appropriate - and theres definately a bit where its acknowledged hes wearing one, but im not going traipsing through all the books to find the quote!) would be very worn and torn, weathered by the changing climates he has to endure, and ripped in places as indications of the many battles with creatures of The Dark. He carries his satchel with him everywhere, containing his lyre and numerous other things in order for him to function. I imagined him on a very windy hillside - with a possible storm on the horizon behind -with his long black hair flying loose and free, accentuated by his cloaks mimicking motion. Hes holding onto his Satchel and the hilt of his well hidden sword in order to keep his balance on the rocky terrain.

I made the image alot darker than i had originally intended, seeing as Cadvan is a wholly good character, i thought to show this with a pleasant landscape . However as i progressed in my painting i began changing my mind as "pleasant" doesnt fit in with the atmosphere created in the book. The forces of darkness are closing in on the forces of light, hence the storm, and also the sharp contrast of Cadvans Pendant of his School casting light in the gloomy dark surroundings. Another reason for the darkness is to show Cadvan's mysterious side, he is a man that holds many secrets, and even conceals his own dark past. I did this by casting his face in shadows, but allowing his eyes to be visible, as he looks to the future and the well-being of human-kind rather than dwelling on his past.

On the technical side of things i arranged the composition in such a way that vertical and horizontal were balanced, along with the diagonals of the mountains, which each take the viewers eyes towards the character, as the focus of the image.

Any feedback appreciated! Im gonna get cracking on the last leg of this essay now, hopefully finish before Me, Dan, Neil and others meet up at Uni to record some things for our Audio Adverts (Today (well technically yesterday now...) we got Neil's Laughter properly recorded 18 times! so plenty to choose from for our adverts!)

A new way of thinking

Well this blog is meant to be a place where i can show my ideas and how they develop etc (and also write a few random mumblings along the way - try and make this a bit interesting for whichever tutor chooses to read this), but just now i thought i might as well share another kind of development!

Earlier today, once i realised drawing curves of the human body with a mouse is extremely difficult for a beginner such as myself, i borrowed a bamboo pen tablet off my flatmate Sean. I thought hey it should be just like drawing in real life! I found to my surprise it really isnt, and im currently in the process of shaking off the awkwardness of drawing without looking at my hand. Came up with some "interesting" first attempts before i realised i should really start from the basics of drawing and work my way up till i felt confident enough to attempt a proper character sketch (so i made a coffee: Its going to be another long night/day/night again)

As you might see i ended up having quite a bit of fun drawing basic shapes, and elaborated with a bit of randomness. Did a few more of these and thought yeah i might as well try a character sketch

Not too displeased by the result of my first pen tablet character!(sorry inga for drawing a cliche pirate if you see this!) Although he is far too cartoony for what i want to achieve once i master the art of the bamboo, so im going to keep working at it till i feel i can start my proper character sketch (The real ones not a pirate dont worry). Hopefully ill have something to show for it before i go to the Audio lecture tomorrow.

2:00am: figured instead of spamming everyone with new blog posts every few hours ill just update this one (what can i say im really into this blog now, it doesnt even seem like a bit of coursework anymore)

Been working away at my figures, and i thought it about time to try my character out, its a very rough sketch, and most of the pose i still find horrible as, but it gets the general idea across as to what my image will look like, and im hoping that as i progress through the layers (lesson learnt from previous post!) that the pose will sort itself out a bit better. I think by day-break ill have come a long way from my simple shapes and silly pirates (although my pirate has given me possible future inspiration for some non-uni work, ill see how things go)

Say Hello to Cadvan

7:43am: iv re-worked the pose quite a bit and i think its nearly right, noticed the shoulders were a bit too wide in proportion to everything else, but that can be easily fixed. The blue outline is temporary while i work on the image (its basically just a refined version of the sketch). Sorted out most of the colours and through experimentation got quite a cool effect on the cloak using the dodge and burn tools,