Week 1 - Finished Inn

Firstly, sorry for the lateness with the next few entries, I have been doing overtime at work and when I finally did get the time to sit down and enter stuff, I forgot my password! Anyhoo...

Well I was just browsing the net to see if I could break down other illustrators backgrounds of interiors or buildings to understand perspective again. And in the process came up with this thumbnail and decided to go with it...

This is the Cleaned up line work with a fineliner pen. I left some pencil lines in just to muck around with them for effect when colouring.

Coloured in Photoshop

THE OUTCOME

I only spent about 3 hours to complete the colouring of this in photoshop. For my first attempt at colouring something and trying to use textures, I would give myself a 6 out of 10...haha, but otherwise I think its pretty crap. I looked at a few tutorials on how to use textures etc, which helped a great deal, but I still have a lot of white patches throughout the drawing which is from the inability to select any spots where I had left some lead pencil shading...so the pencil didn't work with me the way I wanted it too. I've seen some paintings where the pencil lines add to the shading. I think it had to do with some of the colouring I did on the original layer as I forgot to create a new one all the time.

I have not done alot of digital painting or sketching even and so that was the reason I decided to complete it to this point as I thought it would be a good time to start practicing...haha. I was very frustrated at the beginning when trying to choose colours, and everything looked so flat! But once I realised I should break things down to layers i.e. real colours, shadows, lighting etc, this made things run alot more smoothly. When I added the wood texture to the floors this really lifted my spirits...I think though i may have used it too much. looking at it now too, I hve no idea why i chose to paint the two rooms walls different colours...blah! Looks gross! If I get bored sometime, I might change it.

Week 2 - Script Breakdowns

Holy crap! I can't beleive its been so long since i posted the first one...time flies when your having fun huh! Or more like I already have so much to do but none of it is very fun when your roster at work still isn't fixed up...grr...and then they have the nerve to ask if you can do overtime like every shift!!! I am a sucker for punishment...*hangs head in shame*

Anyhoo, Wk 2 and what did we do??? Oh yes - lurvely script break downs. This is a very important process to get used to doing when starting any sort of movie. Its bascially like editing the film on paper but before its shot! It helps to get a better understanding and feel for the action and tempo of the story. IN animation, this will involve the director of the production pitching the script to department heads an example Mark gave us was him with post it notes!!! REMINDER - Must get some!!!

7 STEPS to BREAKING DOWN YOUR SCRIPT

1. Read Script
2. Mark up your script
3. Prepare a script breakdown
4. Prepare your prodcution Board
5. Schedule your shooting
6. Get approvals from all involved
7. Budget your time and money

So bascially to do this your scribbling allover the script inserting brackets around dialogue etc that you want in one camera shot...AND then, YOU put notes of exactly what sort of camera angle/shot you want...i.e. L/S (long shot), Extreme L/S, POV (point of view), OS (as in peeping toms or detectives- ppl watching from a hidden spot), Dutch angle (horizon line tilted ect...(By doing this, I can see how it would help to design your storyboards more efficiently aswell...because I also ended up with mini thumbnails on the side of the script we had to do for homework, these were of the camera shots I visulised at time of reading.)

Another handy point highlighted was think about what sound might be used when reading the script, or look for sound written into the script, because Sound is a very effective way of connecting different scenes or suggesting the emotion and therefore could make easy suggestion of what camera shot you should use.

IMPORTANT - Remember the 180 degree rule or else you will be a very big fool!

Marking up your script is where you use a variety of colours to easily identify important or not so important elements of the film or cast that may need to be designed...i.e a particular wardrobe or vehicle etc.

Main character - RED
Extras - YELLOW
Extras for atmosphere - GREEN
Stunts - ORANGE
Special FX - BLUE
Sound FX - BROWN
Vehicles - PINK
Props and Clothing - PURPLE

In the tutorial Mark graciously walked us through an example of how to do this breaking down and we were also shown another DVD where a landscape was being painted digitally. I felt like poking my eyes out as it looked so awesome and he made it look so easy. I do have a huge urge though to keep trying out some of this digital painting.