Monday 28 February 2011

Filming 90 Second Silent Film

On Wednesday we filmed our 90 second silent film. It went really well I'm completely happy with the results. Currently the footage is being edited.


We met around 12pm, changed into costume, the boys slicked over their hair, Tom shaved some handle bars and a tash onto his face, I did cheesey Charlie Chaplin style make up and we started filming. Unfortunately it started raining half way through and we all got soaked- but like true animators, we embraced the misfortune and perused. We filmed all day and up until day light was none.















Problems that arose and how we tackled them- initially it was just the danger of the rain on the camera but we got an umbrella and managed to keep the rain off with Christian camera assisting. Then we realized we didn't have permission to film outside a specific hotel we'd found nearl Gylly Beach but I went in and asked at reception (dressed like a millionare's wife) the addressed me as 'Madam' and told me it was 'perfectly fine.' Also it was a problem when we started loosing light (with nights drawing in by 5) but we managed to squeeze everything in luckily.



Friday 25 February 2011

Hans Georg Pfannmüller

This is a caricature of 50s German actress Marlene Dietrich by Hans Georg Pfannmüller I really like.


Wednesday 16 February 2011

Male Character Design

Another interesting description of a man I found in my book goes as follows;
'A small head with a jockey cap, a skimpy little checked jacket that was made out of air. The man was seven feet tall but very narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and his face, please note, had a jeering look about it.'

To make him look 'jeering' I mad his face and feet pointy. I think there's something subconsciously 'jeering' or provoking about someone with pointed features. As if attention is being directly focused on you. For example one might feel if a question is asked it's being imposed rather than implied.

Alex's Barista/Bar-i-star logo.

This is a logo for Alex's 3rd year production. If you view earlier posts you can see where I got the original ideas from and how i've combined them to produce this. I am very happy with how it looks and like how I changer the cup and steam from the original to a moon and space ship blasting off. As well I changed the wording to 'Bar-i-star' as in star the luna term.

Tim for Alex

This is a rough sketch of the space suit Alex wants me to design for his character Tim.

Hella Concept Art




Hella

Hella is a name I got from my book but is not based around the description of the character in the book. Hella, I've decided, is Margirita's Mother.
She is always wearing a different animal and excessive amounts of jewelry.
She loves her daughter but disapproves of almost everything she does although not to a serious degree. She also disapproves highly and foremost of Ivan Nikolayevich who seeks her daughter's hand in marriage. In reality, no one in Hella's eyes is good enough for Margirita let alone a apprentice banker.


Margarita clean up.

This is a clean up of Margarita in felt pen and ink.
Margarita is a kind-hearted yet serious and realistic woman who can easily turn her hand to anything working on the fair ground. She gets extremely offeneded if anyone refers to her as a gypsy. She has won the heart of Ivan Nikolayevich but being only 19 and her 23 she sees him as merely a play thing and any relationship they have she would most likely consider as comical.


Side-kick/Apprentice clean up- Ivan Nikolayevich

This is a cleaned up version of the side-kick/apprentice.
His name is Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyoyov.
Ivan is madly in love with Margarita, but alas her disapproving Mother and he being 4 years her junior at 19 leave his chances of success very low. He wrongly assumes, but would like to think, his appearance of a man slightly his elder might make up for this.

Banker side kick/apprentice.

This is a preliminary drawing of the bankers side kick/apprentice.
Again, i've taken his description from my book and produced a drawing;

'The other one- a broad-shouldered, reddish-haired shaggy young man with a checked cap cocked on the back of his head was wearing a cowboy shirt, crumpled white trousers, and black sneakers.'

Banker clean-up

This is a cleaned up version of the banker character. To draw it I used ink and felt tip. I really like the finish to it.

His name is Mikhail Alexandrovich- like in the book.

Banker

These are my first sketches for my final character design for my banker character.
I used a description from my book to draw him;
'One of them- fortyish, wearing a gray Summer suit- was short, dark haired, bald on top, paunchy, and held his proper fedora in his hand; black horn-rimmed glasses of supernatural proportions adorned his well-shaven face.'

Inspirations

Here are some photos I took in Falmouth in antiques shops that inspired my concept art.
The pizza box is from when I travelled around Europe over Summer- I love the characters depicted on it and think they suit the 'Russian Fairground' concept really well.





Tuesday 15 February 2011

Banker

I researched several kinds of bankers-
Modern day; with which I sketched one of the corrupt bankers reported by the sun in the latest scandal of high income and benefits for politicians and bankers.
The second is a early style of banker from early 1900s.
This also reminded me of the bankers from Mary Poppins (set in 1910).



Background Concept Art

Here is a photo I love of a coconut stand at a fairground which I used to produce the concept art below it.


Fairground Rides- Concept Art.

Here are some photos I took in
Edinburgh when I went there over winter of several city centre attractions.

This is a photo I took when I was in York of a merry-go-round.

Here is some concept art I produced partly inspired from these images.



Fairground Background Design; Attractions - Punch and Judy Stand


I was contemplating Fairground attractions and which ones are visually most attractive. I looked at some Punch and Judy concept art on google images (below).


I thought it was very bold and striking and visually pleasing, so tried my hand at painting my own with water colour felt pens.