Pre-Production: "Barnabas" 3D Form Variants

Hello Everyone,

I had been given a couple of little homework assignments by our Director Sammy for this weekend, one is still a work in progress so I will post that up later. This post is to follow the form variants from the child "Benjamin", the post can be found here. We all quickly came to a decision after looking through all of Benjamin's possible forms. We picked number 16 from the rough 20 which started a discussion about the father Barnabas's proportions. This post is in wake of that discussion to somewhat directly compare our choice for Benjamin against possible Barnabas forms.

I basically did what I did with Benjamin using the basic ZSphere Dummy template. This allowed me to quickly explore the development of the characters form. For clarity I also tucked the design we favoured from the prior form tests for Benjamin next to each rendition of Barnabas's form. This will quickly allow the ladies and myself to have a discussion about the fathers favoured form. If none of the forms below are liked then I will go back to the drawing board and design up a few more taking in the ladies suggestions from these base forms (e.g. make the head bigger here, hands, etc.).

Form tests 1 - 5 (shown above) were based primarily on Sammy's original design for Barnabas click here to see the original art of . It was Sammy's original design which suggested long legs which were smaller as they came into the body. As we got to Form 5 I started to spread his pelvis a little more to contrast it with the broader shoulders. I was trying to keep him masculine by keeping the pelvis smaller then the torso. Of course I underestimated the shoulders... Still Form 5 here is probably my favourite from this set of forms.

Pre-Production: "Benjamin" 3D Form Variants

Hello Everyone,

One final update to wrap up a fairly productive day. I decided to develop 20 quick forms using my ZSphere Dummy if only to block out Benjamin's bodily proportions. Again I only need to be pointed in the right direction here. These forms are not definitive and can be adapted if one or another is preferred. I just thought this would aid in pin pointing how he is to eventually look. These forms provide at least a very basic look. As stated in previous posts this dummy can be converted into any character because it is just a working skeleton that can change shape and size.

I have keep these forms to 5 a slide mainly because I want people to be able to zoom in I developed some of them as small and tiny size may appear to diminish their appeal. I encourage everyone to click them to fully appreciate each one before making an informed decision. If this works for Sammy and Chrissie I will also look into forms for the other characters some point soon. Before then of course I want to get their art style sorted in my head and of course do more sketches using my IPAD which I never have been able to say before...

Anyway here are the initial forms for Benjamin Badgersworth...

The image above shows Forms 1 - 5. Form 1 was created from an original draft sketch I knocked up on my IPAD. Form 2 was created by lowering the shoulders quite a lot I wanted to keep the proportions of the body and waist similar. Looks a bit feminine now that I think of it.

Pre-Production: "Benjamin" Form Test

Hello Everyone,

Another little update, but about the same character. This is basically a little experiment I conducted from a very rough sketch of Benjamin's proportions. I just wanted a starting block to go from so I could demonstrate a little trick to my partners in crime here at Polydoodle. I didn't want them to worry or for anyone to say to me that its crazy to think about this early on but I'm looking to rearrange their way of thinking in this case.

First let me say that these form tests I conducted in a 3D application (ZBrush) with only 1 sketch in hand of a rough proportion. This to me is a valid method because in ZBrush you can alter proportions in seconds especially when in the ZSphering stage. You basically block out human proportions and then redact it using Move, Scale and Rotate properties. This is good because at an early stage you can pose it and adjust the proportions to see what works. This means in the space of 10 minutes one could have 30 different character designs. I will do a post on these more later.

The image above shows what I used to block out a crude rendition of Benjamin's proportions. It took 5 minutes to knock up (and was again another little IPAD sketch). This images function just gave me what his proportions should be.

Pre-Production: "Benjamin" Doodlathon

Hello Everyone,

A few posts tonight so get ready for some entertainment. First off the contents of this post are mostly just initial little roughs for Benjamin Badgersworth's design. We have a "flat world" with 4 dimensional characters (portrayed in 3D). I decided to get my thought process going for one of the main characters Benjamin. I would like to say that these designs are all just initial thoughts going from the included influence map.

I would like to reaffirm that I have not ignored the style we are going for in this flat world I just wanted to get cracking on fleshing out a couple of facial ideas. None of these designs are final I will probably try to crack out lots more over the weekend. I have finally figured out to working the IPAD drawing functionality and seeing as one of my apps has a built in recording feature. I decided to make a little feature video at the bottom of this post :P

The influence map was kind of what I drew from researching with Chrissie and Sammy the other day, one of the things we noticed was that Sammy's original design for Benjamin was a little egotistical. You didn't see a cute misunderstood kid, you just saw a little "shit" as we called him.

Finding a Font

For branding purposes we need to decide on the design for the animation title '...and Son'. I was set the task by the studio to find us a font! These are the unedited fonts I've found so far from just one site so there'll be more to choose from :)

The title needs to look paint-y or shop sign-y because it meant to be as if Barnabas Badgersworth has just painted it onto the Funeral Directors shop sign.

Our Initial Ideas and Deciding a Style

Welcome everyone to Polydoodle Picture! We're back for our final year of our CG Arts and Animation degree and we mean business. Almost too literally as we've chosen to work as a studio for the year.

This project started in my (Sammy) first year. For our unit 4: story-telling we each had to write a script for a 1 minute animation based on the three key words given from the golden envelopes. I got Character: Undertaker, Prop: Catapult, Scene: Joke Shop. These three elements had to each play a significant role in the story. To complete the unit we had to take the story forward and create an animatic and pre-vis version of it. My story '& Son' received a lot of positive feedback but it had flaws in the actual design being miss-matched. The story is a very British one in its setting and darker tones but my design style is very american. 

When Polydoodle Pictures was born we decided to take this story and bring it to life in the form of an animated short but as a studio we'll redesign it from scratch and fix some of the story plot holes along the way. That is where we began this week...

Our first move was to choose when to set the animation. It was narrowed down to either pre-WWII with a lithograph poster style or late Victorian with William Morris/ botanical wallpaper style. We chose pre-WWII because the miserable Victorians might have been too obvious a choice and the poster style appealed to us. We liked the idea of only using a few muted colours in our animation with a very drawn on look. Later, TutorPhil suggested we looked at 1930's London Underground Posters as influence. These poster are obviously very British and recognisably so in their humour, colour palette and layout, everything we wanted!

However, we also established early on where our issues might be. Firstly, in the number on characters, the story only has two main characters but it also needs a whole cast of funeral attendees, a vicar and two flash back characters. In order to make this animation we would have to make working 3D models for each of these...

"And Son..." - 'Agatha' - Early Influences

Agatha is a snob. She's recently widowed, but she's not too upset - it's just made her even richer.
Early influences for Agatha include some film characters, and also Persian Cats (fantastic expressions and opulent coats!)  Agatha herself will be overweight as this is necessary for the Whoopee cushion scene.

"And Son..." - Early Ideas for Agatha

AND SON...INFLUENCES

Beginning to look at 1920s/30s flavours, a little Art Noveau, Art Decoratif, Art Deco.
I'm also looking to other objects of the time period including toys and playing cards, and some themed ideas such as the 1920s/30s seafront with very stylised picture postcards and Punch and Judy.
 (And a Victorian Undertaker's Cabinet for Sammy). 

Minor Project Proposal

Minor Project Proposal by Sammy Butler

Pre-Production: Initial Blog Setup

Hello Ladies & Gentlemen

The insufferable Stitch is back with an update to begin a million or so more updates. Over the course of the next year (at least until Q2 2014) this blog will be producing the developments of Sammy Butlers acclaimed "...And Son" an animated short to follow the development of her Year 1 Storytelling Brief. What calamities await... only time will tell!

Anyway the first topic to discuss will be the features of this little blog. This is not only for the public to digest but it is also for my creative partners in crime Sammy & Chrissie. Now I wont waffle but all of the buttons in the top bar now lead to actual links *SHOCK HORROR* (some to pages and some to labels). First and foremost I will talk about the custom made pages on this blog (shown in the image below).


The About Page: Has some precursor information in it about the development of Polydoodle Pictures, (a bit of back story) I can redo any of the text in this section so please let me know if you want me to revise anything or add skills you guys want advertised (w/e). I have linked your names and the images of your faces to your respective blogs just so you are aware.