So this is it - after months, I've finally finished the animated short for my third year Toil and Trouble. I've blogged nonstop about it, but I've finally finished the thing and I'm actually really proud of it.

Considering how it started:

I'd say it's really worked out well. Plenty of work went into it, but I'm very happy with the result and can safely put it away now and look forwards to new things.

With big thanks to Christopher Button for the music, without which this really wouldn't be nearly as good.

Now, onto the next one!

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Three weeks until the deadline, I've got all of the raw footage I need for Toil and Trouble. All I need to do now is special effect work - mostly Harry Potter-esque spells which, once I've learnt how to do them, shouldn't take too much time. It's a part of the film I've had to take a lot of care to get right - including adding the same green light to every scene where these spells are fired.

I have to be out for a few days over Easter, annoyingly, as I have to attend a baptism and go be a godfather, which is a very nice thing, but it takes a huge chunk of time off of my schedule to work, so I've been doing more than I planned over the last few days. I think the effort's paying off though. I uploaded a near-finished version of it to Vimeo the other day, but I may as well wait until I have the whole thing over and done with before posting it up. I'll be pretty glad - some of it I may not be too pleased with, but there are some really good sequences I'm quite proud of and I'll be putting into my showreel.

I'll soon have plenty of time to work on other projects - in May, when this is over, we'll still have some other coursework, but none of it will be anything really taxing, not like this, and so I'll be able to do all kinds of things I've been putting off. I have an idea for a few stories I want to write, and will be looking forward to getting something else done. Maybe even, once I've recovered from this, another project in 3D.

Here's an example of the credits sequence I've been doing. It's going to be still frames with text on:

That site there, freesound.org, was a huge life saver throughout this project. I recommend it to anyone looking for free foley sounds to use in films or animations. They have, for the most part, almost every kind of sound and the collection keeps growing. You need to sign up but it's well worth a visit

I've got some sketches I was going to scan and post, but those can wait. I'll be glad to get this all finished with. It's been fun, but incredibly stressful too. Really can't wait to see the finished piece.

Anyway, I should leave you with some interesting clip or whatever I found online, but I can't think of anything, so I'll leave you with this very fascinating full stop.

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Well, it's been some weeks of animation now and I'm about two thirds done. I've done a minute and a bit already of raw work and have given myself another two weeks to finish it all off. After that I have to add a load of magic in After Effects.

All of this work means I haven't had any time at all to do anything else, which is a bit of a shame, seeing I've had plenty of other ideas for animated shorts, stories and comics. I'll probably have plenty more time over the summer, or even in May once this is done.

I'm sure there are more things to be said, and I shall say them soon. But for the moment I'm going to head to bed and read the Count of Monte Cristo which I bought the other day. It's well over 1,000 pages long, so I better get reading. It's unfortunately not the Penguin Classics translation (which brings back some content which was lost due to Victorian censorship laws) but it's a decent copy nonetheless.

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Been doing a lot of actual animation lately. Hooray. Now with the rigging out of the way (well, sort of), it's just now down to putting things in scenes and making them move how I want. It's painstaking, in that each movement has to be timed, positioned, tested and then tried again if it doesn't look right, and that all takes a long time because of how complex some of the scenes are - and with so many polygons and objects in the single scene, my computer has a bit of a hard time showing it all in real time playback.

It's a long, annoying process, but it's totally worth it. I think.

Here's something I've been doing for Toil and Trouble - it's taken a few hours for this one single thing, but it looks about as good as I had hoped. It's the fifteenth storyboard in my scene animated out.

I've done a couple of others too, but haven't uploaded them to anything yet.

Moving along to the second deadline - which is in about ten days - I've almost finished this. Done more since I uploaded, namely involving the puppet swinging about wildly and then collapsing, but still have to finish all actions for the second character, as well as include some strings for the puppet. Here's what it's looking like right now:

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I've also been trying to start a new short story, but there's just not enough time right now. Maybe when I'm more confident in my ability to finish this on time.

I want to post up one more video to end on a quite optimistic note - which I saw on the Time website. It won't let me embed, annoyingly, but here it is. It's, among the death and destruction, a quite heartwarming story about a father's trek to find his missing daughter in Sendai.

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The Oscars are about to start and I'm still debating whether or not to actually watch the whole thing. I've spent too much time lately sitting in front of the computer trying to rig the same things over and over again to very little avail and I reckon it's time for a break. Sooner or later I'm gonna want to throw my computer out the window and animate using shadow puppets or something.

Still, there's been some decent progress since I last updated.

Here is a render I did while working on the first few seconds of animation - the dark bit where the witches summon the blob creature out of the cauldron. I isolated the characters in the scene and began animating them individually, which is much easier than trying to do it all in within the scene.

I've been getting a lot of inspiration from that opening scene in the Sorcerer's Apprentice with Yen Sid over his cauldron.

Lots of red carpet stuff happening at the moment. Damn it'd be good to be on that one day.

I have no real inclination this year for which film to win. All of the nominated ones I've seen I've absolutely loved. I'd like to see L'Illusioniste win Best Animated Picture but I doubt that's gonna happen. it's all gonna be about Toy Story 3.

Inception's on the running for best picture. It's not gonna win. I read a great article actually on why sci-fi films never do win that.

Anyway, I'm gonna work on this other project they're making us do. A fully animation-based one where we have to make a scene based off one of four sounds they give us. It looks like fun and it's a welcome distraction from the main project but we don't have a lot of time for it. I'll post up about it more in detail later.

For now, I'm gonna sit back, and watch people win awards in filmmaking.

Hey, that's future me in the background

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Good news, everyone!

 in between  a tonne of Futurama episodes, I have been working on uni stuff. Here's some of the latest work I've been doing on the Toil of Trouble short.





Books are for when the camera pans across the shelf. The fat witch has taken the most part of the week, but I'm actually quite happy with the finished product. Well, I still need to rig it and make the arms fatter, but those notwithstanding, I'm quite please with it. Now I've only got the one character left to model and I can put all that behind me.

Also, here's a "walk" cycle for the blob character I did yesterday. There's plenty to tweak here, but you get the jist:





Goodnight!

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Hey, I've been doing this blog for another year. That's yet another year more than I originally thought it would last. Look at me, actually sticking to things.

Speaking of, actually, here's some of the latest work on the Toil and Trouble short, due in by around May. I'm keeping to the schedule, for the moment, so there's no big rush at the moment.

Here's my finished Crone body, not yet rigged. I'm waiting for our lessons on CAT rigging, instead of using bipeds, which are just a huge pain in the ass

I have also modeled a winged and legged blob creature, for later on in the short. I rigged him with simple bones

And have begun modeling a second witch - the fatter, more motherly one.

... it's not finished yet, as you might have guessed. Going to work on this and the movement tests for the blob over the coming week, then I have to get onto modeling the final character.

I predict a lot of not doing much else..

Oh, and check out the new pages being added to the site, and the slight change in appearance. I'll be doing a lot more of that over time, too.

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Gonna post up a few things I've been working on. Well, the one thing I've been working on, but working a long time on it.

I think I've finished, more or less, this entire set for the short. As of tomorrow or the day after I'm gonna get back into the character design and make some decent models.

Here's a development video for lighting and texturing

And a lesser quality video of a much better design, which I finished just last night

And a better detailed still-frame

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Have been working on the old Scrooge poem which I've forgotten about lately, and am working much faster on it now than I was.

Also, here's something I threw together after doodling with a four-colour pen

I will, I think return soon with a more filling post.

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New Year came and went and now it's just another day, part of another year, all of which kind of don't matter really unless you had any appointments then. Then again, when it's all cold and the nights are long, you really need something to celebrate.

People woke up on New Year's day to find that the world hadn't changed much, and went about their daily lives. The night before promises were made, most of which will be broken in a few weeks, kisses were exchanged and celebrations had. Now it was morning, and, as everyone realised, it was just another morning.

Still, there's something promising about a new year. It's almost like you can start fresh. You can't. Nobody does. But it's nice to feel like there is.

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So I didn't end up doing much drawing over the last week of 2010, and I never got around to doing a "last picture of 2010", which was a bit of a bummer.

Well, I did do this, all part of the Toil and Trouble project. It's the main Crone's head, and is finally finished. It occurs to me, once term starts again, that I really need to kick shit off again and actually start working fast, because there's no way I'm gonna have everything modeled and rigged in time if I don't.

So here's the picture:

-- You know that Christmas Carol, the one I really don't like. In the Bleak Midwinter. At the start of the song, there's a bit lyrical vomit where the writer didn't quite know what to write, so he ended up putting "snow on snow, on snow, on snow". Well, I actually know what he was talking about now. See, the last week, it's been snowing like mad, then stopped, then started again, and stopped again. Trains were cancelled, shops and universities closed and nobody was enjoying it after a while. Snow is a lot like Frankie Boyle: it's best when it's a little bit at a time. Which meant for some pretty mad rushes as soon as it was safe to walk around outside again, and the shops were open. People trying to stock up as much as possible in case they got completely snowed in and had to resort to eating each other.

On the other hand I've had a blast doing all the work, having finished just about everything. Visual effects work looks kind of bad but it's not as bad as I thought it might be. Essay's been written and, for my Toil and Trouble project, I've had a good time remodeling the witch and animating the face to actually made it look like she's saying or feeling things.

One week left until presentations and hand ins, and all that's left are tweeks. I like tweeks, you don't have to put in a great deal of concentation into them.

And, to carry on with the Christmas Countdown, here's .....

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The last few days have been, interestingly enough, surrounding Batman.

See, in working on my visual effects thing for class - which involves adding effects to film as well as writing up about a desired topic, I came up with the idea to write about the art of matte painting; you know, where an artist painstakingly paints a scene that's almost real to the eye, on which live action footage is placed, with appropriate background to fit, to make it look like the action is happening in a place that's more visually impressive than the studio.

With exception of the guy, the trolley and some of the floor, the rest is a painting. Well anyway, I am writing up on the composite images used to create the unique look for Gotham city in a range of Batman movies.

This had led me to watch Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, as well as the special features, which has led to an increased interest in Batman.

I'm now the owner of a cool new Batman poster, mug and Arkham Asylum comic (those last things were actually early Christmas presents).

Well, anyway, because it's getting close to Christmas and bats have been on the mind, I ended up drawing this

A bigger version can be found on deviantart here. Consider this, and the below video, the first of a series of completely unrelated Christmas posts, where I'll be putting on a video, image or story to do with Christmas.

Also, modeling on the witches for the Toil and Trouble short is going well:

Well, creepy eyes notwithstanding. Also, music is coming along nicely. With any luck I'll have a nice piece to go with the animatic.

And now, to start the Christmas Countdown 2010 - Merry Christmas, Gotham City! from the cancelled Batman musical

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Here is my animatic for upcoming short Toil and Trouble I've done so far, with some pretty weird sound effects (to give it a bit more life). No music yet, I'll post it up on youtube when I do

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I spent most of the day helping to film Wilson's visual effects project. It rained like mad, and was probably the coldest day of the year so far, which made standing outside on the deck and, especially for Wils who was doing all the filming, taking shot after shot difficult but ultimately rewarding.

There was a very realistic gun involved, which we had to take some care around so we didn't cause a panic, so the deck we filmed on had notices all around the entrances consoling people that we weren't actually trying to kill each other.

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What have I been doing? Very much the same thing. Although my visual effects idea is much easier, or at least, much simpler. I've just gotten it storyboarded and will have to shoot in the next couple of days as we have to return the camera by Friday. With that over and done with, there would be about three weeks before everyone starts panicking.

Good times.

Will post up my animatic (and a more interesting post) once I've got it sorted out. Then to send to Chris Button, music, sound effects and it should be finished.

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I think I've had enough of storyboards to last me a lifetime, having finally finished all 62 of them and then scanned them into the computer, before fixing them (because they all scanned in lopsided. Thanks, Wilson's scanner..) and changing the levels and stuff on them, and then finally cropping them into individual files.

It means I can get started on my animatic very soon. Once I have a rough video from the boards I'll send them over to the guy I've got composing music, and he'll make me a sort of haphazard music file which will play over. It'll then be refined later as the short is made, to fit in properly with what's on screen, seeing all expressions and most of the tone of the film will be in its soundtrack.

There's another project which needs to be done, which I've barely even started on. It's a special and visual effects project where we need to hand in a video of real life live-action footage interacting with a 3D, CGI element as realistically as possible, which is being taught through lectures and tutorials. I'm still not entirely sure what I'll be doing, but we also have to include a 4-page write up on it and a visual effects trick of our choice (woo).

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I've been wanting to do a huge landscape-ish picture but I can never find the time now. However, here's a cool picture I did of Colin Mochrie and Ryan Styles based off this Whose Line clip.

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It's Chinatown. At least, the film I'm watching is.

I'm 30,000 words into a story I need to be 80,000 words into by 8 weeks time. There is very little chance this is going to happen, which does annoy me. I don't think I'll be able to enter this Pratchett Prize after all. Not to say I'll stop writing this story - this is probably the most I've been into a story for a long time, I'll just take it much slower and think it through. Maybe I'll send it in next year.

Whatever the case, I'd rather be focusing all on Toil and Trouble, an animatic of which I need to have finished by mid December. For those curious, I started the storyboards today, and when I get back to that classroom, I'll scan them and post them up, if only as a way to document my progress through this. With the finished storyboards, making an animatic will be much easier, as will getting music done from my friend.

Getting some actually decent animation and visual effects lessons so with any luck my finished work is gonna look a lot better than some of my previous pieces.

I think I need to watch an animation blu-ray, but somebody's fixing my PS3, which I've now been without for bloody ages. I'll stick to Chinatown on my computer

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Here's some more concept art

Here's some stuff for my upcoming animated short Toil and Trouble

Cauldron bubbling test animation:

Blob creature texture test animation:

Room layout plan:

That's about it. Working on getting a screenplay done properly, and some good character modeling, which is hard and annoying but probably the most important part of the whole thing. I have a couple of weeks to do a storyboard, but we have a proposal presentation on Wednesday, so the narrative's got to be done by then.

 

-- I said recently that I was no longer working on Spring Heeled Jack, or at least, have put in hiatus until I am skilled enough to do the short film that's in my head. If I attempted it now, it would be laughably bad. Instead, I'm working something a bit easier I've boringly titled Toil and Trouble which will be about a witch who's doing all kinds of cauldron-y things and then something escapes and she tries to chase it down by firing all kinds of spells at it or something. It's going to be very Tom and Jerry in a way and I've already got a piece of music selected for it. This time, I won't be requiring the help of the Hitchcock Rules, who provided the music for this and my other one I did on the first year.. Here's a quick and fairly bad model of the witch I've been working on. Obviously the face was the only thing I've put any work into, and the hat, hair and body were just after thoughts to give it a bit more context.

and

It does look a bit daft now, I admit, but there's plenty left to do.

My still untitled story is being worked on, still slowly, and it dawns on me I only have three months to finish it. It's looking bad, but I've added a couple of new elements which might getme out of this jam I'm in.

I have no closing, so instead, accept my gift of chimps on segways (well, just one)