[Personal] To Ride a Cat

You may have noticed a change of how the blog looks, what with the background changing and logo. Well all that is thanks to one picture I drew over a weekend:

Though the one I have used for the background doesn't have a cat or a cartoon version of me in it, it still has everything else in it. The reason I drew this was because I didn't have a drawing of myself that I was happy with. After I cut my hair and pretty much abandoned my old look, see here. I never drew myself with my new style, I had the older cartoon of me still and transferred that into my current animation. So I drew this, and honestly I really didn't like it, the drawing took me 2 minutes and finding a background full of cats took more time than the actual drawing. So then I drew this, again wasn't happy with it. That drawing was drawn in the early stages of my new drawing style, as you may notice it looking similar to other drawings, however I felt it didn't capture how I am, the room is dark and dreary, so I wanted to make something alot more uplifting  and thus this drawing was born!

[Project: Cleaning] Memory issues

Well I expected this to happen, though my laptop has 8GB of RAM it's still not enough to keep up with how much memory Flash uses, there is now a scene in the animation where if you go too far up the timeline then it'll crash Flash. This is a major Issue as it means that scene is now off limits.

Anthony suggested creating each scene in a separate Flash file. That seems like the best solution however will mean in the end I will have to stick it all together, which could be a task in itself. However this is how Anthony uses Flash now since he had the same problem as me. It also means I wont be able to see all the animation at once, it will have to be one scene at a time, though that's not the biggest issue in the world.

I will use this weekend to try and transfer all of the scenes into their own Flash files, this may take time as I will have to relocate each image and sound file again. Hopefully everything will go smoothly when I do it though, last thing I need is a repeat of last years problems.

[Project: Cleaning] Backgrounds & Animatic Update

CLICK HERE FOR SOME ANIMATIC (SCENE 1)

CLICK HERE FOR SOME ANIMATIC (SCENE 3)

CLICK HERE FOR SOME ANIMATIC (SCENE 4)

CLICK HERE FOR SOME ANIMATIC (SCENE 5)

CLICK HERE FOR SOME ANIMATIC (SCENE 7)

CLICK HERE FOR SOME ANIMATIC (SCENE 8)

CLICK HERE FOR SOME ANIMATIC (SCENE 9)

Those are the current scenes with either finished animation, animatic or finished Backgrounds. Some animatics are more detailed than others however the animation process is slowly getting there. Now that I have the voices I now know how long I need to have each scene, the only thing I need now is some BGM throughout the animation, however I have some various songs already in place for areas that need music.

You'll notice that there are more Backgrounds in the animation, something I like to do is do the backgrounds first so I know where the characters are going to be, here are some of the backgrounds featured in the animatics above:

Something you may or may not see is the amount of references from video games there are in these backgrounds than the previous backgrounds. I want to make this animation fun and kind of like a game, not just watch the main story but hunt for references and items from various other places.

The animation is slowly getting done, over the Easter Holidays I am going to try and get a good chunk of animation completed, hopefully get all of the animatic done by the end of next week and get a good few backgrounds done as well as animation.

[Project: Cleaning] Voice Recording

I finally have all the lines recorded now, last night I got all of my voice actors together and we recorded everything. Though there were a few minor problems but nothing major. Here is a compilation of all the audio files at once:

One of the problems we faced were accents, everyone had different accents so it may be difficult to understand what they are saying. Here are the names of the characters, the voice actor and their accent:

• Matt Miles - Gary Shaw - Yorkshire
• Kim Pickering - Laura Purdy - Yorkshire
• Scott Keen - Daniel Dunkley - Derbysharian
• Sarah Pine - Becky Eaton - Brummie
• Cameron Wray - Luke Foulds - Middlesbrough

Though the fact that some people had stronger accents than others may make a few people confused, I wanted them to have strong accents all along. Though the cities they're from may be different than originally planned, I did want a few of them to have strong accents, as it is a problem that I faced when I first came to University. It would be strange if everyone in the flat was from Yorkshire or London, to get the right feeling of a University flat it has to be people from all over England. During my first year I lived with a Geordie, 2 girls from Lancashire, a boy from Leicestershire and myself from Yorkshire.

[Project: Cleaning] To do list

As everything is slowly piling up, I thought it'd be in my best interest to make some form of to do list, it's not as strict as a schedule but it's getting there. I went on Todoist and created an account, then made a schedule for what I want to try and do within the next few weeks before I start full animation, here is what I have so far:

As far as the animatic is concerned, I will try and get atleast half of them done by this weekend before Easter if not more. I am going to get all of the voices recorded by this weekend too to get a large chunk of the to do list done. The soundtrack will probably be one of the last things I will do, but I am working with my house mate Dan Dunkley to make the soundtrack and create appropriate SFX too.

[Project: Cleaning] Photographic Research

As you may or may not know, I live in a house currently with 13 other people, and as you can imagine, living with that many people can get messy. However, there is no greater mess in this house than after a house party. Here are a few images of the house after two house parties:

As you can see, I live with a right set of scrubbers. The reason I am creating an animation about cleaning a flat is mainly inspired by how I live, because there are 3 types of people in out house when it comes to cleaning; People who are up for it and want to live in a clean house, people who don't like cleaning but will clean when asked, and people who aren't bothered about cleaning and won't do it unless forced.

Most people in the animation represent people who I live with or have lived with, however they have traits of either one of those 3 (Which doesn't represent how they are in real life):

• Matt Miles - Up for cleaning and wants to live in a clean house.
• Kim Pickering - Up for cleaning and wants to live in a clean house.
• Cameron Wray - Doesn't like cleaning but will clean when asked.
• Sarah Pine - Doesn't like cleaning but will clean when asked.
• Scott Keen - Isn't bothered about cleaning and won't do it unless forced.

[Project: Cleaning] The Floor Plan

As you may know with this animation, almost the entire animation is going to be set in a Flat, there for I can't have a massive amount of rooms laced around the entire place, I needed to sit down and actually decide what rooms would be in this flat, how big they'd be and if they'd all actually fit in a flat.

As you can see, the flat itself is very big, however most of the rooms would be rented out to other student's, because I lived in a flat last year I know around about how big of space 5 people would get to live in. I decided that the main cast in Cleaning's flat would be on the ground floor and be about 3 windows wide and then a large window for the lounge, and with the help of a Floor Planner, I came up with this:

Because the flat in the picture above the plan is the back of the flats, I decided to have the lounge and a few rooms at the back; whereas the front door, a few bedrooms and the kitchen would be at the front. I think this is a perfect layout of the flat, it's all on one floor, there is enough space for everyone and everyone has an equal amount of bedroom space, the kitchen is big as is the lounge, and I can fit everyone's skits into each of these rooms.

With this floor plan I can now decide where everyone will be in the flat at the time of their skit, so when they interact with each other and come from certain directions I can accurately see where they'd come from and see how long it'd take. 

[Project: Cleaning] The Many Scenes

After finishing the first scene in the animatic, I decided to quickly create all the scenes in Flash to see how many there will be, over all, disregarding the Film Reel and the End Credits, there should be 12 main scenes:

I am trying to work out how long the film will be with these scenes and with the script and this is what I came to, understand that this is an estimation though:

Scene 0: Film Reel - 0:09s
Scene 1: Opening - 0:45s
Scene 2: Title Sequence - 0:35s
Scene 3: Gathering the Troops - 0:45s
Scene 4 Kim's Skit - 0:15s
Scene 5: Cameron's Skit - 0:21s
Scene 6: Scott's Skit - 0:12s
Scene 7: Sarah's Skit - 0:20s
Scene 8: Matt's Skit - 0:21s
Scene 9: Kim's Skit - 0:13
Scene 10: Cameron's Skit - 0:35s
Scene 11: Matt's Skit - 0:32s
Scene 12: Sarah's Skit - 0:28s
Scene 13: Ending Scene - 1:03s
Scene 14: Credits Roll - 0:55s

Overall that is 7:48s in total, I am happy with that amount of time and as I say, the Credits and Film Reel shouldn't really be added to it because it's none animated, however to keep things uncomplicated it's a reasonable amount of time, with out the Film Reel and Credits it would be estimated at: 6:41s.

[Project: Cleaning] Animatic #1 and Feedback #2

CLICK HERE FOR SOME ANIMATIC (SCENE 1)

The first scene of my animatic is done, the first half is animated, however both animated parts still need alot of work. Especially the kitchen scene, after sorting the script out again I will carry on the animating process and try and get the full animatic finished by the end of either next week or the week after.

Speaking of script, I sent the script to Ged a few days ago to see his response to it, today I received an Email explaining that it still needs alot of work. He told me I need to spent more time on the script and gave me advice on how I could improve the script. He sent me a few ideas for the script to use if I choose: here. However though there were some funny parts I felt it was a bit too crude for my animation, one thing I noticed about his advice was that the narrative of "cleaning a house" was lost to a more "narrative about Sarah (The nympho)". 

I sent him an email back regarding his advice, and told him I respected his advice and ill take onboard some of his suggestions, but felt that instead of changing the script drastically i'd stick to the ideas that I thought was funny and take them with me to the end. I said to myself that if it goes horribly wrong then it's just a learning stone, if it goes right then I can pat myself on the back for a job well done. 

In the end, I ended up changing my script for the last time: here. This is the final script I am making, as I don't want to alter it any more and lose the initial idea, I respect Ged's opinions and with his last email I can tell he respects mine. 

[Drawing Class] 28/02/13 - Storyboarding

During this lesson we had to skip ahead a few weeks and do something we was going to do in the future, the life model had cancelled this week and so we were given the task to create the following; a storyboard with no more than 12 frames, with a story that features no characters, speech bubbles or objects that move. A strange task, telling a story without words and characters isn't something I have ever thought about, however we were put into groups and I worked with Emma Pinder to create said story.

We were given a break to think about what we were going to create and how we would go about making it, we then settled for doing a house going through time, in the present time in the first frame and 1,000 years into the future in the last frame. This was inspired by a TV documentary called Life after People:

We began drawing the storyboard, I did the first frame and the ending frame, then I worked backwards doing the building getting better while Emma worked the other way and made the building deteriorate. After finishing it, it ended up like this.

I think it turned out well, though most of the class had a similar idea to us, I think we told a story well without using speech bubbles and characters. It was a fun lesson as it required us using our imagination and wit to try and think of an idea that would work.

[Project: Cleaning] Ged and Feedback

Starting from last week we were introduced to our new tutor, Ged Haney, a character animator whose been animating for over 20 years. He has created recognisable animations and hit music videos such as Gigi D' Agostino's The Riddle:

 

Everyone in the class was to present their ideas to Ged for the Narrative project, I presented my idea to him to receive some critical feedback. I showed him what I had done so far which was around 10 seconds of animation and compared what comedy styles it would be like such as Hellbenders. Ged informed me that my idea my or may not work, depending if the audience get it or not, and then asked me to show me in my script the funniest joke I had, it was at that moment when I looked at my script and realised how badly written it was. I have all these ideas in my head but cannot explain them well, and with no animatic to back up my ideas it occurred to me that instead of racing ahead with the animation I should really sit down with the script and do some more research.

The script has now been updated from this to this, it is now much clearer and I can explain my jokes alot more clearer. I am going to start working on an animatic shortly, while working slowly on the actual animation once scenes are finished. Since jokes are a key element in the animation I will keep updating the script as jokes come to mind.

Ged's criticism on my script was helpful to me, it made me realise that a bunch of insane gags aren't going to make people like my animation, I should really sit down and think about it and research into things that people find funny or things people will get. However I think that people will like my animation, purely cause I am aiming it at the right target audience, people my age who find pop culture references, internet jokes and insane situations funny.

[Inspiration] Anime Influences #4

Considering I am writing a satire/spoof comedy, there is a certain reason I want it to be an satire/spoof comedy. The genre of comedy is one of my favourite kinds of comedy, such as films like Airplane and Loaded Weapon. However, in animation there is a whole new level on how insane you can take a comedy, rather than being tied down to how far you can take it with out it being impossible, in animation if you want to do it, you can.

A fine example of this is one of my favourite comedy animes; Paniponi Dash! I have mentioned this anime a couple of times before, but I want to go into further detail with it as you should figure out what kind of film I want Cleaning to be like. Paniponi Dash is a comedy anime that parodies alot of pop culture films, tv shows and anime, it has ridiculous episodes and most if not all jokes rely on satire, stablished character behavior, Japanese Internet and anime culture, or non sequitur comments and actions. Below is an example of the show:

I have taken alot of inspiration from this show, from it's comedy style to even how they name each episode. As you may notice from the first presentation I uploaded about the animation cleaning, is that "Cleaning" is just the shortened episode title, the full name is called; "A house that is clean enough to be healthy, is dirty enough to be happy". I named the episode that because unlike any anime or tv show I have seen, Paniponi dash use adages and proverbs as the episode titles, I thought i'd show reference to the show by having episodes from the Uni-verse of Matt Miles series have long titles which are Adages and proverbs.

I'd suggest Paniponi Dash to anyone, it is a clever show and is one of the most hilarious shows I have watched in a long time. The only thing that may put people off is the fact that most of the references and parodies are from Japanese subculture, so many jokes go over your head unless you are into Japanese culture. However apart from that it is a fine comedy and I hope to make something just as funny. Below is the English trailer for the show:

[Drawing Class] 21/02/13 - Back to the Model

We have now returned to Life Drawing, returning was Martin, a life model from a way back. We were to draw accurate proportions of the life model, starting from a larger scale of the model and shortening the drawing scale each time. It had been a while since we drew the life model so as with almost half the class, we used the first drawing to get back into the swing off things. It didn't turn out as good as I had hoped. As the drawings got smaller I would like to think I improved, however during the last 3 drawings I started to lose focus and the drawings quality started to lack.

I found Martin harder to draw this time than last time, as the shape of the body didn't seem right as I drew him. He has a bigger upper body than Steve does, so it look out of proportion and almost stretched, however I do like the second drawing I created, one of the best drawings of the lesson as it was the perfect scale.

[Project: Cleaning] Character Development

As you may have known from some previous entries, I already know what characters I will be using in this short, as it takes place in the universe of "The Uni-verse of Matt Miles". We were told to create Character Bios for each character in the animation, however since I have had this idea in the back of my mind for a while now I had already created a character profiling for the characters; here. We were told that we were to present our characters to the class, so I put together a presentation to describe each character:

The presentation goes into basic details about the characters, helping get a better idea on how they would react in certain situations, such as cleaning. Each character has a bit of concept art with it and a finished drawing of the character so you know what they look like.

Overall I think everyone likes my character designs, the main point of showing what these characters are like and how they react to things is to show that the characters are Archetypes and not Stereotypes, though each character has their own favourite things to do (Play video games, smoke weed, have sex, read books ect) they each have their own personalities and aren't trademarked geeks for playing games and stoners for smoking weed.

[Showcase] Various Images #2

Similar to my last Image showcase, however instead of images that I have taken from around the web, these are images that I have taken from 2 particular television shows; Adventure Time and My Little Pony. These backgrounds are simple, yet effective, similar to how I want my backgrounds in the Cleaning short I will be making. Adventure Time and My Little Pony have untextured (However often gradiented) backgrounds, these are incredibly effective for the style of their shows which are cartoony and aimed for children. The backgrounds don't have too much going on to take attention away from the show itself, however have enough detail to show the audience where they are, what time of day and what not.

My Little Pony backgrounds are similar to the Adventure time backgrounds, but have key differences. One Difference I have noticed is that Adventure Time has alot of line art, whereas My Little Pony's backgrounds don't have any outlines, and aren't as detailed as the Adventure Time Backgrounds. Adventure Time has alot of objects around it's backgrounds, ovens, chairs and various other things, however My Little Pony's backgrounds are straight to the point and don't mess around with major detail.

I like how both shows look and feel similar but both have some differences, both shows inspire my backgrounds (I spend more time studying My Little Pony because of other work; Crusaders, Solrac ventures ect.). 

[Drawing Class] 14/02/13 - Textures

During this lesson, we were told to go outside for an hour and find textures so in a group; me, Ant and Gary ventured into the City of Leeds in search of surfaces with textures. Here is what I came back with:

After, we were told to turn a part of the texture into a 3D image. A strange task indeed, so the first thing we had to do was choose what image we wanted to make 3D. Because I got alot of grainy textures I only had a few choices, however in the end I ended up going with this one:

I liked this one as I could create a cheese effect with it, making it 3D in an easy way. I tried to re-create the image in photoshop, I don't think it turned out half bad if I am quite honest. Though I was very prompt with 3D shapes and letterings, sessions like these help keep me on my toes when drawing 3D models, buildings and just shapes in general.

[Inspiration] Bumming Crew

The Bumming Crew is a group of people who have created an animated series called Bumming About (they also make shorts). The group consists of Pearl, Harry, Johnny, c0ke and Timbo, who are the main cast for the series. Though they have only recently emerged into my Youtube subscription box, they have made a place very quickly as one of my biggest inspirations. Below is an example of something they've made: 

Notice that once thing I have taken inspiration from is the animation style and look, my original style is greatly inspired by Bryan Lee o'Malley, however now mixed with this drawing style I have created a whole new style. Below is a comparison to my old style to my new Style:

Though the changes are minor, the changes really consist of facial expression. The original facial expressions were adapted from Bryan Lee o'Malley's facial expressions, however I prefer this new cleaner style which is much more appealing to the eye.

Another thing that I am inspired from the Bumming Crew is the humour, their humour is very witty but insane at the same time. I respect humour like this as it makes an animation very pleasant to watch and can make anything funny. The animation Cleaning's humour is inspired by their style, I have tried to make it witty but a spoof to internet humour. Below is a more recent animation by the crew:

[Drawing Class] 07/02/13 - Gallery Trip

Today's lesson of drawing took place mainly in a Gallery, we sat down in our class and were told to draw block letters of the first letter in our first name, needless to say this was the easy part of today's lesson:

After creating the first letter of out name in block letters we were told to meet up at the Gallery in 40 minutes. The purpose of the lesson today is to help us realise how 3D shapes work when looking in every direction, so drawing the first letter from our name in different prospectives is defiantly a helpful task. 

When we met up in the Gallery we started to draw a variety of objects, most of them which were abstract, below is what I produced:

After an hour of drawing these objects we moved into a different section of the Gallery and started to draw more abstract shapes, these shapes were made primarily of string and pieces of wood. Below are some examples:

These objects took alot of focus to draw, as they play with your eyes a little. As I was drawing one of the objects I was informed by a course mate that the string wasn't curved at all, but rather all the string was straight but gives off a curved effect. Here is what I produced:

After drawing these the lesson came to a close, we walked around the gallery and went to a few exhibits, a good day indeed.