Character - Basic Environment Planning

I've mocked up some very basic initial environment layout plans to help me start to map out my character works environment and see how it all works together. 

Character - Environment Influence Map

Quick influence map for my environment. I don't want it to be set in a specific place/time, but rather take influences from multiple sources and just play around with making it my own rather than imitating a certain ancient civilisations style specifically. I'm taking inspiration from the Egyptians and Mayans, as well as really liking the artistic style of the environments in Disney's The Emperors New Groove. 

Character - Character #2 (Protagonist - Explorer) Influence Map

The explorer protagonist I feel needs to be the "typical" self assured protagonist who always gets the girl and saves the day, but still needs to have a "mean" side, be a little snarky/witty. I am a little worried though this may be a little too generic, may talk with Justin about this next tutorial, I don't want to just be designing a re-hashed Indiana Jones.

Character - Character #1 (Sidekick) Influence Map

The sidekick character I would like to be more plump, to appear friendlier and much less serious, and hopefully add a little bit of a comedy aspect. This is a really quick influence map of  the kind of character shape, and also temperament that I'm going for. 

Narrative - Film Noir Influence; Hercules vs The Hydra / Granny vs The Weeds

Today while brainstorming how we would go about creating the shots for our film noir section of the animation where Granny is battling the weeds, they were referred to as hydra-like, which prompted me to think of the Hydra battle in Disney's Hercules. We feel the flashing contrasting colours and extreme shots in this clip would be good influence for our animation.

Narrative - OGR

OGR by Pip on Scribd

Narrative - Storyboard with Scene Direction

Krissy came over to mine tonight and we worked together on adding text over the storyboard while I finished off the OGR to make it a bit clearer to everyone what exactly is going on in the scenes, as well as working it out a bit better for ourselves too. 

Narrative - Updated Script

Granny vs The Weeds Script #1 by Pip on Scribd

Narrative - Environment Concept/Layout

I've made a basic environment layout of our granny's house and garden for the narrative project, just so we can all get a bit more of a matching clear idea of layout and space and where things are etc in our heads. 

Maya Tutorial - Maya Max Playblast

Went through the animation with the help of Alan and its cleaned up now, I had a few random key frames dotted around that were making it do some strange movements, and adjusted the body positioning for when he lands, making it look much more natural. 

Character Class - 18/10/16

Narrative - Design Influences

After talking to Alan about the art direction of our project, we have a pretty good idea of what sort of look we would like to achieve, so I've put together this overall brainstorm/influence post to help illustrate this. 

Our influences come from vintage and found textures, collage/photo collage, hand drawn/sketching and a general "homely" and tactile look, and from old paper dolls with jointed limbs. We aim to predominantly use image, bringing some 3D elements into a mainly 2D world, such as imposing an image as texture and then extruding out certain surfaces to create further depth while still keeping a primarily 2D world. Textures we are aiming to use will primarily be fabric and paper textures, but also incorporating some imagery of items that would eb found around an elderly womans home, possible examples - tea sets, grandfather clock, doilies, etc, mixing in imagery and drawn with textures.

Initially we were thinking of what we knew of in this sort of style, for example Charlie and Lola, with the hand drawn paper cutout look.

And also The Thomas Beale Cipher becasue of the use of vintage paper textures, plus the silhouette style could be good influence for our "film noir" genre. 

A good influence for the noir aspect that would also fit with out cut-out theme would be the sets of Dr. Caligari.

After further research we also found these sources of inspiration; The childrens cartoon "Cloud Bread" and the music video to "Dead All Along" by Cari Frost, animated by Giles Timms, and the music video to Angus & Julia Stone's "Just a Boy".

Dead All Along || Ceri Frost from Giles Timms on Vimeo.

Further influences to draw upon for our film noir genre include the works of Saul Bass and Michal Socha, such as CHICK.

CHICK from Mayki on Vimeo.

Influence map for our animation - twin peaks will be a big influence on our colour palette, with initial colours being more muted and "retro/vintage" and then in the noir scenes be a lot more vibrant with lots of contrast. 

Narrative Lecture Series: Narrative Theory & Structure - The Road to El Dorado (plan)

(to be fully completed) 

Dreamworks Animation's 2000 animated action-adventure comedy film, The Road to El  Dorado follows the journey of two con-artist friends, Miguel and Tulio, as they flee 16th century Spain as stowaways on a ship headed to the "new world" after being discovered to be using loaded dice, and go on to discover the legendary "city of gold" El Dorado with a map they previously won, and are mistaken as gods in the city. Despite not being a hit at the box office, being Dreamworks Animations first film to do so, in recent years the film has reached online cult classic status largely due to its individuality with particularly sassy characters and hidden comedy aimed at a slightly older audience than the film's intended audience. 

Does it fit 5 or 3 act structure? If no, why?
The Road to El Dorado fits the three act structure... 

Exposition
Meet miguel and tulio in spain, discover they are joking con artist friends, Have a map to the "city of gold" El Dorado

Inciting Incident
They are caught using loaded dice while gambling, they must flee spain and stowaway on a ship headed to the new world, however are discovered as stowaways and imprisoned, but manage to escape with the (unintentional) help of the ships captain, Cortes', horse, Altivo, who also leaves the ship. 

Plot Point 1&2 
The trio wash ashore onto unfamiliar land, but Miguel links landmarks depicted on his map to El Dorado with the surrounding scenery, and they follow the map through the jungle to a stone, Guards chasing a woman appear, and think miguel and Tulio are gods as they appear similar to those depicted on the stone behind.  However they see a 

Rising Action/Obstacles
Plot point 2
Climax
Twist
Denouement/Resolution

Ending type? Open, partial, closed?
Partial ending

Plot vs Story? Arc, anti, mini plot
Arc Plot

Illustrations
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Road_to_el_dorado_ver3.jpg

Character Class - 11/10/16

Narrative Lecture Series: Archetypes and The Hero's Journey - The Sword in the Stone

Walt Disney's 1963 animated film "The Sword in the Stone" is a lighthearted comedy-musical, and another Hero's Journey film, from which can be seen solid character archetypes, despite not having a very large collection of characters. It follows the story of the hero, an orphaned young and timid (and unbeknown to him) future King of England, Arthur, through his journey from lowly squire to his brutish cousin, to being mentored by the brilliant but ludicrous Merlin, to the heir to the throne. 

The Hero of "The Sword in the Stone" is undeniably Arthur, although his character can be described as the reluctant hero, as Arthur has no initial want for glory or power, and has responsibilities thrust upon him by the wizard Merlin who sees/knows his potential as future king, and takes it upon himself to mentor and prepare the clueless and young king-to-be. Further, through the story, Arthur is conflicted between being tutored by Merlin and being a squire to his foster brother, Kay (later, Sir Kay), and shares multiple doubts in his ability to reach the expectations Merlin has for him. 
The wizard Merlin therefore is the Mentor archetype, taking Arthur in under his wing and declaring himself his tutor. Merlin also has a pet owl/ familiar, the crotchety Archemedes, who is the ally archetype, helping Arthur through many of his trials and in one case becoming the mentor. 

The Shadow archetype is Sir Ector, Arthurs foster father. While not being outwardly malevolent towards arthur, he is consistently uncaring towards him (often referring to Arthur as "Wart") and constantly disagrees with his involvement with merlin
Herald - Sir Pellinore
Threshold guardian - The Pike, The Wolf, Hawk and The Sword in the stone
trickster - Girl Squirrel, Madame Mim
As for the heros' family archetypes of "The Sword in the Stone", despite Arthur being orpahned, there are characters who clearly play these roles, as well as others. Merlin, as well as mentor, can be seen to be both Mother and Father figure to Arthur, as he...
However, Sir Ector can also be seen as a father figure to Arthur becasue of
The child archetype is Arthur himself, 
mother Merlin
father - Merlin and Sir Ector
child - Arthur
maiden - Possibly girl Squirrel? 

Character Class - 4/10/16

Maya Tutorial - Maya Max Start and End Pose

Here is my start and end pose for my chosen pose for Maya Max. I'll be posing him through his leap to coming back down and landing.