Finished Final Project

Well here's my final project, not quite what i wanted but was as near as I could get in the timeframe we had to work. I'm pretty chuffed at how it's worked out rendered with the backgorund and has been a pretty steep learning curve too, with new tools in Maya, After Effects and Premiere.

Any comments/advice appreciated!






Final Project Compressed from Spangles on Vimeo

Showreel

Here's my show reel.

Seems so short an amount of time for a years worth of work at college but good to see it all together!!!






My Showreel from Spangles on Vimeo

A couple more pieces

Just done a few more bit of Artwork for my business card, including a colouring in of my Avatar.

Preview Film

Right here's the complete script and animatic for the film.

This was edited together using Adobe audition, and used at a critique at the National Gallery with music students from the Royal College of Music, to give a further idea of our projects.

In the end I decided not to use any music, as I felt I wanted a more natural feel to the animation, as if we were observing these characters thorugh a window than via film.






Halfway Monkey Animation For National Gallery Crit from Spangles on Vimeo

Most of the animation is a bit floaty, so I've decided to go back to using pose to pose to get that crispness of movement back.

First 15 Seconds

Right, I've had a fairly productive week, and am currently on schedule to finish right now. Managed to animate my first 15 seconds out of the minute's worth of footage, so here's the playblast for what I've done so far.







First 15 Secs - Final Project from Spangles on Vimeo

Here's the texture map I set up in order to compose the action. It's just a movie texture laid on a square, which acts as a virtual cinema screen in front of which the two monkeys act almost like stage 'actors'.



The film was shot at the gallery (thanks to Carol Hambleton and Lee Riley for seeting up the equipment and getting permission). You'll also notice the Purple primate, C, is now yellow, as he would have blended into the background too much, and now J has switched to a fetching lime green.

Invitation Photo

Just set up a couple of 'Invitation' images for our end of term soiree. The first in 3D is just a render of my two characters, now rigged in Maya, striking a pose for the camera.



And the second, is my initial character sketch, buffed up with a bit of photoshop action.

Animatic and Script

The next stage was to write the script. The stand out train of thought points for me were as follows:-

1) It's an ugly woman.
2) Or is it a man?
3) Either way it's invokes feelings of digust and ridicule (it is a cartoon by nature).
4) But if you think about it, it also brings out some pathos, as it seems a tragic situation too.




Wouldya from Spangles

Using these key points I wrote up a script, from the Monkeys point of view, trying to convey all of these themes within a supposedly humorous frame. Casting was simple for me, a colleague Tim McCourt would do one voice (having established that we both had seen these kind of characters down our local pubs), and less convincingly I would do another. After a few takes we managed to get a half decent effort, with which I then produced a short animatic for the National Gallery on the 27th April.

As you can here it differs greatly from the original script drawn up already as the script has evolved:-

First Script
Two monkeys, J and C, are at an art gallery facing us directly.

J:- Oi, oi, look at tha-ha-at.

C:-Gaw, no, she’s awful!

J:- She, are you sure? She’s got a hairline worse than your Uncles Dunston and Clyde.

C:- Oh-ho yes. I bet she can still move at the old, er, tea parties too.

J:- Really? Wouldya?

C:- Oooh, I suppose I’d have to do some of the old mon-key-mag-ic-ah. , a bit of the old cha-cha-cha. .

J:- You’d need a couple of jungle juices though, eh?
Before you…..

C:- Nooo-no-no-no… stop it, there’s kids about.

J:- Before you, er, you know, er, let her, ahem, peel your bananas like?

C:- Stop it. Stop it. Noooo. No-hooo. Well, maybe. Yeah, alright then.

J:- And your nuts?

C:- Too far. You little monkey.