A very short story

As I work mainly on my own in either a gift shop or ice cream stall in my summer job, I have a lot of free time between customers and unlike people who just stand there, I have to make the most of it or I'll go mad. So far I've read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, a good chunk of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (I'm not an atheist but not hugely religious either so it's interesting to hear all the arguments), a biography on the incredibly talented Joss Whedon and most of the Grimm Fairy Tales (been meaning to reread a lot of them lately and some I've never actually read). But another thing I've been doing is trying to get back into writing. I decided, as an exercise to get me back into the swing of things, I'd write about the first thing I thought about. This freewriting practice has really helped and I've been so much more creative since I started so I'd definitely recommend it, even if you're not a writer.

Here's what I came up with if you feel like reading:

In a park just like any other you've seen; an expanse of green grass covering the ground beneath, within a fence of green trees with a sole green bench sat at the edge of it. On this green bench was a woman, clearly a young mother with her hair loosely tied back and a stain of unknown origin on her otherwise clean shirt. She sat by a big pile of various bits and pieces any mother tends to carry around with her; bottles of various liquids and a change of clothes were only a couple of the items at her disposal and on her lap lay a "Big Book of Fairy Tales". She had just finished reading one of them to her child and was now using it as something to lean on, exhausted, yet still smiling with adoration at her little princess.

The child was no older than two or three yet was running around with the greatest of ease. She had clearly set her heart on catching the little bird that had landed a few feet away from her, a magpie that didn't fear the child but actually seemed to have no problem playing along. First they looked at each other and as the little girl began to step forward the bird moved a little through the freshly cut grass with a piece of discarded bread still in its beak. Then stopped. The little girl went running after it with the steps almost as tiny as the magpie's. As she grew close, stopping just short of it, again it made its way through the grass almost teasing her.

Her mother smiled more broadly as the little girl spun around to see her mother, pigtails following and she saw the child's bemused yet gleeful face looking towards her. They shared a chuckle and so she span around again to chase the bird, who was now hopping away. The chasing, stopping, laughing and a chasing again went on for a few minutes and although the child could carry of running forever, the mother knew the inevitable was coming. The bird has eaten the bread and grown tired of being chased by this pink frilly menace and with one flap of its wings took off. The little girl turned to her mother, seemingly for some kind of approval. Hesitant for a moment, she eventually gave her daughter the nod she was looking for along with a cheerful thumbs up and with that, the little girl took off once again, this time soaring through the air after her feathery friend. The mother smiled, thinking to herself, "You have to let them spread their wings sooner or later"

I'd really appreciate any comment you have as I could do with the pointers. I barely have time to sit down lately with 9 hour shifts at work and exercise when I get in but I'll try to do some more blog updates with other short stories soon. For now, I better get some sleep, one more day and I have two days off work. Woo :)

Batman and yet more modelling/texturing

Been very busy of late what with work, exercise, 3D Modelling etc. and now Taekwondo (which is pretty awesome) so I've not got loads of 3D work done but I have managed to model and almost texture something half decent.

I've been watching a lot of Nikita yesterday, which is one of the best shows I've seen in ages. I seriously recommend watching it if you're not already. Anyway, I wanted to do a quick model and get it textured for some practice so I took some inspiration from the spy show by making a part of an upscale hosue/mansion. I know it may not seemed linked, but I liked the look of the houses these diplomats or heads of corporations meet that always seem to be robbed/have an assasination attempt happen there. I'm going to keep building onto it so I can make a nice scene and possibly even do a bit of an animation set there if I can make some appropriate characters. Here is my progress on it, I started last night and worked till around 1am then finished modelling and started the texturing this morning/afternoon. It's far from finished but I'm quite happy with the results so far. Comments would really be appreciated along with any ideas you might have on things to include in the scene, it'll help me a lot.



I'm off to bed now as I'm at work again in the morning. I'll try to do another blog post, along with some more of this 3DS Max work and update you on it tomorrow.

Oh and just because I feel like it's my duty as an animator and a comic fan to share this:

I give you the trailer for the Batman Year One animation. Can't wait to see it

Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

Bargain buys and a clear out

Today I decided to do something a bit different and headed into town first thing to spend the day looking around the charity shops/second hand market stalls for some inspiration on my project for next year. I had to find anything that was from the fifties and didn't want to spend a lot (I spent quite a lot anyway. I finally ended up at a tiny stall with a woman who sells traditional sweets and random antiques. Odd combination but it looked quite nice really. She told me she had some old magazines from the fifties, which are just brilliant. They're full of ads doe the weirdest things, the best being the front cover which says "Build your own refridgerator!" It's the most ridiculous thing I've seen in ages but great for some real insight into how people thought back then, particularly in advertising. She also took from a table a few items she was selling for much cheaper and said I could have them! They are all different and I'll start modelling them as props for my Gypsy Shop pretty soon.




That was the good find for the day concerning my project but the real find was something much more awesome. Batmobiles! And a Batcycle. I was walking through the market and I saw a stall with a single Batcycle between all of the trains (which I find rather boring) and as I went to ask how much it was, the guy started to pack it away. He didn't have room for it and I don't think a bunch of toy train fanatics thought much of bat vehicles so he offered me it for £10 down from the £20 marked price. Bargain. I had to get it. But no more spending..


Until I turned the corner and saw a totally different guy selling five of the Batmobiles that go in the same set. Half the size but just as awesome. So I had to buy them. Thankfully, my parents offered to give me the money for them as a reward for getting a first in my third year of uni so they're a gift now. And here they are:




After I got home I decided that, as I had nowhere to put the figurines I had to completely reorganise my shelves and room and throw away some stuff, mainly old games magazines. I managed to completely clear my desk too so now I have room to draw, write and use my wacom finally with both my laptop and my PC set up. The (almost) perfect workspace.


Oh! And I found a 1979 Spiderman Annual in really good condition for £2, which is pretty awesome and I really need to upload a picture of the first page that features the members of the Avengers among others all playing instruments. It's brilliant but you'll have to wait till my next blog (should be tomorrow) to check it out.

So now my life and room are sorted out I get to start the mind-numbing monotony of working at a theme park for the rest of the summer. I'm seriously already counting down the days. I'd be absolutely fine working there but I can't stand just standing around doing nothing so I work way too hard most of the time. Plus people there are kind of cliquey and I don't really fit into all of that. But hey, I need the money and although it's full time hours and the breaks are terrible I have to pay off my overdraft somehow..

Enough of my boring summer job, I'm going to read a book and get to bed for a really early start.

Wow that was a lot of pictures. Maybe I was a little excited how much cool stuff I got today :)

New Start

Thought I'd start this blog post with saying.. I got a first in my third year at University! :)
I wasn't really dreading reading it until the page finally started to load and then it dawned on me how important it was. It probably won't be part of my final grade but I really needed a good mark right now and if I got too low I wouldn't be able to carry on next year. But yes, I got 70 overall which is dead on a first and although it's a good grade I know next year I'll beat it.

I've been getting my life a bit more organised in the last few days. As anyone who is reading this from Twitter knows, I've been waiting for my new PC to be delivered for the last couple of weeks after some initial problems but it's finally here and today I finished off the last installations I needed to get on with some work.

I've decided to make a lot more effort than I have been in the past. I've recently found a huge amount of determination (which is what makes people successful after all) and have put it to good use already getting myself in shape with a strict exercise regime. This has in turn given me much more energy and spurred me on to do other things. As it is going so well I started to write down all of the things I want to accomplish in the next year. Scratch that, all of the things I WILL accomplish in the next year. Some of the things include;

1. Improving my knowledge on human and animal anatomy to help both my drawing skills and my CG modelling ability.
2. Generally improving my grasp on the various programs I will be using once I have graduated. These incluse 3DS Max, After Effects, Premiere and some others I want to dabble in are Dreamweaver and Maya.
3. I want to ensure I keep to this exercise program. It's making so much difference overall that I have to keep it up now. And I want to aswell.
4. I want to read a lot more on the animation, film and visual effects industry and just about everything to do with them.
5. Getting back into some theory work, reading books on film, pop culture etc. and write blogposts on the subjects.
6. Write more stories. I'm actually a good writer and I have many ideas yet I never seem to get the chance to write them. This, I've realised is just an excuse. I can make time to write them somewhere.
7. Carry on studying French. Learning languages is something I'm really interested in and I've already got a good foundation in French so I see no reason why I should stop now.
8. Keep an artistic journal constantly to note down all my ideas as they're always getting away before I can remember them.
9. Take up a sport that I'm interested in. I'm thinking Martial Arts is my best option there and I've already started looking into places nearby.
10. And finally, keep this blog up to date with posts on all of these things I've been doing and how far I've gotten to accomplishing my goals.

And now I'll say something that sounds crazy. I want to accomplish all of these things starting right now, just as I'm about to start working full time to save for university next year. Unfortunately I don't get a lot towards my studies and I have to work to save so a 40 hour week is going to make it a bit more difficult for me but if I want to be successful then I better start working my hardest now.

Other than my motivational boost, I have spent the past couple of weeks working on some new work. One of the biggest projects I've done recently (and am still working on) is modelling a male human body just from a reference picture for some good topology. I think it's the best human I've modelling and I'm really surprised with myself, making something so realistic without a tutorial. Here is what I have so far, obviously there are some parts that need work on, but I wanted to get the main part down first;



Today I have spend the day working through a list of things to do and so far I've done my workout (even on a day off, woo!), done a couple hours of particle effects tutorials on 3DS Max, almost finished (it just crashed, losing half my work) a long After Effects tutorial from Video Copilot and almost done this blog post. I only have reading and a phone call to make now so I'm pretty well caught up. Going to write my list for tomorrow and relax with either The Illusion of Life or another book for an hour. G'night all

Modelling/Texturing Practice - Suit shop

I'm back for another blog post finally. To be honest I've been a bit caught up with different things lately so it't been a while. A few days ago I attended the event where my final animation is being shown along with everyone else's at the university and it went pretty well :) I'm glad I got to show it and to be honest, compared to a lot of the others there I think it was pretty good.

I've also been doing some quick modelling and texturing practice for the environment. The first thing I decided to make was a 1950's style suit shop. It's not nearly finished and as you can probably tell there's a lot that needs to be done on it. But generally I think the idea, design etc. works well so I'm going to keep working on it.

Short post but here's what I have so far anyway, I'll post an update when I've done a little more work on it.

Researching the 50's

As of late I've been spending a lot of my time researching the 50's and bits of the early 60's for my animated piece next year. It's a really interesting way time period and i've found that I like it more and more the further into the research I get. The main feeling that I wanted to get across was the innocent times of the fifties before people became much more loose and out there in the sixties.
I've found some great sources of information on the time and I'm using it to get a solid foundation in my knowledge of the decade.

Firstly I decided that I'd watch almost exclusively movies/tv shows set in the 50's to get a myself accustomed to how they speak, dress, have their hair, interact with each other, their mannerisms etc. I started by watching some of the more colourful films set in this time such as West Side Story and Grease. West side story was great as it showed a different side to the perfect suburbia often shown in American media and Grease showed high school/teenage life well which fits into the characters I'm thinking of including in my animated short. The music is very distinct at this time with doo-wop and rock and roll being prevalent and the films of this time also have a very distinct style with some great acting talent.



I then decided to look at some more modern interpretations on the time as generally they have a lot of research done already, so I chose the TV series Mad Men. I've been meaning to watch this for a while, and only three episodes in I've already got a nice idea of how people spoke and not high fashion but general fashion is presented really well in this series.



As well as getting my hands on some more movies (Pleasantville, American Graffiti) I have been looking for some classic fifties/sixties television. Some that I was already aware of and have even watched are Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, I Love Lucy, The Ed Sullivan Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents to name a few. These all had distinct styles so I am going to watch some of these noting down expressions and movement.

I also got a few (well 8) books out of the library, one on facial animation, one on after effects and the rest on writing and acting for animation and some books on 1950's fashion and architecture. They're all helping me figure out what to do with my characters and story and so I had to do some concept art of one of the locations. The one I chose was the gypsy's shop and this is basically what I have so far. I'm pretty damn proud of it too :)

Golden Oldies

Just about to go to bed but I thought I'd do a quick blog post before I sign off. I've been working on my project for next year a bit more today, although I did take a couple of hours off to go to town to buy Tangled on bluray, such a good purchase. Anyway, I don't want to say much about my project but I've decided it'd be a more fun and make the animation a lot more unique if I set it in a different time period. I'm torn between the 50's and 60's so I'e decided to go with the middle of the two. I'm currently researching pop culture, fashion, hairstyles and television/music/films of the time to get a good grasp on what it was like. I think my idea is good enough that, if I put a lot of effort into the story and take my time practicing character modelling and rigging then it can definitely be my best piece yet.

I've started watching almost exclusively 1950's/60's films, with greats like Monroe, Hepburn, Brando, James Stewart, Tony Curtis etc. to get a real feel for the time and it's so interesting I think I'll really enjoy designing the place and people. Today I started by doing some concept art for the sorts of clothes the people might wear, not one character in specific, but anyone. The first I've done is a summer sort of dress quite typical of a young woman in the fifties. I think with digital art techniques I'm learning from ImagineFX I shouldn't have a problem with the concept art side of it.



I have started thinking and doing preproduction work so early because I don't want to rush it. I think this early stuff is really important and I didn't really atke enough time to think things over in the last project, so I won't be making the same mistake this time. Well, I think I'll just leave you with this drawing I did earlier and promise that more will come soon.