Textuuuuuurrrrrrrres.

Right few more tests trying to get somewhere. This is the first tests i've done where ive used a proper 3 point lighting setup.

This is just an old paper texture with the levels thrown right up and an overlay colour. Too acid green and there isnt enough interesting variation in the texture.
Old wall texture same process as before. Not really too keen on this.
This is a downloaded watercolour photoshop brush that i've layered then overlayed the colour. Also drawn on it a little bit to add some definition to the shape. Aside from the colour being too vibrant i think its still missing something.
Right for this one ive taken one of the watercolour example textures Sarah had on her blog and i've done a colour burn a really light single brush splash and drawn ontop with the swirley veins (thinking of the paper examples Adam showed the other day) Its still to plain and the swirley veins are really stark and stand out too much.
Pretty much the same as above but i've played with the opacity of the layers and the colours/lighting.
Right this is again similar to the one above but more developed. Ive added another layer using the photoshop brushes and played some more with the levels. I quite like this one, will try the same process on some other objects and see what it looks like.

ColourTests

Right so its been decided that we are going to be ussing some different character designs that have been done by Sarah. I like the design for Hero but think that Macho and Girl need more development because Macho doesnt really have the build i think is necessary to portray a really physically stong charcater and Girl is a bit too plain and needs something to make her more identifiable as a female.
I'm going to be focusing mainly on texuring, colouring and lighting over the next couple of days as well as working on the thumbnails ive been designated.
Right my favorite of Hero colours is either the red or the blue. The origional colouring was done in the green but Sarah says its too vibrant.On Macho i like the Black, Brown or Blue.
And on Girl i like the purple, orange or blue, but seeing as she may still chage quite a bit this may change.

Screenplay Take 2

Righty shown the new screenplay and she likes it (yay) and then spoke about it to Dan Dahli whilst in the pursuit of drawing pins and he likes it (more yay). So as the story its going ahead with one small difference, we had been umming and arring about having Girl as a statue or real life and i wrote her into screenplay 2 as a statue, and Sarah finally decided that she should be moveable like the two boys. So i've done a quick rewrite and its been given the thumbs up to go to thumbnailing. I've pretty much taken the last one and added actions and reactions from Girl gnome.

A football bounces across the screen and in front of some reeds and disappears off to the side. The reeds shift slightly and hero steps out from between the looking tired having just woken up. Stretching he lets out a big yawn and looks across the pond lovingly at Girl gnome who is sitting combing her hair upon a pile of stones haloed by the morning light and small butterflies.
Hero plucks a Daffodil from a nearby flowerbed, smartens himself up and starts making his way over to her.
As he gets closer the sound of someone counting off reaches his ears and he slows, peering round a large leaf he sees Macho stretching infront of Girl. Macho looks over his shoulder to make sure she is watching, then reaches down and picks up a nearby rock and starts bench pressing with it. Girl is sat hugging her knees looking politely interested. Hero ducks back behind his leaf and ponders for a second before getting an idea.

Macho is happily bench pressing his rock, showing off, when Hero sidles up next to him looking intrigued. Macho although distracted does his best to ignore Hero. Hero makes a noise of disinterest and wanders off to the side. Girl straightens up and pays more attention. Macho annoyed at having his weight lifting dismissed so lightly sets the rock down and picks up a bigger one and starts lifting that. Hero walks back and makes a noise of mild surprise before walking off again, Macho is aghast at having his efforts once again put down by Hero so sets the bigger rocks down and picks up a garden fork and starts lifting that, struggling under the weight a little but achieving it.

Girl is seemingly impressed at what she’s looking at “oohs” softly under her breath. Macho hears and is ecstatic at getting a reaction from her and looks to see if Girl is looking and distraught to see she is infact interested in Hero balancing a stick on the end of his hand.

Macho throws the fork down and looks around desperately for something bigger to lift. He settles on a large flower pot with a large sunflower in it. He gets his fingers under the edge and starts lifting slowly putting all of his strength into it. Slowly it starts to raise then lifts faster and faster until he has the whole thing above his head. Gasping for breath Macho lets out a little laugh of exhilaration and looks across at Hero and Girl.

Hero and Girl are amazed and wander closer staring in bewonderment at the large weight perched on Macho’s shoulder, before Hero smiles coyly. He reaches down and picks up a small pebble off the ground, biting his tongue he concentrates and throws the stone which lands ontop of the flowerpot.

Unable to handle the added (although small) weight Macho’s shoulders start shaking before he falls to one knee. Then with an almighty crash the Flowerpot falls to the ground, Macho disappearing underneath it.

Girl stares at the spectacle infront of her before bursting out laughing at Machos embarrassment. Hero pleased to have gotten rid of the competition happily twirls Girl around. Placing her down on the other side to where she’d been standing they stop look into each others eyes and slowly lean in to kiss. Suddenly the football flies onto screen and smashes Girl into hundreds of pieces.CreditsMacho lifts the flowerpot off the ground and crawls out from underneath it, resting on the grass out of breath he looks up to see Hero (glue in hand) proudly looking over a badly remade Girl. Hero leans in for a kiss and a part falls off her.


Just reading back over it there are several areas that aren't perfect yet, but i imagine it will all come together in storyboarding and probably change quite alot, so we'll wait and see how it pans out.

Screenplay

Was brainstorming yesterday trying to incorporate all the story plots that have to be input in the film. Namely brains over brawn, and that Machos downfall should come about by his own hand and he should become trapped or embarrised but remain unbroken.
Then for some reason i got the introduction of the Amazing Bobinski in Coraline, where you see him stretching out ontop of the house (laus, ouva, trey, getil!) And i just wanted to get Macho somewhere in the film doing something similar. That spawned the idea of Macho working out infront of her and i knocked out this new screenplay in about 20 mins.

A football bounces across the screen and in front of some reeds and disappears off to the side. The reeds shift slightly and hero steps out from between the looking tired having just woken up. Stretching he lets out a big yawn and looks across the pond lovingly at Girl gnome who is stood upon a pile of stones haloed by the morning light.
Hero plucks a Daffodil from a nearby flowerbed, smartens himself up and starts making his way over to her.
As he gets closer the sound of someone counting off reaches his ears and he slows, peering round a large leaf he sees Macho stretching infront of Girl. Macho looks over his shoulder to make sure she is looking(which she obviously is because she can’t move), then reaches down and picks up a nearby rock and starts bench pressing with it. Hero ducks back behind his leaf and ponders for a second before getting an idea.

Macho is happily bench pressing his rock, showing off, when Hero sidles up next to him looking intrigued. Macho although distracted does his best to ignore Hero. Hero makes a noise of disinterest and wanders off to the side. Macho annoyed at having his weight lifting dismissed so lightly sets the rock down and picks up a bigger one and starts lifting that. Hero walks back and makes a noise of mild surprise before walking off again, Macho is aghast at having his efforts once again put down by Hero so sets the bigger rocks down and picks up a garden fork and starts lifting that, struggling under the weight a little but achieving it. Macho looks to see if girl is looking and see’s Hero leaning against her nonchantly watching him. Hero looks at Macho the at Girl then back at Macho then shakes his head.

Macho throws the fork down and looks around desperately for something bigger to lift. He settles on a large flower pot with a large sunflower in it. He gets his fingers under the edge and starts lifting slowly putting all of his strength into it. Slowly it starts to raise then lifts faster and faster until he has the whole thing above his head. Gasping for breath Macho lets out a little laugh of exhilaration and looks across at Hero and Girl.

Hero seems impressed and wanders closer staring up at the large weight perched on Macho’s shoulders, before Hero smiles coyly. He reaches down and picks up a small pebble off the ground, biting his tongue he concentrates and throws the stone which lands ontop of the flowerpot.

Unable to handle the added (although small) weight Macho’s shoulders start shaking before he falls to one knee. Then with an almighty crash the Flowerpot falls to the ground, Macho disappearing underneath it.

Hero pleased to have gotten rid of the competition happily skips up to Girl. He closes his eyes and slowly leans in to claim his kiss. Suddenly the football flies onto screen and smashes Girl into hundreds of pieces.CreditsMacho lifts the flowerpot off the ground and crawls out from underneath it, resting on the grass out of breath he looks up to see Hero (glue in hand) proudly looking over a badly remade Girl. Hero leans in for a kiss and a part falls off her.

Will show it tommorow and get some feedback.

Some character stuff

Right this is the latest batch of character stuff from me. Just trying to develop the pre-existing designs exagerating their shapes to try and get the most from the designs.

More textures.

More texture tests. Have changed the red background slightly because the rock texture hadn't been desaturated before i applied the colour burn and so all the scratchiness is a purple colour. So this new one is the exact same textures but with the rocky overlay desaturated. This is easy enough to change back though if the previous version was preffered.

Right this is a case of whether to have the spots above or below the rock as well. Above the rock texture the spots are nice and clear but seem kinda seperate from the red(above) However if you put them below the texture the become darker and more yellow but fit in much better with the rest of it (below).

And just saw the post on Gnome home about variation so i quickly knocked this one out as well.

ReDone

Done another test based on Sarahs comments on the last one, Just wondering if its too much.

Mushrooms.

Righty this is one of the textures i created whilst at college today. Its done by using several watercolour brushes in photoshop.
Showed it to Sarah who has said to apply other texures and filters just to see what we get, play with it a bit. But i wanted to check it was working in 3D first.

Its only a really quick model and i havn't spent nearly enough time sorting the UV's so it stretches a bit at the base but you can see what its going to look like.

Texture Tests

Was talking with Sarah about the texture styles the other day and agreed to disagree. Sarah had done some previous quick tests using a range of different processes and as a group we agreed that Pastels was the best of the selection.

However i think its too early to make a decision on how we're creating the textures based on those tests, whereas Sarah was under the impression that now we had chosen pastels we would now focus and refine a process.

So we agreed that we would both go away and do some more tests, Sarah specifically with pastels and me with watercolours.

Heres the results of my tests.

Heres the first test that i did. I used the scanned texture of a reed, grey scaled it the did a colour burn using the watercolour. Its very vibrant in colour and the texture stands out too much. You also loose the lovely patchy watercolour.

Same process but with a different sample. I toned down the reed texture on this one and i think it works alot better than the first, but im not too sure its going to be the sort of thing Sarahs looking for in her quest for stylizationI didn't create the texture by hand for this one, i got a picture of a watercolour splotch and then added my own colour. This is a bit too colourful and a bit too busy.

Another really vibrant one, i wanted to see what it would look like without the reed texture applied. Needless to say it looks quite dull, more the plasticine than anything else.

Again this isn't my picture but one i manipulated in photoshop, and no reed texture. Once again fairly dull due to the lack of reed texture and theres too much variation in the colour.

Some of the test were obviously more successful than others but none really came across as what we need for our film.

But then i was playing today and created this.

I havn't applied it to a model yet, but i think its got potential. Will talk to Sarah about it tommorow and see what she thinks.

Matthew's thought time...

Just jotting down some ideas that have been floating around in my head and i think i need to get out there. And another screenplay based on what was said at uni today (this is me sticking two fingers up at the suggested hiatus, although it does sound nice -i think we're so close to cracking this story i just wanna get it done while its fresh in my head)

But first a rant

I'm finding the story keeps getting plagued with "Love". I wouldn't say that any of the characters love in this film (other than perhaps Macho's love for himself). Hero gnome and Macho gnome both want Girl for their own selfish desires and lust (trying not to make it sound smutty...honest) The way i see the scenario Hero's predicament is exactly the same as when you see a beautiful girl in a bar, although you feel the immediate impulse to go over and woo her, you aren't in love with her in anyway seeing as you've only known her for about 20 seconds (or in our films case 2 mins). Macho gnome just wants to make her his because shes there; and he feels that he deserves everything that he desires because hes just so damn good looking.
Adding an element of love to the film also damages the story because you loose the ending, you sympathise too much with Hero and i don't think the audience would be very appreciative of us smashing Girl at the end.

Now onto the screenplay, am gonna put my reasons down as well so you can see why I've put stuff in -

A football bounces across the screen and in front of Hero who is sitting fishing and disappears off to the side. We see Hero staring wistfully at statue of Girl who is on the other side of the pond. Girl is standing upon a small hill of pebbles and is clearly the prize possession of the garden, as the camera focuses on her a bee flies into the side of her causing her to rock slightly.
-Right the first sentence is unchanged from the version i wrote earlier because its a very simple and established shot. Bit of playing up Girls status as a desired object. The the weird bit, the bee. There was quite alot of discomfort over whether the audience would question the fact that she couldn't move. I think this will work if we SHOW the audience quite firmly that she cannot move, this may seem stupid and it'll probably still be questioned but if we firmly and clearly set down the rules of the world (OUR RULES!) the audience will just accept it. When she doesn't react to being hit by a bee it says quite obviously and clearly that she is an inanimate character and it'll work...and its funny.

Plucking up his courage Hero picks a Daffodil from a nearby flowerbed, smartens himself up and starts making his way over to her.
He's gets very close to her and starts getting more visibly nervous as he nears her. Suddenly a pair of giant hands appear on screen and place Macho in front of him, blocking his route
Pretty much unchanged.

Macho stretches and looks around as if waking from a sleep. Looking down down he starts slightly at seeing Hero down by his legs before sneering at the nervous gnome.
Disinterested by Hero he looks around and spots Girl. Macho snatches Hero’s daffodil from him and jams his cork gun into Hero's hands and (alike Hero) smartening himself up. Macho boldly strides over to her, drops down on one knee infront of her and presents her with the flower. She quite obviously does nothing.
-Introducing the gun into this scene, i would quite like to keep the gun in the story because it fits Machos character so well even if its not used in the way written here. Also tried to liven it up a bit.

Hero still recovering at the dissruption of his well laid plans and watches in horror as his dream girl is set upon by this newcomer.
-Got rid of the word "miffed" - a word that seemed to displease Sarah for inexplicable reasons.

Macho is still at her side flirting badly, showing her his muscles and rugged good looks. She quite obviously does nothing.
-Much more tame than my origional idea of having him giving her a backrub and whispering in her ear. And i think much more in character, whenever i draw him he's showing off in some way and flexing infront of her is exactly what he thinks will get her attention.

Is staring disgusted by the display infront of him, he looks like he desperatly wants to look away but is so shocked by what he's seeing he can't.
-Not sure about the way i've discribed this bit, but i think you get the idea.

There is a romantic picnic laid out and Macho is sitting pouring Girl some champagne, discreetly sneaks an arm around her shoulder and starts the leans and kisses her gently on the cheek. She quite obviously and unsurprisingly does nothing.
- To get the reaction i want for the next bit i had to up the ante and have Macho succeed in what Hero wants, so its like he's quite literally stole her from Hero.

Overcome with frustrated emotion Hero angrily throws the gun down to the ground in a fury. It hits the floor and goes off with a loud pop. The cork shoots out the end and smacks Macho right in the face hard, knocking him back.
Macho sits up dazed wondering what happened when a crack appears across his nose, he looks down at it cross eyed. The crack widens until with a crunch his nose falls off and lands in his lap with a soft flump.
- I dunno what Sarah thought of this idea we came up with earlier but i really REALLY liked it, its really funny and a really fitting ending for the character exploiting his greatest weakness, his looks.

Macho lets out a high pitched girly shriek and runs off with tears in his eyes clutching his face. Hero is once again stood in shock wondering what just happens before with a shrug he hapily skips up to Girl (who doesnt seem fazed by the events). He closes his eyes and slowly leans in to claim his kiss. Suddenly the football flies onto screen and smashes Girl into hundreds of pieces.

Credits

Macho ( with a ridculously bandaged nose) wanders degectedly back to see Hero (glue in hand) proudly looking over a badly remade Girl. Hero leans in for a kiss and a part falls off her.
-End

I'm happy with this. Its kind of a merge of Sarahs begining, my middle and Adams end. I really want feedback on this ASAP, thoughts, feelings etc.

Right thats me done for the day.

Out Risking Life and Limb

Took some referance photos of my pond, so it gives up some primary source imagery instead of relying just on google images, or flickr pics.






I'm imagining at the moment our film is being set in the middle of summer so these pics in autumn lighting and content are very different to what it going to look like, but you can never have enough referance, and it would be stupid not to use the resource.

Also thought i'd include some failed enviroments drawings, just to show what hasnt worked.

Both are done in photoshop.This first one was completly off the top of my head and was done by painting ontop of an old paper texture. It doesnt work because it hasnt come out anything like what i had hoped it would. The layout seems sparse and the colours are far too solid, whereas what we're aiming for is vibrant but (for lack of a better term) wishy washy - a style which ATM seems to only be achieved by using water colours.
This second one is done by rotoscoping one of my pond photos. Once again the colours are too solid and vibrant and because there are no applied textures it looks very flat, i could probably continue working on it and get it looking half decent, but its too time consuming and not practical given the amount of workload we still have.

Quick Gnome Post

Just chuckin up a quick re-do of girly gnome (we've gotta settle on some names) to get some feedback on it. Also a doodle of what i think the hands should look like- not exactly like this but varients of this design.

Thingy

Sarah asked us to create a page of caps, of inspirations and examples of things we like. Will print this out at some point in the next couple of days and stick it up on the board we've comandeered ourselves.

Gnome Drawings

Heres the scans of my character concept sketches. The first ones are kinda different to Sarahs stuff because hadn't really had a chance to see any the stuff she'd done and the blogs wern't up when i was drawing them.
The bottom right of the selection above was the first drawing i did and nearly sent me fleeing in terror at the disgusting cutness of the drawing.

The next lot (above) were done in correspondance with Sarah so the designs are much more similar to what she's done.
We're really going to need to sit down at some point and really take the best of the selection and mix them together, take the best of all designs and make some super frankenstein gnomes better than all that have come before them.