Dragon Bait and Animate

I re-did my storyboards for my Dragon Walker character assignment and I'm much happier with these boards than my previous attempts. I like the flow of the story better and it was easier to find timings through these boards when building the animatic. Music is important to this animatic so I added in some sound as best I could but I think I want to extend the drum beat until the dragon actually appears from the fire.

I've been spending some time in ZBrush this week and last week to try and build up my character model. I'm actually really enjoying using it but it is quite difficult to get into the interface which is taking up more time than I would like. However, I really like working in it once I get going and have made some progress with my character. I started with a really bad base mesh. I had made it in Maya but I was really unhappy with the topology so I Dynameshed it as soon as I took it into ZBrush. Then I just continued to built up shapes and increase resolution. Still a long way to go, but getting there!

I was pretty unhappy with the initial base mesh I had built in Maya that I then took into ZBrush. I had intended to use this mesh as a base for my Master's Project as well but I wasn't happy with the topology so I started again in Maya. This time I just aimed to create the head that I could use to test how the wireframe might look. I started off by sketching up what I wanted the character to roughly look like in Photoshop, taking some inspiration from celebrity photos. Then I loaded these image planes into Maya to begin modelling. After watching a few different methods of how to build a head in Maya I started with a single plane and slowly built up detail and geometry as I needed it. Considering I wanted a low poly, stylised, hard edged look, I may have too much geometry in this initial model but I'm much happier with it than the base mesh I had created. I also did a quick wireframe render and overlayed it in Photoshop to see what it might lo...

This week I started the 3D modelling for my character assignment having finished up the T-Pose and roughed out an almost-finished base mesh. I finished the base mesh but the topology was not ideal so when I took it into ZBrush I Dynameshed it before starting to move it around to block in my character. After the model was Dynameshed, I just started working on the general shapes needed to match the character concept art and T-Pose.  There is still a lot of work needed in the arms, legs and face but I roughed in the torso as well. I'm trying to keep it very stylised, using references from real anatomy studies as well as looking at some stylised sculpts.

For my character assignment, I've been working on some storyboards for a while now. They are very rough and very basic so I want to go back and re-do them with a little more focus on movement and also have the ratio correct (16:9) or at least as close to that as I can. The story revolves around the Dragon Walker summoning a dragon from the fire outside her tent. Ideally, I think I'll add in an audience or the rest of the tribe watching her summon this as if it's a massive event that people come from all over to witness. Last week I also worked in ZBrush. Outside of class, this is the first thing I've created and I wanted to start with something a little smaller but still with a lot of detail so I decided to make the skull from the Dragon Walker concept art. It's still a really low resolution so I'll add detail later and increase the resolution to get a good final product. 

I've spent this week working on a set of storyboards for my final Master's Film as well as putting them together in a rough animatic. This really helped nail down some of the story and how the film might look when it's finally put together. It was a lot more work than I initially expected as I kept thinking of new storyboards that would be needed. I'm not an amazing rough artist, but I feel these boards get the story across. (Some of them are out of order here).

I've always said that music is a massive influence in my work and for the longest time I wanted to create a simplified music video for my final Master's Project. However as time goes on, I've realised that I actually want to focus more on story telling and developing a character which the audience can sympathise with and relate to. As such, I no longer feel like the original music I was wanting to use is appropriate for the new world I'm building in this short film. So I went looking for new music and stumbled across it when I decide to re-listen to an album I had found a couple of years ago. Low Roar by Low Roar, in particular the song Patience: The song has a bleak feeling from the beginning and matches the general tone of the short film I'd like to create. There are also several other songs that have inspired the feel of the film that I've pulled together in a Spotify playlist here.   I'm sure I'll find more music as this progresses but s...

After yesterday and today I'm feeling a lot more confident in the my general story idea. I like the pace and tone and now just need to find out what the ending means to me. I had several ideas about what it could mean including the guilt of selfishness as the character sits alone in a dead world as well as the feeling of loneliness and that no matter what my character did she was ultimately alone which I know can happen to people all over the world. However, yesterday we had a fantastic workshop with Mark Grindle where we got to talk about our ideas and hear his feedback. To him, my ending was comparable to the digital age and the loss of ourselves/humanity in a digital environment and I really like that concept, especially considering it's in a 3D setting. As for the story itself, there's one image that keeps sticking with me so I quickly drew it out today in Photoshop in about an hour to try and get it solidified in my head. I like the idea of the camera being close up ...

The biggest concern for me with my masters project is not having a story that will entice an audience, despite the fact that to me, the story is not the most important part of the project. I want to focus on style and using the 3D software to make the world look sharp and 3-Dimensional. However, I have spent the last week or so trying to develop something more solid as a story - as well as simplifying what I have. Our character is first seen walking through rows of medical tents. She is losing polygons that fall to the ground to leave a trail of pulsing red shards. As she continues, we see that she is following a beep on her wrist monitor until she pulls back a tent flap and finds what she was looking for. This is something that can cure her, a USB stick or an SD card, something that she slots into the wrist monitor (That is possibly a part of her) cures her. The pulsing red trail of polygons stops and fades and she lets out a sigh of relief. But everywhere she looks there are piles ...