Green green green or yellow or maybe even brown

So after creating a first design of what the environment could look like you can see from the drawing the the bushes have no finalised leaves. So ive looking into some different type of leaves we could use. I havn't decided on any as i believe it should eb a group decision as the leaves can have a major effect on the style of the whole animation. Here are some ideas.

Environment

Its time to start getting ideas down for the environment for the film. Even tho its not a main issue given the current time in the pre-production stage, we still need to make a start on it so its not left till the last minute. I was given the task of creating a layout and creating a rough design. Before i could do this there were alot of questions that had to be answered for the plan of the layout. For example how big would the environment have to be; would the house be seen in the background; what type of garden furniture could we use in the set etc etc. After most of my questions had been answered (there were millions) i did some rough plans to see if we could build and environment why leaving massive objects like a house out of it and still shoot with out it being noticable on camera.



After that i did a first design to see what the main area of the environment could look like given the go ahead by the others.

To get an idea

Im ill and i had to go roll about on wet grass in the cold. Not good. But i did it just to get an idea of what would be seen through the camera a that low level of a gnome. If i had just gone outside and taken pictures normally at my height and then generated environment designs from the photos, id be an idiot. Gnomes are small!! I dont have the best camera in the world and am not the worlds best photographer so shhhh about how shit some of the photos are.

Research

Just a few images of the kind of plants that we could use in the pond and around the garden. The set can't just consist of the pond as no garden is like that so it will need background boundaires. Pretty much all gardens have fences as thier boundaires, but that will give the set a plain boring look. Therefore i think its best to add plants and trees to try and cover as much of the fence as possible. Due to the gnomes tiny as there are, pretty much in all of the camera levels you will only see grass, flower beds, plants and the lower sections of trees. Therefore the tops of trees will not need to be modelled.





Just a few images or garden or garden designs with ponds included. Its interesting to see how the edge of the pond has been finished. Whether it be a stone edge, decking or just grass. Im not completely sure what was chosen on the design layout of the pond in the story but i believe its a mixture of grass and stone.

Tasks

Its been a busy weekend for me again as always because of work. Hopefully soon i won't have to work all weekend and can maybe live the life of a real student for once. So as i got hardly any work done over the weekend i have more to do this week. On top of that i need to start research for my dissertation. this week aswell as we had a prep lecture for it today. But for the film i need to do some research and some designs for the environment layout. Here goes.

Moodboard

also

Some very quick sketches of props that could be in the story.

Initial Character Ideas

Here a some rough ideas of what the character gnomes could look like. But i seem to have made them all look far to human like and not gnomey enough. Oh well.

I became quite stuck on ideas for the Hero gnome. I wanted to make him look just like a normal gnome but that would of meant making him a little fat. And personally i dont think fat would suit the character. All i could end up with was a average looking bloke dressed as a gnome.


This was my idea of how the lady gnome could end up looking. In a really non weird way she had to have an attractiveness about her that made her stand out so the other two gnomes would want her. But after looking at the picture, maybe i have made her just a little bit too sluty for gnomes.



This was my idea of a way macho gnome could look. A well built character who is also very vain and loves to show off.

A gnome??

Just a few pictures of what normal garden gnomes look like. Mostly plain and boring although some do like to have fun.






From these pictures you get the basic idea of a gnome. The gnomes in the story will keep some of the basic dress code of a gnome but build and facial looks will change depending on the character in the story.

Whats going on??

So as part of the degree i have to be somehow involved in the creation of an animated short as part of a group. Everyone on the course had to pitch their story ideas (i still haven't done this for some reason) and then vote for the best 6 or 7 or maybe even 8 stories. The best 6 were then given the go ahead i.e. were chosen to be produced by the students on the course. The persons who story was chosen pretty much became the director for their films, and others who didn't get chosen had to choose a film to work on. I decided I wanted to work on the film called 'Gnomes' whichs group only consisted of 2 people at that time. Sarah the director and Matt. It now has 3 people in it (me being one of them).
The film is about gnomes. Pretty obvious from the title. The story is not all there yet has new ideas constantly spring to mind and we are trying to establish what would work best. But i can tell you it has 3 characters (all being gnomes) and maybe even a squirrel making up a forth, but not so sure about that now. The basic plot is how one average male gnome trys to woo over the lady gnome, but a bigger and stronger male gnome always gets in his way, as he wants the lady gnome for himself. The story shows what the average male has to go through and how his life goes from bad to shit right at the end.

2nd time lucky

So this is my blog which will be updated throughout the year while on my BA course. The main use of this blog will be for the final film that ill be working on as part or the degree. Thats the Animation degree i am doing which i just want to hurry up and end for i can go into the big wide world and get denied from countless amounts of jobs just like everyone else in England. I can't wait.
Ill also state that i should of had this blog set up about 3 weeks ago, but my life is never simple so there was no chance in that. Sorry!