I guess there's not gonna be much sleep this week. I really need to stock up on my pro plus! I haven't updated the blog in a while. Really didn't have much to show anyways. Now I've animated about four shots... well, the first one, with all the lipsynch, is nowhere near complete since I don't even have the voices yet.

I got in touch with a guy called Amr through Christina's add on that actor/VO artist-site. I spent quite a few hours just listening to people's voice over reels. I found this Amr, he even had some voice examples of really good American wise guy characters on his site. I'm running out of time, have to meet up and book a time at the NG asap.

I'm ALMOST finished with my main character, Mr. Lorenzo the Mafia Boss. Pete (bless you and your plugins) have promised to do the rigging. I'm still counting on having to do some tweaking with the weight around the shoulders, but hopefully not too much. I suck at doing weights... There's just no logic in it!! It never works like you want it to!!!! 

Anyways. I have one more character to model, the daughter Catherine. AND the whole set off course. Hm. I'm not going to do all the modeling now. I have to start animating!!! Just the necessities, like chair, desk, and... Yeah, the gun I suppose and.... oh, I don't even want to think about all the stuff I have to do....  

The materials aren't right... they're a bit spotty, for some reason. I'm going to hide most of his flaws with very "dramatic" lighting. That means barely any light at all. 

So, I have finally decided on something. I am going to have that flashback scene in my film, when my main character's wife gets shot. And it's going to be drawn stills. I wasn't sure it would look good, but I asked Steve and he seemed to like the idea so I'm game.

But how did it go at the National gallery crit? Well... Lee didn't seem too appaled by it. Don't think all of them liked it, but I'm guessing I'm OK to go. Gosh, Maria's was amazing though. Made me feel like I really should rethink this whole thing, but I don't have time to. BAJS, as we say in Sweden. Anyway. I just have to stick to this and make the best of it. 

Some stills.

I spent some time last night with my vectorized animatic, but I realized that I should go back to drawing traditionally. It's not that it takes too long to do it, it's just better to have a less detailed storyboard but with the right poses and stuff. It's still just quick sketches in illustrator, but it looks way too finished. I mean, it's so much more dynamic with a drawn storyboard. If you can't really tell how the environment looks then you can always change it. For example, I completely changed my mind about the architecture of the rooms...  I kind of went for a 1900's look at first, aiming for the story being set in the 1920's. After reading up on the Medici family I was however inspired to make an Italian renaissance environment. I'm still thinking the clothes wille be more 1920'ish, and I'm keeping the venetian blinds :)  Also, I realized that the environments play too much a role to be drawn that generic. I rather not have them drawn at all!! Since my character is very subtle it's not obvious what kind of man he is just by the way he acts. I think his office have to tell that he is a man of great power an status, not just any old suite. So, therefore I'm starting over again. FUN! This time, no detailed environments, more character instead. 

As soon as I'm finished with the animatic I HAVE to start modeling. Will put some character design and architecture sketches up on the blog. IF THE UPLOADING WILL START TO WORK SOON, that is. Damn Swedish crap-blog. Why did I put my blog here?  

We have been working on the 2D/3D pair's thing whole week, so except for a very messy storyboard I haven't really got much to show. I'm NOT going to put that sick piece of 2D/3D animation up here. I will spare the few confused people who by chance happens to see my blog. I have a uncomfortable feeling that "chip" with the Mickey mouse ears is going to haunt me the rest of my life anyway.... oh, what have we done? Rachel, we created a monster.

I have to work some more on my idea. I know the end but the beginning isn't... I have to work something out.... hmm. to be honest the middle isn't too clear either.

However, I have started making some more cleaned up stills for the animatic. They ended up beeing way too detailed, and to finish I would have to stock up with caffine pills. a lot of caffine pills.  Not sure what I am going to do about that, but I'll put the finished ones out here for now.  







This scene is only a scetch. I'm not sure if I'm going to have time to do it in Maya. And, off course, I might change the story a hundred times.... maybe this never happend? I have to make up my mind before friday next week...