Notes

Just 3 more days until everything needs to be handed in, I'v still got a lot left to do but I will get it done so not stressing too much which is nice.

Getting all the documentation into a template and making sure everything looks nice has taking longer than I thought it would but at least it looks good. There are some really nice A4 display folios in office works that really suit the feel of the animation, I'd love to get them but there pretty expensive so not sure weather to get them or not.

I'm slightly behind on organizing to rent cameras from lemac over the holidays, I should have called them last week or this but I'm just concentrating on getting everything handed in first.
I'm yet to map out the dance fully with Pip, I should have taken into account her minimal availability when organizing this at the start of the year but luckily I can catch up over the holidays.

Overall I'm slightly behind where I would like to be however I think the storyboards are the only aspect of the project I have pushed out quickly sacrificing quality so I'm very relieved to be mostly happy with my work and commitment so far.

Model Sheets

Completed my model sheets and the comparison sheet.

I didn't turn the monster onto his complete side as in the animation he only turns to his side at greatest as the angle shown above.

I found doing the expression sheet a little confusing with how much body movement to include as the monsters body is basically his face as well. So although it does help to convey emotion I kept the body positions to pretty minimal. The expressions seem to be a bit lacking on paper, the still images are not as capable as the animated monster is of conveying emotion. Also another way I have found of helping convey emotion through the monster is varying the amount and speed of the turbulent displacement. Having the monster eyes flare up looks great.

 I found getting expression into the hands pretty fun and as I now have the project compositions all set up it is relatively quick to do them although getting my hand and fingers into the most easily readable positions (thinking of them in silhouette  has really helped) is a bit tricky. I can foresee myself re-filming the synchronized hand and Pip dance scene a lot to get it right.

I did a comparison sheet for the assessment though for this particular character I don't think I will find it very useful as the monster's size and shape is constantly changing.

Layout

Completed my 4 layout images, I'm very happy with how it is looking so far. Green screen footage of Pip will be replacing the girl shown here and the parts of the strings tied around her limbs will be either blue material or paint on Pip so I can key it out and replace it with the same white/green tinge as the animated strings I will be doing in flash.