Final Year Project '08

I <3 NFTS

2009-02-16T16:45:00.002+01:00

God, I love my new school.

I started a new blog for it with sketches and updates and stuff!

Follow the breadcrumbs .
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CLICK here!

Tophat Festivals

2008-09-15T20:54:00.005+02:00

Just some updates as for Mr.Tophat's afterlife :]

Selected/nominated for:
- tent. Academy Awards 2008
- Holland Animation Film Festival

Also screened at/will be screened at:
- Expeditie Belcrum as preprogram for the outdoor-screening of the film Juno
- KleurenteleviZie (next month)
- Cultuurnacht Breda
- Gogbot Festival te Enschede (with .TAA selection)
- Dresden (with .TAA selection)
- Milan (with .TAA selection)
- Istanbul (with .TAA selection)
- Melbourne (with .TAA selection)

Also the poem of Tophat was read by mr. J.C. himself in London during a poetry night.
I also send Tophat off to several other festivals.

I'll keep this updated!

I really should finish my website!

Mr.Tophat Fully Online!

2008-08-20T17:28:00.000+02:00

SHOWREEL 2008

2008-07-17T09:27:00.003+02:00

more at:

The Blog
(that currently archives my artwork instead of my website)

TENT. Academy Awards

2008-07-07T22:40:00.003+02:00

Well, the animation may be done (for now), but the future of it has just begun.
A day after I completed the animation, The Somewhat Queer yet Silly Mr.Tophat got scouted at my academy by director Peter Lindthout for the TENT. Academy Awards.

> READ MORE HERE <

The show is july the 17th and after that the selection will be exposed in the TENT. building in an especially designed installation. After that it will go to several (inter)national festivals. So of course I am very very happy and thankful!

The End / The Beginning

2008-06-26T09:13:00.007+02:00

After 107 blog posts, documenting the complete process towards my graduationfilm, this blog has come to and end. I guess, I have no more to post but the animation itself.

But I decided to not do so. Not yet at least :]

Instead I have here the first 30-somewhat seconds:

If you want to see the full animation, you can send me an email :]

So far things are going really well, and I am excited to see what future this film has. Now I am off to schol to correct some final mistakes and then it's done and dusted and ready for the festivals :]

Expo wall

2008-06-26T08:38:00.004+02:00

Well here it is:

And this is how it works:

Everytime someone passes by the wall, Mr.Tophat greets that person, by tipping his head, making his tall spire swings out and into frames.

This works cause behind the wooden panel three flatscreens are attached. In the wood Paul cutted several holes for the frames to fit on and then calculated how many pixels it all would be. We also calculated the spaces between the monitors, so that I animate the full thing, but we cut out these holes later. It works like your dual-screen: the hole between the monitors is ofcourse not there when you move your mouse from one screen to the other. But we made it there.

Underneath the little table (that I made myself - I am utterly proud, cause I fail at woodworking) is a sensor hidden, who detects people passing by. And that tells the flash animation to start playing.

Resulting in the best intro to an expo-room ever :p
Thanks Paul <3

Pre-Chassé & Expo

2008-06-23T21:30:00.001+02:00

Slowly the end of this blog is coming in sight.
Once it has reached it's end I think I will shut this blog down and make it private instead.

Things have been amazing and upbeat in the past few weeks.
Of course there was the homerun to the end-presentation, and the presentation itself (which I thought went really bad but turned out to have gone really well). But things did not end after that. The next morning I was busy working on Tophat again, finishing the film and correcting a lot of mistakes. While drinking wine to my graduation I was animating new sequences.

Now things are rounding off. And with a BANG:

Paul Verhoeven took my idea to have Mr.Tophat spread over several photo frames with the end-exposition (28th of june to 2nd of july) and mixed it with his skills. Amazingly we are making a moving image-wall, where Mr.Tophat is indeed spread across several photoframes, and whenever a person passes by, he bends forward and tips his hat as a greeting.

I will upload a little movie of it soon and you can see it working and I'll explain more of it then.

The wall will have a little table attached to, with on it my businesscards and a little vase. The wallpaper is amazing and a donation from Jasper. It's really expensive and looks great. I think he regrets giving it away now :] Overall the whole exposition room is of high standard and mainly thanks to Jasper, with help of his girlfriend and Raimke.

I have also made a new poster, but people comment that they liked the previous poster better! guh. I shall see if I can edit that one and print it again before thursday.

And then last but not least

I HAVE FINISHED MY FILM!

It still has some mistakes here and there, but it's ready to show to the world now. This morning I tested my audio in the cinema, and it sounds good. Later other people tested the video and audio together and told me it works very well together now. Not in the least, thanks to Ruud who - though just returning from businesstrips and Annecy - I literally picked up from the station to work on the sound with me untill 1am this night.

Tomorrow from 13.30 to 17.00 is the premiere of all the graduation films in the Chassé Cinema, Breda.

My film shows second :] yay

Stills

2008-06-21T17:05:00.006+02:00

(Quite a difference to what I showed monday -> click.)

Find the fill-up pages.

It's all rather stretched for some reason, but oh well.

...
Yes.

I am pleased.

Almost~

2008-06-18T21:57:00.007+02:00

I haven't updated this blog for several days since I worked day and night (or more daynight since these merged into one thing) to finish the animation before last monday. Unfortunally I had some setbacks, so that eventually I didn't finish it just yet. But it's not much more now, then it's all done.

I do already know tho that I have graduated, and that with an average of 8 (we count to 10 where 1 is lowest, and everything below 6 is failed and everything above 8 is rare or impossible). Of course there were no less than 3 people with a 9 in our class, 2 with 8 and everyone has done so so well it's amazing. Each has done the best they can in their own specialisation and I am very proud to be one of them.

Next tuesday we have THE premiere of all animation and audio-visual graduation films and you can find the program HERE.
We have to make a poster as well and I designed this:

But I'll probably redo it.

I am currently finishing some extra animations and touching up some others. Unfortunally I can't edit everything as much or as well as I would like, but oh well.

Here are some still from what it currently looks like:

Keep movin' movin' movin'

2008-06-12T23:18:00.002+02:00

though they're disapprovin' - keep them doggies movin' - RAWHIDE~

Another two cleanups were done today, one of them being the BIG MUMMA - the rosehedge one. When I saw it I didn't estimate it would be such a big chunk, but thinking of it now I should have seen it coming. Merel animated and cleaned it completely by herself except for Tophat's face which I did today.

We laughed at how off-model we constantly go.
Seriously, you don't want to see this frame bu frame ;p

Then Merel went on to clean the unfortunate event of Mr.Tophat's boattrip, and finished cleaning that at a high speed. Then she continued on the last animation for her: the big mirror in the shave page.

I did rendering today and also checked the projector in the viewing I am going to present the animation in this monday. The difference in quality made my heart cry a river. I tried to soothe it out, but still the beautiful image I see on the monitor does not come across on the projector. And then viewing from a DVD may be different again as well. URGH.

So tho I can't properly work in TVPaint at home I am going to give a shot and continue cleaning the barber. I only have 40 frames left and about 20 not properly inked.

Here you can see the rough cleanup and the original stickman animation under it - as you can see, it was originally ment to be longer, but due to timing in the whole it was cut tremendously.

I am drinking some "golden power" (redbull) to keep myself up and running and am secretly hoping I will finish this one tonight. Being an animator is really an unhealthy job. I mean seriously. You stress your body and mind to a breaking point for little to no money/payment. Even if you prepare yourself months before, in the end it's always panic (in the disco).

So yea, little sleep again tonight. I can't stand that I won't be able to show a completely finished and polished movie monday. guh..

Meid! Je haar danst!

2008-06-12T15:47:00.002+02:00

zomg! dancing hair? no wai!

A quick render of how it all should be compiled together in rough form. I did almost all the pageflipping renders today and the animation renders take even less time! Like about 10 frames per minute! So time to clean some more now.

First renders

2008-06-11T20:30:00.010+02:00

Last night I finished writing the text of Mr.Tophat. It may not be all great or proper english but you won't read it anyways. But if you do, you will get quite some easter eggs! like the REAL NAME of Mr.Tophat.

Today I finished the park and cinema scene and Merel also finished the gigantic cleanup of the rosehedge scene. I only need to draw in tophat's face in that one and it's all done after no less than 3,5 days! (which is very fast actually) Now I finally started on the barber, and Merel on the water scene. She is already halfway with that one and will likely finish it tomorrow.

Then she will do the shave scene while I continue to work on the barber. And likely we will both be done on friday with ALL the animation! Even if that seems impossible we must, cause really.. we must.

Here are some pictures of the either first and/or last frames of some of the pages with the right text next to it:

Yet the most pleasant news today is that I think I might be able to get the book actually 3D and looking good. Eric came today with the Maya file and we both editted it to the right size and worked some to make the last page bounce off. Unfortunally we weren't able to do this with the first 3 pages, but maybe I will find it out later.

We took some time making it look good, but still it was not too great. Eventually I just accepted it and we started the render of the first 150 frames. While I got other computers ready to do this the first render was already completed! 150 frames in 10 minutes in MentalRay and with shadows and everything!

As I was trying to edit the next render on the next computer I accidently deleted one of the lamps which suddenly gave a really good render. I decided to render the complete 150 frames again, and as I left I stole 2 frames from the files to show you here.

Because they turned out very dark on this computer I touched them up with Photoshop.

So far it's going good. I am praying everything will work out just as I had wanted it :]

Nom de plume 2

2008-06-10T10:52:00.004+02:00

I made the book texture somewhat more friendly and stuff. Mind that this is just the basic texture. It has no bumpmapping, nor proper light and shadows and no background (the wooden table).

Nom de plume.

2008-06-09T12:42:00.004+02:00

NOM NOM NOM

Some test texture I made for the book. With help of a texture from Resurgere. Not too sure if it's tooooooo realistic. I think I like it.

Now in Tricolor!

Out of slumber

2008-06-07T22:27:00.009+02:00

First this blog almost sank into a deep sleep, now I have much more to post than I actually do. The basic mixdown of the complete soundtrack is done. I got it yesterday from Ruud. I'm gonna do the final mixdown myself, on the timing of the final cut of the animation.

Meanwhile the cleanups are halfway done. The deadline for this is set on wednesday. It's still quite a chunk though. I have been prosponing the cleanup for the barber for days, since I want to have the more simple animation done first.

Eric has started on the animation of the 3D book, which looks good so far. Once the animation is done and good, we can start texturing it and rendering it out.
For this I still need the text for the story of Mr.Tophat inside the book. Chris will help me out with that.

Here are some more cleanups:

This page is all done, except for that I need to come back to the lamppost and the skyline of houses to touch those up. And the text ofcourse.

As you can see in the image on top of this post, the tunnel has been replaced by a willow.

I think this adds up to the romance of the scene (and I was failing miserably at drawing a tunnel/bridge in perspective). Thanks to Bram for that idea! And ignore that the tree seems to be very broad, with the pause between the fall and the boat coming out on the other end; it's artistic freedom! (or more so, if I did it right, the timing of the joke got off).

*hums jaws tune*

test

2008-06-06T08:40:00.004+02:00

1.2.3.

(click to see bigger image)

These are quick test render to see how a flipping page with the text texture would look like. The page isn't animated perfectly at all yet, but I wanted to know if the image and text loses a lot of quality and I needed it to be without shadows, so that I can multiply it later on top of a pre-rendered blank page.

Bas helped me with this as I called him desperatedly last night. I had a 3D page Henk (tutor) made but it didn't work, so I went back to this one. As long as it turns 3D Im am satisfied and this does not look bad at all in my eyes. For now :p

Also this page is doublesided as you can see, so that saves some time too. This render of about 150 frames took one hour on my pc to render, but should be done in less time on a proper computer.

I call myself lucky, because I got yet another helping hand. Eric, who is in second years, and just finished his first maya period with an AMAZING film, is going to help me animate, texture and render the 3D book, so that I can focus on the animation some more. Also Chris, who finished yesterday with a very cool animation of swimmerman, offered me to help out. I likely make use of that too. So that when everything comes together I have a perfect little movie (in my eyes :p).

So now back to work at school. CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN

Mr.Tophat Theme

2008-06-04T21:20:00.003+02:00

T is for Mr.Tophat

2008-06-04T21:14:00.000+02:00

Some more cleanups of the backgrounds/stills.

Animatic Deux

2008-06-03T21:31:00.005+02:00

I made a new animatic with all the correct timing for Ruud to put the soundtrack and folley under. Because he has to leave before this weekend and won't come back untill the end of june.

So I have send this out, and here it is for you to (hopefully) enjoy as well!

Slowly things are falling into place now. The cleanups are looking great and with this animatic done I can focus on them once again. There is still a lot to do, which gives me quite some nerve-breakdowns just thinking about that. More so because I am getting quite tired of it by now. I can dream the whole poem and all the animation. It frustrates me that I can't make it perfect, some people may see a nice animation coming along, but I only see all the things I could not do :p

But I'll try to stay cool and finish this off properly. A good motivation should be that once I got my certificate I'll be off to England once again for a longer period, so I'd rather be 100% relaxed by then!

Here is a closeup on some of the cleanups of the stills at 75% (you'll only see them at about 50% in the film):

Soundtrack Layout

2008-05-29T23:19:00.004+02:00

I went to visit Ruud today to do some more work on the sounds. He let me hear some of the folley soundtracks he compiled together so far, and also the first rough layout of the music soundtrack he made in a night. I LOVE IT! And it's gonna be even better! I personally think it fits the style and theme very well, and I got very happy as I first heard it. I still get excited thinking it's especially composed for Mr.Tophat.

My first thought after I heard it the first time was: "Shit now I gotta make the animation real good to match this!"

I am very excited now to see everything coming together: the animation, the voice-over, the folley sounds and the soundtrack. It's gonna be sweet, I'm sure.

Also Ruud asked me to note again (as he noted it many a time to me):
THIS IS A FIRST LAYOUT, so not done yet :]

The Voice of Mr.Tophat

2008-05-27T19:42:00.005+02:00

Today I recorded the voice of Mr.Tophat; mr.J.C.

This is the take that came out best.

edit* I had to make it quick, but I'll write a tad more about today's recording session:

J.C. was a wonderful person to work with. He took my directions well and swiftly and his voice is so flexible I could easily bend it into the direction I wanted. With every sentence I had a clearer vision of what I would like to hear in mind, and the more closer J.C. came to this point the more a smile planted itself on my face. I have no less of +100 files from his voice.

Eventually I thought I had found a good version, but since I was afraid I was not able to hear much difference anymore, I let 4 other people hear the three best tracks. Jasper, Bram, Merel, and one boy from another class who knew nothing of my animation or story on forehand but has a good audiofeeling, all heard these and gave there comments. I wanted to know three things: if the voice was clear, comfortable and had good rhytmn.

Based on these comments, I let J.C. stand up in front of the microphone and we recorded the poem fully another few times. Then at some point I told him this was going to be the last one, and that's when he did the above posted recording. We tried one other after that but this was already the best one and we both were satisfied with it.

Thanks J.C. for your time and effort, and the others for taking time to listen.

Work it harder. Move it faster.

2008-05-26T21:09:00.013+02:00

Makes us BETTER.

Makes us Stronger.

HOUR
after
HOUR

Work is never over.

Merel and I finished all these pages today. Now all that is left is the mirror animation on the shave page, and the barber animation.

Maarten wasn't too amused last week as I had little animation to show, but he seemed alright with what he got to see this week (as I had told him to come back in a week last time).

Now I am going to quickly compile all these animation into a new montage, so that I have a rough timing, for myself, Ruud and J.C. - the latter who will come to record the voice-over tomorrow :]

(ps: she looks up from reading a book)

Kill your darlings.

2008-05-25T01:22:00.005+02:00

You may not notice it, but I guess that means I've done it well..... this was a bitch to clean. The rough animation was set up in 2 hours, but if you go by this frame by frame you'll notice why it took me 2 days to clean. Oh, and changing your mind when you are almost done and thus having to restart does not help.

Is it a bird?

No, it's the frame growing more fancy, but I haven't cleaned that yet. Just roughly layed out the motion. Gonna have jewels and shit.
Also there is some smoke from the cigarette/cigar and from the mouth but you can't see it at the moment, since it's white.

Animation animation, night and day it's animation.

2008-05-24T09:55:00.007+02:00

Add another frame, fix that move,
clean this and that, do the beach one,
and the barber one and the intro!

These are some animation without the layout/book as background.
This may seem confusing to you, but Merel and I know what we are doing, so BLAH.
I might render them later with BG and replace these vids then.

Casablanca, what else?

Mr.Tophat hits a problem he did not foresee...

In the last animation I changed the layout so that the bridge is in the middle of the book. Meaning that the bridge now has two openings, where the middle of the book is like a cut inbetween. GET IT?? .... Ah, fuck, I'll just upload the full ones later, k?

Lady Friend + Barber

2008-05-17T11:58:00.005+02:00

Merel designed lady Friend.

Previous designs that didn't work with the design of mr.Tophat:

Also, meet mr.Barber:

The rest of the characters have already been pretty much designed, and the others that were not have been scrapped out of the story (mayor, business man etc).

Animatic.

2008-05-14T20:00:00.010+02:00

This is the rough animatic for my final film of Mr.Tophat. Not everything is animated, and not all the timing is right. Needless to say, the voice-over is a layout version.

Having this I have a clearer view over the project again. The poem needs some tweaking, and together with J.C., the real voice-actor, some corrections have already been made. He also recorded a short sample of him reading the first part of the poem, giving me and my teachers a better idea of his voice today.

Today was a meeting with all the teachers, one other teacher, all the class and quite a few 2nd and 3rd years. Even some not even from the animation department. We had to present the current stage of our project. I thus showed the animatic and let the sound file be heard. The feedback on my project was positive, sometimes pointing out things that could be improved but overall they think it's a nice fun project. I am very happy indeed. Everyone's work is very diverse and most of it of good to very high quality. I am looking forward to seeing everyone's finished work.

As for my plans:
Merel will keep animating and thinking along side of me. I will finish the final design of the characters and layout this week. Also I will prepare the 3D book for rendering. starting next week I will animate as well and I think we shall swiftly make much progress. I hope to have the animation done at the end of may, leaving 2 weeks for any delays, corrections, rendering and compositing.

The Queer Yet Silly Mr.Tophat

2008-05-05T13:56:00.005+02:00

The story that you are about to be told,
Is about a man with a pride ever so bold.

He wanted to be the most respected man of all,
And went to measures that were... well, tall.

For you must see, not too long a time ago,
Fashion was important from head to toe.

Hats were especially essential to the male race,
Because from them you could tell a social place.

For example;
the fabric worker wore nothing on his head,
As it would just get in the way of his work instead.

But an outdoor worker liked to wear a cap,
To protect him when the weather would fret.

The local store owner, a middle class man,
Had enough money to spend on a "bowler" then.

Yet the bestest hat was only worn by men of admire,
And was recognised by the length of it's tall black spire.

For so, an unwritten rule had turned to be,
The taller the hat, the more important, you see.

And so it was, that one man wanted to top them all,
By wearing a hat several feet tall.

He wore it with pride, and never took it off again,
Not during the day or night, or for any other man.

He adjusted everything else to fit his hat instead.
And thus he became known as "the queer yet silly Mr.Tophat".

_______________________________

Each morning Mr.Tophat would rise before the sun,
To get his extensive morning rituals done.

For Mr.Tophat took great interest in how he looked,
And thus would take more time than it normally took,

Of course there was his tophat he mindfully mended,
But also left not his beard or monacle untended.

He liked to polish his hat every once in a while,
And go to the barber to cut him a new style.

_______________________________

He sometimes prepared himself especially well,
If he were to meet a young mademoiselle.

He treated them like a gentleman ought to do,
No lady in the land was untouched by his woo.

Yet even so these things could go awfully bad,
When we consider the trouble that was his hat.

________________________________

He couldn't go into the cinema, that's for one,
and a romantic boattrip was absolutely not done.

Whenever he wanted to go to a sunny beach,
the other visitors would get him impeached.

______________________________

But no matter what, he never took off his hat,
Even if it meant he lost everything because of that.

As long as he could walk down the street with his pride,
With every man taking off his hat in spite....
There really was nothing in the world that was quite alike.

If you read this out to yourself you shall notice it takes about 3 minutes.

City page 2

2008-05-05T13:18:00.005+02:00

A test with the edges Merel quickly made. It would work better we think, if the left frame is framed, and the edges animate.

The poem of the film is done, Chris and I are just looking over it once more to correct some things to make it flow better. It means another few changes in the story that will drive my teachers mad. But I think it's for the better, it's a rounded story now and I like it. I felt like I had been losing grip on my project for the past few weeks, and now I am finally getting in control again. More soon.

City page

2008-04-29T22:31:00.002+02:00

More animation by Merel:

The second animation is obviously still a rough, where mr.Tophat walks through the crowd which respectfully greets him. And the first is finished tho not yet properly inserted into the page (so rough as well) where he has walked out of the crowd-frame and slightly evades a latern on the street, his hat swinging side by side.

I wish I can start animating soon as well. It's great to see her animate and I can't wait to do so myself. But first I need to round off some other things.

"Neque porro quisquam -

2008-04-25T18:54:00.006+02:00

- est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

I have been using a lot of this to fill in the text spaces in the layout I am making for the animatic. I'm halfway through the psds and shall hope to finish the animatic this weekend. Though I can't promise since I need to work during the weekend as well :]

Today Photoshop failed me for the second time. Ok so the first time it was my fault for hitting the NO-button before reading, but today it was Photoshop who said "No...". I felt betrayed. I felt abandoned. I felt hopeless. Photoshop and me, we are buddies, we are friends..... And Photoshop crashing on me, is like Laurel kicking Hardy, like Watson leaving Sherlock, like Thelma telling Louise to **** off.

Luckily the damage wasn't too big and all is fine. I redrew the illustration for Merel's waking up page and today she rounded it off into a good animation:

I am happy, she is happy, you are happy. Later I shall edit the page more properly and soon I can test if my ideas really work. For now this is the first full animated page of my FMP. Kind of like a finished scene! Yay! :]

(ps: the Latin text says: "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain...")

Ze alarm clock

2008-04-24T17:41:00.002+02:00

One whole week Merel was moving each letter singlehandedly resulting in the above video. Tomorrow she will finish animating the bottom illustration. I had redrawn it some, but as I closed Photoshop did not save the file! Stupid stupid stupid, but it always happens.

Return of the Ansems

2008-04-17T21:49:00.006+02:00

I am absolutely thrilled by the recent developments of this project.
Merel is doing such a wonderfull job, I am so proud of her. Here are some examples of the work she has done in the past week.

First she started off with a full-body walkcycle of Mr.Tophat. After several corrections, this is the wonderfull result of his proud walk:

After that she did a small animation of the chimney sweeper. Here is where I discovered that I had not thought out some things, as in what exactly should move, and what not (in the lines).

So to test how this would work in a full page I requested her to do the small animations of the left side of this page. We layed the first chapter aside, since it is quite important that the first chapter is stunning, and thus done when we are more into the project.

Here I discovered that Merel has quite a different animation style than me and what I want out of this project. The foam is much too soapy and the lines too thin, and the animation too bold. I unfortunally had to tell her that I will probably need to draw the keyframes to restrain her animation some. She took it well though.

She made a rough animation of the dripping bucket in the first page of the second chapter

which looks good :]

But most excited are we both on the page we are currently working on. It's the alarm-clock-page. The alarm clock is going off at 4 sharp and shakes through the whole page, bouncing away the letters. This is the basic animation of the alarm clock, after some corrections:

The process of this page's animation is painstacking, as Merel has to animate each letter by hand. But she does it oh so well, and best of all, she likes to do it! That's because the outcome is so exciting. Here is a preview of an older version:

Oh yes, she is on a roll.

While she is very busy writing and animating each letter by hand, I am doing the layouts, writing the story of Mr.Tophat and then fitting the layout well into place. Sneak-peaking from children's books and then stealing some bits of it to fit with mine.
You saw the first page below and I now continued with the second page, which shall soon be updated with better illustrations.

Layout style

2008-04-15T20:15:00.004+02:00

is set now.

Gonna make all the layouts and convert it into an animatic....
ORLY?? ya rly. Soon, my babies... soon, you shall see it.

Meanwhile Merel is doing a good job with animating small bits, while I prepare the rest for me and her, and the production of Mr.Tophat as actually lifted off. Oh joy!

4 o'clock

2008-04-14T19:31:00.005+02:00

I want to upload Merel's small animations but MAC hates .avi and Windows hates .mov. So I'll upload them once I'm back at my own pc.

yea..

NSAD

2008-04-14T18:35:00.002+02:00

I choose you, crappy virus-full PCs!

Leaaaaviiinnnggg on a jetplane -

2008-04-08T17:06:00.004+02:00

Don't know when I'll be back again~

Actually I'll be back next wednesday. I'll return to school the next day to work again with Merel. Possibly a bit later tho, to catch up on some sleep! Meanwhile Merel will animate the walkcycle of Mr.Tophat, on full-scale, which I shall later draw into medium-scale as well. After that she shall animate the above figure, which is in fact either the first or second figure to be seen in the book.

So I said to him: "No, I can't dance."

2008-04-06T22:33:00.008+02:00

You have to find someone else, you dancing *****.

Animation by Merel done on wednesday. Drawn over my modelsheet trying to get a hand at my drawing style.

The thing is that due to all the pre-production things I still haven't been able to lay a hand myself on animating Mr.Tophat or any of the other figures at that level of detail, and thus can't say for sure how I want it to look like. I think I would have the blackness less sketchy and the edges more refined, but Merel did a good job capturing the pride of Mr.Tophat.

On Thursday we sat together and refined the storyline, which I shall write down here soon. I layed down the basic idea, of that I would tell about a day of Mr.Tophat's life, and that each chapter should have some kind of clue. I already had thought of some options previously, but together with Merel I refined the story into a good smooth storyline, which is still quite flexible should our schedule be too thight.

In the end the story is devided into 7 chapters, being:

Introduction
Waking up and getting ready [4 to 7/8am]
Going to the E.R.M.C. (extremely richmen's club) [10 to 12am]
Going to the barber [1pm to 2pm]
Tea time in the park with a lady [3pm to 5pm]
Other frivolousness with the lady [6pm to 9pm]
Bedtime [10pm]

As said, each chapter has a clue, which is solved/used in the next chapter. Chapter 6 is optional, meaning chapter 5 can have a different ending so that it goes into chapter 7. Our work schedule has the following order in making the chapters: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 4, 6.
We think that we can round each chapter in an average of 1.5 week. We shall soon see whether this is realistic.

On friday Merel and I took a look at the layouts, designing several posibilities. It is much fun, since the design of the bookform gives much possibilities, lifting the weight of animating, and being able to experiment freely. We are halfway through now. Tomorrow we shall have look at the rest, after which we can start on the first chapter!

On wednesday I am actually going to Norwich for a week, where I shall continue to work at the NSAD instead. Considering they all have MACs there I was a bit afraid I might not be able to work on TVpaint. But luckily there is also another job pressing to be done: making the 3D book.

Once that is done namely, I can always insert a new chapter when it is done, instead of doing it all in the end.

So at the moment I have asked Bas and Henk for some advice in modeling and rigging the book.
Then each day I shall prepare work for Merel in Holland till I get back the 16th and we shall continue to work at St.Joost together again. Which goes very well so far.

I am secretly worried tho that people think that now that I have an intern I let her do all the work... Paul amusingly suggested it as I spoke with him last friday, and I was actually quite offended by it. :/ Merel's internship actually stimulates me to work twice as hard and get back for the month lost.

But yea.. up to the next week of business!

KISS MY DISS

2008-04-05T19:25:00.012+02:00

Euhm... Sir?... I think you need to have a look at this...
....7#3 [0|v||*|_|732 |v|41|=|_||\|[710|\|3|>...

Actually it was done like this already on friday. But I thought I'd make boxes to save the diss copies in. But they turned out BLERGH so I threw them away. Now people just have to be carefull with them (or not.... like I am). They sometimes tend to stick a bit together on the edges, because they are fakely fanfolded. Actually I found a dot-matrix printer, and my grandpa had a shitload of paper, but I couldn't get the printer to work.... or rather I could... I would need to learn and use and rewrite all my diss in WordStar for msDOS... So I figure I would do it the less special way... rip all the pages apart, fold and tape the sides back, print on laserjet printer with fake dot-matrix font, remove tape, fold back the sides, then glue ALL the edges together. It doesn't look half as good, but hey it's fanfold, AIGHT?

So whoever gets what I said above the picture = 1337.

Merel comes, Merel sees -

2008-04-02T01:00:00.008+02:00

- Merel conquers?

I am sure she will soon.
This monday Merel started her internship at my graduation project.
I had hoped to capture her start with more cushions layed out but unfortunally the truth was less beautiful and I didn't even had modelsheets ready for her.

So first on monday we discussed the project after which we tried to make our work space at school ... workable... As much as I love my school, I have to say the facilities they offer to us are far from adequate. They suddenly got a spur to move rooms and the equipment about, and computers come and go like sunny days in Brittain. Usefull rooms get turned into "offices" and students get thrown out of rooms without notice. Equipment and material has been lost, and it's really sad. Everything is chaos. They want us to work at school, yet at the same time do not provide us with the support or space. In fact, our 16 heads big class has no more than 3.5 PC's available for graduation. And these PCs are so deadly slow and full of virusses that they constantly crash and make working on them a pain in the buttom. I do not wonder if they kick us out of the room tomorrow again neither "because it will have other purposes". I don't know what they are doing, but it's failing and frustrating. Instead of doing it calm and quiet during the summer it has to be done now for some reason I will most likely not understand.

So yea, as much for that rant. I got ourselves a fourth PC thanks to Robert. Merel and I both work at school now, for as long as we need it. Yesterday I made all the modelsheets and then had to go earlier. Meanwhile I had told Merel to animate Mr.Tophat in her own style, so as to get a bit aquainted with the character.
Tomorrow she will look at the modelsheets and I am sure, will in short time be able to understand and copy my handwriting.

The rest of the midweek we shall have a look at the "storyboard" and I shall work this out into layouts. I am happy to work with Merel at my side, since I am sure she will be a good support, and I hope I can offer her a good experiance.

No need to ask my name -

2008-04-01T17:55:00.011+02:00

- to figure out how cool I am!

details

Oh hai

2008-03-26T23:17:00.004+01:00

BRB

I can has fanfold paper?

2008-03-19T18:49:00.007+01:00

lol wut?

Ok so I know I should have turned in my diss at the end of last month... But I was having trouble finding a way to print it like I wanted it - on fanfold paper! I tried school, but that was a no-go, so I called around all the printshops in Breda to see if some printshop could print fanfold paper. As I finally found one, they forgot to call me back about details later, and as they did it turned out they could only print identical pages. So no use. They said they had tried to find someone in their contacts with a matrix printer, but found noone, they said they could sell some paper if I could find someone to print my diss. But nobody seemed to have any matrix printers, and with the stress of FMP I forgot a bit about it again. Now two weeks later than I should have turned it in, I called the printshop for one last resort. I had the genius solution so that I could still print my diss on fanfold paper and have it (fakingly) stick together. And it worked!

But as I proudly showed my housemate my solution, she told me: "What are you doing? We got a printer like that at home.."

You can imagine my face. So next week after Easter she and I will go to her home and see if we can print my diss there. However the thing was that fanfold paper is a rarity and I only got 50 pages... My diss is 40 pages long and we have to turn it in 5x. I had hoped I could at least print two copies - one for me and one for school - in this way, but now I have one chance..
I know one place where I might be able to get some few more pages, but not sure. Anyways, either way I will be able to print one diss version in this way, and that's something right!

So I will turn it in after Easter, I promise ;_; It's all ready for printing and will include a DVD with extra's but yea.. the printing is the problem!

Storylines 2

2008-03-18T17:38:00.009+01:00

I forgot I haven't told about my ideas about the storylines...

tophat introduction (why he has such a high hat and never removes it)
tophat house ( because he barely fits in his own house, he builds a special house which is adapted to his hat. He has special servants that take care of him)

Then, tophat situations - hat causes trouble but tophat finds solutions:
tophat takes care of both himself as well as the hat; he let's a special window-washer come to wash his hat. But there are birds and animals hunting his hat, which he tries to repulse in several ways (bad smelly lotion on his hat which also repulses people, birdchaser construction on his hat, but gets him blown away in the wind, etc).
tophat daily rituals (getting up, going to sleep etc); when he goes to sleep he rubs a special nightcream on both him as well as his hat. His bed is several beds long to fit his hat in. When he gets up he removes dents from his hat and tends his moustache etc. After he is all fresh and well he gets out of the door - and a bird drops a poo on his hat.
tophat is wanted with the ladies; he takes them out for dinner, cinema, fun fair, sea, etc. But several problems arise:
- He isn't allowed in the restaurant at first because his hat is too tall. So he builds a construction that collapses his hat to good height. Still he is not allowed in and has to dine outside, much to annoyance of the lady.
- With dancing he constantly knocks candeleirs from the ceiling and is sent out.
- At the cinema the problem is obvious.
- At the fun fair problems arise as he tries to get in attractions. He can collapse his hat? Or distract the persons?

Birds follow him everywhere. The only thing he can't do anything about?

Come to think of it, maybe I should just stick with "One day out of the life of Mr.Tophat" for this animation..

Test layout

2008-03-18T15:46:00.006+01:00

And every morning he got up before the sun,

to patiently get his friendly muffin chops done.

The text in the image is just crap. Obviously it should mention his beard, if the illustrations are about it. But it's a test and I couldn't be bothered to edit it at the moment. Also the middle image is a small zoom-mirror you can collapse and fold out; he's shaving there. Left illustration is some shaving foam and a shaving brush going through it. Should be more logical when it moves.
Need to watch the thickness and noise of my lines. Obviously I need to work on a bigger resolution for that.

Mr.Tophat goes to...

2008-03-17T23:11:00.006+01:00

...the sea.

[concept pictures]
will be updated

How low can you go?

2008-03-11T20:17:00.013+01:00

It's hard to decide the length of Mr.Tophat's tophat.

If you want to play this game with me, do the following:

load the picture in full size
take a blank piece of paper
cut out a hole in the middle
hold the piece of paper over the drawing
view each picture
maybe even draw a stickfigure in relative size next to the hole to compare

Just kidding... I think I can best decide the exact length in another illustration... Tall tophats aren't uncommon after all: the tallest tophat in our world is no less than 135 metre tall! (300 cubits)

So where is the line between normal and ridicule?

Mugshot

2008-03-11T19:38:00.010+01:00

There was no blacker day, than the day they forced Mr.Tophat to take off his hat.

Mind the beard

2008-03-11T14:55:00.012+01:00

Nyuuu~

So drawing this image was simple, but finding a good way to put down the shapes to get a clear foreground/background seperation was a pain in the butt. Still not satified, really.

Maybe this would work better

without a frame around it

(or at least not a decorated frame)

Next up, will be a "mugshot" of Tophat with different kind of hat sizes and also a image to solve the last bg/fg level (the total shot of the town). Then I want to animate the above image into a layout, about how Tophat does his morning ritual.

Work it HARDER

Make it BETTER

Move it FASTER

Makes us STRONGER.

Voice FOUND!

2008-03-10T01:21:00.015+01:00

I'm excited to announce that I have found a suitable narrator's voice.

The multi-talented J.C. will narrate the "queer yet silly" stories of Mr.Tophat. His voice has a lovely elderly warm feeling, and I'm very pleased that he has joined this project! Thanks to Jasper for actually finding "the voice" and passing it on to me.

Meanwhile I am making drawings to solve the background-foreground "problem". Top one being an example.

Noman and the Three-Headed Goose

2008-03-10T00:02:00.000+01:00

is now finally finished - including a very SPECIAL soundtrack.

Follow the breadcrumbs!

Storylines

2008-03-08T22:18:00.004+01:00

Well, after having my personal life settled a bit and the dissertation being handed in as a final version this week, I can fully concentrate on the project again. In two weeks my intern Merel will start, and I am experimenting with working on school so that I can guide her properly.

Last week I had a talk with Maarten and Paul for the first time since a while. Tho they like where I am going, they once again underlined that I needed to get the storyline somewhat sorted out. Maarten said I did need an intro to briefly explain why Mr.Tophat has such a high hat and never puts it off. Because that would be the underlying motive in all the jokes and stories afterwards. Also, because I want little rounded stories, they said I needed little situations where there would be some kind of clue of solutions. Or else the chapter would stay open/unfinished.

So I set out several situations which I am currently "storyboarding". I'll update soon.

Diss layout

2008-02-21T19:40:00.011+01:00

test 1

test 2

Oh this is fun.

As said I previously thought I had no theme in which I could make the layout of my diss. But while working on the second layout (with 3D wireframe renders) I thought.. "Computers is your theme........biatch?" So I've decided to make it old-school computer layout. Very very simple. All images will be black and white and halftone-patterned in low quality. The font is dot matrix styled. And I'm gonna check tomorrow if I can print it somewhere on (green-barred) fanfold paper. Should be cool if that will be possible (and not too expensive). Or else I just have to do it in the layout like the preview image.
My diss will probably also have a DVD with it, with extra material on the subject (and probably all the images again in normal quality and color).

Not dead -

2008-02-19T19:18:00.009+01:00

Ok, so frankly, I am having trouble getting back into a good work rhythm, because I am distracting myself with every chance I get, and I had some repercussions because of that. I cannot excuse myself, I should try harder. But oh well. Lost time is lost. So I started taking little papers and trying out layouts for the book. I found that I actually want more text to be involved. Not to be read, but just like with them Disney movies where there is lotsa written but you get the clue from the images already (or you just note a few things from it).

I shall soon make a test layout and animate it as well. I'm looking forward to that.
But first I'm gonna make the layout of my dissertation this week. Since my subject does not ask for themed layouts I found it difficult to think up something interesting, but while distracting myself I think I might have found an interesting design.

So first up I will do that. Then saturday I'll join Bas to a dance performance of his choreographer. And sunday I will take back yet another step from FMP for several days, as Chris comes here to visit me :] One of our plans is to finish the sound of our collab animation in the sound studio of my school. Then we can fix some little mistakes in the montage and round that project properly off. Awesome.

The Secret Life of Daydreams

2008-02-13T22:43:00.003+01:00

After much delay finally back into working on this project!

As said, test with rendering town folk in the same style as Mr.Tophat while still having him stand out.

I found that rendering all characters in black makes the whole rather boring and not have Tophat standout anymore. So I added some more details, and instead, I'm going to make some compromises with the background. Which will loose quite a lot of detail, in order to boost that of the characters.

MORE TO COME!

pause

2008-02-08T19:36:00.000+01:00

I'm ill. Apparantly I have the flu or sth and I'm too ill to work on my FMP. The irony is that it kicked in the day I actually had motivated myself to really get back into a rhythm and work hard again. I guess I'll have to wait till it's over again. That'll take a few days...

Dum dum dum dum.

2008-02-05T16:47:00.001+01:00

After some days of dancing the nights away and getting a lot of beer of my apron and making myself look like an idiot in front of a large public, I have taken up my FMP again. Carnaval is over, and FMP matters are starting to press. I've got 19 days to round off my pre-production. Or so my ideal schedule says.

I've started drawing other characters in the same style as Mr.Tophat.

Also, first a rumour, now confirmed: I'm going to get an intern to work with me on this project. Her name is Merel and she is a young talented student from the third years animation class. Tomorrow we are going to meet up and do a proper introduction and talk about how exactly we had her internship in mind. It will be a short internship to guide her into an external internship program. But I am excited to work with her and hope I can offer her a good experiance.

On other news, I thought it was funny to let you know I send in a sketch I did earlier in this project to a blog called skull-a-day, and the website owner posted it up several days ago. Amusing.

Oh yeah, this is my 55th post. I bet I will go over the 100 posts at least by the end of my final major project.

Turn, baby, turn!

2008-01-31T23:25:00.000+01:00

Bas, Mr.Maya, came in and convinced me of the advantages of hair dynamics. In like 10 minutes he made an awesome way to flip a 3D plane. This is the little playblast of it after I tweaked it a little. Oh goodie, all is not lost.

Los Backos

2008-01-30T23:32:00.000+01:00

I haz returned from my free week (and a half) - yay!

Alright, that above image is not the most exciting image to see on my "return" but it's just to indicate that I have opened Maya.. and stared at it in despair. Oh Maya, why must you be such a complicated lover?? I know I neglected you for quite a while, but I can still appreciate all that is in you, please allow me to understand you again!! ............... I guess that's a 'maybe'? ... I shall start reading tuts again tomorrow, ok?......... Gah ._.

So yea... I haven't touched Maya, since like... *tries, but can't count* .... forever.
The plan is to make a REALISTIC book in 3D, rig it, and use it as the platform for my animation. So that's one of my to-do things. This 3D model is also not made by me, but by Fieldy3000 (I don't even know his real name!), and works as my test model. Once I am a bit worked back into Maya, I can remodel the book to my needs, and do everything properly.

OTHER NEWS!

I am happy to announce that I have found a sound designer: Ruud Terhaag! Though he is rather busy himself, he says with good planning it will work out. The sound in my FMP will most likely be rather minimal, exsisting of the narrators voiceover and foiley sounds. But I am so unbelievably unskilled in audio-design that I leave the exact ingredients to Ruud.

Also, quite unrelated, www.avalantis.nl has been registered by my nephew Rick for my future personal website. As soon as I find some proper time for it, I shall make a layout and Rick will set up the website. I know from school we also get a webdesign course soonish, but this just happened to... happen :]

PRE-PRODUCTION

With this update I shall also announce my plans for the next weeks for my FMP. I hope to round off the pre-production phase at the end of february, so that I can start fully with producing in march. Currently it's hard to estimate exactly how much time I will need, but I shall have about 2.5 months to produce safely, and then about 1 month to round it all off again.

So these are the things I need to do in the pre-production in order to have a smooth production:

solve the foreground-background problem
ANIMATE ANIMATE ANIMATE lotsa tests!
research other (animation) films with frames-in-frame story-telling
test with the 3D book x 2D animation
DEVELOP STORIES
specify the visual style
do the above mentioned ASAP

Videos Pitch

2008-01-23T00:01:00.000+01:00

Bram had some problems with YouTube and asked me to upload something. So I uploaded two videos as I showed them on my pitch. I editted them in my previous post Pitch DVD menu.

Voice Needed~

2008-01-22T14:13:00.002+01:00

I am looking for a narrator voice to guide my animation!

- The story is about a man, coincidently named Mr.Tophat, with a very large tophat that reaches to the sky.
- It will be set in rather more victorian atmosphere and told like a book (flipping through the pages) with moving illustrations. It will be guided by rhyming narration in English.
- Because of the atmosphere I am looking for a warm, british male voice. But maybe another voice suits better! So please send me a demo of your voice, even if it's a crappy recording!
- I can offer only a small payment, and I will of course properly credit. I don't have the exact poems/rhymes yet, therefore the final recordings won't take place untill May or June possibly.
- If you are a Drama Student from UEA, I might come to England to be there with your recording! The recording will be done in the professional sound studio of Norwich School of Art and Design.

Interested? Drop me a line!

Concept images and testanimations can be found throughtout this blog or by clicking the following links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Mr.Who?

2008-01-21T23:59:00.000+01:00

I have decided to take a week off. I haven't really had any holidays since 1.5 year now. I mean stress-free holidays. But Mr.Tophat stays on my mind constantly.

PITCH

2008-01-17T12:45:00.000+01:00

part 1
[13.00h]

This will be the first part of this update about my Pitch. But I'm gonna write it down now before I start forgetting things they said!
I was the first up at 9.45am. I had slept like 2 hours because I created the DVD menu with some late creativity spur and then Encore started bitchin' and I had to stay up even longer ;[

Anywho, I was in early to test my DVD and kept rehearsing it to myself. And kept failing. I was very nervous because I have been anticipating my Pitch for at least 6 months. But the ice kind of broke once the committee came in. They arranged the following persons for us to present our ideas to:

Sarah Lughthart - VBF (Brabant Film theaters)
Erik van Drunen - HAFF (Holland Animation Festival)
Leon van Rooij - LADDS & PLAYGROUNDS (festival)

Leon was late (and not present during my pitch unfortunally), and the other two came in smiling and shaking hands.IswearEriklookslikeDr.House!

I started talking and was still kind of nervous, but I managed to browse almost without mistakes through the menu (I had changed the order of my presentation after I had burned the DVD), and was able to convince them of the possibilities of both my character and the layout I will use. They were quite excited by Mr.Tophat and said that this character could serve for a whole series! They said my animation could be like a pilot. They liked the style I had chosen, said it looked pretty. They asked me things that I had already anticipated: What kind of soundtrack? How long in total? Why black-white? etc
The only question I hadn't anticipated was for what kind of public specifically I was aiming, because I could also take the character into a more phylosophical direction too.

But most taken aback and HAPPY I was when I was done with my DVD presentation and Erik said:

"Why don't you make this interactive? This lends perfectly for it, like you already have here in this DVD menu."

I couldn't hold myself back and just threw my arms in his direction and was like: THANKYOU THANK.YOU.!! This was my original idea!
After my presentation I told them more of the background ideas I had, and where this idea came from (the traditional children's book illustrations). Sarah had to think of Tim Burton with my drawing style (victorian-like theme) and wondered whether this also ment that my humor would be more dark. He is not a direct inspiration, but I guess the humor can indeed be ironic.

Overall they were very positive and said that 15 minutes were too few to discuss the possibilties of my idea. I thanked them and Erik asked me whether I had been nervous, I said OMGYES, and he said that it wasn't nescessary I had presented well and clear. Tho sometimes I seemed to have talked too soft. I also kind of regret sometimes starting to talk while Sarah was still talking. BAD HABIT! They said they will be there in June and looking forward to my animation then. So yay!

part 2
[21.00h]

After the previous notes I stayed with the other classmates in one of the rooms to sit and wait untill 15.30 when we would be gathered and get pointers from the committee on our pitches. It was good to be with the whole of the class together again. Because of the way the 4th year is structured we mostly have individual meetings with the tutors. Even though we try to keep up with eachother via our blogs, it's still more fun to meet the people you 2.5 years ago started the animation course with together.

Anyhoo, after a long wait we were called to gather in the "Blue viewing" room. Coming together the committee saw just how big our group was. Sixteen people sitting across the 3 people who judged our pitches. As if the tables had suddenly turned.

Rene was also present in the room, taking notes for archive purposes. He and the committee had decided to not comment on us personally, because most had already been said during the individual pitches. But instead they commented in general. They told us that they were very pleased to see such a diversity in the ideas, both in technique as style. Also that we all presented well and organised, and emitted self-confidence. Three years of presenting to our tutors with the end of each semester has paid off indeed, and we creditted Rene for being the usual Iron Face we had to present to.

Then they gave us a lot of advices I didn't pen down at that time unfortunally. They suggested us to leave a business card or showreel when we would present officially because it would leave a presence even after you have gone. They also underlined the importance of animation tests and storyboards. They said that with making a storyboard a person could quickly get an idea, and you yourself too. Also an idea of the length and complixity of the film. They also emphasized the importance of the soundtrack, and that at least 95% of us didn't have an idea of that yet, even tho "sound is like the adopted child of AV".

Then they pointed out 3 projects that had in particular taken their interest. They said this was not a demotivation for others, but just a general indication of which projects they were curious for and looking forward to in June/July. They noted that these presentations had been clear, interesting and to the point. They were: "Mr.Tophat" (!!), "Spiderwebs" (Jantien) and "no title yet" (Jasper).
You can imagine how full of glee I was by hearing this. Even tho by the end of the day I was so tired this gave me quite an energy boost, and motivates me even more to work hard and harder on my FMP.
They then thanked us and wished us good luck. And we thanked them back because their critics had been very usefull.

After the meeting I went to Leon, who had missed my presentation, and asked how I could show him my work nonetheless. I gave him the address of this blog, and was pleased to recieve an email this evening with his feedback. He is also positive, so this rounds today off nicely.

so...

PITCH IS DONE. Now to make my film fullfill the promises and the potential the idea has!!

Pitch DVD menu

2008-01-17T12:08:00.001+01:00

These are 6 of the 8 pages of my DVD presentation. The first page was an intro to Mr.Tophat like The Long Scroll post. One of the other pages was about the BG test I did earlier together with the carriage image, two pages were the animation tests, and one page was the runcycle placed in the frame of the third picture here. All animations were set so that it stayed in the same book layout. That way I could directly demonstrate the intention of the chosen layout.

Dissertation Talk

2008-01-16T16:51:00.001+01:00

Man, I own in keeping my blog updated. For real. Later I can look back to this website and know every single step in my whole FMP journey. Which is awesome. So I'm gonna blog yet another change:

Today I had a meeting with Rene and Christoffel about my dissertation. Rene was gone for some coffee or something so I discussed it with Christoffel. Overall it is good, well written (with many grammar mistakes, and "too german" haha - trilangual FTW) and informative. The layout needs some changes but it was just a first version for reading. The final version will be properly bound into bookform and I will add a CD/DVD with extra image-material like this making of the 3D elements in "Le Building".

Because I was still nervous about the whole Pitch tomorrow (I will be first - GAH), I took the change to get some advice from Christoffel on what I should present and get some feedback on this new story. Rene came in and joined the little meeting. And this is what they adviced me:

"Don't care for the story, you have strong images and play with that instead. Don't restrain yourself in a story. Don't try to explain why he has a high tophat, it is just there. Experiment with the book enviroment X mr.Tophat's design."

I asked them how I could stand for having no story to back it up, they said my story might become a story in the montage. Just have it little situations for now. So this goes back to my first idea after I discovered Mr.Tophat, but then they said I should have a story to guide it D:
But meh, I am rather more happy if I don't have to tell a story and just play with Mr.Tophat and the book illustration layout. I got good response about The Long Scroll too from several people, so I'm glad about that because I enjoyed making that.

Meanwhile Fieldy3000 that you know from the 3D Noman, modeled me a book, that I will try to mold into a DVDmenu BG. But first I'm gonna sketch some situations for Mr.Tophat to land in because of his hat. So yeah. No one reads this but me. It's like my personal diary. I just need to add some juicy lovebug stories and female insecureness and I'm settled.

Example Rhymes

2008-01-15T17:57:00.000+01:00

by Chris, uneditted for now.

"Look at how this diagram shows
How his hair just grows and grows
It's never cut inside the hat,
There's far too much for all of that.
He only snips around his face,
It's rather heavy, but it fills the space."

"A message spread across the land,
of Mr Tophat's Bird Wonderland.
Children, Parents, Old Folks too!
They all came for his hat-shaped zoo"

"He was a man of great admire,
Ten years he built his hat's tall spire."

"This little town is such a strange place,
Hats are very important to the male race."

I have found that depending on how I layout the pages I can tell the story in about 15 to 18 double-pages.

Rough story concept

2008-01-15T17:44:00.000+01:00

Intro
- Why height of hat is important.
Intro Mr.Tophat
- Mr.Bamford is a banker, social-status-horny, decides to want the biggest hat

Beginning
- Competition ensues.
- Mr.Bamford wins by topping all the other men with the insane size of his tophat. Mr.Bamford get's nicknamed Mr.Tophat.
- Mr.Tophat gets lotsa respect, and positive attention (females, noble houses, royal house etc).

Middle
- Mr.Tophat experiances the first disadvantages: can't go into every house, can't go in every restaurant for dates, and worst of all:
- The tophat get easily dirty and mammals and birds start nesting in it - because the conditions of his hair that has grown in the tophat are so ideal.
- Because of that he becomes the local laughing stock and everyone casts him out.
- Mr.Tophat gets lonely and only has all the disadvantages left. And those damn animals keep coming back!!
- Mr.Tophat has enough of it and wants to discard the tophat by throwing it off a cliff.

End
- But then a researcher comes and stops Mr.Tophat! In his hat are important and rare animals!
- Mr.Tophat is mad at first, but more people/researchers come in to see.
- Mr.Tophat is proud by all the attention he gets.
- Mr.Tophat keeps the hat and becomes a local attraction. Mr.Tophat's Bird and Mammal Wonderland~

Mr.Banker

2008-01-15T17:25:00.000+01:00

I am currently the most uncreative retard walking on the face of the planet earth; my head is like a balloon filled with air and even tho the Pitch requires me to sprout creative thoughts like WOAH I am mainly staring blankly in space with a cup of tea next to me instead.

So I asked Chris for some help with the story of Mr.Tophat. Because .we.STILL.rock. as a team. I gave him the basic thought of Mr.Tophat's story which was: Mr.Tophat wants bigger head for higher status, mr.Tophat has advantages and is happy, mr.Tophat gets disadvantages, mr.Tophat gets outcasted and is unhappy, -ending- (mr.Tophat dies/mr.Tophat discards hat and is happy/mr.Tophat tries to kill himself and gets saved by the size of the hat).

The thing I already had a problem with was that I needed to know the profession/background of mr.Tophat because it will affect his surroundings and decissions. I was deciding between Baronet or Banker. Lord Bramford a.k.a. Mr.Tophat sounded good, and it would also give a reason why he could be not so smart, social-status-horny and rich. Unlike Banker where you had to have worked hard to get rich and respected.

But if he would be a Baronet he would have possibly enherited a family house he wouldn't just throw away like that, and he had already the maximum ammount of respect he could get from the citizens since he was already noble. So banker it is. I decided he has enherited the bank from his farther or something and was a spoiled little brat.

Ok. So having his profession settled, you will now find elements of that back in the enviroment and story in the future. Up to a next post, for a rough story concept.

The Long Scroll

2008-01-12T22:42:00.000+01:00

Who is Mr.Tophat?

2008-01-12T19:21:00.000+01:00

Some quick sketches of faces of mr.Tophat.

I think I'll settle with the middle one, because it's got these lovely friendly mutton chops (more beard styles). It's difficult finding a man's face you can sympathise with yet at the same time imagine him making such an egoistic decision as to want the tallest hat to get a higher social status.

Thoughts?

Almost-Pitch Talk

2008-01-11T21:44:00.000+01:00

Maarten, Rene and Paul made me reconsider my ideas about the interactiveness of my FMP. They told me to concentrate on my story first, and that a book telling a story about Mr.Tophat will be interesting enough. And I agree with them.
Now that I've moved and settled down and got interwebs on my pc I can make some more artwork for the Pitch next thursday. Hurhur.

booktest2

2008-01-05T23:46:00.000+01:00

I am going to play with the layout of the book. I'll update as I continue.
ps: The book is not what it will be. I got it from this website. It's gonna be 3D and different colors too.

First result.
Second result:

Running through the streets,
he's chased by hordes of beaks.

(thxchris)

Here's a bigger image of the background.

It's just a quick test, to see how two different windows can comminucate with eachother in a less obvious way. There is much fun to be had from experimenting with this since the mind always connects two things when put next to eachother/after one another.

You can barely see the animation but that's mainly cause of the cropped size and the bad quality on youtube. But of course also because the backgrounds are quite too detailed to show these kind of characters!!

The style is still a sore to my eyes, and heavily influenced from Lemony Snicket's books. But gah! I need to start somewhere right??

Anywho the animation sucks, but it's midnight and I should be in bed since I'm moving in less than 10 hours.

Mr.Tophat - the Game

2008-01-05T11:44:00.000+01:00

Just some more thoughts and not much visuals. Looking at the way I animated Mr.Tophat and my experiance with animating Noman I thought I should consider that the animation will take a month to do, maybe 1.5 depending on the detail and ammount of animation. Still, since the animated images will not be highly detailed I can say that of the three months I have it will take about the half. (actually I got 4, but I'm not sure that I will start with the production in begin february and I take a few weeks as backup)
So then I thought back about how I wanted to program the interactive book. Basicly I got two options: get what I want, or be satisfied with less.

What I want
A book on a desk with some stuff on it like a lamp, an ink bottle, and some photographs or something. You can click on the book and it opens, you can click on the pages and they flip, you can click on buttons and you get several options or things move. But most of all: I want it so that you can go real-time around it. Like in a game, where you can move your own camera-position. In that way you can view the images from atop when they are flat, or from the sides when they popup. You can see the construction of the pop-up pages etc.

What I get if I can't get what I want
If the above mentioned is not possible I need to make several restrictions that basically undermine the purpose of the idea and will lose some originality of the concept. If I can't make it real-time I will need to chose to either let the camera be from atop or aside. So everything flat or pop-up. I should then at least let the pages be dragable for flipping. With the pop-up pages that will be a pain, so I would need to chose flat images. Or make buttons and let the flipping be animation. Basically it will pretty much be straight-forward.

The trials
I have no programming knowledge. I do have several friends who are programmars tho, but I can't rely on that too much, since they are busy people themselves. I do not have the time to teach myself a programming language. So what do I need?

And then I thought: games. Games of course! Some games like Warcraft or Quake provide you the ability to create your own levels. I remember making complete levels in warcraft 3 for fun. But they are limited to their own objects and animations. Plus I need it to be clickable and animating. So what then?
Game design software. That should be my answer.

So this morning I browsed the internet some to look for the possibilities of (free) game design software. And indeed some of the more professional software add specifically to their description that the software can also be used to make interfaces, presentations, etc.
I've let my eye rest on GameStudio.
It has a free trial for 30 days and is relatively cheap, should I need to buy it (75 euro).
More so tho, they have a lite version for simple games, and my book should not require much. However I just downloaded this lite version, and it's not visual, whereas the demo is pretty visual. So I am going to write the developers an email soon and present them my idea, then ask them if it is possible to work out in their software.

Here are some images of another clickable game here and here. And more visuals etc are on the website.

So next week I'm gonna research the possibilities of this idea. First I'm gonna move tomorrow and have a practice pitch on monday.

booktest1

2008-01-04T19:32:00.000+01:00

I am going to play with the layout of the book. I'll update as I continue.
ps: The book is not what it will be. I got it from this website. It's gonna be 3D and different colors too.

First result:

Oh cycles -

2008-01-04T14:31:00.000+01:00

- where would I be without you?
They are always a good way to test characters and animation with only 8 frames.

So this is a runcycle of a Mr.Tophat design - note: not the final design, me thinks! It's a pain when birds make nests in your precious hats constantly!
I'm gonna remove the bird's nest later, it's a bit distracting, but the rest is ok. It's part of a test with Mr.Tophat running through illustration windows in the book.

hectic

2008-01-02T16:35:00.000+01:00

WAHHHH

I feel as if time and controll is slipping between my fingers. Next week is a practice pitch and I mostly just got words. I am trying to work on three things simultanously: story, art style, book technique.

I wish I had some more time to research, but I guess forcing it out with a deadline (7 jan/17 jan) might help now (tho moving to another city the day before does not help). I am again afraid that I will get into too much detail, and I want to avoid animating humans yet here I am with another story with humans :[ I just don't know where to start really, or what I want. I want a victorian inspired style, yet I want it timeless. I want realistic characters, but then not really. I want it complicated, but simple. And I don't want cut-out! But how can I animate humans attractively without making them stiff? I need to find a way to give myself some freedom in the style. Maybe I just need to make a quick animation test with the simple character concept design of Mr.Tophat.

And then the book! I would have loved to test real pop-up but that would mean I would need to go from top-view to side-view during the storytelling and that would kinda break the style. So I need to avoid that and just go with illustrations that animate through the pages. I wish I could make it interactive so that you can move the camera while it is animating and chose your own point of view, but I am not skilled enough for that and I can't think of someone who would be.

And the story @_@ I am currently drawing a lot of townspeople to just determine what kind of era I am looking for. But ofcourse the main character is Mr.Tophat. So maybe if I think out the story first, then I can decide how to tell it >.>
Oh my head...

test 2

2008-01-02T16:09:00.000+01:00

3 different siloutte styles. I dislike the middle one, it's too hard. The boy with the fish in the balloon is quite alright, and I guess because it's quite loosely shaded it wouldn't be TOO much work animating this kind of siloutte. The sir on the right is quite cool I think, but not so "poetic" - a bit too cartoony!

As soon as I found out the kind of technique I would like to use I can start making a test animation... FINALLY. I wish I had a set illustration style on forehand, like some people have. Meh.

test 1

2008-01-02T14:15:00.001+01:00

Test with more silouette like figures. More loosely, conté-like shading. I quite like this. I'm gonna see what else this brings.

Cobbled street

2008-01-01T23:45:00.001+01:00

Almost done... Not sure if I will finish it like I had in mind. I already found out the most important things and it's just a sketch. I wanted to know how much detail I could put in with still making the image readable, yet enhance the atmosphere.
Things I found out:
- don't use the default photoshop brush for lines. it makes them too fat
- images get read with shapes, so you need some shapes to organise the reading direction and/or rest the eyes
- details are read as random shades. which means for every detail you gotta add a clean shape to make it readable
- I can put much detail in the backgrounds, but to make the figures readable I need to make them solid shapes with little detail
- preferably I should make them solid black to contrast a detailed BG
- If I chose to keep the figures black I can try and add some colors to the BG since they don't need to be animated
- plus animating detailed figures sucks and I don't have the time for it
- experiment more with illustrative freedom - keep it simple, bianca
- make characters, not figures
- this is my limit with drawing a detailed BG.

washinglady

2007-12-31T11:38:00.000+01:00

part of a concept art

DissertationV1 done

2007-12-21T21:16:00.001+01:00

"...at the very heart of CGI is the 'pixel', which is essentially a small dot. It is created by manipulating electron light beams that are emitted by a cathode ray tube housed within a computer. Pixels are used to create the forms of computer animation; 'digital imaging' is the name given to this process." - William Hilf in his article 'Developing a Digital Aesthetic'.

The index is like this in short:
- Introduction
- Terminology
- A brief history of 2D animation
- And then there was... the computer
- CG(I)
- 3D CG (with a focus on 2D in 3D CG)
- 2D CG (with a focus on 3D in 2D CG and Studio Ghibli)
- 2D or not 2D?
- The future of CGI
- Conclusion

Now I can finally focus on my FMP after christmas!!! yay!!

Diss~

2007-12-17T14:28:00.001+01:00

I'm almost done with my dissertation. The theme is ' CGI '. Computer Generated Images. Had little time to work on it before last wednesday, because my life got turned upside down begin December and I had to sort that out first. But now that has settled a bit. The theme is in my own interest and geeking on computers and art is just wonderfull. Here's an image I made to illustrate what CGI in animation terms is (every image that is processed at some point thro the computer is CGI afterwards): click.

Also I got a feeling I need to watch Sweeney Todd. I just watched the 'making of' and esp. the costumes and surrealistic London are hot. I can't wait to start with my own sketching etc. For now I only quickly drew yet another victorian horror themed pic yesterday. It's what I use for the header of this blog for now...

For the Drama students:

2007-12-10T19:20:00.001+01:00

Hello, welcome to my blog, and thank you for checking it!

I know Jon Hyde has forwarded you an email I send with a request for voice actors for my Final Year Project. I hadn't expected it to be forwarded so soon - I had planned to make a proper poster with more specific details by January to which you could react. For now I can only briefly recap what is the essence of my FMP:

- The story is about a man with a large tophat that reaches to the sky. It will be set in rather more victorian atmosphere, and it will be guided by poems in English.
- The idea is to have an interactive book, where each set of pages reveals a new way of storytelling. Sometimes this is a pop-up, sometimes a moving image, sometimes just a small handdrawn animation. These animations will be guided by the voice-over.
- Because of the atmosphere I am looking for a warm, british male voice. But maybe another voice suits better! So please send me a demo of your voice, even if it's a crappy recording!

By Mid-January I will be able to give more specific details and visual material. I will request this to be forwarded again, so you can check again then. Your voice can be recorded in the NSAD school where there is a professional sound studio. I hope to do this early in the spring so that I can match my animation with the voice-over. Maybe I can even combine this with a visit to England and I will actually be there with you for recording!

Thank you for reading, please scroll down to see some visuals of the project and more specifics on the idea.

With kind regards,
Bianca

Moar Talk

2007-12-10T17:56:00.000+01:00

The idea of my FMP is still very raw, yet I try to get feedback on it in these early stages to prevent myself from making mistakes in the later process.
I did some research on old AND new children's book illustrations (to see some examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 - note that this does not mean I will prefer any of these examples for my FMP!!) and even some dutch poems from the early 20th century. But most of all I made a lot of copies of photographs taken during the 19th century. Like this one:
Because I am trying to avoid taking a drawing and representation style which has already been done many times before. I would like to take my own conclusions..

This is also Maarten's main concern, who emphasized doing my own thing and chosing my own visual language. But to be honest, it's much too early to take any conlusions in that area. At the moment I haven't even begun making sketches for myself that research the best and my very own visual language. So as to underline: any external examples I show on this blog or to the teachers do not represent what I will do, but as research material for posibilities that I could do!

However, I can understand any of the teachers concerns, because I have been mainly showing pictures and examples that I didn't make myself. And unfortunally it will take even a little longer, because I can't make any visual progress by myself now - even tho I am so very eager - because of the dissertation which has to be done by next week.

Maarten and Jasper did however give me some more guiding ideas as for the story of Mr.Tophat (which will most likely be my story). They thought some on the motivation of the character to have such a high hat. I had come up with a rather simple idea myself, but Jasper for example said he might have such a high hat because he is so small himself. And Maarten said, Mr.Tophat might have such a high hat to show and exagerate his social status - because during the victorian time tophats were becoming higher and higher just to show off.
In that way you can give the character a good motivation to get such an enormous hat, and wear it with pride, but at the same time give it a little moral: that such high persuits can lead to negative consequences if you go over the top.

So now for some more diss writing. Till in two or 3 weeks!
---

2007-12-03T14:09:00.001+01:00

The Somewhat Queer yet Silly Mr.Tophat
In old London lives a gentleman,
who's name is Mr. Bamford,
he looks quite like any other man,
yet there is one thing that is easy to spot.

On top of his head,
is something like a long black pipe,
it reaches all the way to the sky,
and Mr.Bamford wears it with pride.

It's a bit old and dusty,
and somewhat dented at that,
but all of London knows Mr.Bramford
for he also goes by the name 'Mr.Tophat'.

The Boy - Contrast Practice

2007-12-02T21:05:00.001+01:00

I hardly ever put contrast in my images, and the atmosphere I want for this project requires a VERY HIGH contrast. So I made this pic for fun. It's easy going horror/gloomy/emo in a victorian setting........ Old paper texture stays put!

Quick sketches

2007-12-02T21:00:00.000+01:00

Random ideas popping in my head quickly drawn out to get room for the next idea. Will be updated throughout the days... I think/hope.

René Paul Paulien Talk

2007-11-30T22:20:00.000+01:00

What is a Pop-up book?

Well, another text-only update.

I spoke with René and Paul (two of my teachers) about my FMP. If they are reading this, because they know I am a blog-whore, then 'Hi, you can skip your parts, because you already know of it' ;]

Both gave good pointers to steer my FMP more into the direction I want and be able to reach my goals. Several ideas that prompted in my head as I spoke with René. He said that I really needed to find out the story quickly and that it needed to be simple. And that the book could be some sort of logbook, clearing up a mystery based on a real old article.

But Paul said I had to look out that I don't come too close to my inpsiration sources, which are all named and clear.
He suggested I should make a book which I would like to own. Like a very special pop-up book. Where each page would show a new way to tell the story. Like one page a whole building unfolds three-dimensionally and the next a drawing gets drawn in as you read. The other page the photos can move, or a flying pen starts scribbling down the story. Stuff like that.
Each page would be a new discovery, and I could make it as long as I want. Because, so he said, you are clearly mainly interested in the technique and not really in a story (which is true).
Because the book is digital I could add features that go beyond the normal pop-up book, and animate my little pop-upped buildings (e.g. so Paul said: "A carriage pops up and several little cut-out people come walking to it").
He said: "Make the work title 'My Favorite Book' and work from that."

Which is a serious good and inspiring idea! I could do a lot of research how to make these things, and in each page I could pore my best. Which sounds like a lot of fun so starting today I will start with making blueprints of the book! (and the small story I will tell..)

I was also a bit looking for what kind of program I needed to use to make my book interactive. And then I met Paulien.
Paulien is a former-classmate of a previous school and she is now in her graduation year at the Avans school in Den Bosch. She studies Graphic Design. We talked a bit about the usual stuff, but my ears turned towards her as she mentioned that last year they had to make "digital books". Naturally I interrogated her, and discovered that you can make flip-able books in a special program. You have several freeware, but also one or two paid programs. She also said you could work with Adobe software (Go-Live) and that you could add moving .gifs at least (with ImageReady). But knowing Adobe, it's prob. also compedible with AfterEffects or Premiere.
She will inform me more details over the next week, and I will try to get a look at the things her class made on this subject.

In other news, my dissertation is starting to bite in my arse, and I seriously need to continue on it. Guh.

HP - moving portraits

2007-11-29T12:54:00.000+01:00

A short example of moving photo's ripped from youtube and then cropped, hence the bad quality. But it gives an idea. The images move for a few seconds, before fading back into the original pose. I am not quite sure how many seconds J.K.Rowling or the creators set for this. Because they seem to be quite long sometimes! Perhaps you can adjust the timing yourself on the camera..

Maarten Talk

2007-11-27T17:08:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I spoke with Maarten about my FMP (Final Major Project). I have not really updated any personal progress on this blog, because there is no visual process because I have been doing a commission that finishes this week.

As I spoke with Laura a week or so ago we discussed my ideas for the FMP. I told her about what atmosphere I like so much and she immidiantly was worried that I would lose myself in a big story and too much detail. I either had to pick or not reach my main goal this year which is: "Finish a FMP that I am proud of and can represent myself with to future workplaces."
I had thought about how to manage reaching the atmosphere I like, with still reaching that goal, but it is fairly impossible. It just takes too much time to get such detailed images and I am not a pro at 3D programs neither.

Suddenly Laura's boyfriend suggested to make a photobook. I immidiantly thought of the moving images of Harry Potter (yes I am a HP fangirl and I am openly admitting it here). They are ideal! Because I could tell a story without stumbling across some weak points I have (storytelling and good montage *cough*), not animate big sequences but lots of detail instead, place down a good atmosphere and make it old-fashioned with a good excuse.

I don't know the story yet, but as I suggested it to Maarten, he said to keep it simple and small. So that I could put all my effort in making it look t3h secks.
We briefly discussed that it might be possible to tell a story about such an old victorian house, and to avoid working with life-action actors, because I don't like that much (I have difficulty controlling them to my will).

I don't know what style I would work in. I like lifeaction x 3D, but at the same time am strongly in love with 2D, which also gives me endless possibilities. Hence my dissertation is about the best combo of 2Dx3D, and maybe after I have finished researching that I have a better view of how to e.g. adapt 3D for 2D goals.

So at the end of this week I will start looking for possibilities and take a better look at this photobook idea.

I mentioned that I would really like it if I could make the book interactive. I would like it most of all to make a real book with animated images - but that is future talk (click). So I am going to research a way to make a photobook where you can view the pictures at will and at your own speed, and maybe insert little hidden secrets. Maarten said to that: "That will make it like a game." As to which I replied: "Well maybe I want that." Because I am really in love with these pop-up books like the Ology-series and in this case also the Spiderwick pop-up book. If I could I would love to make such a book, but I don't have the time for that, and it has little to do with animation.

So for now... research/sketch time.

Links

2007-11-27T16:46:00.000+01:00

Spiderwick books (go to the Art Gallery)
Spiderwick Upcoming Movie
Unfortunate Events Movie - possibly my fav. website
The interactive Harry Potter Website seems down.
The website Jasper talked about: It's a game.

Will update with more inspiring websites if I find any.

.obj

2007-11-24T11:35:00.001+01:00

I was send the .OBJ to open in Maya and smoothen it to see how it looks, but atm I can't even see it in Maya. Maybe I need to ask Henk this monday as to how to do it.

edit* nvm got it now

I collab because I can ♥

2007-11-22T19:58:00.001+01:00

The person who made the 3D version of Noman asked if I had more modelsheets. He works in Zbrush and makes cool creature-designs (check his DA). Unfortunally I didn't have any modelsheets ready, but asked if he could perhaps help me out with my FMP and suggested that if he wanted to model anything I made now he could model the pen and book :]
He loved to help, so now he is modeling out these two drawings I made: the flying pen and the talking book.

Once I have those I can open the 3D models in Maya, texture them properly and add a skeleton. Then I can animate them as a test. And hopefully even use them for the film!

Sketch o' the day 02

2007-11-19T13:24:00.001+01:00

Bianca says:
TELL ME WHAT TO DRAW
Chris says:
a cogwheel lizard
Bianca says:
ok

Yes I am whoring the old paper texture!
Because old paper texture = cruise control for coolness

Sketch o' the day 01

2007-11-15T23:54:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it's a pain when they wake up and try to fly away while writing...

BRAND NEW Insprations Trailer

2007-11-15T17:36:00.000+01:00

At the beginning of this school year we had to make a trailer with bits of movies that inspired us. Didn't need to be animated.
I made a 2 minute trailer with nearly everything from "hell yeah, awesome!!" to "that's ok.". So it kinda was random.

So to get things clear for me I made a new one, specified on one specific atmosphere. I used 3 movies only for it. I could have added some more, but these 3 influenced me mostly.

Sorry for the bad quality, I had to compress it a lot to be able to host it up on youtube.

I guess the atmosphere I like includes:
- tuned down colors
- strong sunlight
- strong shadows (so hard contrast)
- autumn atmosphere
- classic victorian
- an air of mystique where magic is possible/probable

I LOVE camera movements thro large theatrical enviroments to impress the viewer. Obviously.

RE - E - WIND

2007-11-13T23:38:00.001+01:00

Okay so fresh new start. I've decided to scrap the old story and look at this Final Major Project (FMP) from a different light. With Noman I had so much pleasure in animating, that I was always looking forward to making him do one of those very expressive moves. With my original story I think I wanted too much too perfect. I would have no fun. Plus human characters are a pain in the arse to animate.

So I decided I needed to just STARTSKETCHINGomg. It is an approach I usually hate, because I fail at sketching pretty little things that match my usual illustration-standard and I just quickly discard them before anyone sees them D: But fuck it, it worked for Noman&THG so here you go.

From now on I will sketch untill I know what I will want my FMP about.

Things that need to be included in my FMP:
- books
- magic
- books
- moar books
- moar magic
- library of books
- little girl
- flying stuff
- atmosphere

Tomorrow I will rip movies again to get images I really like and make a new inspirational trailer, more focused on these things. Autumn always gets me in the mood.

Completely UNRELATED

2007-11-12T13:36:00.000+01:00

*le gasp* *sets whole page to english*

Just do it.

2007-11-12T02:32:00.000+01:00

And stop lying to yourself.