Foliage Designs

These are the designs for trees, fallen branches and rocks that Eline Lindaas has drawn up. The idea was to combine how the arctic trees really look with inuit art design, drawing upon their patterns and their sculptures slightly rough, quirky carved forms. I really like the straight birch tree designs, I can see them looking very good when made into models. The full birch tree with the many branches is too realistic however. 

I then selected the best designs from Eline's drawings and the ones I did earlier and put them into some selection sheets. I also recoloured the fallen branches and rocks to make them blue, to avoid any confusion, as this is the actual colour they will be. Everything needs to have a blueish tone, to keep with the colour scheme.

Background Concepts

Here are some background concepts. I think the second one works really well as the colours are quite strong and slightly ominous, fitting with the mood of the scene.

Tree Designs

I drew some visual reference of Arctic trees and then tried to put an Inuit spin on them.

Birch trees: the one on the right is a more realistic version, but has the simplified form of an Inuit sculpture. The others are more abstract and have an Inuit pattern on them rather than the usual birch tree markings.

This is an idea for trees shown in the far background, which will be cut outs rather than 3D models. So this could be painted on something like cardboard.

I put together this concept of Aluki in a more realistic landscape, I think it looks alright but it doesn't sit quite right somehow. It may be because she is quite stylized, so would look better in a more stylized world.

Sugary Salty Snow

I made some tests for snow, using salt and sugar.

Sugar

Salt

Sugar and Salt Mix

Ground Sugar and Salt Mix

The ground salt and sugar test, which I ground up in a blender, looks the most like snow. It has the same thick, powdery texture as snow. And footprints hold quite well in it. The snow concoction goes hard after a couple of days, but that shouldn't be an issue for my film..

The Building Of Igloos

Here we have some material tests to see what the igloo should be made out of. These were created by Martin Burn. I think the sanded plastic one (front left of the group photo) has the best texture and looks pretty interesting with the light shining through it

Martin also made a mock igloo, to check that it is the right size for the puppets. We decided it needed to be a little bigger to allow room for me to get my hands in comfortably, allowing me to be able to move the puppets about when animating.

Aluki's Igloo: Interior

Igloo Designs

Scrawling On Windows

Concept piece of Eliza looking depressed in rainy old England. She is drawing stick figures of animals in the condensation on the window, which would then come to life in a miniature animation. 

Inky Transitions

A concept to show the scene where Eliza climbs down inky vines that have formed from the zebra's stripes. This allows her to transition from one scene to the next without having a cut. I like this image as it has quite a cutout feel to it, like I've grabbed loads of different coloured papers and collaged them together.

Frolicking With Zebras

Concept piece of Eliza running with zebras. 

African Sunset

Here we have various versions of a concept design for Eliza in Africa. I feel the first one works the best as it is the most dramatic lighting wise.

Furniture Designs For Deep

Here are some designs I drew up for the old fashioned, slightly battered and broken furniture that will line the cell. I've taken inspiration from Tim Burton to create the off kilter designs. Derek asked me to incorporate the shape of an ancient Greek lyre into the back of the chair, so this is shown in the second image. The idea is that there will be lots of little classical Greek references like this in the film, to reinforce the whole Perseus-Medusa thing that's going on in the plot.

Deep

Here's another drawing I did for the background design of my scene in 'Deep'. I was testing out a wooden look as this was another option we discussed in our meeting. I created this with pen and watercolour, adding colouring pencils over the top to add more texture. It's a bit messy but you get the idea. Also I'm really not too sure what I was doing when I stuck the random black pillar in the central foreground.....so yeh just pretend that bit's not there.......

Deep

One of our modules for this semester is to help out with our tutor Derek's film, 'Deep'. I chose to work on the stop motion scene, for which an animatic had already been created by previous students. I've included this below:

I'm working alongside Paris Washington, Harry Bayfield and Emily Henshall. We want to go for a style which draws upon the works of Tim Burton and the Quay Brothers. I have drawn up an initial concept piece created with black fineliner pens and then edited it in Photoshop. In our group meeting we discussed how the cell was like a make shift one that the mob boss quickly threw together in the cellar of his mansion, so it would contain an assortment of old furniture, perhaps covered by white dustsheets. I made the ceilings arched to create more of a dungeon type feel and kept my pen marks quite scribbly to get an erratic textured look.