About this Blog

I am an MSc Animation & Visualisation student at DJCAD in Dundee, Scotland. "Once Bitten" is the working title for my personal project and final outcome short film. The characters in my film will be 2D, animated digitally, but the environments they inhabit will be filmed in live action.

"Once Bitten" is a story about a woman who meets a wolf cub alone in the forest, the mood is light and playful and about the pair of new friends escaping their normal lives. However the mood darkens when the cub accidentally falls into a human trap and his mother catches up with him and his new companion.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

3D model is UV mapped and Textured (mostly)

3D Anna is partially UV mapped and textured (the most important parts of her are anyway ;) ) This is part of my 3D brief for Masters... the circles i textured onto her cheeks will be handy to track into a 2D shot involving a complicated camera movement. For more in depth development of this part of my brief check out my Masters blog Here.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Animatic Complete!

The 1st draft of my animatic that i put together from my (new) storyboard and some recce footage and photographs. There’s no sound at this stage which is a shame as a lot of the audio that happens off screen explains the story. The timing is also very rough but what is encouraging at this stage is that i am sure it’s too long in places- and yet the whole thing is only 2mins 30 secs… so it can only get shorter with refinement :). I’ll be working towards a 2nd draft of this with audio and improved timing.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Model sheet WIP

I've been putting together a model sheet for ANNA as i go along. This is part of my pre-production process and also in partial fulfillment of my 2D masters brief, heres where i am with it so far. If i have time i will tidy up the lines and such digitally and put it together neatly. I will also use some poses i gathered from observational drawing at pre-natal yoga and life drawing with our pregnant model, Megan. When complete, the model sheet will act as a reference for animators on the form and personality of Anna.








Monday, December 1, 2014

I made a 3D model of Anna!

This was a requirement of my brief, to model a character designed in 2D in 3D... so here is Anna, modelled in Maya with some simple shaders dropped onto her...

I may decide to use the model to test lighting and what not in her live action background or even as reference when animating a complicated camera move- for example to make sure she is accurate in a 180 degree turn. But just to clarify- i am still hoping to animate my short in 2D with live action environments.

If you'd like a better idea of my process for modelling her take a look at my  MSc Blog where there are lots of screen shot WIPs .