Bye bye new york, hello reality with lots of work!

Haven't posted for a while because I was away in a little town called New York which was awesome thankyou for asking!

Anyway... got straight back in to my lion king project and I've managed to finalize Pumbaa, Rafiki and Scar! Having trouble with Timon and Simba though!

here's what i got so far, i used illustrator to colour my designs, there not finished yet, just thought i'd give you a sneek peak! 

Owain Emanuel Studios!

Pixar have a lamp, Dreamworks have a moon and disney have a castle....I on the other hands have a sandwich. The greatest opening to a film yet!!

Monkey boiiii!

I have to say this is one of the most enjoyable projects I've done, creating a title sequence for Lee Evans book. I really think I chose the right idea to base my sequence on because I enjoy Lee as a stand up, as an actor, his books and just his overall character.

I think I always had an idea in mind on what road I wanted to go down with this project so I always knew exactly what I was planning. I obviously did try different ideas out though. From the last post you can see that I tested what kind of look I wanted, being quite plain, cut out, old 60s plain coloured background so last weeks I've been planning what kind of scene I could have from his life, roughly how should it look. I've been really trying to narrow it down without finalizing it which was hard. Really played on the umbilical cord to make sure that people know what way the screen is panning and to represent aspects of his life. I also wanted to capture some heart and feeling in to the sequence so I had this idea of the background changing to what kind of mood the aspect his life was in at the time. So here's some of the planning I've done.

 This is a rough copy of how the sequence will pan out, I need to still tweak a few things but it'll be something like that!

Preee production Lion king!

I had a nightmare about Timon and Pumbaa trying to kill me the other night so maybe I'll stay far away from watching the Lion King any time soon!

Pre production is going better since my last post, I still struggled with Simba a lot, because he has no recognizable features besides maybe the big main. I stepped back a bit for the last two weeks, not trying to create a pretty picture or a finalized one but just rough out some sketches and body shapes and see what kind of characters I come up with. I really wish I experimented more with different gestures but the last few days I've been watching the lion king dvd and watching what kind of poses they do. One prime example is that Scar moves and acts quite camp at time but still has an evil and smart elegance about him, so that helped me capture his character in my design more.

Simba: Been trying all sorts of ways to draw him, some I like, some I really really don't like, but hey...cant make an omelet without breaking some eggs first!

 Really like the style of the one here in the middle bottom.

 really like the one of Rafiki and Simba getting high, wish I'd drawn more of the characters interacting with each other.

Scar, since the last post you can see he has more a presence to him.

Rafiki: Loved drawing him, i want him to look wise but at the same time he is still a druggy.

Ex graduate Chris Phillips came in wednesday to show us how to draw on photoshop, he asked us to draw a character quickly, so I thought I might aswel go with my project so I drew Rafiki. I don't think it's the best, but I gave it my best shot and it's a learning curve so next week hopefully I'll improve.

 Some stylistic designs, using shapes, colour, photoshop and illustrator. Really like the colour choice with Timon.

oops

just shat my pants

Lee Evans and Simba

For the title sequence I decided to go with the Lee Evans biography 'The Life of Lee' I just finished reading. His book literally blew my mind, it's so honest and inspiring and very, very funny. There's so many different events in his life that shaped him to be the man he is today, and when I read them I always pictures little animations or Illustrations, so I thought why not putt my ideas to paper and use it for my project.

Im happy with what I've got so far, just designing different types of Lee Evans characters, but I think I'm going to go with the cut out look idea. I really like the look of the Neon Trees music video 'Everybody talks', which is very cut out and simple movements. While at the same time I like the look of the Pink Panther title sequence where the colours are very dim, and the animation are very simple. I like how the characters play around with the text and show with little acts what the programs about. So here's some of my designs and rough storyboards so fat.

Bit of a rough look of what I've got in mind.

Back to the Lion King, struggling with Simba, but here's a few ideas I had in mind.

Designs!

Long time no see blog! Haven't posted for a while ovbiously because I've been doing work all the time. Here's some the Lion King re-creation designs I've been doing for the characters I chose. There's Pumba, Timon, Scar and Rafiki. I'm currently doing some Simba sketches so I'll upload those tomorrow. Still got a lot more designs to do, trying different styles, etc. So far I'm pretty pleased with the designs, I had a mental block last weekend, talk about bad timing! Im really happy with the look of Pumba, Timon and Rafiki, BUT! I'm struggling a lot with Simba and Scar. Im getting closer to scar, but i need to step back and mess about with different shapes, and stop trying to have the polished character. Hakuna Matata say!
   Here they are, any feedback will really help so feel free...

Pumbaa

Timon

Rafiki

Scar

Messed about with different media for the backgrounds, thought that if I had a visual idea of what the backgrounds may look like, that ideas for the characters would magically pop in my head...soo far it's kind of worked!