Friday, February 29, 2008

Trees ala Incredibles

Here are some nice trees I found in The Art of The Incredibles book.



Monday, February 25, 2008

Potential Cloud Direction

I really like the way the clouds are done in 300. They used a series of compositing tricks to mix watercolor and coffee stains with actual clouds, creating a surreal effect. We might take a similar direction, probably pushing the watercolor more (as in the graphic novel).

I did a test on this image from the movie to see what the sky would look like if it were blue.


This is a test of mixing different elements through compositing. Instead using of real clouds as in 300, I found some cartoony ones and created some blotchy paintings in Photoshop. It didn't turn out quite as I had hoped... but it's a basis for discussion.

Environs

Here are some environment concepts I've been working on, compiled together for ease of viewing.





robot modeling

I spent some time modeling the robot from the orthos that were approved at our last group meeting. I'm still not exactly sure how everything is attached (like his neck and arms) or what the back end looks like. I've done some research on some sweet vintage tail lights from classic cars. I've also included some reference to show the direction I'm going to go. I may even give him a trunk.









I also found an awesome toy which very closely resembles the faux alpaca costume which the robot will be wearing. I'm not sure exactly why this man is wearing a dead horses head and neck, but I would consider getting myself one if it was readily available/affordable.


Thursday, February 21, 2008

Environment Concepts

sketches and photoshop paintovers...

environments:













foliage:


Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Animatic Audio Needs

A list of sound effects we need for the animatic (add to the list as needed, and mark existing entries as done):
  • happy/upbeat intro music
  • braking, skidding to stop
  • hooves on grass
  • robot motor/RC car/toy plane engine
  • ding ding ding/confirmed selection ding
  • less excited ding
  • ice in a blender/vacuuming up rocks - done by al
  • spitting, hocking up a loogy
  • clank, ricochet
  • swarming/buzzing bees - done by al
  • "fist in mustard" for beehive falling on head - done by al
  • galloping/running
  • yoooong (not yong-yong-yong), stretching rubber - done by al
  • thwap/ smack - done by al
  • high pitch/squeaky scream - done by al
  • poop slap - done by al
  • wet squish - done by al
  • flies humming
  • farting/pooping - done by al
  • sad/discouraged beeps
Edit by Alex: I've begun to go through the Hollywood Edge sound effects CD's in the audio collection here at the lab. I've found a lot of what we need, grabbed some random beeps and high pitched motors as well. I'll keep searching.

Edit by Alex 2: All the foley sounds I pulled are located on Brock -> tmp1 -> alpacaSounds.

Monday, February 18, 2008


Here is a rough digi-paint of one of the storyboards. I thought it might help everyone think about the color palette and the style of the finished product.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Robot Conceptualization

So I did some heavy conceptualization of the robot. I narrowed down the possibilities by limiting him to either wheels or treads (no legs) and tried to make him cute, without making him look like wall-e. There were two directions that I wanted to take him. Either streamlined (such as american machine age design), or steampunk (a sub genre of fantasy, set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used, here is a wikipedia link).

I am completely fascinated by mid-century American design, streamlined things in particular. Here is some reference I found for that type of design:








And here are some steampunk references:







And here are the results. I have posted a plethora of designs. After conferring with my cohorts, I created a new design and made some color concepts which would best reflect my most recent progress.