There are so many fresh and exciting developments in the CG bloggosphere this week, I am once again struggling to stay ahead of the curve! This, of course, is good news - great news - because it means the motor is running hot and you're all up-and-at-it and the CGAA community is a-buzz with the speculative delights and successive refinements of pre-production. As a result, this maybe the single longest PWTM yet, so get your scroll bar at the ready - you're going to need it! So, in no particular order...
Rich V-C is developing this character who'll be taking centre-stage in his made-in-Maya illustration, progressing quickly from provisional sketches to more resolved turnarounds...
...while Sam is revisiting and revitalising H.G. Wells' much-loved sci-fi classic, The Time Machine.
... and Shahbir is getting bluesy with a disgruntled bird and soulful Lumbricus rubellus.
Matt Hyland has swapped rollerskates for sky-pirates, with aircraft designs deriving from creatures of the deep...
Jordan is working hard to identify the most apposite phizog for his pianist character for his new animated short, Minor Key...
... and Ruben is putting the finishing touches to Olivier, an ebullient pastry chef, who will be taking his audience on a feel-good romp through a fantasia of Glacé cherries and royal icing.
Simon Watts is exploring shaders in preparation for his vehicle design project, based on the novels of Daniel Suarez.
Jolanta's 'Queen of the Baltic Pixies' is a complex and contradictory creation; regal and childish, friend and foe, she combines bird, insect and diva in her imperious countenance. Be sure to watch JJ's latest animatic featuring professional voice artist, Jenny Dunbar. The first time I heard Jenny's talk track, the hairs on my neck stood all the way up.
CGAA Year 2 are 4 weeks into their Transcription unit, and the range and scope of creative methodologies and sorts of projects excites and satisfies. Molly is seeking to create the lair of the Sea Witch from Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Sea Maid - and has been using a number of creative techniques by which to imagineer the environment, including filming ink swirls in water and then taking the resulting imagery into Photoshop...
Dom is designing Beowulf's nemesis, Grendel, a creature whose appearance is disputed by scholars, which gives Dom free reign to explore a number of exciting approaches to visualising the beast...
Alex P is transcribing her music choice into a synesthesiac animation, working with Kandinsky-inspired interpretative drawings to create an abstract audio-visual 'happening'...
... and Adam is searching for his perfect 'Jack Frost' - by combining shapes extracted from original photography of trees, branches and roots - some of these silhouettes dance and leap off the page - and the best of them crackle with a certain impishness and mischief.
Paul is transcribing a section from his grandfather's wartime memoirs. With its Chagall-like magic realism and Englishness of Raymond Briggs, it's affecting - even at the animatic stage.
Andi's transcription of one little girl's highly imaginative answer to the question 'What do aliens look like?' is progressing with admirable speed and efficiency. Check out the animatic - it has bags of innate charm and I defy you not to be smiling by the end of it.
CGAA Year 1 are a week away from crit day for Unit 4 Storytelling. Years 2 and 3 will no doubt remember the creative challenge of writing your first script for a one minute animated short and then pre-producing it, complete with character sheets, storyboards and cg pre-vis. Year 1 are working their socks off to ready their story ideas for the deadline, and I've included a small selection of their recent output below - to encourage, cajole, enthuse and inspire! (Keep at it, you lot!).
Ollie
Ilmi
Alice
Emma
Oh - and a little something extra: Nat, who is 'out of sight, but not out of mind' has been beavering away on a self-initiated self-portrait, the progress of which Nat has been sharing via her blog. Personally, I think some deely boppers and a false moustache would lend additional gravitas to this image... :)
Not content with retro-fitting mushrooms to thrilling effect, CGAA graduate and masters student, Tom Beg is at it again - and this time he's mapping real world objects and transforming their mundane surfaces into screens for the play and shimmer of his projections. I suspect these latest experiments of Tom's are just the tip of an iceberg, so watch this space!
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The Last Word.
"Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress." Alfred A. Montapert
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