(Work in Progress)
While you can presently only see the W.I.P (Or “Work in Progress”), this image still represents 2 things: 1. That I really wanted to practice my painted pinup skillz & 2. A glimpse at Fawx’s world. Oh, and this will also be the setting for my Animated Short, which takes place when Fawx was but a young and immature 100+ year old elf!
I’ll post more on that, once I post the final version: Later tonight.
So, I’ve spent all of this last week’s “Free Time” planning my first Animated Short! I’ve got characters, designs, locations and script galore! Unfortunately, it’s all still in my head, since all real time was consumed by Managing the Gym, Setting up the office for my new job (Which I got today!), tilling the land for our own vegetable and fruit gardens, spreading horse poop, riding my motee-cycle, resting and Finishing Starcraft II with my father (Who played the original with me 10 years ago, when we weren’t playing the King’s Quest games!).
That means that I’ll be putting up a different update later tonight/tomorrow for the Monday update: Fawx in a Bikini. Consider it MONDAY FILLER MADNESS!
Hopefully my girlfriend will approve. Or not…
THIRD UPDATE
With the aid of Bleach to destroy my poison Ivy (Which I do NOT recommend you do yourself), I finally got my hands… and face… back to do some more work!
This update is about one of the leading ladies: Princess Ta’Meryl Fawx! Although it would be more accurate to say, “This update is about Character Expression, and this is our model.” In any good animation, characters need to express how they are feeling in any particular scene with more than just atmospheric musings and words. Good writing dictates that when a character is sad, he or she will most likely express that emotion visibly… like crying. Good Animation however, dictates that while this is true, not all characters that do cry, will cry the same way visibly.
Because no two people are the same, animation needs to express that while a style of art may remain the same, no two characters need actually LOOK or MOVE the same way. There are only two ways to really avoid this: Test Animations or/and Experience (Although the latter always tend to do tests before-hand anyway… which is why I am following THEIR lead.). For Ta’Meryl, I’ve outlined some of her most used expressions to outline before doing facial animations. She is Conceited, Careless & Oblivious, which tells me everything I need to know about her to outline, write and animate her in all future scenes.
Of course, I don’t expect you to take my word on all of this. Instead, be smart, and wait to see what I produce and judge for yourself. I could just be blowing smoke after-all.
SECOND UPDATE
So, disregarding a minor setback (Poison Ivy all over my hands, from the fence removal.) I decided on an update schedule for this blog! From this point forward, expect an UPDATE to be made EVERY MONDAY.
As is, I managed to redraw the protagonists (All 4 of them), as well as design 4 new characters, over the course of this last, poison ivy filled week! On top of that, I’ve got some concept pieces here as well as a good grasp of where the opening story is coming from, where it fits into the overall plot, Fawx’s expressions and how to best display her character right off the bat!
This week, I’m actually planning to do some character expression story-boards for the scene up-top! I won’t start animating however until the design document is written and the side-characters are all just as well-defined as the leading guys/gals.
A good story is just as meaningless with poor characters, as good characters go to waste in a poor story. <– This must be avoided!
