The kick about at Red's Kingdom is underway, the first prompt being Moon In A Bottle by Max Ernst,
I enjoy creating using a process like this, trusting there's method to your madness to end up with something in the end is what I am attempting to put into practice nowadays - it's basically a form of automatism.
I think it's important to know that you can peel it back - If something works you can turn your thinking cap back on and try and make sense of it to understand why. That golden moment when something clicks and the piece starts to make sense is a feeling I crave every time.
Max Ernst -Moon In A Bottle
At first I tried to think of how Moon In A Bottle made me feel, the way that the painting bends around towards you makes it feel encapsulating, it brings an uneasy feeling like something is trapped... or maybe thats just lockdown?? also what the hell is that red and purple thing in the middle? so many questions too difficult to answer... so I started to paint.
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〰️I envision a beach with textured hard shells and unfamiliar effigies hiding in the sand and waiting to pounce at the twinge of life
Manifestation 1
Manifestation 2
〰️But the moon illuminates, it casts a glow on everything, a bottle on the other hand is man made - it could be plastic - it could be glass, it could be melted or it could be hard like a shell? But it too reflects and can glow.
Long time no see blogger... I apologise for the lack of updates here, truth be told I really miss it and want to get back into the swing of things - I forgot how cathartic blogging is as well having a time capsule to relive all the creative endeavours that projects relinquish over time.
Who would have thought that I would leave one basement albeit a lot more nerdy and multicoloured and enter into a different one - I have been working as a runner at the Mill since the end of July last year, and although I can't complain as it is a job and I do enjoy it, it is sometimes really hard to not spend a good chunk of my day creating things (I've no excuse now). I do love being with the other runners, they are great bunch and I can't wait to give them a big hug when this is all over!
Album drop coming soon...
Please enjoy this satire view of the life of a runner for the annual Christmas video competition.
However when things are quiet in the basement where all of us runners reside (and when we are not jumping in slomo or eating our weight in Coco pops) you can bet I'm taking time chipping away at something. I would like to share an assortment of info and paintings that I created pre-lockdown while in the basement.
The title of the film is still up for debate... I am trying to keep it in the folds of my brain in the hopes that I will have one of those eureka moments and the film name will just come to me - I'll await patiently, or I probably should do some spider graphs. I can however share the Logline, it reads:
“One day, a man leaves his car on a motorway choked with traffic to find an oasis of nature and some peace”
The Oasis Concept Art
The Metropolis Concept Art 1
The Metropolis Concept Art 2
The Metropolis Concept Art 3
The Metropolis Concept Art 4
Translating these pieces into 3D has been a lot of fun, I am trying to keep the original scratchiness and texture of the paintings and bring that into the mundane greyness of Maya, so far these are my efforts with the Oasis World, I am liking the look of the last couple of renders as they were more experimental, thanks to Phil Gomm who advised me to apply what I learned from Lost Boy when coming up with the art room where I was just experimenting to see where things went.
They resulted from throwing a bit of abstraction in the mix, taking inspiration from impressionistic painters from the likes of Monet to really get my own impression of this blissful slice of heaven.
The Oasis Render 1
The Oasis Render 2
The Oasis Experimental Render 1
The Oasis Experimental Render 2
The Metropolis World has been really enjoyable to toy around with, Ever since the many fuck ups but eventual successes with alpha maps during Lost Boy, I feel like I have a grasp about how to utilise them now. Alpha maps are fantastic because you can turn concept art into geometry within Maya to try and get the feel of the original paintings, they are my secret weapon for making Maya look less CG perfect.
The Metropolis Render 1
The Metropolis Render 2
Because of this Lockdown I am enjoying getting some sun on my pasty Irish face in my dainty, pip-squeak of a yard - a little alfresco creation station if you will and continuing to experiment while listening to the weird and wonderful lyrics of Glass Animals. I'll leave you with one of my personal faves and I'm looking forward to continue reviving this blog with more updates of this new passion project. X
I have been going back and finessing the animation throughout Lost Boy as well as setting up the render settings for each shot - I will upload a progress report soon showing the more polished animation. Here is a WIP of the start of the ending showing young Graeme and his Umbrella that I didn't get to animate previously, as well as frame renders - a few notes about the frame renders I notice now that the red is much too hot on shot 16 - I really need to render stills on my laptop as the colour quality on my external monitor where I animate with Maya is really subpar, also I forgot to dial up the colour on Present Graeme's Torso for Shot 7 and I think I need another light to the left of his face,
It's a smorgasbord of emotions to realise that the last two years of seeing this project is soon coming to an end. I have worked really hard to ensure that Lost Boy tells my story - past, present and future and it has been a joy to see it flourish even though its not finished yet. Because this project is really personal I found it hard in the initial stages to open up about my past and let it go and out into the world, but I cannot express how glad I am that I have done so as it feels cathartic to have it out of me,
I loved being as detailed as possible when it come to the world of lost Boy with particular emphases on the UVs and sets as those possessions I did own and things that were written on desks and pencil cases come from personal experience, I also enjoyed being kind of meta with the film as all I ever wanted to do from a young age was to create and to show this through Young Graeme felt like stepping into a time machine - having the bully rip apart the cover page of the art of was fun as it shows the struggle that I felt in school, and it was lovely animating the scene in the closet when present Graeme passes art with having more of the pages of the Art of littered on the desk to show that he never gave up and kept going forward with his art was enjoyable.
My least favourite aspect of this project had to be the rigging and skinning process as I had so many issues, I did and redid the pose space deformers for each character more times than I would like to say and it was really frustrating when something would fuck up and feeling like it wasn't your fault and trying to figure it out where it went wrong was tough, I had to completely redo the skeleton for Mrs Pratt when she was near completion as I had her joints in the wrong place, I also had to unbind rebind and repaint weights with all characters as the joints in them had rotations and the majority of the time the export paint weights option would produce horrendous results meaning that after correcting the placement of the joints I had to repaint the paint the weights which is so time consuming, all these mess ups have thought me that rigging and skinning is very time consuming and honestly it was something that I put off for Minor as I knew I would struggle with it, but I have learned a lot from having so many mess ups I definitely feel more confident in doing it for future characters.
I felt a tinge of apprehension with trying to find a composer for Lost Boy only because I am a perfectionist and it's kind of scary to hand the reins over to someone to bring the film to life through sound as sound is so important. It is hard to explain through words what you want the sound to be like as how can you describe what nostalgia sounds like? in the end I built a trust with Brian Freeland the composer as he understands the film and I loved it when he said he wanted to nail the ending as he said its important for the viewer to get the meaning of Present Graeme talking to his former self, I am glad that I let Brian do his thing as the sound turned out beautifully even though this is a first draft and it can only improve from here, I am confident that Brian will add an element of magic to the film through sound... I must admit I did well up when Brian gave me a chunk of the sound for when present Graeme's head pops off into the rocket to introduce Young Graeme - it really gets across the innocence and nostalgia, I am so glad that I went with Brian to do the score.
I am glad that I made a shot list for Lost Boy as it really helped me to stay on track for each shot as I had 72 in total it would have been easy to get muddled up with wondering how long each shot would last so it was handy to have the shot list next to me when animating a scene as I didn't have to worry about making a shot too long or short and then having to spend more time extending or editing a shot down in post.
Lost Boy has thought me that I want to be a director - I absolutely love messing with cameras to convey emotion and I find myself having to take a step back as I can get lost in camera movements and spend too much time trying to perfect them, I also really enjoyed the animation,
I think the heart of Lost Boy revolves around the three characters and although their animation can definitely be improved I think I have got across there persona's to a point - Mrs Pratt definitely needs more work as those tassel's are tough to animate and because of her long skirt no matter much time I spent painting the weights I couldn't get them to move right when I moved her feet - resulting in weighting everything to her pelvis which makes it kind of feel like her bottom half is too wooden but is something I can work on, The animation of the whole film still needs to be refined and can look so much better which I am looking forward to doing as I feel like I can animate now compared to the shots at the start of the film, My Art Of was rushed I had a lot more elements that I have screenshots for - rigging and skinning for example that I didn't get to include but this is something that I will work on so that it looks well when I get it printed.
I also enjoyed how collaborative it felt from Phil getting the story out of me and helping with edits to Alan helping me all the way through with Maya, to my classmates helping me with ideas that would work for the film. I am really proud of myself and my film and I honestly I found myself not wanting to do much else and got a bit obsessive with it because honestly I love my film and want to continue to make it the best it can be. I have grown my technical skills but also as a person, when I think back to the person I was in first year I think I am more confident in myself and my abilities and I know now that I will always work my hardest to see something through I just want to always move forward and take into consideration everything I have learned from the past three years into continuing to evolve creatively and personally - Now that I have the skills I need I cannot wait to take them into future projects and get those ideas and stores that I have always wanted to tell out into the open, I am exited to know that I can actually do that now :)
I am not satisfied with the lighting that goes across Mrs Pratt's hair, I have been having a lot of issues with renders where my textures won't show up when I render with Arnold or rendering sequence, it is hit and miss when it decides to work, I will return to this turnaround at a later date.
Manifestation 3
Manifestation 8
