Le Patissier- Animatic Ver.1 with footage

After a lot of delay, I have been able to work on the animatic, by taking Alan's advice of using footage from other animations and films onto mine to use as a choreography for my piece, I began editing scenes that I felt that i wanted to add into the animation. So with no further ado here is the 1st version of the animatic.

I have added a few notes for more information.

 

 Meanwhile I have been working on the initial sound effects that will be added on the beginning of the animation, before the character enters the cake/ abstract world.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Modelling IV

Hectic is the word to describe my life at the moment, juggling is still going between 3 parts of my life, which is great to gain experience. However, time is scarce and every time I have is to work on any respective work. However, regarding the university project as I was called again to work my commission I have decided to carry on and finish the character model which is pretty much done and just needs minor details such as hair and the hat. 

On my last tutorial with Alan, he also helped work on the animatic, something that I have been struggling with. being more of a choreography/ dancing project, He suggested me to use footage and then edit it onto the animatic, so I could relate the footage with any proposed shots, then I would only have to draw over the actions and substitute the footage with my boards. As soon as the character modelling is done, I will work on the animatic non-stop to resolve that part of the pipeline.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Modelling III

Here is a quick update, to let you know how the character model is evolving. I have finished the body, and any more details will be added in texturing. (however as I am writing I Just realised i have missed the buttons. they will be model quickly and added to the final model). Next stop head modelling. Also, I will take this weekend to return to the storyboard and create the animatic, up for feedback.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Modelling II

Lately, my life has been very hectic, juggling university work, my money job, and a newly acquired commission, therefore my lack of posts regarding university work. Although the little activity on here, the university work, has been going ( not as fast as I have wished) but it is going.
One of the great news, is that I have been commissioned to do a design project, unfortunately details can not be shared, it has been a good experience, that is allowing me to know new software, acquiring better design skills with a high standard of quality.

With this commission, something was revealed to me, that i would need to improve the access to my website featuring my work. So i decided to buy a domain for my website, and make the url link more user friendly.

so to visit my website you will only have to type:

 www.ruben-martins.co.uk

With more university related work, I have decided while working on the commission to carry on modelling the character. 

so here is the progress: 

Legs and Feet

 Hands

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Modelling Began!

Whilst working the storyboards, I began to feel unwell last week, therefore to keep at work as time is always your enemy i decided to work on the first bits of production. by starting to model the character, i opted for a less tiring task while feeling unwell.

So here is the character so far!

 

In this project, I want to step up in terms of modelling skills therefore while modelling this character have been extra mindful about topology and edge flows. 

Now that im feeling better I will move onto finishing the rest of the storyboard while working on the Olivier 3D model. 

 

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Major Project: Le Patissier, Concept Art- The Wedding Cake

Fro the previous thumbnails, I decided to choose another and take it further into a finished concept art piece. Here is the wedding cake. from a more subjective view.

Also this time, i made development sheet, showing the progress from thumbnail to final piece.

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Major Project: Le Patissier, Environment Design I

While, on one side I have been doing boards for the animatic, I have also been moving along with the other tasks in pre-production, and aiming to finish the designing stage very soon. with the character done I moved into visualizing the environment. yummy!

I have done some initial thumbnails of the 2 environments that my animation will have. the patisserie and the cake world.

 With a few favourites of mine, respectively. 3, 5 and6, i decided to take one further, and produce a concept art.

 

A few more to come!! Stay Tuned!!

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Major Project: Le Patissier, Prop Design

While I starting to draw the storyboard, I took some time to explore the important props for the animation. These being the cake, the piping bag and the spatula.

While designing the piping bag, i came across and idea which can influence the animation, while the piping bag will assume a normal role in the real world being used by the patissier. In the cake world I firstly had the idea to have it become an oversized one which the patisserie carries over his shoulder. However as i was exploring a different idea came to my mind. having the piping bag as a companion to the patissier as he bounces the piping bag accompanies him, behaving and decorating on his own. In terms of animation it would be literally like animating a prop by maybe using blend-shapes and little rig. Having these prop assuming this position towards the patissier will allow me to use it a few times throughout the animation, and use it surely in repetition.

Therefore I initially began exploring it.

 With the developing and brainstorming of the prop, I arrived to a design which is little a minimalist version of the patissier a chubby, short cute prop little helper.Therefore I decided to create a quick turnaround to help me model it. 

I have also explored the look of the spatula. 

 

Last but not least, I have explored initially the cake design. I decided to create profile and top view of the cake, explaining all the elements I want to add. Also in order to research my cake details I opted to draw and specify their look. 

Further cake design will be done already in 3D where i will mock up a cake and apply these elements and then play easily with colour. Yum! 

Finally, while designing and developing the cake, I came across another idea to influence the story. When i  talked with Phil last week, he suggested me to use the screen frame and position in my favour, for instance having a character walking from left to right on the ground floor where other would go down to the top. of the right side. This idea would work great when the character is creating the wall of icing roses on the side of the cake. As my initial idea was to have the character steps become the flowers, the idea of using the frame would emphasize the upward decoration visible on the cake design and would enforce believability.

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Major Project: Le Patissier Title Experiment

As a working title, my animation has as title Le Patissier, meaning the Pastry Chef in English. With these working title, I began experimenting with fonts in order to get the title designed.

In my opinion, the titles which work best are number 1 and 2, however I'm more inclined to number 1, as I really like the curvature of the font, it is interesting that it also reminds me cake writing with the piping bag.

**EDIT:

After receiving some feedback about the font, I decided to explore the many effects on the first font design, from the page above I really like number 2, the bold version of it. As it keeps the simple but chubbier.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Final Character Pose & Profile Sheet

Here it is the final character design painting, I have used the precious pose and decided to paint it.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Final Character Pose & Silhouette

With most of the design sheets done, what is left is to pose the character, and paint it.

here is the final pose and the silhouette, to see if it is working as a recognizable character.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Expression Sheet

As promised here is the expression sheet for Olivier, this sheet features possible expressions that Olivier may do throughout the animation, with these drawings I will be able to recreate this same expressions in 3D.

In terms of character design tasks, I almost done with everything, only left is a few action shots and the final pose digitally painted.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Final Colour

As Mac and Windows dont seem to share the same colour scheme on the monitors, I have taken the pastry chef colour and tweaked it. the major change was the complexion on the characters which I chose to have a warmer colour. On the final digital painting I will add, blushing or red complexion around the cheeks. Thus far, the character has the intial colour on.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Props Sheet

Here is the props sheet for the Patissier character, this sheet explores the props that the character will have on him.

Next, will be working on the expression sheet, and the last design sheets for the character.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Size Sheet

here is the Size Sheet of the character, although i don't have any other characters I compared with the most important prop in the animation. This wedding cake is only shown as a cake because no design has been done on it so far.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Head and Body Ortographs

To understand the character it is crucial to create turnaround model sheets, this allows us to to understand how the character looks from front and side views, as well as to know if the proportions are working.
Another advantage of a model sheet is that it is a crucial drawing that helps translate the 2d design onto 3D.
Therefore, here is a separate model sheet for the head and the body.

EDIT: I have experimented with the hair as suggested, and i really liked the results.

This extra detail on the hair, allows the silhouette to be more interesting,  and to follow the idea of the whipped cream shape.

I have quickly edited the ortographs also.

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Colour Experimentation

With the final design of the character done, I will be moving onto creating model sheets to help me translate the character from 2D to 3D, such as turnarounds and expressions sheets. However before that, I have decided to begin experimenting with colour, which then will help me create the final posed version of the character fully digitally painted.

With these 3 colour variations, I have like a few colours used in each of them. Firstly the uniform, I opted for a fully clean white, the trousers will be chequered and a red scarf. In terms of character complexion, I have opted for a brighter whitish one, and a slightly darker nose (which reminds of Disney). The facial hair, will be a lighter hazelnut colour like variation 1, finally for the eyes, I have chosen blueish.

 Therefore the final colour choice looks like : 

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Body Development

The Final Head design was done, therefore I decided to work parallel and explore the body of the character.

For the body shape of the character I have decided to stylise it a lot, just so I will be able to animate in numerous impossible ways. Although, I tried a few different body variations in terms of overall shape, I decided to opt for a smaller head, big rounded body and tiny feet.

Here is the Final Character Design:

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Major Project: Olivier, the Patissier, Character Face Development

Having a clear idea how I want to the character, and being exploring various possibilities for his design, I have began to narrow down my choices and develop them into final designs. From the previous studies, I have chosen one with pear shape head, therefore I decided to take it further and explore a few more variations on the head shape. 

After developing the head shape, I found the final head design. however some of the assets needed some developing, therefore I created a few variations for facial hair and the hats on the character. 

Exploring with these variations was crucial to arrive to a final design for the character, by choosing facial hair number 3 and hat number 5. The final head design was done. 

Next, I will be exploring the body and how it relates to the head. Stay Tuned !

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