Raven Design

In order to do the introduction for the Raven project I need to come up with a simple design for the Raven itself. I came up with the above design using simple geometric shapes and linework for the feet. The crown is to be added for the final shot as per requested by Sophie. It represents how the ravens are kept and treated as if they are royalty.

Animation Tests

With my work for Heroes seemingly completed I decided that it was time to get started on the Introduction for the Ravens. I wanted to see how effectively I could create a fly through in 2d. I also had to take into consideration that the route used in the Introduction may have to portray the thames.

Here is the initial Fly through test. I think it works surprisingly well using only 3d image planes and position animation in After Effects. Using After Effects would also allow me to easily composite the 2d animated bird over the top.

Above is a brief water test created in After Effects, using an array of effects, but mainly just blurs and masking. I think it is effective, and could be used in the final cut, however using this technique raises the render time to an incredible amount.

More Heroes Concepts

As mentioned in earlier posts the initial concept for the boy in Heroes 1.0. didn't go down so well with Mike, so I decided to play around with the design further and looked at taking it down a more stylised approach.

I tried to experiment with as many looks and styles as possible, whilst sticking to the original character brief/description given to me by Kofi.
However I think that Kofi still wanted to use the last design, as he didn't want the character to be too stylised.
He did however mention If we were to take any of these design forward it would be the design in the middle above. I like the design however it is not my favourite. It reminds me of the designs from the Moomins.
My Favourite 3 would be the ones above, and I really think that they would have worked well in the film. They remind me of some of the designs In my Art of Incredibles book the centre boy looking quite like the character dash.

EDIT: As predicted Kofi felt strongly about the original design and has decided to use that one. His reasons were because he liked the traditional approach, and that the modeling was too far gone to merit changing the design at this late stage.

Animatic Uploaded!

The Animatic for Heroes 1.0. that was shown at formative, Kofi threw it together and the images are all by me. I really loved how it turnt out and I think that the narrative is really nicely paced. It was a really nice script to work with and Kofi gave me a lot of freedom with shots and developing how I think the story should be told. Feedback from the formative was also positive, and with encouragement from Mike my fears of the boards being too rough, were dispersed.

During the formative however, the concept for the boy was not so positively met. Mike found the design too generic and wanted to see something more stylized. As this is not my project, I really don't have much of an opinion as to how stylized the character should be, and my initial feeling was that Kofi did not agree. However I agreed to draw up some more designs to see where I could take the character.