Budget?

Anyone know how much the budget is? The only thing I can think of spending it on is the music. Im planning to speak to some people about the music so stay tuned :)

Colouring like Crayola

Colour test on Zen's character design for the boy.

Colours of Manliness!

Heres a colour test of the boy. I used my drawing for this, I could try colouring everyone elses. I found that the eyes without the white didnt look bad at all. Colours still needs work on. Oh! And Im going to Hong Kong in about 2 weeks time for around a month! I might have access to the internet though so I'll still be around to give abuse to you all hahaha ;P Ah, just kidding about the abuse, you know I love you guys...

Quick character sketch

Guys, I just did this sketch of the boy. I've given him a small ponytail (like Stephen Chow in Shaolin Soccer), and a small untidy flick of hair on his head. I'm trying to keep everything really simple, what do you think?

He's holding a broom by the way.

You are a tube dot cum

Righty, I found quite a useful looking video on youtube. Shows quite a few kung fu moves, including a section of up close hand positions, just some reference for the guys when they fight and how the would strike. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KkL_ABd868

Kung fu Panda art and more of my concepts

Here are the pages from Kung Fu panda for you Ben, it shows how they used traditional Chinese paintings and their style and evolved it into their own.

















Here are just some more sketches. I made the old man more like Ben's original design, but developed from my own designs. And this is just a drawing just to see how the two "love birds" might react in this situation.

P.S I love tea bags, makes the paper fun to work on :P

Zen's Character Concepts

Ok, as requested by Ben I've scanned a page from my sketchbook to show some character concepts that we came up with during Annecy (please ignore the random, irrelevant doodles in the middle and bottom left). We were pretty unclear about the look of the nose, and at the time Ben and I were keen on having simplified eyes with no lines underneath the pupils. We also thought that long hair might suit the character. The final character will probably look nothing like this one, but perhaps certain elements of it could be incorporated (or not).








Here Ive made some little sketches of a possible style and look for the main character. I've gone for a more cartoony look with slightly anime-inspired eyes. I think this style has a nice simplicity while retaining a sense of character with acting possibilities.

Character developments

Here are some more sketches I've been doing of the girl and old man. I've just started playing around with the form of the old man, seeing what shapes work for him. For the girl, what sort of hair style would suite her best side buns I thought made her look too young and hair done up and with only one bun does make her look too old. Not sure what dress ware to give her. When she play fights with the boy should she be in kung fu clothing or is she at the time not doing anything to do with kung fu, just decides to have some fun with the guy? Hope you like so far.

Early Colourkey and Tones

An idea of what the colourkeys could be. I hope the inside and outside can be distinguished by the colours and a bit by the values but I dont want the inside to be too dull. Enjoy!

Layouts with characters part 1

I took the layout thumbnails and the characters from the storyboard and put them together so we can have a look how they'll look together. The layout r a little opacitied down (is that a word?) so we can see the characters better.

Master and Pupil

Moar character designs. I kinda like the way the master is looking so we could be near a final design for him. He has the traditional Chinese old man beard. Maybe long eyebrows too, though I might get rid of that cause it might look distracting. He could also have long earlobes. In Chinese folklore, it is a symbol of longevity.

The boy character can still be developed more. A small detail about his costume I like is that he ties his belt's knot off-centre. It kinda shows his disregard to the rules, kinda like a schoolboy. He can probably mess up his uniform in other ways too like rolling up his trouser sleaves, scruffy hair etc.

The last image is from a book I brought from Annecy. Hopefully it will give you some more ideas of character costumes. Chow!

Layout thumbnails part1

Been thumbnailing the designs for the layouts. Ive filtered out the ones I dont like so the ones youre looking at now are possibly the final designs... un;ess I change them. Other parts to follow once I finish them.

Linequality

I like the lines on this piece from the Okami artbook. If we can replicate this line quality thatll be greaaat! Ive spoke to Parr before about brush clean up and he said the animation could flicker cause its hard to keep the continuity in brush lines. Best way to decide is to try it and see what we get. If the ink stuff doesnt work, Im sure a combination of thick and thin pencils can mimic the varietion (ive got a 0.3mm and a 0.9mm mechanical pencil that works well together in this way).

More videos

Back around pitching time I found this video of a pilot called Kung Fu Love from Studio 4c. I like some of the animation for the fighting. Theres an interesting use of cg particle effects for the snowflakes. Maybe something to look at for the cherry blossom petals?



Heres a video from the game Heavenly Sword. The leaf looks good on this. Got a kind of AfterEffects look to it.


Heres a section from the film God of Cookery. Its from Stephen Chow, the guy from Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. His comedy style and general quirkiness is something that inspired me. I based the boy's personality on his. Anyway in this video I wanted you to have a look at one part that starts from 2:08 and ends at 3:42. Its a scene that I think describes the boy's personality well.


I remembered an advert from Lynx I saw ages ago that had a similar subject matter to our film.


A while back I saw this video that gave me ideas. I wanted the relationship between the characters to be similar to the one we can see in this video. Something playful rather than aggressive. And yes, I took the part in 2:14 but put a kung fu tist to it. The girl's personality could be close to the girl in this video. Something graceful and flirty. But shes also strong.

Motion bluuuuuuuur

Heres some images on the idea of the dispersing shapes idea. I dont think we should use it all the time, but there are some big actions where this technique could be incorperated.

Poseable striking action garrr!!!

Yo, here's what I mean about the dispersing of the line when the characters would strike. I just remembered about street fighter 4 trailer which has a similar effect although te line on those guys is a bit less stable than I would think ours could look. Here's a drawing I wipped up, excuse the bad quality, it as just to present the idea :).














and here' the trailer to street fighter 4 on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYGbliUZYa8

Inspirational paintings

Here are some paintings I found on-line, hope they can be inspirational to you guys. I know the guy on the horse in the ink pic is a Japanese samurai, but the ink style is interesting.

Sketch-book stuff

Hiya, I've been playing around with painting the designs on chinese dishes for concepts for the film, I have only been reading them at the moment, I haven't started any of my own stuff for how the film could look, just using that style to help get an idea of whee the style of the film could be taken.















Also from doing various readings of chinese figure paintings I have some initial character development for you to look at. I've been simplifying the forms and looking for reocuring themes such as rounded faces, curvy lines, long necks etc. Here's a reading of mine and a cartoonified example next to it plus more character development for the girl.

Ascience advert

Ive found this advert. Worth watching for the animation and style. Though I dont think we can do the ink clean up.

Captions!

Hey folks! Heres the storyboard with some captions on what the action is. This is not the final storyboard. Im still working with our editor, Toby Tomkins, on this. Scenes might be cut out, I have a feeling that this needs to be shortened a little. The pacing of the animatic and actual animation usual is different and the animation usually ends up longer. So we need to be careful we dont end up going too long.
The scenes Im thinking could be cut out are: #16 - we can merge this action with the next scene. The end of #30 and #31 could be cut out too so we wont have the boy jump backwards or the girl taunting. #51 may be one to drop too. We'll see what happens.

Chow!

LOLZZZ LMAO SMASH BROZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Found this online, doesn't relate much to our work but it's funny, I'm sure you'll appreciate it guys.

http://legendaryfrog.deviantart.com/art/Hardcorez-75608753

Animatic Version 2

Here it is! I couldnt flip the rooftop part so just remember that it should be the other way round like in the storyboard.

Hi Gang.
I´ve been doing some research and painting Chinese bowls that have patterns upon them for concept designs etc, but have also come up with an idea for the storyboard.
There´s a well known design on a dish called the Willow Pattern which has it´s own story to go with the illustration. Here´s an abstract I found online of the story:


"Two birds flying high,
A Chinese vessel, sailing by.
A bridge with three men, sometimes four,
A willow tree, hanging o'er.
A Chinese temple, there it stands,
Built upon the river sands.
An apple tree, with apples on,
A crooked fence to end my song.

Many people have never heard the true story of the willow pattern. It tells of Knoon-shee, a lovely Chinese maiden, whose affections were bestowed upon her father's secretary, Chang, but who was commanded by her parents to wed a wealthy rival suitor. She refused to comply with their wishes, whereupon her enraged father locked her up in the little house just visible on the left of the temple. From here she contrived to send a message to her lover, 'Gather thy blossom, ere it be stolen.'

Thus encouraged, Chang succeeded in entering the apple orchard and carrying off his beloved. So we see them hurrying over the bridge. Knoon-shee with a distaff, and Chang carrying her box of jewels, pursued by the angry father brandishing a whip.

The lovers made good their escape in the 'little ship sailing by' and landed on the island, which can be seen on the left of the picture, where they took refuge in the little wooden house. But the father and discarded suitor tracked them and set fire to the house while they were sleeping and so the lovers perished."

I was thinking we could have a plate with design of the temple on at the beginning that fades into the first frame of the storyboard.
Here´s an example I´ve made.