12/11/15 - Finalization

There hasn't really been much to update lately.  I've been working hard on my scene and tweaking my animation to the best that I can possibly make it and that has taken a good few weeks by the feel of things.  Lighting has been tested out and added to the scene as well and some aspects of the background were edited and textures were shifted around.

Here's a storyboard-ish scene by scene test of my animation:

I'm going to start work on compositing as soon as everything has finished rendering.

03/08/15 - Animatic!

Completed the animatic for my storyboard:

It currently sits at 11 seconds rather than the 6 we're supposed to have, which is a little worrying, but tutor explained that I could easily cut part of the introduction out and just jump straight into the story.

(In case the animatic doesn't work, it can also be found here on my tumblr)

I've also been doing a bit of prop work, and through drawing up my storyboards, I have decided on the type of gemstone cut for my crystal.  For a while I dithered between the oval and marquise cuts that are used for diamonds, but I think for my prop I'll be using the marquise.

Googling the cut of the diamond itself leads to some references of how the faces line up on both the front and back sides, which is going to be quite helpful for modelling the crystal this week.

28/07/15 - Storyboards

Completed Storyboards for submission!
I haven't really deviated much from the original idea that I had for this scenario, but framing camera shots has never been one of my strong points.  Now that I have a basic structure down, I may experiment with conceptual shots and camera angles, and I also intend to make up a proper prop reference sheet and do some color tests.  I may also do an animatic some time in the near future, as our tutor has told us many times to work out the timing of our frames!

STORYBOARDS:

27/07/15 - Storyboarding and Environment exploration

This week's goal is to develop storyboards for our scenario.  I've already set up a very basic one, seen earlier in this blog.  But here it is again:

• Tutor has suggested that I look at the source material for inspiration and observe how the shots there were framed and set up.  
• He also suggested that I compare the character and its color palette with my prop and see how the two of them look beside one another.  
• This would require me to design a model sheet for the prop itself - not required for this week but probably very handy to have around nonetheless.
• I need to look into how the prop and general environment will affect the character and its colors, as well as the way that the shots for my sequence are framed.  I'm probably going to need to sketch up a concept for my environment in order to help to establish this.

I do have a very quick pen sketch of how I would like the room to look, however:

[[Image Pending]]

A google search of 'ice room' led to the discovery of ice hotels, which have many rooms carved or built with ice.  Looking through them I can see a very distinct palette of cool whites, lighter blues and blue-green/aqua.  Greens, purples and occasionally pinks seem to provide a highlight or tint for most of these.

Elsa's castle from Frozen also presents a nice source of inspiration: