Major Project: Blog Submission

Post-Viz Mr Plimsolls from Katie Lima on Vimeo.

Major Project: Bathroom Animation Scenes

Some of the scenes for the Bathroom part of my film describing the fate of Mr Plimsoll's wife. There is some issues with the textures and the lighting in the bathroom set that need a go over to make sharper and less noticeable, to achieve a watercolour aesthetic showed in the backgrounds in 1930s cartoons. I also need to add a spotlight effect to the axe and fridge scenes so that it reflects what is shown in the animatic more faithfully.

Major Project: Mr Plimsoll- Facial Rigging

Fig 1: Mr Plimsoll's Facial Controls

Fig 2: Side Profile of Mr Plimsoll and his Facial Controls

Fig 3: Mr Plimsoll's Eye Blink 

Fig 4: Mr Plimsoll's Mouth Open and Tongue Out

 The facial rigging on Mr Plimsoll's is at a good stage, his mouth is able to open and close and there is quite a good range of expression there. the only thing that I would say is an issue would be the a modelling issue where I think that his mouth is a little bit too large, in a way that when pulling the controls in the corners of his mouth, they do distort a little bit and pulling the mouth controls into a tight expression like a 'shh' is a little hard to do because of the larger mouth.
I added an extra control in the nose to allow for additional movement in that area for when he walks and the blink, while taking me three tries due to simple mistakes I did with the blend shapes, works just fine.
Overall I am quite happy with how the facial rig has turned out, I might have to do some finessing in the mouth area to make sure that the skinning on the joints in the blend shapes are blended smoothly, but in general Mr Plimsoll is able to do what I want him to do now.

Major Project: Concept Art for Props and House Variations for Road Set

Fig 1: Variations of Houses for the Road set

Fig 2: Designs for Mr Plimsoll's Bag

Fig 3: Concepts for the Photo above the Fireplace in Mr Plimsoll's Living room

Here are some concepts for the bag Mr Plimsolls carries around in the first act of the film, variations of the houses that will be seen in the background of the road set for the same scenes and thumbnail ideas for the picture of Mr Plimsolls' wife that will be in a picture frame above the fireplace in Mr Plimsolls' living room.

The House variations are just to give the background of the road set a bit of character as Mr Plimsolls walks by. The houses are similar but the differences are in the features of them, and my plan is to take 3-4 of the designs to use for that set.

For Mr Plimsolls' wife I wanted to go for a character design that was quite hidden in terms of who she is, but for her to be portrayed as a positive person in Mr Plimsolls' life so having her also smile but be smiling in a way that is opposite to Mr Plimsolls, instead of being creepy, her smile is more genuine.

Major Project: Mr Plimsolls- Finessing the Skinning on Limbs and Pose Space Deformers

Fig 1: Example of Pose Space Deformer working in Shoulder and Knee of Mr Plimsolls

Fig 2: Skinning in arm following Ribbon Spines used for the Rubber Hose Rig Example 1 

Fig 3: Skinning in arm following Ribbon Spines used for the Rubber Hose Rig Example 2

Fig 4: Elbow is still able to bend naturally despite the influence from the Rubber Hose Rig

Sorting out the Pose Space Deformers onto Mr Plimsolls, I was able to give him natural movement in his shoulders, elbows, knees and hips without the geometry buckling. While I'm pleased with the final results it did take me a while and multiple back up saves to sort out parts like the knee to make sure that the other parts of the model like the shorts weren't doing anything weird like suddenly pop out when other poses in the legs happen, like raising the leg in a forward rotation.

After I was at a point where I was happy with how the model bent, I put Mr Plimsolls into a couple of poses only to see that the arms weren't flowing correctly in an arc when the elbow control and the flex controls are pull out together. So I went back into the Paint Skin Weights Tool to update the weights in the arm to allow fluid motion both when the controls are pulled separately and when they are moved together as well.

Major Project: 3D Environment- Mr Plimsoll's Bungalow Progress so far

Fig 1: Mr Plimsolls Bungalow

Fig 2: Close up on Roof

Fig 3: Close up on Fence and Gate

Fig 4: Model of Tree used in the Foreground

Here is the process of Mr Plimsoll's Bungalow at the moment, I still need to add the overgrown nature of the house, ivy on the roof and on the house, and the overgrown bushes that cover the front of the house. There is still some modifications that need doing on the gate panels and the windows still need developing.
Despite this I'm pretty happy with the progress so far with this scene, even if its still in the developing phase and in need of some refining.

Major Project: Environment Concept Art 02

Fig 1: The Road Mr Plimsoll's lives on

Fig 2: Mr Plimsoll's Living Room

These two concept arts depict the road Mr Plimsoll lived on and his living room for the ending scene. The idea for the road was that it would rotate as Mr Plimsoll's walks down the road, so to emphasise that idea the scene was drawn using curves and perspective was taken into account.

Mr Plimsoll's living room was design with the idea that Mr Plimsoll's was just a man who went through the trauma of losing his wife. To show that he reminisces the time he spent with his wife, I had the idea of the room having many picture frames with pictures of them as a couple. The run down aspect is more due to the fact that because of his old age he wasn't able to keep up with the house keeping. As well as preferring to spend the majority of his time outside of his house, wandering around the town instead of staying indoors wallowing in loneliness.

Major Project: Mr Plimsolls Model Progress- Rigging and Skinning

Fig 1: Mr Plimsolls' Rig

Fig 2: Mr Plimsolls' Skinning

Fig 3: Example of the "Rubberhose" Rig working on skinned Mr Plimsolls 01

Fig 4: Example of the "Rubberhose" Rig working on Skinned Mr Plimsolls 02

After the Submission for the Minor Project, I went back to refine the rig on Mr Plimsolls as Alan informed me that there was some rotations in the Shoulder and Elbow joints which lead to me redoing the entire rig. While attempting to fix this issue I realised that there was an issue with the pole vector constraint when adding a pole vector to the IK Handle.

I came to the conclusion that it was due to the way that the arms were originally positioned, they were slightly sloping downwards instead of being in a strict T-pose. Just to experiment I made some standard three joint arm rigs and applied IK handles to them to find out that the reason why rotations would jump on the joints happened due to the joint placement being incorrect.

To combat this I made some slight changes to the model's geometry by straightening out the arms and placing the joints in a straighter position making sure to make the only rotations made were in the joint rotations and not the world rotation. While this helped with the IK Handle issue I had slight complications with the Pole Vectors still, However after carefully following one of Alan's rigging tutorials for Jetpack Jones I was able to get it working properly.

I had a few issues with setting up the "Rubberhose" rig too, the issues mainly involving the connections and the constraints with the ribbon spines and another issue of them causing weird rotations to happen to the joints. However after fiddling with the rig, and redo the ribbon spines more times then I can count, I was able to fix the rig so that there are no sudden rotations in the joints and the controls work with the ribbon spine without that much of an issue

Overall while rigging Mr Plimsolls as been a somewhat difficult and way more convoluted then I originally thought, I'm quite happy with the progress if made with him so far, even if the issues I've had with him as pushed me back time-wise then what I would of liked.

Major Project: Environment Concept Art 01

Fig 1: The Front of Mr Plimsoll's House

Fig 2: View of the Churchyard from Mr Plimsoll

Fig 3: Mr Plimsoll's Bathroom

For these environments I looked at background art of cartoons in the 1920's-1930's, with the exception of the Bathroom. I wanted the environments to fit with the character of Mr Plimsoll's, his house looked over grown and spooky to the children of Park Avenue. The bathroom on the other hand I wanted it to look like it is in the perspective of Mr Plimsoll's and his discovery of his wife in the bathroom, so I played with distortion to the furniture and walls, the perspective isn't correct at all to add to the off putting feeling that I want this scene to have in the final film.
Overall while I like the process I'm making with these environment designs and they are able to convey the scenes clearly, I feel as though I can push the creepy, overgrown nature of Mr Plimsoll's house further.

Minor/Major Project: Bogeyman Research Assistance @Phil

For my project I am doing it about childhood bogeymen, inspired by my mum's childhood neighbor, nicknamed Mr. Plimsoll who scared her as a kid. I would like to gather a collection of various stories, detailing other peoples childhood bogeymen, to create a good archive of character concepts to have a well informed basis to form character designs from. The main things that I would like answered are things like:

• Who were they to you? a neighbor, a family member, a teacher etc.
• What they looked like (detailed description)? 
• What were the things they did that scared you?

To provide some context as to what I am after here is a synopsis of my Mum's bogeyman, Mr.Plimsoll:

Mr. Plimsoll was an elderly old man who lived down the road from my mum's house as a child. He had a bald head, a hunched back and carried a canvas bag in one hand and a walking stick in the other. In summer he would wear a peaked cap, a stained white vest top, white shorts that went to his knees, brown calf length socks and a white pair of his namesake plimsolls.

My Mother and her Brothers would play "Knock Down Ginger" on the door of his bungalow, that had an overgrown garden. The house couldn't be seen from the outside because of a big bush that so thick that it engulfed the bungalow in its foliage.

He would leave the house early at 6:30, walking up and down the street at a ridiculously fast pace for a man his age. As he did so he would chuck his stick in the air yelling as he went. My mum suffered from nightmares about him, having dreams of him staring in at her through the window. He scared her so much that she spent the entire summer holidays one year indoors.

If you are able to provide you own childhood bogeymen please comment on this post with your stories, providing answers to the questions above. It would be a big help for me in gathering research onto this topic and with the creative process as well.

Minor/Major Project: Influence Maps

Fig 1: Examples include: Fleischer Studios Betty Boop, Popeye and Bimbo, Disney Studios Mick Mouse and the Silly Symphonies
As well as these Kingdom Hearts 2's "Timeless River" and Cuphead is also featured as modern examples

Fig 2: The Artists featured includes: Edward Gorey, Tim Burton, Kenshi Yonezu, Mikolaj Cielniak, Henry Patrick Raleigh, Shan Jiang
Game included: Machinarium

Some in depth style influences that I'm still deciding on for my project. I'm leaning more onto the early cartoon style of the 1930s because of its simplicity and surrealism. However I'd like to feature the Illustrative styles of the Victorian and Edwardian times in some way. Maybe as a style shift to make the bogeymen appear more monstrous? At this point I still planning out what i want to do and achieve for the characters and the project as a whole so I shall keep experimenting.

Year 3: Minor/Major Project: Stylistic Ideas

As a result of both by Initial Influences and the talk I had with Alan, I have decided on two distinctive style ideas that i would like to have for my project. As my Project is about Childhood Fears around people that can be classed as a "Bogeyman" I want to go down either the root of early animation or a more illustrative style.

Fig 1: An Example of a Rubber Hose Style Character- Minnie Mouse

Rubber Hose Animation started of in the 1920s and was a staple of American animation for good couple of decades. Famous examples of this style of animation includes early Disney work like Steamboat Willie (1928), and The Skeleton Dance (1929) as well as the works by the Fleischer Studios (maker of "Swing you Sinners" 1930 and Betty Boop) as well as Paramount Pictures. The first notable character associated with this new style of animation at the time was Felix the Cat, a character that would spawn a whole series of imitations including Mickey Mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Bimbo the Dog. A key characteristic of this type of animation is the flexibility and surrealist nature of it. As this was a first time experience for animations, almost every action a character did was exaggerated in a way that could be perceived as accidental.

Fig 2: Example of the Rubber Hose style of Animation

This is one of the styles of Animation that I like the style and it can give very odd and surreal results for my characters. I could focus on the key aspects of the designs for the characters and how to exaggerate their movements in a way that could be scary. There is also that aspect that old cartoons from that era in general has a certain creepy vibe to it just by how chaotic and surreal the animation can be at times and I'd like to achieve something similar.

Fig 3: Illustration by Edward Gorey

The other Style I'd like to go for is a more illustrative style by artists like Edward Gorey, who was an American Writer and Illustrated his works with pen and ink, depicting scenes from Victorian and Edwardian times in a unsettling way. His art style could fit into the category of gothic but there is a certain type of surrealist nature to his illustrations as well that has become a major influence in many artists nowadays, a big example being Director Tim Burton as well as the art direction in the film the Babadook (2014).

Fig 4: Example of the Gothic Illustrative style present in 2014's The Babadook

This is another style that I would like to explore as it as some horror roots to it which, in my opinion, fit the world of Mr. Plimsole very well. The style was commonly used in Victorian and Edwardian children books so there is a connection to the effect it has on child as well. I would have to go into more detail texture wise to achieve the ink on paper technique associated heavily in the style.

Year 3: Minor/Major Project: Initial Influences

Fig 1: Initial Influences Map

Here are some initial influences that I would like to incorporate into my project. The Nightmare Before Christmas and Swing You Sinners are there as I would like to do something similar to certain parts of both animations. I would also like to have that early animation/ low poly feel to the characters as well as using textured 2-D elements to had a more collage and textured feel to the characters and environment designs.
However as I go trough this project, the influences may change or increase as it is early days at this moment of time.

Year 3: Minor/Major Project- Initial Idea and Concept

For this project I want to explore character design in much more detail then I did in Year 2, hopefully this would expand to animation reel/ animated short of the characters, fully textured and rigged. So my idea for the project was to take examples of people my family and friends feared in their childhoods, a sort of Bogeyman in a way, and make characters depicting them as monsters humanoids that play on those fears. This started by my mum telling me that the thing that scared her the most as a child was her neighbour who was nicknamed as Mr. Plimsole, who would stalk up and down the street and was the source of many of my mums nightmares as a kid.

For the animated short I would like to do a short in the vein of the introduction to Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton and the animated short Swing You Sinners by the Fleischer Brothers. 
Using my mum's example of her own childhood bogeyman, Mr. Plimsole based on how she played "Knock Down Ginger" with her brothers. I'd like to do a surrealist piece of Mr. Plimsole introducing the concept of "childhood bogeyman" through something like a song or voice over with a monologue or poem. There would be the two main characters, Mr.Plimpsole and my Mother as a child.
Another idea was to solely take a series of influences from members of my family and friends and create a bunch of caricatures of their childhood fears, and produce an animation reel showing performing different movements and actions.