Final Boat model

 Final boat and oar after many times having to redo it due to technical and sculpt fails as it result it was all done in maya. The body of the boat was created with a sphere manipulated then extruded outwards to created the side panels, gunwale and keel

 The oar was made with a cylinder

 rowlock which was a half circle, then we changed it to a full circle. It may be changed back to a half depending if it causes rig issues

Update!

So I tried to whip up some colour keys a few weeks ago, except I wasn't getting very far, and I wasn't happy with the results. I decided that I might have more luck doing just the 10% (we're to have 10% of our film (so 15 seconds) completely finished before Christmas), and it turns out I did! I'm stilll not happy with the style I painted it in, but that's not how it'll be painted in the final film, so it's not a problem. I am however, happy with the colours. I think the exterior scenes are cold, and the interior ones are nice and cosy.

I used Paul Abadilla's 'Colour Script Exercise' as inspiration/a guide. Except his are utterly lovely. You can find his here.

line boiling in After-Effects

I read online that you can simulate line boiling using after effects:

The team and I agreed that a hand-drawn boil would add to the aesthetic more, giving it a more loose and free feel. However this is yet to be tested.

water reference footage

over the weekend i went to the beach which was freezing and windy to film some reference footage of the ocean these are just a few video clips.

 

Quick boiling line test

Sorry for the odd video capture, couldn't get Pencil to export it right for some reason! 

Just a quick test on how we might do the line boiling for the animation.

Productive Weekend

Freya and I travelled to Plockton over the weekend, the setting where our Kelpie film takes place, to record the Gaelic dialog and various sound effects for the film. 

A beautiful sunrise in Plockton

The same view later in the day

Recording robins and sparrows singing on the powerlines

We took videos, photographs and sound samples of everything and anything we felt may be useful for our final film. Above is a clip from our recording with Kate Beaton, to use as reference for lip syncing. 

We tried our best to replicate the sounds we needed in the film. Such as here, we needed the noise as the boy pushes his boat into the water over the stony beach. This will all come be used when we put together a 'making of' film. 

And putting it all together, here is our most up to date animatic!

We're back!

Well, it's been a while since we updated, but we've been back at uni for a few weeks now, and fully in the swing of things. The course brief has undergone several changes, but we're still working hard to make Kelpies as brilliant as possible.

And in the spirit of productivity, I present to you our Latest Animatic!

I managed to get the dialogue recorded during the summer, but it turned out that it was far too long, and not nearly dramatic enough, so Kirsteen and I travelled up north for the weekend to redo it. It was a very impromptu trip, but we managed to re-record the dialogue, as well as lots of SFX, making it a very successful weekend.