Concept art in Film & VFX

Another assignment down! In fact, a whole semester done!

Today gave us the completion of all of our subjects for semester one of the Film & VFX course at SBIT. I am yet to know my results, but I feel confident in my submissions.

My favourite work so far has been everything I've done in screen art - which is a surprise, I considered myself less arty and more technical, but it turns out I love drawing. Its just taken so long to get to a state that I'm proud of my work. I have leagues to travel before I am professional, but I can see my skills have greatly improved since 2010.

Here is one concept we had to come up with for the art subject. The brief was to design a scene depicting explorers finding a site of worship on an alien planet. I developed the idea of a fantastical landscape that was home to all things that were magical and mythic. I have a synergy with griffins, so I chose to explore them and my skills at drawing them. And of course, they would have some beautiful mountain reach to worship.

I took these thumbails to photoshop to work on the perspective and composition, and experimented with the colour palette.

Even after thinking I had the perspective right, our teacher came along and informed me where I had gone wrong. I'm glad for that chat because otherwise it wouldn't have been nearly as good. After re-aligning the pillars around the mountain I had enough space to flesh out a hint of the landscape beyond.

After all this and some more refining, I finally produced this work. It does require a bit more work, but I am happy enough with it to show to you all :)

I have loved this process immensely! I couldn't have achieved this without much much advice though, so thankyou to any and all who critiqued.

Storyboarding in Film

Storyboarding! Its amazing! Its the secret key to film and animation! To everything we see, everything we feel when we watch a film - the storyboard artist is the one who crafts it all. What I've learnt from studying storyboards under animators and film-makers alike, is that if a storyboard artist does a good enough job, everyone else works off their vision. Well, this is speaking as someone who has never had experience in the industry, so it may be completely different, but right now my sights are set on improving my storyboarding skills.

One of our projects in the Film and VFX course so far has been the development of a story into a screenplay, which was then taken to storyboarding 20 panels, of which we chose 2 from the class to be filmed. We weren't allowed to film our own storyboards if they were chosen, which is a really fun element - it takes the vision out of the hands of the person who wrote it and gives it to... well, someone else. To me, this meant making absolutely translatable storyboards - to ensure that what I saw in my mind could be seen by others. I'm pretty happy with my panels, and only regret not having more time to do more. But I suppose that is the challenge - being able to draw them up quickly but still keeping a consistent level of quality.

In the end, my storyboards were selected along with fellow student David, and I'm excited to see the resulting films.

I have uploaded my storyboards below - hopefully I get the chance to post up the final videos so you can see how they turned out :)

A Portrayal of West End

Over the last few months our VFX class have been working on an art project given to us by our Screen Art teacher. We had to come up with 8 images of our journey from home to class, depicted in any way we wanted really. The brief was very loose - it just described key points to look out for and things to be inspired by. I had a lot of difficulty with this at first, perhaps because of the loose brief. I was unsure as to what level of image this should be - or even what kind of 'image' - a photo? A drawing? A sketch or a doodle? All of these were acceptable, but I couldn't get my mind around what it is I wanted to portray.

I love West End, I love my walk to school, and if someone asks me to depict my feelings throughout the journey, I am forced to see the splendour in the world around me. I wouldn't want to spend 2 months working on something that just depressed me or didn't allow me to appreciate the substance of my surroundings.

I deicded to go with greys to replicate the stoniness of the city world, and soft greens to bring out the abundant plant life that dominates West End. There are also always crows around the area. In almost every photo I took for reference, there were crows in the picture. So I used the crow as the linking theme, and the result is something I am quite proud of. I can still see many flaws and areas for improvement, but I feel satisfied to showcase it here. I can always touch them up over time to correct them.

Here are a few images from the series. Feel free to visit my Gallery for the whole set.

Photos in the City

What a beautiful city Brisbane is. I seem to forget that so easily when I find myself sitting at home again, with no plans to leave the house in the near future and blaming it on the location.

I went out tonight with my good friend Brendan for a type of 'council event' photography class. It cost $2, went for two hours, and was led by a friendly and approachable photographer that led us through the streets of Brisbane at dusk. I felt a bit awkward at first being 'one of those types', but got into the spirit of the experience and started snapping. It was a pretty good night in the end, I got some good shots, and had an excuse to walk into the city and back (seriously, $5.20 for a bus into the city and back? What kind of money do they think us students have?).

Here are some of the better ones. Next time, I'll make sure to remember my tripod.

A kettle!

Another task for our Screen Art classes: a kettle! We're studying metals and the way light casts across various objects, which I find quite interesting. I've never looked at a surface and found so many different colours and shades to what I was expecting. We had to recreate the kettle below using a grid, marking out the edges, drawing in the lines, then shading in with greys.

Mine came out like this:

Upon reflection, my base has too much highlight, my lines are a little bit fuzzy, and I just couldn't figure out how flecks and scratches work!  

However, I still like my efforts. I might reward myself with a tea :)

My new workstation

The day has finally arrived - here I am, sitting at home, on my computer (enabled with CS5 and Autodesk), connected to the internet. It has been years since I have been living in this level of luxury. I suddenly feel so capable of achieving things!

Want a vlog intro? I can do it!
Want something animated? I can do it!
Consider me an ally of all things visual.

The housemate's cat seems to love the new set-up, he's always hanging about lounging on my keyboard (usually while I'm actually typing things)... which means I'll probably end up talking about him alot. His name is Brisingamen. Perhaps another picture is needed :)

I can see a lot of cat films to come...

And many more vlogs...

Too excited! Okay, better do some actual work though. I shall return in the intermission!

100th post deserves a pear!

100th post? Is this a blogger milestone? For me, it is. And to celebrate this occasion, here is a picture of a pear! Drawn from scratch in photoshop :)  

How eating makes you cat

I had some fun practising storyboarding and editing skills, with slight colour corrections (due to lack of good lighting)...

Re-booting Photoshop Knowledge

Jumping back into Photoshop for a few hours in class. Yay I haven't lost my skills :)

I'm loving working on landscapes at the moment. Kerbside Collection means there have been a lot of old wooden planks and boards lieing on the footpaths, so I've been taking them home and getting out the acrylics, painting various landscapes from imagination. What I've found is that everything I learnt as a digital artist has bled over to support my 'hand art' skills.

2012 begins

Well, I've done my holidaying and re-energizing, I've had my time at the ever so nourishing Woodford Folk Festival, and now I am ready to kick into the new year with the next adventure! I'm sitting back at the SBIT library, having enrolled and awaiting a new ID card, and the course doesn't even start for another two weeks! (Truth be told, I couldn't afford any more heartache of paying the adult fares on public transport)...

I'm excited, perhaps a little too excited, but no - its a good anticipation that will build me up for a prosperous and hard working year. Film and Visual Effects. I'm finally studying film! It feels like I've been waiting forever to study this! Of course, I could have applied any other year for a course on film, but its only now that I feel ready, its only now, after all this time of wondering and deliberating, asking myself whether or not its worth it or if I'm really up for the task or if its just a fleeting dream. Well, dream or no dream, its what I'm investing my time and energy into, and damn well I'm going to do the best I can at it!

Any lack of confidence I had going in to the animation course 2 years ago has vanished in place of a knee shaking impatience to learn things and make movies!

Its been a long time since I made any new years resolutions, but I think I shall state some 2012 goals. No longer am I so convinced that the whole world is ending, but I still think this year is going to witness giant shifts of power and understanding, and the repercussions will shape the future of our very species. So this may be the best year to rekindle affirmations and set some up some personal targets.

My goals for the year:

    ; to document thoroughly my experience, whether through word, film, or photography.
    ; to reflect on my fears, doubts and insecurities and allow them to pass.
    ; to give 100% to learning new techniques, skills and ideas.
    ; to say yes to opportunity and follow the unexpected path.
    ; to love fully and appreciate the love I have around me already.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the most important. Well actually, one very important event is the matter of my wedding, happening later in the year, which will have to be planned and executed to perfection, just because Jarrah and I deserve it, and because I love him so very much.

Hmm... big year. This shall be fun.

The world outside

So, today marks roughly one month since leaving SBIT. I can't exactly say its been an intense month of job hunting and inspired animating...

I did go out and drop some resumes and showreels off at local studios, and I have been recording lots of content with my borrowed video camera, but with a busted Mac and no internet access, I feel stunted! No responses from any of the studios of course, but I was mostly doing it to get my name and face out there. And I have so much time free I could be working on heaps of summer project ideas, but no laptop renders me useless and anxious.

Getting back into live action filming has been fun though - I am ready to start the project I've been wanting to start for years now - recording a year and a day of my life. I still don't own my own video camera, but once I can afford it, I will be recording mad! I think this is the right time to start it - with the veils shifting and the global mindset changing, we are witnessing an end of an era, and I would like to document that change. Maybe I think its important, maybe I think it'd just be fun, but it will be what it will be.

Ahh my hour of internet cafe'ness is nearly up.... hopefully by the time I blog next, it will be with our own internet, from my own computer, with my own career and goals in action!

Until then, blessings and luck!

Tomorrow and beyond!

So, I wake up in the morning with a strong urge to take that walk down into Southbank, set up at the Island, open Maya and begin my day... yet, everything is done. What do I do with myself now that its all over? Well, just keep swimming I guess.

Screening Night was a hit! Everyone seemed to leave the auditorium chattering and buzzing and sharing their congratulations. I noticed the non-animators seeking out the creators of the clips that made them laugh or made them think, so I think all the animators would have lefelt quite good about their work by the end of the night. Congratulations to Elle, Scheree, Anh and Heidi for taking out the other awards too! AND..... Well done to the WHOLE CLASS FOR PASSING!

What a fantastic graduating year!

This blog will not go unused - I still consider myself a student of the field, so I will be using this as my own 'personal development account' - something to read back on and see how far I've come (or gone back, lol).

You can now see both my major films (and any future work) on my YouTube account
creativedestructive      or in my ePortfolio    Luke Brohman        


So, we shall see where the winds take us! Blessings and luck to all!

xoxoxo

All things must end....

Well, here we are. The last days.

All films have been submitted, DVDs are on their way to the BBQ, the classroom feels like a ghost town, and that celebratory beverage is just in reach of my hand...

Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media in Animation is complete!

Reflections..... ha, well there may just be too much to reflect on quickly.

I came into this course not knowing where it would take me, but knowing it was a step toward something. At the end of the 1st year, I didn't think I would be coming back. Not even until a few months into 2nd year did I realise that I actually wanted to go further with this. I believe what was holding me back was lack of confidence in my ability, combined with a set of expectations I had put on myself. What pushed me forward was discovering the power of 3D animation, and a few role models to sprinkle some enthusiasm and faith in me.

I am so looking forward to my future in this industry - even if by 'industry' I mean our own community of animators. I'm eager for a career, but I'm prepared for the woes of job-hunting. Patience has been a valuable lesson throughout this course.

Things have changed - inside myself I can feel a difference, which has been reflected in the outside world.

This course has been a significant step for me, and I'm so excited to see what happens next.

Thankyou to all who shaped my path.

The Final Pass: Week 16

Okay, so I've completely lost track of week numbers, but that doesn't really matter anymore considering it's the Final Week!

I've got my animations, I've got my backgrounds, I've got my lights and cameras all set up and ready for.... rendering. So my days lately have been filled up with lots of hours of waiting, a few seconds of reviewing, a few minutes of frustration if the render looks dodgey, and then more hours of waiting while it renders some more! Lucky I have my trusty laptop to distract me.

Things I have learnt from this process:

1) Backgrounds are not a quick and happy job! I expected this, so I gave myself two weeks to work on them in my schedule. Even that amount of time isn't enough, and I was a week behind from september, so in the end the backgrounds are rushed and a bit sloppy.

2) Lighting slows down everything! And many lights in a scene is like putting a clamp on the program that just won't budge.

3) Rendering needs a lot of allowance for errors. I was foolish to think I could set up the scenes and just press render and watch the PNG sequences craftily slip into a timeline that became a smooth movie. NO! My first two days was spent discovering how to render properly, and then the next two days were about seeing those renders come out with giant errors! Spot lights flying all over the place, image planes pixelating against each other, shadows swallowing up entire scenes and hair coming out as a golden chrome!

Also, I only now see that the initial set-up of a project is OH so important. I could have been rendering scenes at night if I hadn't put all my textures and backgrounds on my portable hard-drive... I could relocate them  to the D drive and go into each scene and re-link the inputs, but I just don't have the time to waste! Toooooo many excuses - pretty much, I just didn't leave myself enough time.

So! Tuesday is the big day. A finished film. Two years coming down to this point. I feel good :)

The Final Pass - Week.... 12?

Okay so time has gone a bit haywire again... September vanished! I had it in my grasp, and then the slippery little sucker just got away. Wow, I don't even remember what I did during that month... So moving on, October has been like a jolt of energy! A deadline was brought forward by two weeks, and my lack of content fired me up into animating mode again. Now, with less than a week left to get the timing CONCRETED, I feel confident and satisfied that my film will be ready. And its coming in at 2 minutes! Handy! I have abandoned my magpie (sorry little fella!), and am now going to consider cutting the fox and frog. The ladybug seems integral, so its staying :) On other projects, my music video only has a few holes to fill - mostly transitions, and the final scene, but nothing that should delay my proposed release date (Oct 29th). I also found out that its Grace Slick's birthday on the 30th of Oct, and considering I claim NO ownership of the musical material in the music video, it makes a perfect fan-tribute gift for her... Bless you Grace Slick!

October Progress

Latest Progress Reel! This is almost spot on the the timing of my final piece - coming in at 2 minutes! Woohoo!

Let the vlogging begin!

My first attempt at a vlog.... feedback welcome!

Week 8 - The Final Pass

So only 9 weeks to go and the pace has picked up considerably in class. Mornings are getting more fidgety, days are getting more quiet, and afternoons seem to be full of the crazy that has been suppressed all day...

Well, my goal was to have all my animating (uncleaned) done by the end of August, and tomorrow is the last day of August, so how have I gone? Well, if we disregard the fact that I haven't even touched my creature animation since the holidays, then YES I have completed my human animation AND on time! Its been good filling up my progress reel as I go, I have gathered a rounder sense of time and made it easier when it comes to monthly progress assessment.

Reflections... hmmm to be honest I am feeling satisfied with my state of being - I knew at the start of the year that I didn't want to rush and stress and disappoint myself, so to have a relaxed attitude at the end of August is a goal completed :)

I've also been having fun expanding my online presence (not very far yet) - I made a Vlog! It was actually not too hard, the weirdest was editing it - how do you subjectively edit your own thoughts? Anyway, its posted above this article so gimme feedback if you have any!

Progress Reel for sound student

Latest draft of the progress reel!

The Final Pass - Week 6

Starting out a bit slow again today, I was distracted this morning by news from home... which just goes to show that when the Clinker Gods predict sickness, it may not be the kind of sickness you are assuming...

So we learnt about run cycles today, which I found very easy to grasp. I think that was aided by the fact that we had learnt walk cycles, so thank you Frank for that insight. It fit perfectly into the movement leading up to Dancer's jump, so I decided to animate straight into the scene today. Which means I animated more of my film! Yay!

I feel like the momentum is losing its edge, and the effects of the back-to-back days in back-to-back weeks are taking a slight toll on my focus and energy. I'm finding myself distracted easily, and that third cup of coffee begins to sing to me from Merlo's. But alas, I must go on so in the end I just have to suck it up and deal.

I spent the weekend musing over the 'roll' scene I had issues with on friday, and I think the best way to deal with it is some clever camera shots. Rather than wasting a week on something that (lets face it) probably will only ever look like two mannequins falling apart on top of each other, I will take Ian's advice and frame the scene differently. I began on that today and already I can see it will work well.

Sound production seems to be coming along well. I have had my first meeting with all the music students and sound designers, and I feel very good about the energy I got from them all. It really brings another element into the picture when you add another person's direct collaboration. I feel more of responsibility to step up and work hard.

Let's see how the rest shall fall...

Run Cycle

Not sure why I always tag these things as cycles - I realise I never actually cycle them, but hey you get the idea... Here is my Dancer's run (that leads into the jump).

Progress Reel for scratch sound

My latest progress reel - with more accurate timing of each scene. Still, I believe another 30 seconds may be added on to the timeline once I am done animating

Dancer Pirouette

First pass of the Dancer's pirouette that continues on from the spins. I need to look at the feet and knees for popping and go over the arcs, and change the curves to spline, but I'm pretty happy with the scene so far.

The Final Pass - Week 4

And here we are at the end of Week 4! I skipped the last week of updates so I thought I should catch up now. I am still feeling very good about the animation I am producing. It's taking a while to bring a scene to 'complete', but the momentum is there - I just need to balance perfecting a scene and keeping an eye on time.

We had our progress reel's screened on tuesday to gather some feedback. The best part of that day was hearing the reaction to the jump scene. It just makes me want to knuckle in and make every scene as 'awe'-full... I want my fellow animators to still have that reaction on the night, even though they would have seen it to death by then :P

Week 5 coming up. What do I have to think about.... character interaction! I have been going alright animating my rigs seperately, but what about when they contact? I think next week I shall allocate for the rest of the dance scene in the Dark Heart, and then jump right into the interaction scene. Hopefully by end of week 8 I will have all of my major animation scenes blocked out at the minimum!

Big tasks ahead...

Ballet Chaines Turns

My latest playblast for the narrative - this one took ONE WEEK to block out and set up. I need more time!!!!!!!

Dancer Jump

This is the latest EAP playblasted from Maya. This took one day to set up and key out.

Ladybug land

No, not a land of ladybugs, but a ladybug landing! Almost crash landing - its a little bit frightened of the magpie chasing it....

I love this ladybug! Its a red dot, but its my favourite thing in the film yet!

Dancer stretch

Well, this is the latest playblast of Scene 2 - Dancer's stretch, and above is the ladybug landing on her hand. I feel very good about this scene now, and it subsequently raises my hopes for the rest of the film too!

Another positive about today: This is the task I set myself this morning!

The Final Pass - Week 2 reflections

Leading into the weekend before Week 3, I've decided to begin reflecting on the week past and what I did (or didn't) accomplish. Hopefully it'll help keep me up to date with my own thoughts and plans - to be honest, this is the thing I've found most difficult to keep well organised. I find I come to the computer in the mornings and find momentum in tasks at hand, but lack focus on the bigger picture.

So, the week in passing - My narrative is still a process of rigging, posing, re-rigging to adjust, re-posing, finding something else that doesn't work and re-rigging, then going back and re-posing. Very time-consuming when you think of the perfectly rigged freebies on the net I could have allowed myself take use of. But, I do see a pattern of things gradually getting easier. The more I repeat processes the easier it is next time to complete them. Dancer has had a change of hair this week, along with two IK Handles put in for each arm. This was a daunting task on Monday, but now I feel adept enough to continue on (THANKS Ian!). The hair actually looks much better up, and seems more to character for a dancer. No chance to post and pics yet!

The Music Video I am only getting more excited about, but that excitement is about to surpass my commitment to the narrative, so I must keep a keen roster on both these projects so I don't favour one too much. I have a good idea of what I want to do, and thanks to all the prep work I've already done from last year's rotoscope project I set myself, all I need to do is fill in the blanks with some experimental styles.... and what more could I ask for there? Total freedom only limited by the lyrics of the song or the beat of the music! Splendour :)

And finally there is the Advertising Campaign - I'm so happy to be working with Scheree, I'm actually looking forward to this, even though I feel the timing of this assignment should be seriously re-considered. I feel like we had much more time in semester one that we could have achieved all of this, and not had to rush it so we wouldn't be skinted with a poor screening night. NOT saying that the screening night would be skint, but that we deserve to put our all into this night to really promote ourselves and celebrate the end of the course, and maybe we won't have the energy to if we have the Narrative and Music projects to prioritise.

Perhaps this week hasn't put me so far behind as I think it has, but I still need to keep on the ball to pull off everything I wish to achieve.

Eye Darts

Doing some quick practices of eye darts whilst thinking about how I can fit them into my narrative. Thoughts so far: After Dancer sees Hunter, she has a moment when she thinks and decides to go to the inner park. When she emerges into the inner park, she has a moment to take in the scene. When she has fallen to the ground and Hunter has reached out his hand, she may be looking into his eyes to see his intentions.

This leads me into the only character interaction scene I have (besides the creature interactions), so I might start in on that scene to work on.

Below is a playblast of the eye dart test

The Final Pass - Week 2

Week 2 began with more of a yawn than last week - but thats thanks to my actions over the weekend rather than from Frank's talks. I have found a part of my eagerness to animate over the weekend has dissipated lately, maybe in a bid to calm myself down, but probably just out of laziness. And hey, its only going to get more stressful toward the end of the year, so I'm allowing myself this moment of quiet.

Something I did work on however is my production schedule, now that I have a feel for what it takes to bring a scene to its full. I need to approach this like a real film - now that all my pre-production is done, I just need to go through the motions of blocking out a scene with my actors, rehearsing the scene with the actors, and then filming the scene. I need to give at least a day's work for each scene in rehearsal time, and then another day of perfecting. And actually, when I say 'scene', I'm actually thinking of one movement within that scene, so really I should be using a week for rehearsals, and a week for shooting. With 8 scenes, thats 16 weeks! Perfect! HA.....

Anyway, below is a playblast of the 'Reacting to sound' EAP, with much help from Frank in pointing out the arcs of a simple head turn.

I hope to have this scene finished by the end of the week, but we'll see how that goes....

Turn, Blink, Stare

Turn and Blink

Blinky

My first blink! 'Basic blink'

Animation: The Final Pass [Week 1]

First day back at school for our last semester of Animation! So much to stress about! How much will I actually stress though? Zilch! I am so ready for this onslaught that I hope to break zero sweats.

Frank got us prepped up by having us think about the time ahead, and our EAPS! I decided to start in on the Dancer's jump, so I turned ont he computer, logged in to Maya, found the file to work on, and BAM! First sweat :)....

So many things I would have already done differently - I would NOT have tried to make my own rig for Maya, I would have written a much more simple story, and there would be less characters to animate.

But thats okay, because the end result will be worth it. Now back to animating!

Another tad trial

Better spacing I believe :)

Tad to frog cycle

My tadpole to frog trials.

Frog 'n fox jump

The frog and fox composited together - I got a bit ahead of myself doing this (and wasted about 6 hours of render time), but I wanted to show at least something I've been working on this week. The tadpole is still growing his legs...