BMA 1452 Update on Pallet Circle + Landscape Bubble

 We continued work on our pallet balls, i feel like they turned outwell but trying to show a planet broken apart when i had to start with jpeg again was very difficult.

We then spent 10minutes being taught about reflections through using the dodge and burn techniques!

An experimentation into Colour Pallets

An experiment in colour pallets.

BDM 105 Act 1 Examination - Space Captain Harlock - 2013

English Trailer

Space Pirate Captain Harlock is a movie based on a long running anime (January 1977 – January 1979) of the same name by Leiji Matsumoto.

The first Act introduces us to most of the main characters, with flash backs providing explanations of how they act and foreshadowing future events, and provides the true turning point to the protagonist.

The protagonist is Yama (or Logan in the english dub), and has been tasked by his Older Brother Isola (Erza in the english dub), a Praefectis in the military, to infiltrate the Arcadia and assasinate the Space Pirate Captain known as Harlock, who has been at large for over 100 years.

The story starts with a typical day for those on a colony planet, barren, no signs of true life, people just dozing out at the bar, ordinary life. Until Yama hears the acadia over head, and his mission is alive. It is unclear as to the complete time brackets between been given the mission and Yama's infiltration to the ship, or Yama's falling out with his brother over being responsible for his mother's death (revealed in a flash back). But for the longest time, an ordinary life for Yama was one of privledge and of military.

The protagonist originally wants to fufill his brother's wish, and attone for his sins, by getting a job done that no one else wants to even try, which is assinating Harlock.

The initial Antagonist is Space Pirate Captain harlock, but that quickly turns to Isola as the antagonist, with Harlock turning into a sort of Anti-Hero, and his brother Isola having placed Yama on the ship purely to see him killed, also leading the attack against the Arcadia, losing thousands in the process and ignoring any logic from Yama, infused with rage (though we find this out in later acts)

The protagonist initially wants to attone for his sins, perhaps knowing it's a death wish, but ends up wanting what Captain Harlock wants, freedom for all and the earth renewed.

The inciting incident happens right at the start of the film, when we find out Yama is infact an operative on the ship, but the turning point happens when he finds out that Captain Harlock knows, but accepts him as part of his crew, and tells him to find his own truth, which in Yama does, following Harlock in his plan to 'reset' the universe.


Space Pirate Captain Harlock: 2013 is Available on Netflix

Space Pirate Captain Harlock is property of Toei Animation

http://www.solarmovie.ws/watch-space-pirate-captain-harlock-2013-online.html

Notes to use later:
www.simplyscripts.com/genre/animation-scripts.html
www.dailyscript.com
www.shortoftheweek.com
www.awn.com
www.cartoonbrew.com

A script concept out of doodling?

In combination of our Principles of Animation paper and our Storyboarding Paper we are to make a character and perhaps use that character in a story.

Originally, i was going to design a story off my Pathfinder Campaign that I run with my friends, but post our Principles in Animation where we were playing around with face base shape concepts, and I sillily sketched a pirate with two eye patches, seeing as that wasn't enough, i added a pirate hat, a parrot on the shoulder, a missing left arm, a right arm with a crutch, a missing right leg and a wooden left leg, joking that he was in all accounts, a very successful pirate.

As I got home I decided to scribble out a basic structure on my, handy dandy, notebook.
The following is an amalgamation of that:

Act 1

Main Character: Titus
Daughter: Cassandra
Wife: Lilly


"Main Character a Pirate / Sailor", I've decided that he'd suit being a Privateer, as privateers were privately owned and ran vessels with a commission to attack certain areas or targets as corsairs. Effectively a king of the seas, successful at a young age, amassed riches he decides to take his wife and toddler child for a day trip on his vessel, an unfortunate occurance.

A group of rival privateers / pirates / someone out for revenge see the ship that they so fondly hate, with it's captain that they so distain only running a skeleton crew as his family briefs the sea air. The rivals quickly take the ship and our main character realises too late as his wife and child are taken hostage, holding the todler over chummed water, with the wife to the blade. Curious as to the nature of the stationary vessel a ship friendly to the corsair heads to investigate, pressuring the pirates to finish their revenge quickly, killing the wife, and throwing the child overboard as they set fire to the ship to make a quick escape. 

Without a second thought, our main character plunges over board into the cold water for his daughter, fearing she'd already been taken by the predators lured by the offal. As the rescueing ship comes into range, the main character is desperately fighting off predator sharks, his daughter to his chest. They throw a line and pull up a barely conscious main character, his right arm the last vestige of his limbs retaining funtionality, the remainder mauled and torn.

Act 2

Titus stuggles with his body, acting more as a prison than an assistance to his growing daughter. He teachers her to read and write, but without her simple tasks such as fixing a fire or using a fishing rod, or tying a knot resolve as near impossibilities. But Cassandra is an ingenuitive daughter, akin to her father but with the caring heart of her mother, finds ways to enable her father, creating a flint and steel he can use in one hand, crafting a simple harness to hold his fishing rod etc. As she grows, she gets frustrated, and with no mother figure to care for her with a recluse father in their small home, she starts to rebel, she gets friends and starts enjoying their company more and more, and gets into arguements with her father. She comes home late one night, he's drunk in his chair, they yell, she blurts out "You're the reason mother is dead, you're the reason why you're alone and broken!" and storms out.

Cut to scene where she obviously didnt return, he sits there looking out over the ocean, his beard and hair growing, the plants getting out of control. And then a letter is thrown at him from the gate. The addressy is not titus, or his last name, or is rank, just "Dad".

Act 3

Day break, a man hobbles torwards a university looking place, unsure that he's in the right place he opens the letter in one hand to look at the map provided. He sits down on the bench a faint smile on his face, he has shaved atleast. The sun rises, sits in the mid day then falls, his smile never falters until the sun catches the roof and starts to crawl the seat into darkness, blackness covers him as it sets with just a pearly teared eye in view. He stands, and hobbles over to the gate. A dirty hand from an owner in leather grabs his last good arm, startled he falls, looking up it's his daughter, cassandra. A tear in her eye with a giddy smile she pulls at him and points to a workshop that has been billowing out smoke all day. Helping him in the door, she points to the table, or more so what is resting on it. He noticeably gulps. On the table sits mechanical limbs admidts tools and scraps, obviously having just been finished. At the table he runs his hands over the surface until he finds the shoulder of the arm... "Never Alone" etched into the side with Lilly's initials engraved under neath. He embraces her.

Cut to scene, he's on a boat, wheel in hand, standing freely, his daughter with a wrench working on his open knee, cut to his arm, a brutish engraving has been added to the arm, "Cass" within a love heart around "Never Alone " and lilly's initials. A dirty grin strikes his face as he sails off into the horizon.

Needs work, but is a base at least :D

Character References:

Titus (James Norrington archtype appearance from Pirates of the Caribbean) 

Cassandra (Google Images "Redhead Todder" / Stock Image / Kaylee from Firefly respectively)

Lilly (Saffron from Firefly)

BDM 105 Scene Review

BDM 105 Scene Review

The Opening Scene of the series Kill la Kill is a rather unique scene that sets the premise, theme and mood of the anime and gets you ready for more action and amazing animation to come.

What is a scene?

According to an excerpt from the book, "the Book Architecture Method", a scene as two main definitions; a scene is where something happens and, a scene is where something changes. An opening scene sets up the audience's feeling for the following scenes and should provide enough explanation as for an audience member to understand the world, or atleast enough that they arn't completely lost in the story and or world.[1]

1. HORWITZ, S. (2013). Blueprint your bestseller. Retrieved February 22, 2014, from http://www.bookarchitecture.com/media/pdf-book-architecture-method-excerpt.pdf

In the opening scene of Kill la Kill, we're introduced to the typical school-room setting, which subtly provides a few things. We arn't specifcally shown anything apart from a 'boring' school teacher, a hoard of anonymous squished in students in a utilitarian room, and one girl sleeping in the corner.

Humorously, and even though you can see in her surroundings no one is really concentrating on the lesson, she's in a deep sleep sleep whilst sitting. 

Suddenly the door is dented against, and everyone gasps.

With excellence in showing how fast the door moves, by the speed people react to it, and the weight in the folly and the over the top kick, the intense over the top awesomeness of this anime has just revealed itself ontop of it's top quality animation quality. 

And so the Disciplinary Committee Chair has his over the top, but classic introduction and a huge stamp denoting the halfhearted 'official' style of their introduction in jest. Immediately you know this school is ran by a militaristic style management and even the teachers are afraid of them.

Though all the mess, that one character of which you don't even yet know the name of, still asleep after all the commotion, attaching curiosity to her role but also information of her care-free almost ignorance is bliss persona.

The fugitive, a thief of which we learn the powerful goku suit (the source of their supernatural abilities), is caught out, and runs.

But is, ofcourse, found out, and the theif pays the price.

The full opening scenes of this Anime Kill la Kill is crazy action fulled with a high level of stylised animation immersing you in a real feeling of movement and emotions of the huge and imposing disciplinary chair teaching the would be thief his lesson as an example to all at the school.

Techniques

This anime uses a few of the typical opening scenes, including:

• Regular Day (students in a class room)
• Dramatic Irony (the thief doesn't realise what he's getting in to, and his reaction results in the opening scene and premise of the series, revealing to us the lore of this world)
• Foreshadowing / True Beginning (at the end of the scene it reveals the main character of the story, Ryuko Matoi, showing she just arrived in town with a clear bad ass attitude)

Clip of the Opening Scene

Kill la Kill is property of Trigger. Inc

An amazing home brewed short animated film

Review to come!

With it's concept art by one of my favourate artists, Aaron Beck

BDM126 Exercise in Appealing Animation - A Review on Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin)

The Animation I find appealing is a kind of visceral anime displayed by Wit Studio's: Attack on Titan. 

With beautiful fluidity that helps you become immersed in the fiction, along side a striking and clear aesthetic in it's drawing style, on-top of serious themes such as death and violence for survival, it is an experience for the eyes as shown in this clip below.

Attack on Titan is an ongoing dark fantasy series about man-kind's last walled city, attempting to survive against hordes of these mysterious titans. Being an Anime, akin to many other's of it's kind, Attack on Titan started as a Manga in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shonen Magazine (a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels) on September 9th, 2009 and was subsequently collected into a total of 15 volumes as of the end of 2014.

The Anime adaptation of the series by Wit Studio first aired on April 6th, 2013 and ran until September 28, 2013 and was directed by Tetosuro Araki, who previously directed the famous Death Note anime series. Attack on Titan was produced by Wit Studio President George Wada of Production I.G., of which Wit Studio is a subsidiary of.

When it comes to awards, this Anime epic has won multiple at the 3rd Newtype Anime Awards including: best director, best script, best soundtrack, best theme song, top female character and title of the year. Attack on Titan also won the award for best TV animation at the 2013 Animation Kobe Awards. IMDb also states that Attack on Titan has won Animation of the Year and best director in the Tokyo Anime Awards 2014. Though success with critics is hard earned for the series, as the intense violence in some of the scenes is relatively uncommon for mainstream Anime causing many critics, such as Carl Kimlinger from the Anime News Network, say that Araki "clearly intends it to be powerful and unsettling, but it's just crude and unpleasant". 

On top of the astounding animation quality and critical controversy, the beautiful music, composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, has also left an impression on fans everywhere with it's iconic epic overtones and melodies, and a example of why they were awarded top theme song. The composer is also responsible for the epic soundtracks of Kill la Kill, of which Best Music was won for work on  both Kill la Kill and Attack on Titan at the Tokyo Anime Awards in 2014.

The core question of this exercise though is to ask, what makes this anime appealing to me as a content creator and consumer? To me, it is a combination of the following things: 

• The strength and boldness of the lines (with the lines themselves at times being used as an accent for the focal point for additional effect)
• The 'busyness' in many of the intense moments, adding to the emotions and stress in the scene.
• The subtle touch of movement in scenes.
• The ability in the artists to portray such strong emotions in each and every character
• The beautiful shape and accuracy of the muscle groups and how they react in the environment (for example when the male titan slams his fist into the ground and the muscles and bones tense, then fail causing the arm to almost explode)
• And finally the cinematographic layering in almost every scene resulting in a deep immersion and feeling of perspective in Attack on Titan that i personally feel isn't found in many other Anime or even two dimensional animation (other than the typical background pan).

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) is property of Wit Studio and Production I.G.

Test

Oh hai guys, this here is a test