PRODUCTION: Shot 21

This piece was something of a small challenge on how to move Pup up the stairs since a normal walk cycle cannot be used in this case. So we have Pups using only his front paws in moving forwards and leaving the tail limp. I'm really happy with this shot. After the rails are added it will give Pups a feel like he's look between the rails.

PRODUCTION: Shot 30

This is a shot of where Pups looks out of the window in Jenny's house and turns to look at her and then he follows her with his eyes. I'm generally happy with this piece, I had some help from Estelle with the smoothness of the animation.

PRODUCTION: Shot 22

This is the shot where Pups enters the rooms, it was quite difficult to pin point on how the seal was meant to enter the door. The general idea is for Pups to slide through the door frame and into the room. I'm rather happy with the outcome.

PRODUCTION: Shot 1 (Jumping background seal)

A quick small animation of a seal jumping out. It is going to be used as a background animation in shot 1. It was a quick unscheduled animation, and since I had some time in-between my scheduled animations I did it. I'm rather happy with how it looks like, even though this motion is described more to dolphin jumping, we thought that it will be quite nice to introduce the story.

PRODUCTION: Shot 19

This is another one of the longer shots. I have been restricted to specific frames since Stella is going to animate Jenny on this scene as well, therefore I have checked the frames with the animatic clip and tried to work with the restricted frame count. I'm rather happy with this shot.

PRODUCTION: Shot 7

A quick refreshing shot. This is when Pups peels off the cliff wall. I'm really happy with how his head moves, I'm not too sure about the last frame since it's supposed to be a smear frame. I haven't used smear frames before, however this shot has been edited since its been made and there are proper smear frames in place of this one, plus it has been cleaned up as well.

PRODUCTION: Shot 5

Another longer shot, this was decided by everyone that we all should concentrate on the longer and more difficult shot first so then we won't have to worry with the deadline. This next shot has determined Pup running towards the sea but getting scared again and retreating in a blind frenzy towards the cliffs but not seeing how close he is getting to them which resulted in smacking into the wall. For the parts where Pup is running in one spot we'll use a moving background as it will be easier. I'm really happy with this as I enjoy drawing running Pup since it's not something very usual.

PRODUCTION: Shot 3

This is the first shot from the film that I've been working on. It has Pup walking in the distance towards the sea and then then we see him backing away from it and curling up on his back. I'm rather happy with this after my feedback from Hilary on how the seal should walk I feel stronger in that area and after getting feedback from Stella about his scooting away, I'm overall happy with the progress as we are slowly one week ahead of the schedule.

Animation tests (redone)

After receiving feedback from Hilary about the animation test, I decided to actually change them since they went to the end of my do to list since I need to keep Stella updated with my background concept work.
Here are the all the redone animations with a head turn around. I haven't tried something like this before so this was nice to test out my knowledge and linework.

Final preproduction drawings

Stella has appointed for me to draw concept art of two screenshots which will be painted stills. These are not going to be used as the final shots however I will heavily use them as reference and as even basic linework to down the working time on drawing out the scene again, the final drawings will most likely be on 300ppi/dpi to ensure the quality of drawings and so not stretching and pixelation will show up during the process of lining it up in Premiere.
Both of the drawings are copying a watercolour style. Therefore there is a process to obtaining desired style. First the linework has to be done in a specific brush set to Multiply with Opacity of around 70+% afterwards that layer is copied and pasted over the original and then a a Gaussian Blur is set (at 3.5 inches) this gives the work an effect as if the ink is bleeding over the watercolour paint. Lastly a watercolour paper texture is applied at the top of all the layers and set to multiply with a opacity less than 40%
Here are the finished results of two of the main drawings that will be referenced to final cut. I'm really happy with how they are looking, especially that watercolour effect.

For the drawing above it took me many tries to get the desired look as I couldn't work out at what angle the buildings needed to be set and drawn to show a perspective of looking from the top of the hill, or otherwise known as to where Jenny's house was. In the end I decided to use Google Maps and get a view of the Steep Hill since it has the same feeling of the angle as the street view above.
Here are some trial and error drawings:

I have even used a map overview to work out what would Jenny be able to see if she stood in a given direction since me and Stella wanted for her to look at the see without getting her line of sight obscured by some of the bigger buildings at the front of the pier.  

As you can see I have drawn over a Google Street view to get a sense of the angled feeling and to work out the angle that drawing needed to be to achieve that look.

Final Extra Buildings

Since drawing the town hall and bait shop I decided that it would be fun to do more buildings like that. I believe that it makes them more alive and with more personality than a generic house. Therefore I drew the pub, arcade house and the three shops with living quarters that are placed at the front of the pier. This gave me a chance to practise the style that Stella wants to be used in the final cut.

As it can be seen I have referenced a previously used photo reference of a pub. I'm rather happy with this design even though it will not be seen in the final cut, well up-close anyway, I feel that many people would end up going to it in the cold winter days. I had a lot of fun designing the logo for the pub, I thought that it needed a seaside theme to it however I ended up going for a name called the 'Sleeping Wyrm' since my sea serpent turned to just a serpent.





This is the arcade design, it's located at the front of the pier. As much as it looks really gloomy but it's only because it's closed for the winter time, therefore all the lights are turned off, the shutters are down and even a small car ride is hidden under a cover to protect it from the harsh winter weather.    

Lastly a row of shops. Ella is the original designer of these shops. I just took to the style required for the project. Again these shops have closed doors because of the winter and little amounts of tourists during that time. I thought it would be a good idea to draw out the front view of these shops to get a solid form of them and use as reference during the production process.

Concept work: finalising the town

Here is a new look on town, I have kept the same angle as in the previous draft of the town however here I have added extra buildings to the front of the cliff using Ella's design as reference since we agreed that it looked better and more authentic than the previous version. Here is some work in process from line work, block colouring to shading and putting in details to the buildings. I'm really happy with this and I hope that we'll use this as a base in the project. It would only need to have increase PPI (pixels per inch) to achieve the high definition standard. This drawing at the moment has 100 ppi.

For some of the buildings I have used references to aid me in drawing out a given building like a pub, the arcade or even the row of three shops.

Here are the reference photos that helped me:

Concept of town: general view and extra buildings

I have taken the task of drawing a draft of the town in the story to see how it would look like in general and to see whether the town map that I did worked and made the buildings flow.
Here are the three stages of how I drew this piece:

As you can see the first drawing is a sketch of the town view. In this I had to work out how to place the buildings as well as see what angle the camera view I would have to use to make that drawing work. The next piece is lineart, in this clean up version I have added details like windows, doors and signs to the buildings. Lastly the finished coloured piece, I have decided to colour certain buildings with blue hints to make them stand out more than the houses. I have kept a lot of the buildings as simple squares with little details added to them as this doesn't have the big resolution as a drawing and because this is a draft. Since I'm working on the concept of town with another person I have just used my example town plan, later we will compare our ideas and try to work out the best scene for this story.

Moreover I drew some special buildings out of the town view, they have more added details. So far I have managed to draw a town hall and a bait shop. 

For this town hall I have used this photograph as a reference, I simplified my town hall because it doesn't play a major role in the story however I feel that it should be shown with details. I have added a little seal as a wind maker that you can find on some buildings. I thought that this added a special touch to the town hall and it's a special little thing as a seal is part of the story.

The next special building is the bait shop. I have two versions of it. The first one was done before my feedback from the team leader and the other is after feedback. There aren't many changes done to the whole design, I just received few pointers in making the shop look more attractive and realistic in the amount of details and props.

Concept work: Town plan

Previous to drafting a concept work of the pier I have made an angled view of the town from the beach.

This drawing has been made before a town plan, therefore a lot of the buildings are jumbled up and drawn randomly. However I'm pleased with how this looks because I'm not usually drawing buildings.







Furthermore I edited this drawing by adding more hills behind the Jenny's house, to not make it look like the only house with nothing behind it.

Moreover I took it as my job to make a town plan, just to have a general idea of where the different buildings were and to work out how to make Jenny's house still stand out but not to have it look lonely among the shops and other buildings.

Concept art: Piers

My next task was to draw some concept designs of the pier that Pup is going to roll off to the sea. I have found few references and this photo below seemed as a good starting point.

I have made the concept drawings consisting of the same pier design but looked at from a different angles.

As you can see they are in a rough state, this is because my idea for this was to just get a feeling of how it might look like. I decided to add some street lamps, benches as well as little long distance vision goggles that can be found at some beaches. I feel that the lamps and benches should be kept however the other should be scrapped because it does't make sense to have those where there is no barrier to lean on. However overall I'm rather happy with this whole design because it makes the pier look more attractive as well as it has a feel that during summer there are tourists walking along on the pier and enjoying their holidays from morning till evening. 

New concept for the beach

I have made new concept drawings of the same scenes that appeared in previous however I have applied my new knowledge and style to the new images. I'm rather happy with how they look. I'm hoping that they will fit the desired style of the project as I am yet to receive feedback about these pieces.
Here are the finished pieces:

Concept work part 2

After some talk with the project leader, I have tried to give the concept sketches another go with some feedback and extra notes to remember about the style, filters and brushes to use for Photoshop to achieve that style.
Here is the new concept sketch:

This is the initial drawing I did. Afterwards I consulted the project leader about it to see how she felt about it and whether I was going in the correct direction with the art style. After some feedback from her I know which direction to go in.

Here is another concept drawing after the second feedback:

I feel that this concept drawing is very good because it looks very close the original style and what it is meant to look like. I'm rather happy with this. In this I have tried to use filters and different textures and patterns that it almost looks like it's been painted.