The book!

In my story, the recipe book plays an important role. I want it to open in a "magical" way.. I have found a super-great script for animating page turns: Book rigger
I still need to animate the book itself. I`ll see if I find a good/easy/fast way of doing it. OR I`ll just let the book be open, and just animate the pages that turns (with the script).

I recently discussed the issue of copyright with my teachers. I thought I might just download some pictures to use in my book. The question of copyright, and all the "ifs" since I am a student..made me decide not to download and use images. I made them myself, and this probably didn't steal more time than it would to find images and dealing with copyright. I am not great at drawing- but at least the images are mine:) I write this blog in English to give my teacher Deryck a chance to understand me, however I am not supergood in English.. So if you see any spelling mistakes in my pictures below- please let me know;)

The character

It is a little while since I finished the gingerbreadman- character, however I want to share with you how I made him.

It is almost hard to avoid him looking like gingy from shrek..
I mean, a gingerbreadman is a gingerbreadman. But I have made my own design anyway.

My gingerbreadman looks like this:



The arms and legs are longer than gingys, also I don't have all the decorations that gingy has.

I never liked gingys mouth for some reason; The "circle" that deforms..I just don't like it. But I see that for gingy, who is a
talking character- this is the most natural solution. However- my character will not say anything, so I can design the mouth the way I find most appealing. A simple mouth.

For the face I have made eyes, eyebrows and mouth movable. He is now able to show a range of emotions. The eyebrows can move up and down, sideways and also bend to show both sadness, anger and surprise. The eyes can blink, and also has two basic emotions, happiness and sadness. The mouth can show surprise, sadness, happiness, and calmness. I used morpher. I have little experience with morpher- but after a while I got the hang of it:





For the body I choose to make it as simple as possible, no decorations- except the buttons. I think it looks OK! When I skinned the character
I soon discovered that the topology could be better. At least three edge-loops is required to make elbows and knees to deform nicely. So I had
to update the topology a couple of times before I found just the solution I needed. Now the character has 2 100 polys on the body- and a total of 10 000 polys including the face. It functions well. I really dislike skinning- I must say. The whole process is just..boring and time consuming!



I chose to use the brad- noble skeleton rig. A little while back, I tried the rig- just for fun. And I immediately fell in love with it. I was suddenly able to make good animation, in much shorter time than I am used to. So I chose to use it for rigging my character. To make this "natural"- sized rig fit a 15 cm gingerbread man I had to rescale the rig. I bought brads re-size script. Works like a charm!







The wife is also pretty simple. I consider making some "hair" on her- if I have the time. Her movement is limited, so skinning her was not as hard as for the gingerbread man. I have given her a slightly pin-up ish design. If Marilyn Monroe was a gingerbread-lady I think she would like something like this! However- I did not want to make the design TOO sexy. In the context of the innocent story, I think it would be wrong.

PREVIZ

Here is my previz!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgX9qOTGsfo

More modelling, Textures and Lighting

As you might have suspected (from both the old fashioned sink, and also the old fashioned stove), I try to make the kitchen in an american 50s/60s style. Since Deryck told me not to worry about the Disney- effect, I really take this all the way:P I have made the floor checker- and appearing used/old. The green stuff on the sink, also made it look a lot better (older). Also, take a look at the window. I have added snow on it- not sure if I am going to keep it yet.



Setting the style for the kitchen bench.




Introducing a gingerbread man model for the first time, to see how he looks in the scene.Also testing camera settings.




The kitchen benches are finished.



The gingerbread house!



Notice that the light is brightest where the action is going to take place. I like this, it makes the bench appear more as a stage. I think am going to keep it like this.






Testing out different colours on the walls.. I feel like the pink one is the best, it gives good harmony to the scene. Added tiles. Also added a glass-thingy at the bottom of the window.



Yes, I think pink will work fine.




Added a chopping board for the house to stand on.

THE PLACE WHERE IT ALL TAKES PLACE!

Originally my scene looked like this:


However, I felt it was kind of "flat" to look at, the scene did not have the depth that I wished for. The action will be on the kitchen bench, and as you can see, the only thing behind that bench is..well, just a boring wall. So I decided re-arrange the kitchen. Now there are much more life in the scene, and hopefully more interesting to look at!




Here I have made the foundation for the scene. The action will play out on the kitchen bench closest to us.




I`ve added an old- fashioned sink.




I decided to remove the middle kitchen bench, and put an old fashioned stove in there.




Testing of lighting from the stove, and also lighting in general.





The finished model of the stove, with materials.

STORYBOARD

Here is the storyboard I orginally made for the story:

Open publication - Free publishing - More animation

However, as Deryck pointed out- and that I also was conserned about was the length of the story. I needed to shorten it. So I will remove all the walking from the story, and save many seconds there. Deryck also suggested that I can use time-lapse as a method to shorten it. I will upload my previz shortly, to show you how it went!

FILM PROJECT

ANIMATION FILM PROJECT.

For my film-project I decided to go for a story I developed last semester. I call it Pepperkakemannens Jul (gingerbread mans christmas) for now, in lack of a better title at the moment! I had several ideas in mind for this project, so I shared some of them with both my friends, family and my classmates. The response was the same from everyone: Make the gingerbread man-story, it is so sweet!

PITCH: A lonely gingerbread man makes himself a wife.

My concern was that it might be TOO sweet, too Disney.. But I got the response I needed: My tutor Deryck told me I should never be afraid of the Disney- effect. And one of my classmates, Alf said that these sweet stories should also be told. Therefore: The gingerbread man it is.


THE IDEA IS BORN:

I actually saw the base of the story in a dream a long time ago. And when I woke up, I wrote it down in a hurry. I've noticed many times before that I tend to get the best ideas when I sleep, I don't now if this is a good sign or a bad! In my dream I saw a gingerbread man that makes himself a wife. I was entertained by the "sight" of this little guy that struggled to make a wife- with tools that are much too big for him.

So this is the foundation in my story. However I needed to do much work with this idea, in order to make it function as a story. The method I used to get more flesh to the bone is the "question and answer" way. I asked A LOT of questions, and did my best to answer them.

Example:

WHY does he make himself a wife?- Because he is lonely.

If the gingerbread- man is lonely..then why has he not made the wife a long time ago? Why NOW? -Because he has not discovered the recipe before now.. ( I suddenly got the "trigger" in the story- the moment that the gingerbread- man discovers the recipe).

I continued asking and answering questions until I had a lot of solid sentences. With the three-act structure in mind I started to "fill in the blanks" and organize the story in INTRODUCTION, MAIN PART and ENDING. I tried to find good turning points, twists and bring tension to the story. For example, the wife does not come to life when he is finished making her. Oh no..is our hero not going to reach his goal?

Here is my treatment:

Gingerbread mans Christmas

INT. KITCHEN BENCH. NIGHT. It's Christmas, and warm atmosphere in the old kitchen. The GINGERBREAD MAN is sitting alone outside the gingerbread house and sighs. He glances over at the husband and wife decoration-pigs, and looks over at the husband and wife decoration-gnomes. Another heavy sigh. The STAR FLASHES outside the kitchen window and catches his attention.

He gets up, walks curiously towards the window, but stops when the recipe-book in front of him lit up and like MAGIC scrolls a page by itself. He walks towards the book that shows pictures of a gingerbread man and GINGERBREAD WIFE. Turns head to one side when he looks at the gingerbread man. Looks at the gingerbread wife and strokes his hand lovingly over the image. Focuses on texts and other images, that step by step shows how to make gingerbread cookies- and reaches his hand out to touch the pictures as he "reads".

He suddenly "jumps". Stretches his arms curiously, and looks at them. Turns his head and looks at the gingerbread dough behind him. Walks to the dough, sits down and gently squeezes it. Looks at the gingerbread cookie cutters beside the dough, and walks over to them. First he looks at the gingerbread-man cookie cutter, then looks at the other cookie cutters and then back at the gingerbread man cookie cutter again. He steps carefully into the cookie cutter, and lies down in it. Smiles. Then he blinks twice. Rises quickly and walks to where the gingerbread wife cookie cutter lies. Lifts it up quickly and holds it in front of him. Then looks at the book, and back at the wife cookie cutter again. Then he smiles and does a pirouette.

He holds the wife cookie cutter in one hand, and scratches his chin as he looks at the cookie cutter. Squeezes the cookie cutter to make it more female. Holds it in front of him with both hands and nods. Looks down at the dough. Lays the cookie cutter down on it, presses the cutter down and lifts it up again. Drags the rest of the dough away from the gingerbread wife. Lifts her up with a spatula. Carries her to the open OVEN and puts her in there. Closes the oven door with the spatula. Turns on the switch that is next to the door and the oven is lit up inside. Stands with both hands and nose close to the oven door glass. Carries the freshly made gingerbread wife on the spatula. Decorates her with icing.

He sits on his knees beside her, smiles down at her with folded hands. Touches her gently on the shoulder. SMILES. Touches her on the shoulder again. THE SMILE disappears. He gets up slowly, turns around and walks with heavy steps towards the gingerbread house. Turns his head once, turns it back quickly and moves on. Sits outside the gingerbread house and sighs. The star outside the kitchen window FLASHES.

Gingerbread wife is surrounded by a MAGIC light as she comes to life. Then she gets up and looks at gingerbread man. Walks towards him. The gingerbread man sees her and gets up quickly. Gingerbread wife opens her arms when she approaches the gingerbread man. They hug each other. The star outside the kitchen window FLASHES and shines stronger than ever.