Presenting....(Drum Roll) A Presentation.

We've just done our second presentation for the project which went off without a hitch. We would have liked some more feedback but with it being 9am on a Friday with only one tutor besides our own present, it's par for the course, so we will be taking the block test to some lecturers individually to hopefully glean some cinematographic feedback.

Presentation Rundown:

For those who read this who are unfamiliar with Mouse Guard, have a look at some of David Petersen's work, these are the scenes we took particular inspiration from:

Have a gander at the new animatic! After many revisions we have something we all put alot of work into and are all quite happy with.

Mouse Guard Animatic Jan14th 2011 from Victoria Forbes on Vimeo.

The Models:

Gwen is currently in Zbrush with Kat after coming off the modelling line from Robin, she is getting a little fluffier as you can see.



Bisto (our owl) just came off the modelling line from Robin and is in the initial tweaking stage with Kat before he too will be sucked into Zbrush to be feathered.



This is our block test which Robin slaved over and re-did shot after shot after shot after group critique. It's pretty close to the animatic and despite both models being un-rigged gives a really good feel for what we're trying to do.

Mouse Guard Block Test Jan14th 2011 from Victoria Forbes on Vimeo.

There are also several presentation slides on texturing and UVs but I'll let Kat do a full update on that as this is getting a bit long.

Also Gwen's Rig is almost finished so expect an upcoming post about that!

We have a falconry session booked with our real owl Bisto at Liberty's Owl, Raptor and Reptile Centre on Monday weather permitting to get some awesome shiny new reference footage.


So far we're moving on schedule and everything is looking great, but as usual any feedback or constructive crit is always appreciated. :)

Gwen, glorious Gwen

Supposedly the final Gwen mesh! All smoothed out and in glorious ambient occlusion for your enjoyment.

...Ignore the inglorious tail-cape crashing.

A Model Citizen

So, we have our basic mouse model.



Yeeees, it still needs work. x) But it's a start, eh?

Concepts and hatching

And here I take a break from mind-numbingly painting crosshatching onto trees by posting my slightly elderly concept arts. (Click to open a large version) We're going to try and emulate the style, but obviously we have to make some compromises for 3D or we'll end up 2D animating on planes. x)



















And for the sake of completeness, here's a snippet of the hatching. I cobbled together about five densities of organic hatching brush with a bit of angle/roundness jitter and a dual brush to spice them up a little.



You don't want to see what I've been raging over, which is Houdini feathers. :| There is currently a very bad-looking plane-covered egg in my files.

Early Character Concepts

An early character concept for Gwen:

Basically identical to how she shows up in the comics; but since we're doing a younger version of her, we're simplifying her outfit. Also because we're not suicidal when it comes to animating all that stuff. :]

Also an analysis of the Mouse Guard style, which we will be emulating fairly closely:

Intro

So, here we go, production journal for the 'Mouse Guard' animation being made at Bournemouth Uni by the three of us, myself (Robin), Kat and Vicky. Don't know what Mouse Guard is? Check it out. It's a great comic by the very courteous David Petersen, who has also allowed us to use his ideas for our final project this year.


We're about a month in now, and the pre-production work's coming along nicely. So, without further ado, the animatic:



Mouse Guard Animatic 1 from B French on Vimeo.