Summer's over.

Should have posted this first maybe but....we like mixing it up here at paddymeharg.blogspot!

Basically I know I said I was going to animate about 3 minutes of American Football but frankly it's very hard and this may turn out to be a life long thing. It took me a month to get Tony Romo here to throw the ball. I'll shoot it properly on Monday because the stuff I have at home isn't playing ball (no pun intended...well maybe a little bit) and is playing it really slowly. Anyway here's some finished panels from my comic book / graphic novel which is really fun to draw. And as a quick reminder to anybody reading this who may be marking my degree, it's supposed to help me with my storyboarding and story telling.

And the story, in a nutshell, is about A Human who think's he's a Robot (idea first came from the Futurama Episode "The Cyberhouse Rules". It's told from the Human perspective where he fights an evil Witch and tries to rescue a pretty woman, and from the Robot perspective where he dons a cape and fights crime.

In the Human world he ploughs the Wicked Witch's fields and he gets along fine until she kills his Cow (and best friend) Daisy after he takes a break. From then on he swears a vendetta against her and vows to rescue the damsel locked in her tower.

In the Robot world he meets Shade who is some sort of experiment or apparition gone wrong, anyway he corrupts our innocent young hero into "dipping his hand into the cookie jar" once in a while, so in other words when he stops a bank robbery he pockets a few notes. Obviously this kind of thing attracts the attention of the "suits" who pursue him and label him a vigilante. This all spirals out of control until the Robot is eventually killing people.

Anyway eventually the two worlds collide and it becomes apparent that the Witch and Shade are the same thing. It ends revealing that he is a Robot who thinks it is Human and that 'Shade' is a virus and the finale is the Robot fighting Shade in a big battle of virusy doom.

The story may be a bit cliche or deja vu but I'm hoping to tell it in a different way. I'm going with the Quentin Tarrentino philosophy of 'It's the same story you've seen a thousand times just told in a completely different way'

It's what I'm aiming for anyway.

And the Jean-Beanie, well he came from my other summer task that Kathy gave me which was to try and create more cartoony and animate-able characters but starting with simple shapes like Beans. So I did that, but as I did more and more I sort of stuck with it and am on the brink of creating a whole new brand of characters based around Beans, Fruit and Vegetables.

Let it be known that the only beans I actually like to eat are kidney beans. I'm not some kind of 'Bean-Freak-Obsessive' . Although to all you BFO's out there, I don't mean any offence towards your healthy love affair with beans.

I'm hoping the Jean-Beanie will be able to make a relevant appearance this term. I've worked quite a bit on him to try and make him a good character but it's still a work in progress. One book that was very helpful to me was Animation 1. It's in the campus library and it's not hard to find because the Animation section is only about 2 shelves, and it's a big thin book by a character designer from Warner Bros. I think it was. It teaches you basic head, body, hand, feet construction and how to build and construct all types of characters. And if you can't find it it's because I've probably taken it out.

Anyway that's all for now. If you want to know how my film for the BBC is coming along (I'm not commissioned for it I'm just going to send it to them relentlessly until they accept it) well I've written the opening and am fairly happy with it. I shan't run down the plot as I fear this blog is too long already but very briefly; Agoraphobic Teen is assigned to look after an ex-commando pensioner for Community Service. It's about opposites attracting, personality clashes and conquering fears. It also focuses a bit on how the Mother deals with it all.

Why Agoraphobia? Well I'm Claustrophobic and I find the opposite quite interesting.

Also, anybody seen the Film '9'? (Elijah Wood does one of the voices and Tim Burton helped produced for anyone who's a Tim Burton nut) It looks really good. It looks more serious than say a Pixar family film.

Enough chat! I'm hungry.