The Boy in the Flowerbed - works in progress

Apologies for the slightly shiney picture but the oil is still drying. This is going to be my wow piece. I'm doing it day by day and photographing each stage so this is stage one...KILL THE WHITE.

Anyways, I've put all the drawings into one book. Like this. Cut and stick.

I've added 4 more little people characters, but they're insignificant so I haven't done character pages or turnarounds for them because then I'd have 17 turnarounds to do and 13 is quite enough thank you.

Anyway I have all phases of the 1960s represented here.

The Mother represents the Mods and models and new things like Page 3.

Jeremy represents the baby boom and new exploration.

Arky represents the scientists dreaming up new ideas and schemes and the advancement of technology.

Agent Ski (it makes me giggle to myself) represents the KGB and CIA.

Danny (as in Danny Zuko) represents the Greasers or Rockers

Rainbow Feathers represents the hippy movement.

Whites represents the Skinheads

Dolf Rickman is a sort of parody of the Government of the time but shown in a Stalin type way, basically represents the Soviet viewpoint of the Cold War.

These are the Big People. I have removed (Charlie Dimmock) the female because I'm thinking I might do a whole Ent Wives rip off were the Big people women have disappeared and so to try and tempt them back, or even grow them! I'm thinking aloud here now... Yes the Big People Males try to grow some women but they end up growing the Little People.

I've also gotten rid of 'Big' the baby because he wasn't working for me.

These are the beginnings of the Big People character sheets.

In between each Character sheet/description I've done a concept piece that links the two together so for example;

Page 1. Arky.

Page 2. Arky and Dolf interacting

Page 3. Dolf.

So the concept bit acts as an introduction for the next character.

But here Dolf doesn't have anyone after him so he's giving a speech to a not-yet-drawn crowd.

My problem with turnarounds is that I can either get the front view and side view to be the same and right, or I can get the 3/4 view right but I can't get all three to be correct to each other. So individually here the 3/4 view works. But when you compare it to the Front View, the 3/4 view doesn't work. And it's very AGH!

But I think you get a feel for his character anyway.

Here's what I was on about just above; Arky and Dolf interact. I think the darker bits need to be darker.

I quite like this just as it is. It's an experiment to see how little I can get away with. I think you can tell who's who just from their hair shape. Which hopefully means my character design is okay.

He has a big head. Too Big?

I got carried away. I did him small to start with but it seemed like a waste of paper.

I'm also in the process of doing a storyboard so that'll be up shortly. It's Derrick approved (mostly) so yay! Anyway here's what the start of the book looks like. It's a sort of story book/board type thing just as an introduction to get the feel for what the film would be like. You can tell I've been looking at the There Was Once A Boy series by Oliver Jeffers.

The Boy in the Flowerbed

There was once a wonky little town

And in the wonky little town lived a curious little boy named Jeremy.

And he was waiting for something very big to happen.

But big things don't happen in your own house.

You have to go out and get them...and it was such a perfect day to explore.

Jeremy was an adventurer. Even though his mother always told him, "be careful not to let your curiosity get the better of you"

(You can't really see it here but the Explorer Map is actually an envelope that contains the map, yes my book is interactive!)

...His curiosity always got the better of him. He was always wondering what was around the corner.

He sailed across the big sea....and around the big island...and the curious little boy kept on sailing...until he found something....

...very curious indeed.

So I think it's going pretty good so far. I've got to churn out the turnarounds, and do some more character drawings, and colour my concept art. (I've put all the other concept art pieces seen in previous blog posts into the book) I'm hoping to double what I've got over the weekend and get all of the technical drawings done and dusted.

In other news;

1/3 has started. For me anyway. I've been asked to create a background from a layout. In any style. The direction is a bit loose which has its advantages and disadvantages. I'm surprised I've been trusted straight off the bat to create the whole look by myself. I'm using a combination of real drawing and digital painting. I shall have that posted up next week.

Inbetween: A Fable. I've gotten ahead and done almost everything with this now. I've drawn the Castle to epic proportions. There was a problem with the size (it was getting squashed and stretched lengthways) so I had to extend it left and right which now means if you lay it all out it can cover the worktable in the studio. Hehe :D

Have also done an 11 layer moving background/layout drawing of a street and courtyard which is the scene directly following the Castle scene. (I shall post these up tomorrow)

Cinematography; Rough Edit is done ahead of schedule. It's looking OK but there are a few transition shots I think we need to add in because in places it looks a bit jumpy and doesnt make sense but overall I think it's quite good. We originally shot it with the Actors moving slightly slower than normal (think this was by accident) but in editing we have speeded up the frame rate to something similar of a Charlie Chaplin movie, and we've put it into black and white. The good news is though that the shots are short, simple and only of one actor who happens to be the more readily available one so this is all good.

Dissertation/Literary Reviews/subject proposal; AH. Haven't had any time to go to the library yet but I've read some online stuff and some essays. I've chosen the female and male stereotypes so over the next month/term this shall be moulded into a question of some sort but I'm glad it doesn't get going for another week.

Extra Stuff; Have talked to two people, Sam and Oliver who work with outside projects so next week I shall be getting involved with a woman who wants a short animation projected onto a large book as part of an installation. There's a man who runs a youth centre in Truro coming to see me and a couple of others about teaching basic animation and film production things (everything else we do like CGI, Special Effects, Pre-Production and Cinematography) to some kids/teenagers aged about 12-18. Annnnd also perhaps maybe finally being able to teach some stop motion animation to the children at the School just up the road.