Something I'd love to learn

Something I'd love to learn is to make realistic animals/creatures talk in a realistic way like they do in films such as The Golden Compass and Narnia. Here are a few videos showing this.

Long time no see!

Well, its been a while but I have been busy. I started a different blog that was made just for my final year project and dissertation. You can find it at http://emmas-research.blogspot.com/

As I want a little break from my cat animation I am going to work on my portfolio, website and demo reel so look forward to updates about what I want to try and do/learn and how my work is going.

Helpful sites

http://sarahmensinga.blogspot.com/2007/11/kittens.html

http://spinner.cofc.edu/~farrells/Farrell/Mickey%20Mouse%20Analysis/MickeyMouseAnalysis.html

Duoh! logo design process

I found this website that I thought was good to see how an illustrator comes up with the final design for a logo.

http://veerle.duoh.com/blog/comments/the_new_duoh_logo_identity/

Background

Here is a picture i found with a similar sort of idea to what I want the background to be like.
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Or something similar to the one on the right, that I made quickly in photoshop.

chronology of space race timeline

This is a website showing the chronology of the space race timeline between America and Russia.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/chronology_moon_race.html

Characters - America Vs Russia

My favourite idea is probably 'America Vs Russia'. I have done a few character designs, which are shown here. They are very stereotypical as I wanted it very clear that ones Russian and the other is American.
I made the American a cowboy because Houston, Texas is where NASA is and Texas is known for its cowboys so it made sense, when you thought about it.
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I'm not very keen on the bottom left Russian. It just doesn't look right.
So far I like the the top right American and the top left Russian. I think that I will have to change them slightly as I would like them to have the same sort of animation style. This could possibly be done by giving the American more of a curvy shape and eyebrows like the Russian.

The Space Race - Utopia/Dystopia

My response to Flight / The Space Race and it's affect upon art, design and life. Is going to be an animation. This is the 2nd task associated with Utopia Dystopia and I'm quite enjoying it. Below are some ideas for the animation.

Space Race Ideas

1. The story of Laika.

Showing her point of view and how she was grabbed off the streets, trained and made to be the first dog in space. Also, the only knowingly living thing sent to space to die. She could look out the window towards the end and see bones floating around the stars as a fun little extra. I would set this to be a rather sad animation with the possibility of a car parade of her picture at the end to end with a bit of a cheer.

2. America Vs Russia

This is set in a desert, space station or field. There is an American and a Russian. They both have big buttons. The American presses his and an empty rocket goes up in the air in the background. Then the Russian presses his and an empty rocket goes up on his side of the background. The American sends one up franticly now. So the Russian looks nervous and presses his button and a dog is thrown into a rocket and sent up. He does a little dance and a medal appears on his chest with 1st dog on it. The American looks shocked so sends something else up and gets a medal too. This continues through the timeline of the famous launches including 1^st man in space and 1^st man on the moon. A French man could also appear at one point and kick a cat up as they did send a tomcat sometime after Laika, the first dog.

The background could be curved with the field, then the sky, then space and the moon so you can also see how high their rockets got. At the end the moon could get sick of them all going for him that he turns round and squashes them with a big foot. Or an alien could appear with a flag and put it between them. Or it goes black and you come back on them both really old and aged still sending rockets up. I’m still thinking of a good ending for this one but I like the idea of something sudden and funny.

To go along with the whole - affect upon art, design and life, The characters or background art could change with the effect of what the space race did such as there clothes changing fashion with what was inspired.

3. The tortoise and hare theme

This idea is a twist on the famous moral story, the tortoise and the hare. It is set on a track but its set out like the earth, sky, space and the moon has been flattened into a windy track. Either people or rockets will be running the track. The winner will be the tortoise which is America as it reaches the moon.

Dolbadarn Castle and Tutorial

The castle that Im going to use as reference is Dolbadarn Castle as it was built by Prince Llywelyn. It is also not that far a drive from my home in Chester so I can go there over the weekend and take some photos and do some reference drawings.
I found this website that has some good photos of it and a good description of what it may have looked like before the walls and towers fell because of age.
http://www.walesdirectory.co.uk/Castles/Dolbadarn_Castle.htm

TUTORIAL
I found this tutorial for building a castle in 3d Max so Im going to use that to help me.
http://www.enjoycg.com/forums/member-content/2101-castle-modeling-textures-render.html

Wolfhound drawings

Here are some wolfhound drawings I found. I think its always good to research what other people think characters look like, hence why i did this.