Mathew Lornie College Blog 2013-14: Graded Unit: A Surrealists World

'The Cubed Crusader'

The start of this project involves me firstly coming up with a theme for the project. This is explored in my first mind map below, I settled on 'The Bizarre/Random' which with much research turned me onto surrealism then existentialism and then onto absurdism. After my initial research into these, I decided that each of them provided just a little of what I was wanting to use as inspiration, but together, these different aspects from each formed what I was going for.

The basic story is set in a world populated by shapes where a gang of triangular prisms, 'The Triad-gles', rule. The story centers around The Cubed Crusader who is a crime fighting cube hell bent on bringing down the triad-gles operations within in the city. The story itself though revolves around his desire for Boxanne, a female cube taken hostage by the Triad-gles. His goal...to save her, even against all the odds of a gang of triangular prisms and corrupt police force.

Mentor Meetings

My first two mentor meetings took place before pre-production, in the planning phase of this project and the third and fourth during production.

At this stage of the project I was in the planning stage developing my action plan, exploring my three concept ideas, Random, Environmental issues and electronics.
Mentor Meeting 1

After my first mentor meeting I had the following feedback, for me to focus more on developing my concept and the ideas within the concepts.

for me to develop a personality for my cube in my vigilante cube idea.

At this stage I was further on with my action plan and had developed a schedule for mt time management.
Mentor Meeting 2

After this mentor meeting I left with the following feedback, to get more scientific facts about climate change

Establish people who work in an absurdists way and to come up with some stories I want to tell.

At this stage I had done several mind maps for ideas after i decided to choose the surreal concept.
Mentor Meeting 3

After this mentor meeting I had the following feedback, to develop initial designs for characters and development.

to include screen grabs of the reference animations in my brief to give a visual reference of the visual style of the animations in question.

to establish a target audience for my animation inside my brief.

At this stage I was close to finishing animating and I was actually rendering only a couple of days later.
Mentor Meeting 4

After this mentor meeting I had the following feedback, to work on the possibility of adding in a new scene near the start to make the story make more sense to the audience.

to come up with a title for my animation.

Mind Map - Concept/Theme of project

This is a mind map for the theme/concept for this project. I decided to follow up on three of the main ideas, Bizarre, Environmental Issues and Electronics with more research leading me to choose Bizarre, which mentioned earlier, has become a combination of surrealism, existentialism and absurdism.

Mind Map - Random-ness

This is the first mind map of my Bizarre theme,i named it Random-ness because with the surrealism like theme i am not so restricted by genre and i found the thought process for coming up with ideas very random with inspiration coming from everything around me. the bubble going towards the top left corner, 'Super Box', is where i went with this project.

Mind Map - Random-ness Part II

This is part two of the Random-ness mind map.It is not as full as the previous one but I felt that i still had a few ideas left to consider.

Mind Map - Crime Fighting 'Cube'

This is a mind map for my selected idea about a crime fighting box. The style i am going for is of a very simple environment made up of simple geometric shapes with contrasting colours and some sort of surreal involvement.

Mood Boards

General Super heroes and Vigilantes

This mood board includes both super heroes and vigilantes because the only real difference it some sort of supernatural qualities. they both tend to dress up in the same style, capes, masks and...spandex.

The Cubed Crusader

This is a mood board for my main character, The Cubed Crusader. ultimately he will be a cube but this mood board is to help with a texture, these are simple characters and it helps to see what textures have been given to simple characters.

Triad-gles

This mood board is more the triangular prisms, The Triad-gles. This mood board is split up with triangular characters on the left and tattoos on animated characters on the right. The idea of the tattoos is because of the often stereotypical tattoos seen on gang members.

Boxanne

The mood board is for Boxanne. As was the case with The Cubed Crusader, this mood board is to do more with texturing her rather than modelling her because again...she will be a cube.

Police Uniforms

This mood board is of police uniforms (obviously). It was always less likely that the policemen in my animation would have uniforms like these but there was an intention to give them police hats.

Posters

This is a mood board for posters. In pre-production I designed some shape related posters with reference to the styles shown in this mood board.

Buildings

This mood board is for buildings for my environment.

Alleyways

This mood board is for an alleyway. The environment for the story was heavily swaying towards being set in a sort of back alley location from the first sparks of this idea.

Warehouses

This mood board is of warehouses, this was me exploring another alternative for my environment.

Vans

This mood board was compiled after I came up with a rough draft for my story. i wanted a van, an indicator of some sort of triad-gles drug operations going on in the back alley.

Shape References

This page was me gathering all the shapes I could in both 2D and 3D for reference to decide what characters would be what shape.

Shapes with faces

This sheet was just me drawing smiley faces on 3 dimensional shapes to get a feel of character in them.

Shape Composition

This sheet is of various possible character designs, i wanted to stick to simple shapes like just a cube but for the purpose of exploring my options I drew these ideas. i decided to keep the simple geometry going with just cubes and triangular prisms and spheres.

Boxy Development

This sheet is my idea generation for the look of The Cubed Crusader. The three circled are the three that i liked the look of the most. i went for the one with the mask on the left of the three.

Boxanne Development

This is my idea generation for Boxanne. I was testing the idea of 3D hair coming out of the box and textured on hair that was flat. I decided to go for 2D hair because it was the best looking option in my opinion.

Triad-gles Development

This is my idea generation for the Triad-gles and the boss of the Triad-gles. here i explored some forms of tattoos along with hair, hats and glasses.

Cops Development

This is my idea generation for the policemen. With the policemen my intention was to make it clear that they were policemen by giving them hats so i these are those designs i came up with using my mood boards for inspiration.

Colour Tests

This was my colour testing. each of the shapes represent the different characters in the story.i ended up going with the first one as i feel the colours best represented the characters involved.

Boxy Final

Boxanne Final

Triad-gles Boss Final

Triad-gle Henchman Final

Cop Final

Van Development

This is my idea generation for the van, the one circle is my chosen design.

Environment Development

This is my development for my environment. Here I explored different shapes for my main buildings. i settled on more square like buildings.

2nd Environment Development

This is my development for my other possible environment.

Environment Layout

This sheet is my layout for the environment. The idea is to have The Cubed Crusader on the rooftop of a near by building at the start of the animation.

Building Reference Drawing

Building Colour Tests

Poster Ideas

The idea with the posters was to make the environment look like it was once a prosperous city but has gone downhill since the Triad-gles took over. My original idea was to have these posters faded and scratch up to make them appear old.

Poster Ideas - 2

Poster Ideas - 3

Thumbnails Set 1

This is my first set of thumbnails.

Thumbnails Set 1

Thumbnails Set 2

This is my second set of thumbnails, after

Thumbnails Set 2

Storyboards

These are my individual storyboards. The story starts with The Cubed Crusader on a rooftop looking down into a back alley where some Triad-gles have gathered loading drugs, next to them is Boxanne who is the love interest of The Cubed Crusader. The story then revolves around the Cubed Crusader beating up The Triad-gles henchman and some corrupt cops and eventually turning his attentions to The Triad-gles Boss.

Animatic

Poster Design

This was the only poster i did because i had to set priorities for the project and the posters were quite low down because they were not important to the story that much.

Cube Modelling

This is my process through modelling The Cubed Crusader. He is the main character and is a cube who wears a mask to hide his real identity.

This is the start of my Cubed Crusader modelling. This is him with his mask marked out in 3ds Max.

Here I extruded out the mask to make it 3D.

Morphers

This screenshot is of my two morph targets which I used to animate expressions for my main character.

Texture

Rig

The rig was really simple to make and was effective for what I needed it to do.

Controllers

This is my complete rig for my character.

Boxanne Modelling

This is my process through production with Boxanne. She is a driving point for this animation with her relationship to The Cubed Crusader.

This is actually the modelling for Boxanne, even with it just being a cube. That is because all her detail was textured on, however, I felt it relevant to include the modelling of her for continuities sake.

Texture

Rig

This is actually the same rig I used for The Cubed Crusader.

Controllers

Triad-gle Henchman Modelling

This is my process through the henchmen. They are pretty much in the story to get beat up.

This is my simple modelling for my Triad-gle Henchman.

Glasses Modelling

This is my modelling for the sun glasses.

Texture

For the texture here, I desaturated the green here like i did with the colours in the environment to add to the rundown character of the city. I deliberately didn't desaturate the two cubes for contrast.

Rig

Controllers

Triad-gles Boss Modelling

This is my process for the Triad-gles boss. He is the main antagonist of the story.

Texture

As you can see here, the green looks very faded just like the henchman.

Rig

Controllers

Cops Modelling

The cops in the story are there to show the power the Triad-gles have in the city as they are able to buy out the police.

Texture

This texture was created in mind to make the cops looks worn out and tired. They have been bought out and it must be a bit rough for some of them doing dirty work with good morals.

Cap Modelling

Cap Texture

Cop Complete

Van Modelling

This is my modelling for a van.

Texture

Just a few puns for the texture on my van, this was the first pun i came up with but in the next image i came up with a far better one that i eventually went with.