Environment Concepts

One of the main pieces of feedback given to me at Nickelodeon was trying to establish more about the world that they were in. The new narrative makes this alot more obvious now but I have done some artwork to illustrate this to the panel at Nickelodeon. This bright and colourful imagery I think could win them over and really help them to visualise the crazy world Wez is in.

New Boards

These are the new storyboard boards I will be presenting at my next Nickelodeon pitch. It shows the narrative of the circus concept I have been developing.

Rough Texturing

This is a rough attempt at texturing the main body. I have the idea of a kind of transparent Goo monster which would be quite cool but I need to get the shininess looking more realistic.

Gloop Modelling

I have started doing some rough modeling for my Gloop characters. I think I will keep this design the way it is and use all the Gloops in the same way rather than having different numbers of eyes or nostrils etc. I will add props in order to define different looks and character personalities.

Wez Modelling

These are the models of the new Wez design. Just looking at him I really feel more empathy for the character and his size and proportions shows this. I really like the more 'beady' eyes also which stick out as a great feature.

Week 8 Scheduling

Still very much on track here. I little behind on Nickelodeon aims but then very much ahead on Veronica's which is a bonus so this kind of evens out and the Showreel unit is all but finished as well as many elements for ROA and personal branding. Focusses will very much switch to ROA next week while I tie up the main submissions for CVA 205.

New Nick Storyboards

These are some new storyboards I have put together to illustrate the narrative I have developed with the circus idea. I think this will be a much more fun idea and it definitely has more of a conclusion than the previous spaceport concept.

Veronica Ident

This is an initial ident idea I have put together and edited. I don't think this is entirely what SCI FI would be after but I will develop this idea in accordance with what they are looking for and whatever feedback they give.

New Wez Design

This is my new Wez design that I will be presenting to Nickelodeon at the 2nd pitch. I have followed the feedback they said about making the character more cute and I think this thoroughly fits what they were looking for.

Week 7 Scheduling

This is the plan starting for Week 7 onward. So far I have kept reasonably on track with what I have aimed to do. The only real changes have been rearranging the order of my work as I have chosen to work on other projects instead. Also due to the bulk of my work that I am undertaking entirely on my own this term I am having to prioritize my projects w=very concisely. So far I have nearly completed all my pre-production and planning phases on all projects and I have nearly entirely completed my Showreel Unit for Dan Dalli. I will be aiming to totally finish this off while moving onto other production areas in other projects, particularly on Nickelodeon and Veronica Magazine.

Production Scheduling End of Weeks 5 and 6

Despite the earlier success of my schedules in Excel I have been asked to use MS Project to try and enhance the quality of my time planning. I have mocked up a new schedule using this software as you can see below




The screenshots above show the production schedules for the past 2 weeks. These show the work that I was aiming to achieve during weeks 5 and 6. Generally I kept to most of my tasks to date. There was the setback of redo-ing pre-production work for Nickelodeon but this is all part of the design process and I have integrated time in for these changes and you can see the percentage of work done also decreased as I had to redo areas for the animation. I also readjusted the scheduling of the Veronica work as I was losing ground on this but I did manage to make better headway with other areas such as Contextual Studies, PPD, and my showreel unit.

Re-designing Wez

I have started working on some new cuter versions of Wez. This is what I have started to develop by making the character more round and generally smaller. I think making his eyes bigger shows more emotion and it will give me a lot more emotion in the character which hopefully will generate the empathy factor we discussed at Nickelodeon.

Finalising Textures and Water Effects

These are some newer images of the look we were aiming for. I have managed to get the liquid looking more like mercury which I think works well and is definitely more bold. Also the clean look of the white and the softer lighter really impressed SCI FI and they like the feel of it. While remaining corporate it did have a certain pace and fun about it that made it good to watch for that short 10 second piece.

New water and texture tests

These were some new ideas I experimented with for texturing. Ultimately the renders don't give off a good look and are very dark. I like the feel of the water but I think it needs more 'volume' and needs to be bolder and I also like the extreme close up where you can't quite identify it as the Veronica's logo. It is however a good way of teasing the viewer about the brand before revealing the full logo.

New Veronica Storyboard

After consulting with SCI FI about my original ideas and water tests, we felt the look of the piece ultimately needed more work and we discussed a more clean style. We also thought about making the narrative change slightly so that imagery would appear in the water and the focus wouldn't be so much on the logo. This new idea teases the viewer into parts of the logo with quick cuts and fast paced water/paint. I think this will be a much more punchy piece that will ultimately focus on the brand. The problem is mainly establishing if imagery can be used as often images can date quickly. This is where we had problems with the original magazine cover design.

Pitch Feedback and Changes

The pitch at Nickelodeon seemed to be a good success. They seemed to like the way the character was going and his aims and motives etc but they felt the narrative needed more development. The nature of the character was good but the narrative needed to show him more direction and purpose. They also wanted to make the character more 'cute' in order for it to fit in with the target audience and also so that the audience felt more empathy for Wez.

The main changes I am going to make in light of this are as follows:

- Make Wez more cute and evolve his character design
- Change the narrative and setting in which everything takes place
- Re-model the 3D design of Wez
- Redo my storyboarding
- Create more development work for the environment

I think this is a bold move but one that will ultimately succeed greater with what they want to show on their channel. I will update the blog with new designs and concepts as they progress.

Pitching at Nickelodeon

For my pitch at Nick I will be presenting most of my work on boards. Above are the boards I have made for my design work. These include my detailed storyboards, character designs and some animation boards to give more detail of how the character might look in different situations. Overall I think these look very professional and will be a success in showing and demonstrating my work.

This is a board showing some preliminary work on my character modeling. I felt this was important to show as this will give the panel a greater understanding of how I intend to make the final elements look and feel etc. It will also show I am competent enough in 3D to create a solid piece of work in this medium.

I have also made an animatic I will also present at my pitch. This should help the panel to understand how the narrative is going to work across the 30 seconds. Overall I am confident about the content of my pitch. I also have some 'Wez' badges to giveaway as a reminder of my pitch aswell as a sheet detailing the summary of key points and areas I have presented.