Kiwi Model Sheets

Hey,

Here are some designs for a character of mine, Keesh Kiwi... He's a good egg.

Notes:

- His design is inspired by the Looney Tunes and Woody Woodpecker.

- I wanted his beak to have a distinct shape. It can be difficult to keep the mass of his beak the same between frames and drawings.

- Kiwi birds have whiskers which I wanted in the designs.

- Kiwi birds don't have tails or teeth but Keesh Kiwi does.

- These are from 2009 and 2010 but I still draw Keesh from time to time.

- In the 2009 concepts, Keesh has red stars swirling around his head. This is a reference to the four red stars on the New Zealand flag.

PS: It was Facebook memories that prompted me to post these images.

Cheerio!

Aye-Aye Model Sheets

Here are the Model sheets and some poses for my cartoon "An Eye for an Aye-Aye".
These designs were created in 2007 for my Student film.

Model Sheets

Pose Chart

'Aye-Aye update' - Style Guides / Cintiq 12WX

Hey guys,

Today I have the style guides for the two characters in my short cartoon. That pesky Aye-Aye and Tim Portans. I had posted the Tim Portans style guide in the last 'Aye-Aye update' which you can check out here. All of the character frames used here are actual frames from the animation.

For any new readers passing by, I'm independently working on finishing my short cartoon "An Eye for an Aye-Aye", A cartoon which started out as my student film in 2007. I work on it in my spare time and the majority of the software I use for clean up and Ink & Paint are Open Source or Freeware.

You can track my progress on the project here. I'm hoping to have it finished and online by the end of the year but it's still too early to confirm that as I have other animation projects and work commitments happening as well.

This week I bought a Wacom Cintiq 12WX and I am very impressed with it. Since my last tablet was a $75 model, the jump to Wacom has been pretty amazing. I've only had it for a few days so I haven't properly put the Cintiq through its paces yet but it has already sped up Digital Clean-Up.

If you have been following my posts on Twitter and Facebook I mentioned that I had to slightly rearrange my room to find a better place to put the Cintiq without packing away my animation desk, which I still plan to animate on. This is good as I bought the Cintiq to speed up my current animation methods instead of entirely replace the old methods.

Thank you to all who have checked out my updated Showreel online, it's had over 100 views now and every view counts. I plan to upload updated Showreel's every 6 months or so, look out for the next one at the end of the year.

In one of my next posts I'll upload an edited sequence from "Aye-Aye".

Cheers.

'Aye-Aye update' - Model Guide - Tim Portans

Hi folks,

Here is a style guide for the main character from my short cartoon. You can read more about him here and find images of him and the Aye-Aye scattered in previous posts. The shots above are all cels from the cartoon, digital cels.

I'm going for a retro cartoony style in a classic 'man vs animal' scenario. Don't worry, the shot gun will play a very minor part in the cartoon and I won't over use the pop out eye gags.

The Update: I have completed a couple more shots but I'm still not sure when it will all be said and done as one of the harder parts is yet to come (reanimating old and incomplete scenes which don't fit in anymore).  At the moment, the plan is to drop one of the shots (which is basically filler anyway) and hopefully make an intro for the beginning.

In other news, I'm going to be doing a write up on my animation pipeline in its basic form. I've already outlined this, just haven't gotten around to writing it. As for the next video, I'll either wait until I have enough shots to make a 30 second trailer or I'll post a mid year Showreel. I'm not sure yet.

Thanks for all the support recently (especially from friends and family), it's much appreciated. Remember to check my facebook page and recommend it to anyone who might be interested.
I have also posted this image at The Big Idea. Have a look at some of my other posts by clicking on my Big Idea Profile.

Cheers.

Tim Portans - A bit more about him & his mouth.

Welcome regular readers and those of you just passing through.

Today I give you an image showing some of the mouth shapes used in a speaking scene from my cartoon. I think it's been a while since I've had a post about Tim Portans, he's the main character which the storys point of view is mainly told from. He's a pilot who is stuck in a tree (a very tall Baobab tree mind you) and soon comes face to face with that pesky critter, The Aye-Aye.

 Tim Portans was designed and refined in 2007, He had some major facial reconstruction (a last minute Chin Change) before a "final" design was settled upon. I say "final" because I'm trying to keep his model fairly loose. You can see some of his earlier designs and model sheets in two of my early posts from 2007, Here and Here. 

I just want to mention somebody who has played a huge part in creating Tim Portans as a character. He is Joe Poole, one of the third year tutors I had at Freelance Animation School. Joe really helped work my concepts into the final model designs and then provided a voice which ultimately became the voice for Tim Portans. These are some of the things which cemented the character into place in my mind at a time when I didn't quite know what he was going to sound like. Unfortunately I won't be sharing the voice of Tim Portans anytime soon, that will have to wait until the project is near its completion.



Feel  free to visit my Profile on The Big Idea, a great New Zealand site for the creative industry where I have found work before. Also if you have any questions or enquiries for me, leave a message or post a comment. I will get back to you as soon as possible. 


Cheers Folks.