Assorted Aye-Aye (10 years on)

Hey,

In 2007 I was studying hand drawn animation at Freelance Animation School. 

For my final year project I was developing a 2 minute cartoon short called "An eye for an Aye-Aye".

I never finished the cartoon but I did work on it on-and-off for a few years, experimenting with different software.

Well 10 years on, here is some various production art from over the years.

Model Sheets & Style guides:

Hand drawn then cleaned up, scanned and coloured in Photoshop.

Early concepts and designs:

At this stage I knew I wanted an adversarial relationship with a man getting tormented by a small, adorable animal.

The animal was a non-specific Cat/ Racoon type creature which had made itself at home in the mans apartment.

These early style concepts were based on Looney Tunes cartoons.

You can see some of the mans poses are from Wile. E Coyote and Sylvester the Cat while one of the animals poses is from the Chuck Jones cartoon "Feed the kitty". 

Then the title came to me and the settings and characters came into focus.

Fun fact: "An eye for an Aye-Aye" is also the name of an episode of 'The Sylvester and Tweety mysteries'.

"A beard and racoon cartoon" was an early concept for Aye-Aye.

Development:

 False advertising:
I would love to work the characters of the Aye-Aye and Tim Portans into a cartoon one day but as it currently stands I will simply say...

Rest in peace "An eye for an Aye-Aye" 2007 - 2017.

Cheerio!

Star Wars Uncut - Empire (2012)

Hey,

Today, from the files of the old and abandoned...

I found some of my old development work from the fan collaboration Star Wars: Empire uncut from back in 2012. 

So what is the project about?

Star Wars Uncut is a crazy fan mashup remake of the original Star Wars movies. It is the brainchild of Casey Pugh, a developer dedicated to creating interactive experiences on the web. In 2009, Casey was inspired to use the Internet and an ever-ready pool of passionate Star Wars fans to crowdsource the classic film Star Wars IV: A New Hope. This pet project turned into a labor of love and creativity on a large scale. Nearly a thousand fans came together to participate and the resulting movie is equal parts fun, kooky, and dearly nostalgic.

So, I picked 2 scenes and didn't get very far with either of them. It was a lot of fun though.

SC117 - "Why do we have to cut these things so damn close?".

This scene was from the Battle of Hoth.
I had the idea of using dialogue from Back to the Future with Luke McFlywalker joining the battle in a souped-up Delorean.

Here's a clip of the Lip-Sync along with some concept art.

"Why do we have to cut these things so damn close?" Part of an unfinished scene for Star Wars: Empire uncut in 2012. #animation #behindthescenes #lukeskywalker #martymcfly #starwars #bttf #empirestrikesback #backtothefuture #lipsync

A video posted by Jeff Cook (@aperturejam) on Feb 16, 2016 at 12:22am PST

SC284

This was a scene with Luke and Yoda on the Dagobah system.
Basically just Luke walking around and Yoda frowning and looking disappointed.

This scene didn't get further than rotoscoping over frames from The Empire Strikes Back.

Luke Skywalker rotoscoped for Empire Uncut. Or The Seven Skywalkers.

Here is a teaser trailer for Empire uncut... You can also watch the full Star Wars and Empire uncut films online.

Star Wars Uncut: The Empire Strikes Back TEASER from Star Wars Uncut on Vimeo.

Hopefully they announce Star Wars: Jedi Uncut in the near future as I've got some unresolved Star Wars business that I need to get out of my system.

Cheers!

Untooning and Smudgey Brushes

I've been playing around with the Smudge Brushes in Photoshop recently.
Smudging Pixels around can be strangely rewarding. No wonder so many of you do it!

Ok, these aren't your typical Untooned drawings where actual Textures from Photographs may be used. But they're a step in the right direction.

Self Portrait Untooned

The Aye-Aye Untooned

Keep Smiling.

Bonus Feature:

Here's 'Regurgitate' in a fun little Animated GIF format.

Development from Concept to Final Composite

The concept art was done in February 2007 and the rough animation was done late May in 2007. But coloured composite was just done last week.

While I was looking through some concept art I found this piece, which was an early piece that was used in my (first?...) project pitch to the tutors. Unlike other concept art in my pitch, this actually became a scene.

My character Tim Portans' outfit was almost refined enough for the model pack but his face, particularly his chin and hair style, still had a lot of tinkering to go.

Also the background design for this shot only changed slightly from concept through animation.

Cheers.