Colour, and other ideas

Some references that were referred to me for colour and fishy.

Charlie Head Model Sheet

For Caryn to model the head from. Will need to be adjusted as it is made. I've added the original sketch for a better feel of what it's supposed to be like.

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie

nuff said.

More quick colours, we are meeting with our possible composer today it's going to be good. I think from what he played us of his work it's going to work really well. I'm very excited. Full pitch happens tomorrow and Sascha has done some initial storyboards for the whole script.

Another Charlie

More Charlie! As far as I am aware Sascha has begun storyboarding, which is excellent. We will get to an animatic very soon.

I am very happy with this little painting, took a little longer but it looks heaps good - ya!

Random Charlie Concept

I did a quick little photoshop concept painting of Charlie, it is in a completely different style to the others but might capture more of the mood during some of the film. Anyway began serious work on the model today got most of the torso and legs done. It is definitely another steep learning (or remembering) curve doing modeling again. Topology is a tough thing to get right and I found my self repeating mistakes that I had made with my last model instead of learning from them. But I've been doing alot of research on topology and stuff and it will all come good in the end.

More Concept Painting

Another concept painting of charlie with a vision for the grey cloudy background. Sascha and I have completely reworked the script again, so it's getting more refined as we go.

Dragonflies Symbolism

Dragonfly symbolism crosses and combines with that of the butterfly and change. The dragonfly symbolizes going past self-created illusions that limit our growing and changing. Dragonflies are a symbol of the sense of self that comes with maturity.

They are fantastic flyers, darting like light, twisting, turning, changing direction, even going backwards as the need arises. They are inhabitants of two realms - starting with water, and moving to the air with maturity, but staying close to water. Some people who have the dragonfly as their totem have had emotional and passionate early years, but as they get older they achieve balance with mental clarity and control. They gain an expression of the emotional and mental together.

Dragonflies are old and adaptive insects, and are most powerful in the summer under the effects of warmth and sunlight. Their colors are a result of reflecting and refracting the power of light. As a result, they are associated with color magic, illusion in causing others only to see what you wish, and other mysticism.

The are often represented in Japanese paintings, representing new light and joy. To some Native Americans they are the souls of the dead. Faerie stories say that they used to be real dragons.

Lotus Flower Symbolism

Lotus flowers are amazing and have strong symbolic ties to many Asian religions especially throughout India. The lotus flower starts as a small flower down at the bottom of a pond in the mud and muck. It slowly grows up towards the waters surface continually moving towards the light. Once it come to the surface of the water the lotus flower begins to blossom and turn into a beautiful flower.

Within Hinduism and Buddhism the lotus flower has become a symbol for awakening to the spiritual reality of life. The meaning varies slightly between the two religions of course but essentially both religious traditions place importance on the lotus flower.

In modern times the meaning of a lotus flower tattoo ties into it's religious symbolism and meaning. Most tattoo enthusiast feel that the a lotus tattoo represent life in general. As the lotus flower grows up from the mud into a object of great beauty people also grow and change into something more beautiful (hopefully!). So the symbol represent the struggle of life at its most basic form.

Lotus flower tattoos are also popular for people who have gone through a hard time and are now coming out of it. Like the flower they have been at the bottom in the muddy, yucky dirty bottom of the pond but have risen above this to display an object of beauty or al ife of beauty as the case might be. Thus a lotus flower tattoo or blossom can also represent a hard time in life that has been overcome.

Lotus flower and peonies are also two flowers that are very popular among Japanese tattoo artists and they make a great compliment to Koi Fish tattoos. Ironically enough the two koi fish and lotus flowers can often be found in the same pond in front of a temple. The Koi fish is a symbol typically for strength and individualism.

concept painting

Here is a couple of concept painting i've done recently. They aren't direct images from the story but I'm using them to get a feel for the colours and moods of certain scenes even if they don't end up being exactly like that.






I think we've capped off the script for the moment. I'm going to rework it slightly with some of sascha and caryn's treatment ideas. Story boarding for animatic will start soon and I'm going to begin modelling the body very soon. So I gotta do up a proper model sheet and getting going on that. Also going to try and start modelling some furniture and stuff.

Modelling Reference

A reference image for the type of topology we might go for. Mainly the face, the hair is crazy but I like the un-softened features, similar to what I want to go for.

Jean Seberg

hot.


A strong influence for the look of charlie, love the short hair and squarish jaw. A bout de' souffle (breathless) is a great film and would love to get a similar feel for the apartment as well.

Balconies and Colours

Here are some references pictures for the balcony which is the main setting for our piece. Not alot of decisions have been made about the balcony or the apartment. I think for there to be enough room to get things done we will need to create a reasonably large balcony. I like the look of the corner top of roof sorta balcony (as pictured) but kinda want one with railings and posts to get more 'girlyness'.

The pic with girl on a turtle I really liked coz of the colours.
Made me think of our colour scheme for different times in the film. Perhaps instead of black and white in the beginning maybe a muted greenish blue will give the sense of sadness.

simply charlie.

Our main character charlie is a simple kind of girl. She's incredibly pretty but she ain't ugly either. Physically there are some indiscretions that she would like to fix but others probably don't that easily. Her apartment life leads to alot of sitting around in her underwear and singlet top.

As far as the physicality of charlie goes I really want to get a few things into the design that represent her character. She needs to have big hips/thighs - they will look pretty normal it's not like they're fat or anything but it will help build the idea of her sitting around alot and give her something to be insecure about. Also smaller breasts for similar reasons and for the fact that I don't think we want her to come off as a shallow bimbo or anything.(not that breast size is directly related to a woman's intellectual capacity or whatever) I would like to try and have small hands but for them to be very articulate and precisely sculpted, this would give her a creative edge and as we all talk about it more the character 'charlie' seems to be working towards a arty sort of person. Big eyes will help with the notion of innocence although I would like to try to get a subtle sadness to them that would counter the innocence, because really she's playing this role as being victimised and isn't necessarily innocent.


Stylistically I'm happy for her to have a larger head and be somewhat disproportionate, it will be fun to model and fun to animate. Not to mention it will also help with selling the imagery. Talking about style I would want to get a nice sharp looks to the features, not pointy but well defined as if carved from a soft stone.

The concept work for charlie is still developing but here are some of the images put together to give us an idea of where it's all coming from.

Down The Line

So our new project is more than definetly going ahead. It is called 'Down the Line' and is an adaptation of a pitch I did called 'Love Letters'. We are heavy in development of the story at the moment and try to piece together some designs. Here are some reference pics for some of the aspects of the character we are trying to create. These images are by a modeler and artist named Andrew Hickinbottom, they are from his CG society portfolio. He is pretty cool.