Faith (scene 1 + storyboard)

I have included this in the Animation category, because although the collective piece as a whole was never finished, each scene was a project in itself!

This storyboard sees the origins of now one of my favorite characters, my PIG character, who features later in my other animation. This original concept, entitled "Faith" sees the pig, scared stiff in a nightmare scenario, being hunted by a huge beastly DOG. The full story is yet to be animated, and has not yet been completed due to the evolution of my production process, which means I want to do the whole thing again from scratch!

In the later animation (see post for: ANGER ISSUES), the PIG is featured as an actor giving interviews, as well as the DOG character. I wanted to flip the perception I had created in FAITH on it's head and have the PIG, who is the victim in this piece, as a complete bully in real life. This also makes the PIG's appearance even less desirable (and funnier!)

The DOG's character in FAITH (and especially in scene 2, not yet posted) is this incredibly scary unknown, with no indicator as to how dangerous he is but very animalistic and menacing, wheras the PIG has the antropomorphic expressions that allow the audience to relate and pity him. This original perception of the DOG makes his actual character, expressed in ANGER ISSUES as a camp and completely harmless victim to the PIG's bullying even more amusing as a contrast.

The idea for ANGER ISSUES actually came from Christian Bale, who lost his temper on the set of Terminator Salvation (quite badly) at his DP, and thus the idea for ANGER ISSUES was born!

FAITH Scene 1:

Clay and cardboard...

Set construction...

Features and eyeballs...

Early ideas for Cheese...

What I intend to do for my Cheese brief, is to treat the 'Cheese Board' as a compass.

Depending on the location of the cheese, that determines its place on the board.
The cheese will also hold characteristics to its origins that will soon become apparent.

E.g.

One of the cheeses I will use, is the Zamorano cheese from the Spanish province of Zamora.
This has a specifically dark rind from being prepared with olive oil and allowed to develop in caves. I was thinking of representing houses in the traditional Zamoran style, made from the cheese with rind as the roof and the cheese as the house.

There would also be other features such as olives and sherry to indicate formidible combinations!!

One man and a sheet...

I attached a sheet to my flat ceiling and experiemented making my own shadow puppets! Slightly amateur but interesting results!

Shadow spectrums

These were just examples of different gradients of shadow from the different light sources in my flat. I found it interesting how many categories of shade the shadow could have. Depending on the light source, the angle and the intensity, many different effects are possible.

I therefore decided to try some puppetry of my own..........

Light show

I was able to adjust the studio lights in my flat, so I was just enjoying the abstract contrasts in light that it was possible to make. Slightly reminded me of shogun headware!

Shadow overlays

These examples show how lighter shadows or shadows from different angles can be layered upon one another to create darker shadows.

Re-Package!

RE- PACKAGE

In this brief I am re-packaging SHADOW PUPPETS!!!

Really exciting brief, and despite the fact I have not had enough time to finish everything I intended to do, I will show some of the early playing I did with this medium.

Sneak Peak!

This is one of the pages from the finished book - and I have included it as I drew the picture! Mildly disturbing, but think of the original "Little Miss Muffet"...

(alternatively)

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey...

Along came a BIG SPIDER
That sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

........................................................ spider...... predator...... lots of hands..... creepy ..... web....

Little Brit Pop meets Bo Peep

Finally, I converted Little Bo Peep, into a tribute for Brittney!


Little Brit Pop, has lost her Flock,
And can't think where They've gone.
Alone and Depressed, She's getting quite Stressed,
So She decides to Write a New Song.

Little Brit Pop, is now on the Rocks,
With Her Song going down like Lead.
Her Mind seems to Fail! It Fractures! Derails!
Now She looks like the Perfect Egg.

So here She is now, with Madge's Tongue in Her Mouth,
They even made the Front Page!
But as the Action dies down, The Nation just Frowns,
For No-one's really that attracted to Age...


This was a modern interpretation to document the turbulent star's press time over recent years.

First attempts for nursery rhyme idea

These images were just experiments for the concept of Little Miss Muffett. When I thought about the rhyme, it immediately made me think of dread and foreboding.

Probably because I don't like spiders, but I thought of an evil menace, so I wanted to use the spider as a metaphor for a dark stranger, who cannot be trusted.

First attempts for nursery rhyme idea

Ideas for the scenario of Miss Muffett (and the spider's 'hands')

Miss Muffett

The initial rhyme I was looking at, was the 'Little Miss Muffett" rhyme:

Little Miss Muffett,
Sat on a tuffett, (?)
Eating her curds and whey. (a cheese and milk concoction)

There came a big spider,
Who sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffett away.

Definitions:

Little Miss Muffet is about a girl named Patience Muffet
whos step-father had a lot of insects around.
It's talking about how maybe Miss Muffet is sitting eating her lunch and one of her step-fathers spiders had got out and she had saw it and scared her away.

I wanted to change that to make children aware to the danger of strangers.

'A Big Spider' - not exactly a cuddly soft toy
- lots of hands
- a predator
- usually dark, creepy

Initially I wanted to use pictures with the same rhyme to emphasize this:

Mother Goose's legacy

The NEW Rhythm and Rhyme project:

I decided I wanted to work with Nursery Rhymes, as the history and meanings behind them were so interesting.

The other thing is that everyone seems to know the way that each nursery rhyme is meant to be sung, i.e. its 'rhythm'. Due to this it has been possible for these rhymes to survive the test of time.

I decided I wanted to contextualize these rhymes, with their initial subject matter being the features of their day and age, and convert them into a contemporary setting, making the meanings clearer, and easier to relate to.

First I wanted pictures to support the rhymes, as I wanted to make a Children's book of Rhymes.

Alpha-Bet (final letters)

These are the final representations for my 'Alpha-bet'.

On reflection, aesthetically they are very pleasing to me as each letter was like 'solving a puzzle'.
The circle representing my mouth, and the rectangle my voice (decibels).
However, I think I could have taken the concept much further away from the restrictions of normal font.

After all, this is meant to represent MY voice and MY way of speaking. All this tells the viewer is my addiction to logic as well as abstract. This could lead someone to imagine my voice in a slightly odd but correctly spoken manner... or a robotic unintelligible squark... at the end of the day, it seems more attentive to its visual form rather than its purpose.

I think I could come up with something more prolific (and maybe I will!).

Final decisions...

These were some of the final drafts for the letters. Great fun to calculate!

Final decisions...

The skeletons for the final letters. When viewed as lines, it is much easier to see the two shapes I used for each letter overlapped upon one another.