Pre-Production Pro's

We are full steam ahead pre-production wise (pretty much!). We've started to make final decisions on our character designs and Kaitlin and Amit have pulled together our schedule.

It's looking pretty robust but we're confident we can hit our personal deadlines - which would give us a 2 week buffer by the end to make any emergency tweaks if needed.

The teams been doing a lot of research into Mayan patterns and textures to use as a common theme across all our designs. We think this will really link our animations world together AND help it stand out from other low poly stylised animations.

After a few tweaks Natatsha and Yannis have pulled together the final design for the troll. It was good to see it presented in different styles and it allowed us to see how different features worked in different ways. We've agreed on using Natatsha's style with Yannis's colours.

The piñata goats are pretty much there, Ritchie's just gonna tweak the colours so although they're meant to look like a set, they also need to look quite individual - so one will have more pink, the other more green etc.

Yannis has tweaked Bimpe's original design for the Mariachi's to make them more stylised and to give them a bit more character! Their instruments are also colour co-ordinated to the goats.

Cristina's also pulled together some amazing designs for the environment. We've gone through a few designs picking out features we want to stand out like the rocks - as we want them to resemble the ogre. We're also going to comp the characters onto the plane so we can check and test the colours and make any final tweaks. We'll also start thinking about the matte painting.

First drafts of the environment

Final design / colours (for now!)

Aiming to start modelling next week!

In terms of the storyboard, Bimpe and Natatsha will be reworking this in time for Monday, to incorporate comments from Phil and Barry about consistent camera angles etc. We've been looking at The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for inspiration into how we angle the camera's between our heroes (the goats) and the villain (the troll).

We also did some team bonding with food, salsa and beers - cause we're awesome like that.

Week 2: Under the (Troll's) Bridge.

We've done quite a bit since the last meeting. We took the weekend to start work on initial designs and another storyboard for the story.

We've come up with initial designs for the Troll, Goats and Mariachis, and we've started to think in detail about the landscape we're hoping to produce. The design show and tell was also a way for us to address any potential issues that may arise during the production stage.

• Potential for animation for the eye - needs further discussion.
• Possibly 2D animation or 3D texture change
• All goats will need a joint bone in the lower leg when rigging – for bending purposes

Ritchie's example of potential ways to address Billy Goats Eye-Gate!

Cristina's Pinata Goat design

Natasha has worked on design for the Troll. As a group we've picked the features and we like the most, and Natasha will pull together a more final design.

We want to start testing as soon as we have the designs nailed, so we can work out the best way to produce the expressions - whether this is in 3D or 2D.

We currently have an initial colour palette, but we definitely need to work on a more in-depth colour scheme to help guide our process, and we've decided that the piñata goats will be the key priority. Once we've decided on their scheme, the troll and the environment will work to compliment (or contrast) them.

We also decided that although the goats' tones should be varied - they should all share at least 1 colour to make them look like a set.

The storyboard is almost there. After talking to Phil and Barry, we've decided to re-work it slightly so its also providing more stage direction. Once this is completed we'll work on the colour script.

Our storyboard draft

Team Juan

We've been making some further developments on our current untitled project!

script, script, script!

We've kicked off our pre-production process and sort of split into sub teams - aka weeding out the artist to start work on character designs, concept art and a more detailed storyboard / colour script. 

There's been initial meetings to make sure that everyone's on the same page in terms of style and direction, so we can then go away and start designing.

Designs will be:
- Mexican theme colour palette, mainly golds, yellow, blue, orange, pink
- Working against a 2D background
- Characters and assets will be boxy and low poly (like the coolness below)

Low Poly Moodboard

Pinata Moodboard

Natasha and Kaitlin also pointed out possible complexities when modelling and rigging (especially considering the time constraints), so we've figured out that its probably best to keep the goat model simple so it can be duplicated (for the other 2) and then tweaked to match the persona (yes persona) of each goat! 

This will also make the rigging process easier - meaning that we'll only need to do one rig then copy this over for the other 2 (hopefully).

We've divvied out the characters between us to work on over the weekend:
Goats - Cristina and Ritchie
Troll - Natasha, Bimpe and Yannis
Mariachi band - Kaitlin and Bimpe
Background - Cristina and Kaitlin

Cristina and Ritchie have already started out on some cool initial designs for the goats!

We'll be re-grouping on Monday for a quick show and tell and make some final decisions on the design, then aiming to have final designs by Wednesday.

Amit also pulled together the roles in the group!

Our design reference style sheet