Wish Upon a Star (Update)

[Tedsuo]

Hey all!

I've just finished preproduction on my 3d animated short, "Wish Upon a Star.". Since time is an issue and I will be the only one working on it, the concept art was limited to some brief sketches. But I thought I'd share what I have just the same! If you have time, please check out the animatic, as it's the most important part.


It's a comedy, and much more cartoony than my usual fare. Refreshing change! It's about a star who sneezes and falls out of the sky. He tries to get back into space, but he's trapped by the wish a little girl made on him on the way down.


*** NEW SKETCHES AT BOTTOM ***

http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Star_Sketch_Hero.jpg


He has the personality of a grumpy curmudgeon trapped in the body of a plushie nite-lite.


http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Girl_Sketch_Hero.jpg


That's the girl who made the wish.


Here are some rough sketches of the various characters:
http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Concept_Sketches_Web.jpg


Instead of model sheets, I'll be building the characters as maquettes (so I can plan my edge loops out ahead of time with a grease pencil directly on the models). I've already built the star:


Front (http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Star_Front.jpg)
Three-Quarter (http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Star_Quarter.jpg)
Side (http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Star_Side.jpg)
Back (http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Star_Back.jpg)


But the main thing I wanted to share is the animatic. It's very rough and the sound is uh... temporary, but I think it gets the general gist across. It's about 7 MB wide and two minutes long. Encoded with Divx 5.0. If you have time, please check it out and let me know what you think:

http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Animatic_Final_Smal_2.avi


Did I mention the sound was temporary? I have no pride. :)

My main interests are is it a) understandable and b) funny. Any advice on either front would be greatly appreciated. I'll be presenting it to the faculty next week, assuming they approve it for my thesis project I'll go straight to recording the final sound and building the models. A composer friend of mine will be scoring it.

Anyhoo, thanks for listening! I know it's not the usual fare here at CA; I promise my next post will involve boobs or robots to make up for it. :D

[I.was.ink]

I can't see it. Even after the I uncoded it, it only plays the sound.

The sound is hilarious!

LMAO!

I like the part, where he crashes and you say "crash....tingle,tingle,tingle"

[Tedsuo]

Whoops! Do you have the Divx 5.05 codec? You can get it here:

http://www.divx.com/


Glad you like the scratch track. :)

[haohmaru]

i really like the character designs for both the star and the girl.

gotta love your soundeffects - i think i'm gonna treasure that clip, it's funny as hell =)
it does work for me, and it promises to be really funny too. i had to laugh really hard imagining how the animation would look in certain scenes. maybe try emphasisng the reason he's bound to the girl a little more - in the end it might not be perfectly clear why he can't return.

i.was.ink: works fine for me. maybe try the divx player.

[R_M]

Hey tedsuo!
great Idea. there are some really strong points in your projekt, but there are also some weaknesses. Isn't it always so? :D
I haven't seen the video yet. I do not have Divx5.0 and the link isn't working for me but that is probably my connection that is a bit unstable at the moment.

what I can say is only regards you sketches and drawings.
The main charactes is very good. He is simple, but has a lot of variation in his facial expression, and I love the way his head point behaves according to his mood ( the sad one with the deflated top is so right!)
You might want to look at this danish cartoon called "help I'm a fish!". it talks about tree kids that are turned into fishes by a magic potion, and the girl of the group becomes a starfish. she has a lot of similarities to you character, and could give you some animation tips.

in contrast to the really good star guy, the girl isn't really special. Maybee it is the colour choice, or her clothes, but she doesn't do it for me... maybee you should give her a bit more attitude like the star. Or maybee you could give her an Uzi and some silicone breast, that should help.

well hope it helps, and that you will convert it to a quicktime movie when done, I would love to see it.

[Tedsuo]

Hmmm, seems like people are having a problem with the codec. And I thought divx was popular! Bah. I will rerender it as a quicktime, and if I can get the file size down far enough I will post it.


For those who replied, thank you!

Haomaru, as the one person to actually WATCH it, extra thanks! :) I agree that it's a bit ambiguous, but I am hoping that it will "work" in spite of this. My main thing is I don't want the audience to actually hear the girl make the wish out loud, and I don't want to make it any longer. But if you have any ideas on how to make it clearer, I'm all ears!

R_M, glad you like the star. You're right about the girl, she is rather straight forward. But she also has very small screen time, she's only seen in silhouette at the begining and briefly at the end. So I wanted something that reads clearly, so the audience will instantly know who they are looking at in the last shot. Not that there's any excuse for a boring design! When I build her as a maquette, I will try to make her more distinctive.

[cybermonkey]

ace stuff!
i smell bill plympton. :)

[incognito]

My only crit is about the girl design...I think you should make her more monsters inc. boo style girl to go with the disney like feel of the movie....love it when the star hits the guy in the nads....awesome awesome stuff...
:chug:

[Ochre Face]

LOL the sound effects are a classic... please don't lose that charming quality.

My favorite part was when the star confronted the farmer... great scene

jeremy

[Kortez]

I like it, and I think I understand it. It's funny .. especially the SCRATCH TRACK!!! Dude, you have my utmost respect for recording that... and putting it ONLINE!? :D

I have to agree, the girl design is not as good as the star design... which I have to say is very cool. I would also like to see more work put into the astronaut, compared to the others it looks kinda rushed.

The concept sketches for the dog and farmer look great, but in the animatic it doesn't look like the sketches. I'm hoping it's due to the fact that the lack of time. Not that you decided to change/simplify them?

So to sum it up: It is understandable, It is funny as hell. Appealing main character, nice designs on the dog and farmer. In my opinion you should work on the girl and astronaut. But that's just me. And by the way, you've added more detail to the background than to the characters, so I'm just gonna remind you to not make them too realistic so they'll fit the cartoony feel of the characters. Just a tip.

Hope this helps :)

[Jezebel]

Oh... my... god.

I haven't laughed that hard in a while! Hahaha... the sound effects and so funny! I'd cry if you changed them!

*cracks up and watches it again*

[Tedsuo]

See, this is why I love this board. You guys caught all of my mistakes. Since tomorrow is a holiday, I'm going to try and redesign the girl, and some of the other characters. I'll post what I have tomorrow night.


Kortez: Yeah, I drew most of the boards in an hour and a helf, with a sharpie. So nothing in the animatic is "on model," just a placeholder. Good point about the backgrounds. though. In the final I want to do everything as a matte painting, or geometry with camera projected textures. I'm going for a painted look kind of like the old looney tunes. Hopefully that will keep everything cohesive, assuming I can get the renderer to do my bidding. :)

[Theo]

hah dude thats so cute.

one helluva project tho. goodluck.

-theo

[Tedsuo]

K, here's some more sketches I did today:





http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Farmer_sketch_web.jpg


http://tazmanianhamster.tripod.com/pics/Girl_Sketches_web.jpg


I ended up only having a couple hours to draw today, so nothing spectacular. The girl is still a problem. I realized that what I need to do is go draw some real life kids. Then come back and draw the actual shots for the film. I will build the girl last, which will also give me some much needed time.


BTW, I'm expecting this project to take about fourteen months. So if you're still here next september, you might even get to see it! :)

[incognito]

I still think you should make the girl a bit more cartoony disney-ish like "boo" from monster inc. The astronaut I like, but when he gets hit in the nads I think you should make more expression in his face i.e. Huge eyes, eyebrows almost off his face, mouth wide open that type of stuff. The farmer, I think should look more redneckish, and more tired. Why 14 months? Anyway, good drawings and concept.