Back to Uni!/What I'm currently working on

Well the Christmas break went unsually quick, probably due to the fact that a deadline for my dissertation draft was looming ever closer!

I am now back at uni and continuing where I left off before Christmas working on Candy Island. We had a group meeting regarding the animatic, and felt it was nearly there but just needed some tweaking. The biggest change we've made is now the volcano erupts midway through the film, just after Ande realises something weird is going on, as we've decided the eruption kick starts the marshmallows to attack. There are a few shots we've taken out as they were unnecessary and all had to have their own unique background, so this descision will save a lot of time. But I extended one of the shots to comply with the new changes. I also made a few smaller tweaks such as holding a few shots for longer. As well as this a lot of the shots needed simple backgrounds (using my thumbnail designs) so it will be easier to see where the characters are in the village and help make the animatic easier to understand.

So with the animatic out of the way and hopefully finished for good, my current task is now to create the final backgrounds. I already have the thumbnails, so it's just a case of drawing them in illustrator (as the line work is smooth and very forgiving) and then transfer them to photoshop to texture them. My current plan is to get half of the village backgrounds finished (as we need our film to be 50% finished in terms of backgrounds and animation) but if I have more time I will do as much as I can. My deadline for the backgrounds is Tuesday/Wednesday next week, depending how many I can get done in a day and then taking that as an estimate - I think there are around 15 backgrounds for me to do (regarding getting half of the film done).

And after my set deadline next Wednesday/Thursday, I will then go on to animating.