Initial designs- zebra

Because I'm a horse addict and I've been given free reign (or rein, no pun intended), I've opted to make the zebra more horse-like just for my own preference and I understand horse anatomy 100 times better than a zebra. Both aren't much different in terms of anatomical structure and I want the stampede to look more graceful and flowing, like a river which for zebra, who are slightly stockier, would look more like a river of mud.

I've been taking a lot of inspiration from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and a little from the The Lion King (the little screen time zebra's get) in order to understand cycle speed according to frame rate. Obviously horses all gallop/run at different rates, some cycling through a gallop faster than others, so I have to make the decision on how fast the cycle should be.

Spirit from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

 

On observing Spirit further, there are two horses that have differing gaits that gain more screen time than the secondary horses, Spirit and Rain. Spirit's gallop is exceptionally more wild and fast to reflect his wild nature, so he completes a full cycle faster than Rain (below)who has a more graceful, slower gallop and takes a few more frames to complete a cycle.

 

Rain from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

The obvious difference is Spirit is male and Rain is female so a more graceful gallop for a female horse is understandable. What it comes down to is the speed needs to reflect the tone of the scene and the character, being Tilly, who is a wild child. My initial thoughts were towards a more flowing gallop and for that I thought of Rain but if I want to show that wild attitude, a gallop more like Spirit's might be best.

 

Zebra stampede scene

 

What helps in this decision is a similar scene is conveyed in Spirit where he races the eagle, beginning at a slower gallop before quickening his pace to overtake the eagle's shadow.

 

 

 

Below are my initial zebra designs as well as further development of one of the designs followed by an initial run cycle.

 

 

 

 

The cycle has been created on ones and although it depicts all the wildness and high speed attitude, I feel the movement could be more fluid. My initial reaction is there's too many frames so areas that have smaller movement are jerky however taking frames out means I'm making the movements with more impact (i.e. faster) more jerky. (Below is the movement done on twos)

 

 

I began this cycle looking at the Spirit run cycle and then drawing my own movement in relation to this.

 

Spirit gallop cycle

My cycle

 

However this proved to be not enough frames for fluid movement so I had to add more.

 

 

 

More work needs to be done to correct this issue.

 

Zebra R&D for 'The Birds.'

I've joined the third year film 'The Birds' with the task of creating a stampeding herd of zebra charging across the African plains, as they said in their words, 'because I'm quite good at quadrupeds.' I couldn't turn down the opportunity to actually be tasked with drawing a massive herd of horses but before even beginning to look at R&D of zebras I knew that horses and zebras, although from the same family, aren't totally alike. Their build and gait movement are slightly different so although I have a decades worth of experience drawing horses, I have zero experience when it comes to zebra.

Their height difference was important too as this affects build appearance and muscle structure. My initial drawings were just figuring out the specifics: what they look like, stripe configuration, ear shape and height.

 

 

I also did basic comparison drawings of a horse and a zebra so I could see how head shape and joint length varied.

Below is the rough sketch of a horse.

 

 

 

And then the zebra:

 

 

What differs the two is the shorter neck but slightly larger head on the zebra along with the stockier legs with very little difference in abdominal structure to the horse. The significant variation in both is obviously their purpose: horses were evolved by man to be ridden or pull carts etc so they have stronger muscle builds and run faster. A zebra's only purpose is to survive on the African plains so although they can't run as fast as horses, their exceptional stamina means they can run for miles without tiring. And then there's also the stripes for camouflage and confusing the predators as several zebra seem to mould into one.

 

I've played around with style but haven't settled on a definite look yet. Below are my designs which will be finalised soon with the director and producer before I look at movement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Blog Update

After the long summer break (and part of the start of the third year whereby getting my head to switch on again felt like trying to start a car with no will to live) I am resuming blog posts!
Before I gear the posts towards third year work and the films I'm working on and animations I'm watching, below is some commissioned work I was given over the summer, which includes painting portraits of pets as well as designing logos for two establishments.

Archie

Muma

Tor

 

 

Now I wasn't just painting commissions for people so as well as this I had been busily painting portraits of horses and ponies at the riding stables I work at so they could be turned into cards and sold as souvenirs.

 

 

And I'm just throwing in my portrait I did of my old rabbit.

 

Smudge

 

 

And then like I mentioned earlier, I was also asked to design a new logo for the stables to use on t-shirts for staff and kids to wear. The client asked for something simple as they didn't want to spend too much money on the embroidery but to just throw ideas their way and see what they thought.

 

I wanted it to have some relation to where the stables was located so close to the sea and because the stables offers beach rides I felt a horse walking amongst the waves would look appealing to the public. The model for the horse even came from one of their own so everything about the logo had some value to the client. The two versions below were turned down however due to budget and the amount of embroidery required for the logo.

Back to square 1 and an idea came from the client about incorporating the name of the stables into the logo like 'Using the legs to form the R.' I said I could try working some ideas out however I did stress that working one letter into the logo may mean losing the letter, turning 'Roylands' into 'Oylands.' However after careful designing and feedback being obtained from family and going back and forth between the client we had a logo which has now been printed on t-shirts and was worn by all members of staff and the children who helped.

 

 

 

This design work then led into me designing a logo for the farrier who visited our stables every week to shoe the horses. The brief was a bit more specific with more focus on the objects in the logo having to look real. In this case he asked for horses and horseshoes with the horse-shoes looking real with the nail holes in the correct places. Originally he asked for a cob type horse for the other part of the logo but because he also shoes race-horses as well as the standard riding horses, he was persuaded into having a more universal horse shape.

I played about with the horse design on a small scale then drew up one logo with several colour variations which I showed him and he accepted the logo on the spot alongside the colour scheme. One very happy customer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crocodile Tears

I can't post the full video on here as it's going around the festival circuit but I can put up the showreel of all the shots I did on the film.

VFX

A final film is here! Re-graded about 40 shots in total to make the atmosphere feel warmer although it looks significantly similar to the footage it started out as. The problem being the director of the film toned the colours down a bit in the edit and I think it's taken away any warmth I put in there. I've included some comparison shots of what I sent back to him and what was in the final cut.

 

 

The first image is the final edit, the second my final re-grade. The colours look completely washed out similar to the original footage whereas the second has infinitely more clarity with the natural greens of the background coming through.

Deep Final

Below are my final render of the man turning into the mouse, the final edit of the section our group worked on and the final render of the cat in the correct background. Not all of the footage is present as it still lacks the live action character pointing her gun out into the crowd but from what has been done so far it looks promising.

 

 

Below are also layout stills I did in preparation for additional characters to be added to the scene.

 

 

 

 

Deep Update

Started adding shadows and highlights to the man that turns into a mouse. Haven't completely decided what colour the pig character should be yet so only her skin has been coloured so far.

And then I've placed the cat character in the correct background in correspondence to what would be happening in the shot (live action girl steps off stage with gun pointed out into audience). She is yet to have shadows and highlights added to her but unfortunately moving her from her previous background onto her correct one was harder than expected. Originally she was sat at a table where you couldn't see the top (i.e. couldn't see her elbows so I hadn't drawn them in) then on moving her across to the other background I realised the table she is now sat at, the top is visible so of course so are her elbows. I had to therefore go back into the animation and draw in her elbows, lesson learned for next time.......put her on the right background to begin with!!