Smoking Elephant

Ok so i am working on the Stop Motion Smoking Elephant Russell pointers idea of an elephant who is trying to give up smoking.I will be working as a concept artist, little bit of storyboarding and animation.

I offered to do concept art for the film so i set about creating the elephant Russell's description of the character was a

• nervous,
• big ears
• needs to act like elephant
• cartoony
• big eyes

so i got drawing and this was my first idea that was made

I showed this to russell to see if we were on the same page as to what he was looking for this was russells reply..

could u try and make him a little bit more simple design

a lot rounder

like this

http://www.thecolor.com/images/The-Teddy-Bear.gif

stubby legs

a bit more grey

and can you put slits in his ears please

I took these comments on board and applied it to the next design.

This was the next design on all four legs,a lot rounder,slits in ears and a lot more grey. this was russells response.

Thats great ok im happy with that cheers

could u do a front and side of it

Ok so russell was happy with the design so i set out drawing a front and side view of the character that russell requested and did also a 3/4 view of the character,

Also in this project is a monkey and i was asked by russell to do the character designs for what is a gangster monkey.Russell was not sure what to do with this character so he gave me full licence to experiment, So i went for a 50's style gangster Feel influenced by a film i watched i few days earlier Bugsy Malone.

I started drawing and after a while i got a design that i feel really captured the essence of a gangster but also kept to being a monkey.

After seeing a few gangster movies and resources i found that the big gangster boss would mostly wear extravagant coloured suits so this is why i decided to inject a bit of colour.

Expressions of an elephant!!

ok so now we have a final design that russell is happy with he asked me to do an expression sheet for the elephant.

Russell was happy with this and he set about creating the Clay model.

I spoke to russell today and he has decided there will no longer be a gangster monkey but there is still going to be a monkey. slightly disappointed but its a thing you get used to as an animator. He also said that the monkey shall be in CGI bold move i personally think he should keep that richness and uniqueness of clay model.

I am working on some quick concept art for russell's film just to get a few ideas for some real concept art gags. Russell spoke to me about one of the ideas for one of the shorts about the elephant hiding underwater and the monkey turning up.

I opened up tv paint and used the paint mode to create this quick painting of the elephant using a snorkel to smoke underwater and the monkey arriving in a rubber dingy.

I Met up with russell and he was going through a few of his storyboards and i felt the first short was a little to slow and dull. So this got me thinking about how were going to grab the audiences attention it really had me worried that people would be put off by the first one. so today i came in uni before 9 and sat and thought just how can we get people really glued and anticipating the next one. so i set about quickly story boarding an idea of the introduction of the environment the elephant and the monkey in a exiting but humorous chase and hiding.

I showed it to russell and he seemed to like the idea so i will be re storyboarding this in more detail and then russell will put together an animatic.

I immediately after speaking to russell got back onto tv paint and just created another quick concept art for my proposed scene.

Russell and i spoke to mike today he thinks as do i that the monkey should be a clay model like the elephant and not CGI as russell has decided to do. We will see what russell decides also mike also said the proposed CGI environment should be rethought and maybe matte painting is the way to go.

Today (Sunday 6th November) i decided due to me having to do tests for both russell's film soon and test for my other uni i would create a character with clay. So i thought i could create the monkey in which will be in Russell's film and this maybe used in the final film if he decides to have the monkey in stop motion.

So i made the head nice and the body was quick but have a look.

I have created some concepts for the environment including the elephants cave in this one  wanted put the monkey in the enviroment and just build some personality into the monkey as i thought the the way in which the monkey had been written in initially was very dull and was very forgetful.

                     
                       This concept shows the path through the jungle to the elephants hideaway

and the same here..

Russell decided that on the trees around the jungle he would like some posters regarding the non smoking law that the monkey is trying to enforce. 

Also the monkey has returned to its initial gangster version russell has backtracked on his decision.

So as a comic idea i thought it would be good to take inspiration from some of the most famous posters of all time like the uncle sam's/ "we want you" poster

I like this piece of work using Tvpaint  to good effect.

This is proberly my final post for this project as i said i was originally going to be doing a lot of the animation for this film as well as my concept work but i felt after spending hours of animating and russell changing his mind and i felt the way he went about the whole process was very disorganised and i was working hard but nothing was getting done due to having to repeat shots for broken legs half a body missing this caused me to feel for my own benefit i should move on from the project.