Little Creatures Contextual Statement

My role was originally one of five concept artists who would develop the key art and designs for the project. Later in the project this then evolved into a more character development role for myself. Then towards the end I was in charge of concept art and working with Jacques Tredoux on the script and developing the storyboard.

Early in the project I was asked to sketch up some of the ideas put forward by the group for both character development and tee shirt designs. So the technical aspect of this process was mostly trying to get into the individuals head who put forth ideas and trying to translate them to the best of my ability.

For character designs I opted for the basics pencil and pen and sketching as they described, explained and gave me examples of there ideas. I did how ever want to develop 3d characters using Z Brush but found the constraints of time for myself and within the team tough to accomplish this goal.

For tee shirt designs I got advice from Thorsten Ziller for creating a design for a single colored screen print as he has a lot of experience in this area. By keeping the design simple and vectored allowed for a easier and cost efficient print. The other consideration here was to make the design within the specs given by the printing company.

As for the 3d environments I developed my renders using the program Vue to create full interactive landscapes. In conjunction with the Adobe Suite and After Effects I achieved my goals for image renders.

Jacques and myself then worked together on the script, he handled most of the ideas while I pitched in here and there. I was mostly there to make sure that his ideas made visual sense and later on develop the script into a story board which I could not have done without him as well. I believe this was a successful pairing and helped push the project as whole forward.

The research for the project was predominately set out for the whole group, I feel that this would have achieved its expected goal if the whole group did do research but only a few individuals did the job. I feel that this was the let down throughout the project and detrimental to the moral within the group.

My personal research into the final characters mostly consisted of studies into there movements, anatomy and looks. While environments were inspired from the existing landscapes from the Bermuda Triangle in which the story was to be held such as Puerto Rico.

In reflection I felt that the project was a success in terms of the idea of the project. I feel that a smaller group of dedicated individuals could have easily achieved more than the large group of people we were blessed with this semester. Also if this particular project was to continue into next year I would definitely step up into more of a leadership role.

Little Creatures Final Script and Story Board

Jacque and myself brain stormed many a night to come up with a viable script. The development went slowly as getting input and feed back into our scripts came slim and slow. But we pursued or ideas and put it into a script that we were happy with.

As for the story board I did my best to put both our ideas into a visual form so it was still very much a team effort in that respect. getting the camera angles and lighting was a very important aspect of this.

Little Creatures Story Book

With a collection of images I tried to capture the emotions of what the story might be. From the characters that I chose I tried my best to aim the book towards the demographic that we were trying to get to predominately.

Little Creatures 3D Environments

For the environment I thought that it would make sense to research surrounding areas of the bermuda triangle such as puerto rico and tropical islands. This way I could match the island make up, including the fauna that exists there also. As a team I think that we wanted to add a fantasy twist to the island which we would develop for the project.

I decided to research more into what kind of plants might appear in the trailer, along with the ways the land might appear in the trailer as well.

For the 3D environments that I created I created a view of a sandy island with a view of the ocean. This render was mostly for a atmospheric feel and the time of day. I wanted to get the feeling of a breath of fresh ocean air and a familiar sight of an island.

With the log renders I was trying to incorporate a flying creature to pass through the hollow of the log, the creature I wanted was to glow similar to a ‘fire fly’ therefore light the inner of the log.

This image was more a suggestion mostly for a possible trailer idea.

Little Creatures Creature Characters

Creatures

The creature development at first was a free and open development. Although the direction was mostly always aimed towards tropical or colorful existing creatures with a slight twist.

My own original direction was just to merge existing animals to create something more compelling for the audience. Also to support that the island has been lost or undiscovered and untouched by man therefore the creatures that lived there were to me to be a little bit different and have adapted to there environments in ways that the ones we know now.

I personally took the input from our lecturer and personal preference and took inspiration from lizards such as tropical gecko, salamanders, and insects for textures and color while also incorporating sea creatures on jelly fish, octopus and manta rays. Creatures that live within and around the bermuda triangle.

I also thought about the fact of predatory and vegetarian based creatures.

Little Creatures Human Characters

Boys (aged 7-8)

There are two boys within the story of little creatures for now we call them ‘Wild Boy’ and ‘City Boy’. The look of the boys is kind of suggested in there names.

Wild boy’s look is to be of native bermuda with a indigenous feel to the clothing that he might be wearing. His look will relate to the creatures that live on the island that he has become lost on. Specifically more related to the creatures that he has befriended. So basically he is a messy under clothed child, this life style should represent the envy of most children from the “real world”

City boy’s look is to that of modern period of which the movie will be placed in. He is a loved child with both his parents that would usually dress him or at least have a strong opinion. This means a very tidy look, combed hair and well mannered.

Final Little Creatures Tee Shirt

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The tee shirt design was in the early stages of the project so the ideas were being based around early ideas and concepts for the project. Because lizards was an idea that was being banged around at the time I decided to incorporate that along with tribal designs. I also wanted to incorporate a human element to my design to associate that part of the project since it had not been touched on.

I had help with some of my designs from Taylor Abernethy also known as T Dog.